D Day begins.

The bombardment warships for Sword Beach started up around 0500’ish. These vessels were HMS Warspite, Ramilies and the monitor Roberts. The Warspite alone fired over 300 15” shells in two days. In less than a week she had to withdraw to have new gun barrels fitted and re-ammunition! There were also waves of bombers and gliders going over to drop paratroops to secure vital areas ahead of the main landings. Destroyers and landing craft close inshore were making a smoke screen to conceal the build up of the fleets of landing craft. From out of this smoke came a number of German E boats. They dashed in and fired off eighteen torpedoes in all. Two were aiming at the Largs but a fast thinking Officer of the watch rang ‘Full Astern’ and this meant the torpedoes  just passed a few feet ahead of the vessel. Unfortunately the Norwegian destroyer Svenner was not so lucky and at least one of the torpedoes struck her amidships. She was no more than 200yds on the Largs port side. The Svenner immediately broke her back and folded in half forming a ‘V’. She sank until she was sitting on the bottom with her bow and stern still showing above the water. There was high loss of life due to the speed of the sinking. Just after the sinking of the Svenner HMS Wrestler struck a mine again very close to the Largs. She sustained major damage and had to be towed back to Portsmouth and was never repaired.

The Normandy Landing beaches and positions of major Naval units on D Day.

Actual H Hour for Sword beach was 0725, (the different beaches had different H Hours as the tide time was different for each of them) and by 0600 the Landing ships were embarking their troops into the smaller craft and assembling them ready for the assault. At about 0800 the Midget Submarine X23 was alongside the Largs. She had been laying just off the beaches for more than 48 hours to mark the way for the incoming vessels. The sight of the small landing craft streaming towards the beaches must have been a fantastic sight. There were over 2000 of these boats built during the war and 371 lost, 267 in 1944. They were made of teak hardwood with some armour plating. They were 12.6m long and 3m wide and a draft of only 1.5m. They could carry 36 men, a platoon plus, with a crew of 4 at a speed of 7kts. The troops had benches to sit astride and could exit in minutes through the bow doors. One was blown up by a mine just a hundred yards from HMS Largs.

An early model LCA the turret is the Bren gun position. The Coxwain’s position was on the st’bd side. One of the two steel doors, that were just inside the bow ramp can be seen open. The ramp was operated from aft where the Stoker sat between the two V 8 petrol engines.

HMS Warspite and Ramilies off Sword Beach June 1944. 

Sword Beach after D Day.                          .

At 0900 the Largs moved closer inshore to be able to more easily fulfill its role as HQ Ship for Sword Beach and the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Battalion went ashore. Throughout the day gunfire from the German heavy guns around Le Havre would land around the Largs. The bombardment Naval Vessels would then respond to shut them up. HMS Rodney and assorted cruisers joined in. There were regular sorties from planes going in to France on bombing raids and Landing Craft (Rockets) would shoot off their 100 rocket salvo in minutes. The beaches had the benefit of constant fighter cover and later in the evening there were several waves of bombers and then bombers with their gliders, maybe 300 of each. They were very low and the German flak was bursting around the gliders as after they were released they circled losing height and tracer was running up to them. One of the tow aircraft, a Sterling bomber, was ditching with its engines on fire and finally crashed about 100yds from HMS Largs. That first night there was an air raid warning and they made smoke. One bomb landed close to the st’bd side. The noise of the battle must have been deafening and when the air raid was in place the sound and sights must have increased. The tracer crossing the skies with flares being dropped and the gleam of action ashore and flash of the capital ships gun salvos must have made sight not to be forgotten.

The last few days.

Force S was the force that was designated to take Sword Beach. This was the most eastern of the landing beaches and could be the most crucial as this would be where the Panzer tank reinforcements would first make an impact on the battle to create a bridgehead. The Sword landings were to take place along a front of 5 miles. The Eastern Task Force covered Sword (British), Juno (Canadian) and Gold (British) Beaches, east to west.  Apparently these beaches were to be called Swordfish, Goldfish and Jellyfish, but Winston Churchill said that if men were to give their lives on the beaches they shouldn’t be named after fish. The western Task force was American and the beaches were called Omaha and Utah (east to west).

It is well known that the invasion was supposed to take place on 5^th June but had to be postponed due to a summer storm in the Channel. Even the following day the soldiers in the flat bottomed landing craft suffered badly from seasickness, and no doubt some were extremely glad to see the land, no matter what reception awaited them. The majority of the invasion fleet were embarked on the night of the 4^th June. They eventually left on the 5^th. All ships passed through area Z (called Piccadilly) from where they made for their separate beaches down buoyed and lit channels through the German minefield. These had been cleared by minesweepers just ahead of them. Ten channels of 600 feet wide were swept through the minefield and marked with small light buoys for the following ships. Two midget submarines, the X20 and X 23 were used as light vessels to mark the way with green lights.

I haven’t found any evidence of how Dad spent the build up to D Day, but he was allocated to the Staff of the Flag Officer Commanding Force S from the middle of February 1944, which I take to mean working for Rear Admiral Arthur Talbot above. He would have been practising on his equipment for codes and cypers and more than likely being involved in the various scenarios that were envisaged. For D Day Rear Admiral Talbot was to be aboard one of the HQ ships, to be stationed off Sword Beach. The role of the HQ ship had evolved from bitter experience of past raids and landings. It was found that there was greater need of coordination of the army, air force and navy at these crucial chaotic times. It was essential that each could talk to the other and that each understood the needs of the other. This was one reason why Combined Operations Command was set up by Winston Churchill in 1940. Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes was it’s first head until Lord Louis Mountbatten took over in 1941.

A Combined Operations Command team for communicators were placed on an HQ ship so each would be able to direct their own forces but could easily interact with the others to enable plans to be quickly changed when things went wrong and to quickly take advantage of a situation when things went right, or targets of opportunity presented themselves. To this end they were linked with observers ashore and the actual ships and planes. They could tell landing craft to move further up the beach, or naval bombardment vessels to direct fire to a particular fortification, or receive signals from spotter aircraft etc. They were of course also linked back to the Flag Ship of the Task Force and back to the UK. One of the HQ ships recorded 2300 messages a day! That is one or two every minute of the day. Therefore it can be seen that Dad would have to learn quite a lot of new things as well as get very proficient at his job.

HMS Largs in Largs Bay Jan/Feb 1943.

Rear Admiral Talbot’s  HQ ship was to be HMS Largs. Largs started out as the Charles Plumier (named after a French Botanist), built at Port du Bouc near Marseille, as a fruit carrier. At the outbreak of the war she was requisitioned by the French Government for duty as an armed auxiliary cruiser (X-11). With the invasion of France by the Nazis and the setting up of the Vichy Government the Charles Plumier was seized by HMS’s Faulknor and Forester 110’ off Gibraltar. She was then converted into an HQ vessel. She was re-launched using a bottle of rum. I think she was in dry dock at Birkenhead at the end of April Beginning of May and then moved to Portsmouth where she spent most of the next five weeks alongside the Railway Pier.

I can’t be sure when Dad joined her, but if he joined at the same time as the Rear Admiral it is likely to have been fairly close to the time of departure. However it could have been that the lesser staff were aboard much earlier so as to integrate with each department and to set up the systems etc. If this was the case there is every chance that Dad was aboard on 25^th May 1944. HMS Largs moved out into the Solent to anchor and there they had some VIP visitors in the shape of King George VI, with Admirals’ Ramsay, Vian and Talbot. Before sailing Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Smutts and Aneurin Bevin (Foreign Secretary) also came aboard. As Churchill stepped on to the wharf after the visit he turned back to the ship and doffed his hat in salute to the crew

King George VI visiting HMS Largs in the Solent 25^th May 1944.

The next time that HMS Largs moved from Portsmouth was on Monday 5^th June 1944. This was the start of the ‘Longest Day’ and Dad was seeing it at first hand. They were anchored in the Solent as slower ships passed out to sea. They weighed anchor and moved out at 2130 along with a couple of Landing Ship Infantry vessel. These were ex cross channel ferries that had been converted to carry troops close to the beaches and then lower them in their landing craft to directly assault the beaches. They were escorted by destroyers and MTB’s (Motor Torpedo Boats). Their first objective was ‘Piccadilly Circus’ which was the assembling area for the convoys to set up and head up the ‘spout’ for their individual beaches and through their designated swept and buoyed channel. (See The Routes to Normandy map in previous blog). There were at ‘action stations’ from 2300 on 5^th June.

Force S; The build up to D Day.

FORCE S                        15-Feb-44     to    6-Jul-44

Dad was still on the books at HMS Odyssey but was now working on the staff of the Naval Force Commander of Force S. As you may have gathered from the dates this was the build up to and during the Normandy Landings. The whole battle was called Operation Overlord and the naval part of it was called Operation Neptune. It seems that many lessons had been learned through the various landings and attacks that had been carried out by Allied Forces, including the disastrous raid on Dieppe, and the planning and training stages were exhaustive. Part of these lessons was that the three branches, army, air force and navy, must work together and be well coordinated for success to be assured. This was achieved by forming the Combined Operations. I think Dad was now part of the Combined Operations team. I remember seeing the Combined Ops Badge in a drawer at home. Each member retained their usual structure within their branch though so this does not appear in Dad’s record.

After his posting to Cameron Barracks in Inverness it becomes very difficult to follow what Dad actually did in the run up to D-Day. By the way, the hour of the landings was called H-Hour. Not too imaginative really. The North European landings were so secret that they invented a further category of secret beyond the highest ‘Top Secret’. This was ‘Bigot’ and apparently was the backward form of ‘To Gib’ which was written on personnel’s orders when being posted for the North African Landings, Operation Torch, which Dad took part in.  Mind you there was a real panic about security in May 1944 as the very popular Daily Telegraph crossword had the answers of Utah and Omaha in them and these were of course the names of the American Landing beaches in Normandy. On 2^nd June 1944 two more suspicious answers appeared, Overlord and Neptune, which of course were the code for the whole operation and the landings. The same compiler was involved, and MI5 very quickly interviewed him. It was found to be sheer coincidence. He was a 54 year old teacher and frequently asked his 6^th Form pupils for words to include and as the school had been evacuated to an area that was full of Americans they gave him words that they had heard them saying.

Dad’s records show that he was admitted to the secret list on 10-Feb-44. I can not find what this specifically meant but must assume that as a Cipher Officer he had a raised level of clearance to use higher codes so he would have had to be ultra careful and would be more closely scrutinised than someone not on the secret list. In his parent’s photograph album of the war years it states that Dad ‘came south via the North of Scotland, Liverpool and Portsmouth so this sounds as though he was on a ship rather than staying ashore with the Admiral. The ship was probably HMS Largs, more of which later.

The D-Day landings have been portrayed in many films and still are the largest amphibious landings ever carried out. Though maybe telling you something you may already know I feel I should give some background to the whole battle. Operation Overlord was the code for the Battle for Normandy. Operation Neptune was the initial part of the Battle for Normandy, the transport of the troops, the landings and the establishing a bridgehead and the first month. The landing was to be over a 50 mile stretch of Normandy’s northern beaches. The 50 miles was to be divided into the Western and Eastern Sectors.

The Routes to Normandy.

The Supreme Allied Commander was Dwight Eisenhower. The Deputy Supreme Commander was actually Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder. The Allied Commander of Ground forces was General Bernard Montgomery and of the air Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory. In charge of Naval Forces was Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and in charge of the western task force Naval forces was Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk and Eastern Forces Admiral Philip Vian.

Admiral Ramsay had actually resigned from the Royal Naval in 1938 but was coaxed back by Winston Churchill to help in the coming war. He was in charge of Operation Dynamo which was the retreat from Dunkirk where he masterminded the saving of a third of a million allied troops from the beaches. He was knighted for this work in 1940. Following this he was in charge of defending the coast from the threat of invasion and then was Deputy Commander of the North African Landings and Naval Commander of the Eastern Task force for the invasion of Sicily. This gave him plenty of experience for his job as Naval Commander for Operation Neptune. Unfortunately he was killed when his plane crashed on 2^nd Jan 1945 leaving an airport SW of Paris to attend a meeting with General Montgomery in Brussels.

Standing L to R; Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh Mallory, Lieutenant General Bedell Smith

Seated L to R; Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Sir Bernard Montgomery. The Operation Overlord team.

Rear Admiral Philip Vian had been a gunnery expert and had won the Distinguished Service Medal for his actions early in the war off the then neutral Norway, aboard the ‘Cossack’ when he safely took the German ship ‘Altmark’ that held 300 British Merchant Seamen that had been captured by the German raider ‘Admiral Graff Spee’. He was nominated as the Naval Commander of the Eastern Naval Forces for Overlord.

The Rear Admiral for Sword Beach was Arthur George Talbot. I can’t find out too much about Admiral Talbot. He had a nickname of ‘Noisy’ for some reason. Just prior to D-Day there was a send off do in the gymnasium of HMS Victory. When a destroyer Captain said he had to sail with in the hour so had to leave ‘Noisy’ Talbot said ‘Goodbye Cox, and good luck. I don’t suppose we will see you again’. Not the big confidence boost the assembled throng were looking for on this particular day. However he did do better with a missive distributed to all under his commander that is shown below.

                                    

Rear Admiral Philip Vian Commander Eastern Naval Task Force.

                   

   Rear Admiral Arthur George Talbot, Naval Commander Force S.

D Day Message from Rear Admiral A.G. Talbot Naval Commander Force S, June 1944.