The Normandy Invasion (Including Operation Neptune),
The Largest of All Combined Operations, June 1944
Map found in Combined Operations, by C. Marks (page 106)
Introduction:
The book that was self-published/printed by Mr. Marks contains a healthy section devoted to the largest of 'combined operations' of World War II, from pages 106 - 158. The photographs included with his account of D-Day Normandy beginning June 6, 1944, are in many instances iconic, and taken by well-known photographers of the day. When known, I attach proper attribution.
Clayton Marks' written account has for the most part been shared in earlier posts and I will provide links to those entries.
As well, in the final post (i.e., Part 9, upcoming) I will add a story/report or two that have not been shared on this site previously. (If you have not heard of Operation Dragoon, then stay tuned : )
In the lower right-hand-corner of the map above one will see 'Operation Neptune' listed and I am sure many readers know it to be the Allied Navy's contribution to Operation Overlord - the invasion of France.
Photographs and links to written accounts (and more photos) follow. Questions and comments can be addressed to me at gordh7700@gmail.com
Photographs and links to written accounts (and more photos) follow. Questions and comments can be addressed to me at gordh7700@gmail.com
Caption: LCI(L)305 and LCI(L)295 of the 264th Canadian Flotilla, beaching
the French coast. The 264th was made up of 7 Canadian and 3 American LCIs,
i.e., Landing Craft, Infantry (Large). Photo: Combined Operations, pg. 107
Link - http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/15/150295.htm
Below is a brief excerpt from Combined Operations by Clayton Marks of London, Ontario. The book was printed in 1993 (approx.) and is extremely difficult to find. Mr. Mark's 23-page-long account begins as follows:
In May of 1945 a Russian war correspondent, entering Berlin and surveying the ruins about him, wrote with something like awe: "It is as if giants with colossal hammers had beaten Hitler's city into the earth". Giants indeed they were; whose strength in the east flowed to them from all of Asia and in the west from almost every harbour of the world and over almost every sea. There was appalling majesty in the effort called forth to expunge the dream of an Austrian corporal, "that monstrous product of former wrongs and shame".
Operation Overlord was the stately title of the plan which encompassed the share of the western world in the final and total defeat of the Reich. Operation Neptune was the seamen's phase of the plan. It embraced, first, the task of landing the armies of liberation on French soil; secondly, the maintenance of their waterborne lines of communication and supply. The direct Canadian contribution of 110 ships and 10,000 men represented approximately four percent of the total Naval strength involved.
The eastward movement and assembly of the fighting vessels began in January of 1944. The flood of cargo moving to the United Kingdom rose also in a long, rhythmic swell through the winter and spring. It rose still higher in June and July, growing with the voracious demands of the armies battling in France; and it did not sensibly decrease until the end of the war.
The cargo moved upon an Atlantic where the Allied battle was now truly a defensive one; where the objective had been gained, the bridge established. There remained only the necessity of defending the conquest against an enemy who refused to admit defeat. It was a lesser task than that of earlier years; but it was still not a small one. The sailing of larger convoys at longer intervals had begun late in 1943. Early in 1944 the intervals were opened out again. The number of ships in each convoy continued to increase, until the larger bodies consisted of something like 150 ships which might carry altogether as much as a million tons of supplies.
The vast movement of traffic around the coasts could not be entirely concealed from the enemy. It had been underway to some extent since early in the winter, partially concealed amid the routine movement of coastal convoys. Nevertheless, its increased volume was becoming more apparent all the time; and now the policy was to mislead the Germans. The strength assembling in the southeast would be displayed, pointing a threat directly across the Straits of Dover. Preparations in the south and west, which might have indicated the actual invasion area farther down the French coast, were carefully concealed. Best hidden of all were the assemblage of block-ships, barges and breakwaters which were to be used for building the great pre-fabricated harbours. Had these been noted, the Germans might conceivably have guessed at the most novel and daring feature of the Allied plan.
Prince Henry and Prince David, now converted from armed merchant cruisers to landing ships, had arrived in the Clyde in February to complete their fitting out. After completion they had gone to Cowes on the Isle of Wight with others of the assembling landing ships. Prince Henry was to be Senior Officer of Landing Ships in Force J, one of the five assault forces destined for the five sectors of the Normandy beach front. She was responsible from now on for the discipline, navigation, station-keeping and general efficiency of twenty-two converted merchant vessels which she would lead down the swept channels into position off the beaches of Juno sector. Prince David was to be Senior Ship of one of the subdivisions of the same force.
At Cowes on April 21st the two Canadian landing ships were joined by their Flotillas of assault landing craft. Prince Henry was to carry the eight assault craft of the 528th Canadian Flotilla. Prince David would carry the six craft of the 529th Canadian Flotilla. In addition, there arrived within the next few days three Canadian Flotillas of the larger Infantry landing craft which would make the cross-channel voyage under their own power. They consisted in all of thirty craft, divided into the 260th, 262nd and 264th Flotillas; and their arrival at Cowes had been preceded, as in the case of the assault craft, by an intensive training period. Exercises, in which the Canadian ships and craft combined with many more of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, now began on a very large scale.
Troops waiting out departure aboard 262nd Flotilla, LCI(L)s,
During Fabius, the largest of the exercises, a huge assault force sailed out from the Solent in broad daylight and continued on for twenty-five miles south of the Isle of Wight under a bright moon. It was a dress rehearsal, very probably observed by the enemy; and had he chosen to add realism by attacking the convoys, it would have been a welcome gesture. No hostile movement was observed, either from the air, from the seas about, or from the coast of France. The great force, nearly in mid channel, turned back before dawn and poured its troops ashore under the thunder of supporting guns on the beaches of Bracklesham Bay, some ten miles east of Portsmouth.
Fabius was the final rehearsal. On May 24th the King inspected all the assault ships and craft, now assembled in Southampton Water and the Solent. The Commanding Officers of the Prince Henry and Prince David, as well as Officers of the landing Flotillas, were presented; after which the small ships sailed past while His Majesty took the salute. There remained after that only anxious, last-minute preparations and days of waiting.
Officers and Ratings awaiting the 'Royal Sail Past' alongside in
By the first day of June many ships of Canada were a part of this host separated by barbed wire, bayonets or salt water from all other concerns of men. Others would join within the next day or so; to engage in feverish, last minute preparations or share the tense weary hours of waiting which still lay ahead. And there were yet other Canadian ships whose work, integrally associated with Operation Neptune, had begun weeks and months before and had still long to continue. On the right flank, where the Channel opened out into the North Sea above the Straits of Dover, and on the left flank, westward through the Channel to the shoulder of Ushant and southward into Biscay waters, much work had been done and much was still to do.
The forces of Overload were to strike the French coast in the region of the Seine estuary, directly across the Channel from Portsmouth, the Solent and Southampton Water. Here, enclosed by a shallow, bowl-shaped indentation known as Baie de la Seine, was the longest stretch of open shore lying within effective range of fighter aircraft based in England. It ran for some sixty miles from the mouth of the River Orne, westward along the southern face and northward up part of the western shoulder of the basin. The waters along this frontage and for a depth of twenty miles seaward to the mouth of the bay would provide anchorage for Neptune shipping. To the east the remaining fifth of the basin would be masked off from the assault area, first by a sector of heavily patrolled water, and then by a large minefield closing in Le Havre and the mouth of the Seine. At the approaches to the bay the great German mine belt, which formed an outer barrier along the coast from Cap de la Hague to Boulogne, would be slitted with lanes through which the assaulting ships could pass.
Three divisions of parachute troops were to be dropped well inland; one on the eastern flank and two on the western. The sea-borne landings were to be made on a five-divisional front; and five Naval forces, of which three were British and two American, were to deliver the troops to the beaches. The three British forces were grouped as the Eastern Task Force; the two American, as the Western Task Force. The divisional fronts along the shore - Sword, Juno and Gold in the eastern sector, Omaha and Utah in the western sector - were subdivided into brigade fronts or beaches. These, in turn, were divided into smaller beaches; on each of which Naval craft would have to set down the assigned troops and equipment at some exactly appointed day, hour and minute. This appointed time, to which every movement of the operation was related, had been tentatively set for June 5th. It remained, however, variable within narrow limits. Known only as H-Hour of D-Day, it could fall between June 5th and June 7th; or it could be postponed with immense difficulty to the period between June 19th and June 21st.
June of 1944 was the month prescribed by considerations to grand strategy. The necessary Allied forces would be assembled. Several months of good fighting weather would lie ahead. The time would coincide generally with the reopening of the Russian offensive in the east and with the breaking of the long stalemates in Italy. The entire strength of the United Nations, fully mobilized at last, would strike the enemy simultaneously on every front.
The selected periods in June were dictated by the tactics of the landing. No pre-dawn or moonlight attack against half-subdued defenses was to be risked. After a night-long smashing by aircraft, the German strong-points on shore were to be drenched by thirty minutes of Naval bombardment in daylight. Then landing craft would run in on a rising half-tide over the mines and beach obstacles which constituted the first line of German defense. Between the 5th and the 7th, or between the 19th and 21st of June, the tide along the beaches of Baie de la Seine would reach the necessary half-flood at the required time after daybreak.
The rocky, gently shelving shoreline of the assault beaches had been charted and studied inch by inch. Thousands of aerial photographs, thousands of intelligence reports, and the lives of many brave men had gone into the compilation of maps which showed every feature of the area, and every battery or minefield or cluster of beach obstacles which could be discovered up to the day of embarkation. Depths and gradients along each foot of the shore were known and planned for.
Landing craft were assigned in minute detail to exact beaching positions. By the time of the assault their crews had been so familiarized with the beaches that in some cases the fore-and-aft loading of the craft was arranged to make the slope of their bottoms correspond to the gradient over which they would ride up on the sand.
Pages 112 - 115
The following photo was found in Combined Operations, page 108:
Milne's own caption reads "But nothing stopped the shoreward movement. While men fell, and while the morning air shook with the cacophony of exploding shells, the landing craft methodically went about the job of disgorging men on to the sands of Normandy.”
Another photo similar to above - with the following caption - can be found at the link provided: "Normandy Landing, View looking east along 'Nan White' Beach, showing personnel of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade landing from LCI(L) 299 of the 2nd Canadian (262nd RN) Flotilla on D-Day." (Photo by G. Milne, courtesy Library and Archives Canada, PA-137013).
For more information, including photographs, re Canadians in "Combined Operations", a book by Londoner Clayton Marks, please click here - Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Part 7)
Another copy of the same photo is provided below, but no caption was provided:
A photo of a similar scene is provided below:
Caption - Personnel of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade landing from LCI(L)
125 of the 3rd Canadian (264th RN) Flotilla on 'Nan White' Beach on D-Day.
Photo Credit: Gilbert Milne; Library and Archives Canada a137012
OVERLORD
D-DAY
OPERATION NEPTUNE
June 6, 1944
In May of 1945 a Russian war correspondent, entering Berlin and surveying the ruins about him, wrote with something like awe: "It is as if giants with colossal hammers had beaten Hitler's city into the earth". Giants indeed they were; whose strength in the east flowed to them from all of Asia and in the west from almost every harbour of the world and over almost every sea. There was appalling majesty in the effort called forth to expunge the dream of an Austrian corporal, "that monstrous product of former wrongs and shame".
Operation Overlord was the stately title of the plan which encompassed the share of the western world in the final and total defeat of the Reich. Operation Neptune was the seamen's phase of the plan. It embraced, first, the task of landing the armies of liberation on French soil; secondly, the maintenance of their waterborne lines of communication and supply. The direct Canadian contribution of 110 ships and 10,000 men represented approximately four percent of the total Naval strength involved.
The eastward movement and assembly of the fighting vessels began in January of 1944. The flood of cargo moving to the United Kingdom rose also in a long, rhythmic swell through the winter and spring. It rose still higher in June and July, growing with the voracious demands of the armies battling in France; and it did not sensibly decrease until the end of the war.
The cargo moved upon an Atlantic where the Allied battle was now truly a defensive one; where the objective had been gained, the bridge established. There remained only the necessity of defending the conquest against an enemy who refused to admit defeat. It was a lesser task than that of earlier years; but it was still not a small one. The sailing of larger convoys at longer intervals had begun late in 1943. Early in 1944 the intervals were opened out again. The number of ships in each convoy continued to increase, until the larger bodies consisted of something like 150 ships which might carry altogether as much as a million tons of supplies.
The vast movement of traffic around the coasts could not be entirely concealed from the enemy. It had been underway to some extent since early in the winter, partially concealed amid the routine movement of coastal convoys. Nevertheless, its increased volume was becoming more apparent all the time; and now the policy was to mislead the Germans. The strength assembling in the southeast would be displayed, pointing a threat directly across the Straits of Dover. Preparations in the south and west, which might have indicated the actual invasion area farther down the French coast, were carefully concealed. Best hidden of all were the assemblage of block-ships, barges and breakwaters which were to be used for building the great pre-fabricated harbours. Had these been noted, the Germans might conceivably have guessed at the most novel and daring feature of the Allied plan.
Prince Henry and Prince David, now converted from armed merchant cruisers to landing ships, had arrived in the Clyde in February to complete their fitting out. After completion they had gone to Cowes on the Isle of Wight with others of the assembling landing ships. Prince Henry was to be Senior Officer of Landing Ships in Force J, one of the five assault forces destined for the five sectors of the Normandy beach front. She was responsible from now on for the discipline, navigation, station-keeping and general efficiency of twenty-two converted merchant vessels which she would lead down the swept channels into position off the beaches of Juno sector. Prince David was to be Senior Ship of one of the subdivisions of the same force.
At Cowes on April 21st the two Canadian landing ships were joined by their Flotillas of assault landing craft. Prince Henry was to carry the eight assault craft of the 528th Canadian Flotilla. Prince David would carry the six craft of the 529th Canadian Flotilla. In addition, there arrived within the next few days three Canadian Flotillas of the larger Infantry landing craft which would make the cross-channel voyage under their own power. They consisted in all of thirty craft, divided into the 260th, 262nd and 264th Flotillas; and their arrival at Cowes had been preceded, as in the case of the assault craft, by an intensive training period. Exercises, in which the Canadian ships and craft combined with many more of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, now began on a very large scale.
for D-Day Normandy. Tied up alongside in Southampton
during a day of bad weather. Canadian Press Photo as
found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 2, pg 231
Fabius was the final rehearsal. On May 24th the King inspected all the assault ships and craft, now assembled in Southampton Water and the Solent. The Commanding Officers of the Prince Henry and Prince David, as well as Officers of the landing Flotillas, were presented; after which the small ships sailed past while His Majesty took the salute. There remained after that only anxious, last-minute preparations and days of waiting.
Southampton. Photo by Sub. Lt. David J. Lewis, RCNVR
Found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 2, page 230
On land the assault divisions of the armies were moving into the sealed camps. Among the thousands of ships gathered along the west, south and east coasts from Bristol Channel to the Thames, some already held the bound masses of mimeographed papers which were their invasion orders. Others would receive them by special courier at set hours within the next few days. As soon as the orders came on board, the ships, too, were sealed. No man, except on an urgent official mission and with a signed order from his Captain, could set foot ashore.By the first day of June many ships of Canada were a part of this host separated by barbed wire, bayonets or salt water from all other concerns of men. Others would join within the next day or so; to engage in feverish, last minute preparations or share the tense weary hours of waiting which still lay ahead. And there were yet other Canadian ships whose work, integrally associated with Operation Neptune, had begun weeks and months before and had still long to continue. On the right flank, where the Channel opened out into the North Sea above the Straits of Dover, and on the left flank, westward through the Channel to the shoulder of Ushant and southward into Biscay waters, much work had been done and much was still to do.
The forces of Overload were to strike the French coast in the region of the Seine estuary, directly across the Channel from Portsmouth, the Solent and Southampton Water. Here, enclosed by a shallow, bowl-shaped indentation known as Baie de la Seine, was the longest stretch of open shore lying within effective range of fighter aircraft based in England. It ran for some sixty miles from the mouth of the River Orne, westward along the southern face and northward up part of the western shoulder of the basin. The waters along this frontage and for a depth of twenty miles seaward to the mouth of the bay would provide anchorage for Neptune shipping. To the east the remaining fifth of the basin would be masked off from the assault area, first by a sector of heavily patrolled water, and then by a large minefield closing in Le Havre and the mouth of the Seine. At the approaches to the bay the great German mine belt, which formed an outer barrier along the coast from Cap de la Hague to Boulogne, would be slitted with lanes through which the assaulting ships could pass.
Three divisions of parachute troops were to be dropped well inland; one on the eastern flank and two on the western. The sea-borne landings were to be made on a five-divisional front; and five Naval forces, of which three were British and two American, were to deliver the troops to the beaches. The three British forces were grouped as the Eastern Task Force; the two American, as the Western Task Force. The divisional fronts along the shore - Sword, Juno and Gold in the eastern sector, Omaha and Utah in the western sector - were subdivided into brigade fronts or beaches. These, in turn, were divided into smaller beaches; on each of which Naval craft would have to set down the assigned troops and equipment at some exactly appointed day, hour and minute. This appointed time, to which every movement of the operation was related, had been tentatively set for June 5th. It remained, however, variable within narrow limits. Known only as H-Hour of D-Day, it could fall between June 5th and June 7th; or it could be postponed with immense difficulty to the period between June 19th and June 21st.
The selected periods in June were dictated by the tactics of the landing. No pre-dawn or moonlight attack against half-subdued defenses was to be risked. After a night-long smashing by aircraft, the German strong-points on shore were to be drenched by thirty minutes of Naval bombardment in daylight. Then landing craft would run in on a rising half-tide over the mines and beach obstacles which constituted the first line of German defense. Between the 5th and the 7th, or between the 19th and 21st of June, the tide along the beaches of Baie de la Seine would reach the necessary half-flood at the required time after daybreak.
The rocky, gently shelving shoreline of the assault beaches had been charted and studied inch by inch. Thousands of aerial photographs, thousands of intelligence reports, and the lives of many brave men had gone into the compilation of maps which showed every feature of the area, and every battery or minefield or cluster of beach obstacles which could be discovered up to the day of embarkation. Depths and gradients along each foot of the shore were known and planned for.
Landing craft were assigned in minute detail to exact beaching positions. By the time of the assault their crews had been so familiarized with the beaches that in some cases the fore-and-aft loading of the craft was arranged to make the slope of their bottoms correspond to the gradient over which they would ride up on the sand.
Pages 112 - 115
An outline of the full 23-page account can be found here. Story: Overlord - Operation Neptune, D-Day, Parts 1 - 6
Landing Craft, Flak - near France on D - Day Normandy, June 6, 1944
Photo found in Combined Operations, pg. 109. Caption - D-Day Convoy
Photo Credit - not available
The following photograph is found in Combined Operations, pg. 110, and is labelled "D - DAY. World famous picture."
The photograph was likely taken by the official RCN photographer Gilbert A. Milne. A very similar picture appears in his book entitled H.M.C.S. - One Photographer's Impressions of the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II
Another similar scene is depicted below from another source but I would give photo credit to Gilbert A. Milne once again:
Caption - Canadian soldiers from 9th Brigade land with their bicycles at
Juno Beach in Bernieres-sur-Mer during D-Day, while Allied forces were
storming the Normandy beaches. Photo found at The Atlantic Photo
Another photo similar to above - with the following caption - can be found at the link provided: "Normandy Landing, View looking east along 'Nan White' Beach, showing personnel of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade landing from LCI(L) 299 of the 2nd Canadian (262nd RN) Flotilla on D-Day." (Photo by G. Milne, courtesy Library and Archives Canada, PA-137013).
D - Day Landing with Life Line. Photo Credit - not available, but
I'm guessing readers are guessing it was taken by Gilbert Milne.
As found in Combined Operations, page 111
Two other D-Day Normandy photos follow from different sources:
Troops of the Canadian 3rd Division, leaving their ship with their bicycles, at
Juno beach along the coast of Normandy, France on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
A grand collection of WWII photos taken by Gilbert A. Milne are very well presented at a website entitled MAPLE LEAF UP (re the First Canadian Army).
Historical photographs show the true scale of the D-Day landings, during which
some 156,000 Allied troops landed on five beaches along the Normandy coast
in a decisive blow against the Nazis in Europe. Photo - Imperial War Museum
The final post related to photographs and rare stories related to the Canadians mentioned in Combined Operations by Londoner C. Marks will follow.
For more information, including photographs, re Canadians in "Combined Operations", a book by Londoner Clayton Marks, please click here - Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Part 7)
Unattributed Photos GH
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