Operation Neptune

by Kenneth Edwards

  US Coast Guard Flotilla 10 tied up along with British landing craft somewhere in the south of England.

  Upon no man did the anxiety rest more heavily than upon Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief. His was the responsibility for taking the assaulting troops across the English Channel, thousands of them in small craft unsuited even to moderate weather, and for ensuring the delivery to our assault forces, once established on the far shore, a sufficient and rapid flow of reinforcements and supplies to enable them to defeat a determined and well-equipped enemy fighting in positions long prepared. There could be no “Overlord” without “Neptune.”

  Part Two

  EXECUTION

  CHAPTER I

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS’ POSTPONEMENT

  Forecasts of deteriorating weather—The operations room at Battle Headquarters—Historic meetings—The decision to postpone D-day— The effect on ships at sea—The decision to invade on 6 June.

  As the chosen day for the invasion drew nearer the weather became more uncertain, and any study of the weather charts during those anxious days could not fail to cause grave concern. It became more and more certain that the prolonged fine weather period of May was giving place to a system of westerly weather, with all its uncertainties and threats of strong westerly winds.

  On 4 June the weather was bad and the forecast even worse. The wind in the English Channel was blowing from west-southwest, force 5 to 6—which is the Beaufort Scale numeral for a wind of 16-26 knots. The waves in the Channel were 3-5 feet in height—nothing to a battleship or liner but a lot to small assault craft crowded with troops. The sky was almost completely overcast and the forecast stated that the cloud conditions would deteriorate still further and that there was little prospect of them improving before late on Wednesday, June, which was the last possible day of the period in which the invasion could be launched and one which had many important disadvantages. The forecast also stated that the wind would veer to the west-north-west and decrease slightly in strength by late on the Wednesday—but late on Wednesday would be too late to launch the invasion, even on the undesirable day.

  It was hardly surprising that, at 2 o’clock on the morning of 4 June, the Admiralty regarded the situation with considerable gloom, particularly since they expected further deterioration in the weather before any improvement set in. This view was confirmed when, at 11 o’clock on the morning of 4 June, the Admiralty issued a gale warning affecting all the waters off the south coasts of the British Isles.

  During the night of 4 June 1944, the operations room at the battle headquarters of the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief presented an historic scene. In the long, high room at Southwick Park there were about forty people. Most of them were naval officers or Wrens plotting positions on charts and dealing with the stream of signals which were carried in on the endless belt which came through a hole in the wall from the cypher office. There were also air liaison officers, military liaison officers, and American naval officers.

  One end of the room, the walls of which were papered in white and gold, was covered by an enormous blackboard chart of the English Channel. Up and down in front of this moved a travelling step-ladder, used by the Wrens for plotting on the map the hour to hour positions of all units at sea. There were already plenty of these, for convoys had already sailed from the east and west coasts of Britain towards “Piccadilly Circus,” while some of the blockships for the “Gooseberry” harbours and the first tows of the “Mulberry” harbours’ were already at sea. Several minesweeping flotillas were also at sea, ensuring the safe passage of the convoys. In “Neptune” as in so many other operations, the work of the minesweepers began first and did not end until after the enemy had been decisively defeated.

  In front of the big blackboard wall map, and to one side, sat the signal officer. Level with him, but near the centre of the room, sat Rear-Admiral George Creasy, Admiral Ramsay’s Chief of Staff.

  These two desks marked a line across the room about four yards from the wall map. That space was the “holy of holies,” reserved for the Commander-in-Chief, his immediate staff and those who operated the wall map. There Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay spent many long hours, his quick mind tirelessly and calmly taking in the Full import of every signal and every report and weighing its effect upon the problem to which he was applying all the lessons of his long experience and his tremendous singleness of purpose and moral courage.

  On the afternoon of 4 June Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay was visited at his battle headquarters by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, the First Sea Lard and Admiral Ramsay’s old friend. Sir Andrew Cunningham had, of course, been in the closest touch with Southwick Park throughout, and his visit on that Sunday afternoon was most heartening during a very anxious time.

  To Southwick Park in the early hours of that Sunday morning came General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. To discuss the problem of the weather and to make a decision which is historic. The decision was nothing less than whether or not to postpone D-day.

  Loading at a port somewhere in the south of England.

  There had been previous meetings at Southwick to consider the situation created by the deteriorating weather conditions. The first of these had taken place on the morning of 1 June. There had been a similar meeting on the afternoon of 3 June, at which the Supreme Commander had decided to give the order for the first assault convoys to sail, for most of these had to put to sea that night if D-day was to be 5 June. These meetings were held in the library at Southwick Park.

  At that fateful meeting at 4.15 on the morning of 4 June General Eisenhower presided as usual. He had with him his Chief of Staff, General Bedell Smith of the United States Army. All three of the Commanders-in-Chief were there, accompanied by their Chiefs of Staff. Thus there were present Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay with his Chief of Staff, Rear-Admiral Creasy; Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and his Chief of Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Wigglesworth; and General Sir Bernard Montgomery with his Chief of Staff, Major-General de Guingand.

  Into the library came the meteorological experts—a Group Captain of the Royal Air Force, a Colonel of the American Army, and a British naval Instructor-Commander.

  This “meteorological team” reported on the weather conditions and forecasts. They were pessimistic, but there was some hope of improvement on the following day. The experts then withdrew, and the Supreme Commander asked for the views of his Commanders-in-Chief. Then he made the fateful decision. D-day was to be postponed by twenty-four hours.

  The decision to postpone D-day meant that all convoys at sea had to reverse their courses, otherwise there would be overcrowding and confusion at “Piccadilly Circus,” and the convoys would be unnecessarily exposed to enemy observation and attack. The units at sea could not acknowledge receipt of the postponement signal, for they were keeping wireless “silence,” yet it was essential to know that all units at sea had received the signal and turned back. And all the time there was that growing anxiety about the weather.

  Boarding the ship in early June 1944. In the foreground two sailors from the Navy have customized their jacket. LCT “Channel Fever” transporting personnel and vehicles of the 1st Infantry Division US and the 741st Tank Battalion and 5th ESB.

  Let it suffice to give two instances of the anxiety caused by the postponement of D-day when certain naval units, convoys and tows were already at sea.

  The 14th Minesweeping Flotilla, commanded by Commander J. W. A. Irvine, RNR in HMS Romney, had been sweeping ahead of a convoy approaching “Piccadilly Circus” from the westward. Early in the morning of 4 June this flotilla found mines in a position roughly 30 miles south-south-west of The Needles, and at once began to clear this minefield despite the bad weather, which looked as if it would get worse.

  Commander Irvine’s flotilla had made a good start on clearing this minefield when the postponement signal was received. It could not be acknowledged owing to the necessity for maintaining wireless silence, an
d the presence and position of the mines could not be reported for the same reason. On the other hand, the mines were dangerous, for they were in one of the convoy channels leading to “Piccadilly Circus.”

  In the circumstances, Commander Irvine decided to complete the clearance of the minefield before putting back to port—a decision which was undoubtedly correct but which very nearly led to tragedy. The destroyers HMS Campbell and HMS Hind, which were in the vicinity, saw the 14th Minesweeping Flotilla apparently ignoring the postponement signal and thought that they had not received the signal. They therefore closed the minesweepers in order to pass the signal to them by semaphore. In closing the minesweepers the destroyers steamed into unswept water where the minefield had been discovered, and in a few minutes HMS Campbell was surrounded by floating mines, the moorings of which had been cut by the minesweepers. In the strong wind and fairly heavy sea the ship might easily have been carried down on to some of these mines. As it was, there was nothing for it but to stop engines and hope for the best. The best was accomplished by the minesweepers, which successfully extricated the Campbell from her very dangerous position. A PT boat—a fast American motor craft equivalent to the British motor torpedo boat—was then sent into harbour to report the mines and that the 14th Flotilla had swept most of them but was being forced to abandon the sweep owing to the weather.

  When this message reached Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay he had to decide whether the minefield discovered by the 14th Minesweeping Flotilla was likely to be extensive. If it was, it would mean re-routeing the convoys coming from the westward through water which had not been searched for mines.

  The Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief decided in the light of all the evidence, that this was not a new German minefield purposely laid in that position, but a group of mines probably jettisoned by an E-boat which had been alarmed by one of our patrols. It was subsequently proved that this appreciation was perfectly correct, although one of the unswept mines in this field was to claim the first casualty of “Operation Neptune.”

  The other instance concerns the old French battleship Courbet, which had been earmarked as one of the blockships for a “Gooseberry” harbour.

  The Courbet had no engines or boilers and therefore had to be towed to Normandy. Filled with concrete, she was cumbersome and could only be towed very slowly, so she had started early. She was south of The Needles and her tug was making rather heavy weather of it when the postponement signal was received. By dint of great efforts and magnificent seamanship the tug succeeded in turning the Courbet and towing her into the lee of Durlston Head. There, off Bournemouth, the old French battleship was safely brought to anchor. That was by no means the end of the anxiety about this ship, however, for she had no power to weigh her 7-ton anchor, so that she could only anchor once and would have to slip her cable when it was necessary for her to put to sea again. If she dragged her anchor or parted her cable in the bad weather it was doubtful if the tug would be able to save her.

  Fortunately she did not drag her anchor or part her cable, and she was only required to anchor on that one occasion. She reached the Normandy coast safely and played a notable part in her last role as a “Gooseberry” blockship.‘

  Frigate HMS Dacres Group HQ Ship for Assault Force S2, ‘Sword Beach’, lies at Portsmouth, outboard of the destroyer HMS Onlsow, 25 May 1944. HMS Dacres was laid down as USS Duffy (DE-268) on 7 April 1943 by the Boston Navy Yard and launched on 19 May 1943. Transferred to the Royal Navy and commissioned as Dacres on 28 August 1943.She was one of three Captain class ships (along with Kingsmill and Lawford) selected for conversion to headquarters ships for use during Operation Neptune. Her aft three-inch (76 mm) gun and all the depth charge gear was removed and the superstructure extended to provide accommodation for extra Staff Officers; two deck houses were built for communications equipment and a small main mast added to support more aerials. Four more 20 mm Oerlikons were fitted, and a number of radar sets installed.

  On the afternoon of 4 June the meteorological experts at Admiral Ramsay’s headquarters felt themselves able to give a forecast of the weather for 5 and 6 June.

  This was that the wind would be from the west-north-west on 5 June and blowing with a strength of 5 on the Beaufort Scale—that is 12 to 16 knots—but would back slowly to the west and south-west and decrease in strength to force 3 to 4—7 to 15 knots. The waves in mid-Channel would be 6 feet high on the forenoon of 5 June, but would decrease slowly while the visibility would be mainly good. The further outlook was unsettled, with the westerly weather continuing, but some breakdown in this westerly system of weather could be expected.

  Here was a much more cheering forecast, although those who had time to look out of the windows of the operations room might have been forgiven for doubting, for the weather at that time was indubitably much worse than that of the previous day, when the “met” experts had been so pessimistic. Admiral Ramsay, however, had implicit confidence in his meteorological advisers, and in this he was to be proved fully justified.

  In the light of the weather forecast, there was another historic meeting presided over by General Eisenhower in the library at Southwick Park. This meeting was held at 8.15 p.m. on 4 June, and at it the great decision was taken. “Operation Overlord” was to go forward; D-day was to be 5 June. There can have been few more momentous signals in the history of warfare, and this time the decision was irrevocable.

  To say that the decision was welcome to all those who were to take part in the invasion would be an understatement. They had all been “on their toes” for some time and nearly all of them had already been cooped up for more than 24 hours in “sealed” ships with no communication with the shore. Inaction was the last thing that they were prepared for, and the crowded ships were far from ideal places in which gladly to suffer inaction.

  Landing craft assembled along the quayside at Southampton, a few days before D Day.

  CHAPTER II

  THE LITTLE SHIPS WENT FIRST

  Midget submarines as light-ships—Sweeping the assault Channels— Minesweepers in sight of France before dark—German inaction.

  And so the great armada of liberation, comprising 4,266 landing ships and landing craft for the initial assault alone, and taking no account of the many hundreds of warships, tugs, ferry craft and so on, sailed for the tortured land of France.

  As the first convoy of landing craft and ships of “Force S” steamed out of Spithead, HMS Largs, the headquarters ship of Rear-Admiral Talbot, commanding the force, hoisted a wisp of coloured bunting. The signal read: “Good luck. Drive on.” That was typical of the departure of the assault convoys from their assembly areas in the United Kingdom.

  Some tiny vessels of the Royal Navy were already off the Normandy beaches and had already been there for some time. They had had to be in position on the assumption that D-day was to be 5 June as planned, and the postponement meant for them only a prolongation of great danger and hardship. They could not leave their positions and return to harbour for a few hours’ rest, and their crews realised full well that much of the success of the initial assault might hang upon the accuracy with which they held their positions close off the enemy’s shore defences.

  These vessels were the “X Craft”—British “midget” submarines of the same type as had penetrated Alten Fiord in September, 1943, and inflicted serious underwater damage upon the great German battleship Tirpitz when she was lying snugly behind net defences at the head of a thickly mined and closely patrolled fiord 35 miles long.

  These “X Craft” had been entrusted with the task of marking the limits of the assault area, where an error in the approach might well lead to the first wave of assaulting troops being landed in the wrong place. They were to fix their positions accurately by daylight and then lie on the sea bed until the assault forces were approaching Normandy. Then they were to show shaded lights to seaward to guide the landing craft in to their beaches, thus constituting themselves temporary submersible light-ships. This is a task which has falle
n to many British submarines in this war and in the last, but never before had it been undertaken in shallow, water so close to a strongly held and fortified enemy coast.

  X23 and X20 were the two midget submarines employed on this task in the British sector. Of these X23, commanded by Lieutenant J. B. Honour, RNVR, was the senior vessel, and in her was embarked a fully qualified specialist in navigation in the person of Lieutenant L. J. Lyne, RN.

  Owing to the prevailing bad weather, these two craft had a very unpleasant passage across the Channel. Nor were matters much better when they reached the waters off the Normandy beaches, for there was a short steep sea which was continually breaking over their hulls. They shipped a great deal of water, which necessitated continual pumping—and the pumping in a midget submarine is done by hand, not by electricity.

  Having ascertained their positions with the great accuracy that their mission demanded, they set themselves to maintain these positions despite wind and tide.

  The midget submarines were in their correct positions before midnight on 4 June. Had it not been for the postponement of D-day, they would have been fulfilling their tasks as submersible light-ships within a few hours, but as it was they had to wait another day. That meant lying on the bottom in shallow water which was almost certainly mined. It was nearly mid-summer, when the daylight hours were very long, and it would have been suicide to remain on the surface by daylight, to say nothing of throwing away a craft and its crew upon whom a great weight of responsibility rested. Thus the “X Craft” had to remain submerged for about nineteen hours in each day.