Operation Neptune

by Kenneth Edwards

  Tanks on Utah Beach shortly after H hour.

  Vehicles and men of LCT-524 landed at Utah Beach. The large sign on the right and small sign on the left have been painted out by a censor.

  Utah Beach is full of materials of all kinds. Most men wear the helmet of the 1st ESB, (Engineer Special Brigade), the ‘blue arcs’.

  That, however, did not help the Americans assaulting OMAHA beach. Not only did they find themselves opposed by an overwhelming superiority in man-power, but the Germans were in very strong prepared defensive positions. As Rear-Admiral Kirk stated in his report, the defensive system, at OMAHA beach was “highly organised, strongly built, and skilfully designed.” To make matters worse, the initial pre-H-hour air attack on this particular sector had not materialised. It was a tragedy that this was the only part of the assault area where the preliminary “softening up” had not been carried out according to plan.

  Nor did the Germans reply to the naval bombardment and so give any indication of their strength or of the formidable nature of their defence positions. As the Germans have done on so many occasions, they lay low until the first wave of the assault “touched down” on the beaches, and only then did they open fire.

  The German defensive system at OMAHA beach consisted of strong points constructed in and on the cliffs to landward of the beach, with others at the foot of these cliffs. There were many pillboxes, partly buried in the slope and therefore gaining extra protection from their surroundings. These pillboxes were so sited that they could give a volume of fire across the beach to seaward and also provide cross-fire on the beach itself. Nor were these pillboxes isolated strong-points. They were connected by underground passages and were provided with an elaborate inter-communication system of zinc voice-pipes. Moreover, the beach and its seaward approaches were thickly mined, while all the possible landward exits from the beach were blocked by ditches or walls and barbed wire. Along the 7,500 odd yards of OMAHA beach there were:

  8 Casemated batteries with guns of 75 mm or larger calibre.

  35 Pillboxes, with guns of less than 75 mm calibre and automatic weapons.

  4 Field artillery positions.

  18 Anti-tank gun positions with guns of between 37 mm and 75 mm

  6 Mortar pits.

  38 Rocket pits, each with four 38 mm rocket tubes; and

  85 Machine-gun posts.

  The mere fixed defences of OMAHA beach made it a very tough proposition indeed, and it must be remembered that these defences were manned, not by elderly and indifferent coast defence troops diluted with foreign conscripts, but by a fresh German Field Division.

  Part of the first wave to go into the heavily defended Omaha Beach.

  A scene of desolation and destruction at low tide on Omaha Beach; the vast number of underwater obstacles clearly visible.

  As the landing craft carrying the first wave of American assaulting troops “touched down” on OMAHA beach the 352nd German Field Division opened a murderous fire from their strongly armed positions. This fire knocked out the majority of the tanks which had accompanied the first wave of the assault, and caused very heavy Casualties among the troops. Moreover, as a result of this fire the initial wave was only able to clear five lanes through the beach obstacles instead of the sixteen lanes which had been planned, a fact which, of course, hampered the landing of the subsequent waves.

  Despite the terrific odds against them the remnants of the first wave of American assault troops clung to their small and precarious footing on the beach, and they continued to hang on, thus forming a tiny but invaluable beachhead for the landing of their reinforcements.

  As soon as Rear-Admiral J. L. Hall (Jr.), who was in command of “Force O” charged with the assault of OMAHA beach, saw the degree of opposition being met by the first wave of his assault troops, he called an Rear-Admiral Alan G. Kirk, the commander of the Western Task Force, for support. Rear-Admiral Kirk was quick to appreciate the situation and to act, but even so his orders were forestalled by some of the warships in the immediate vicinity of OMAHA beach. The commanders of these ships displayed great initiative and determination that nothing that they could do to support their hard-pressed troops should be left undone. Battleships, cruisers and destroyers were soon deluging the strong positions of the German 352nd Field Division with short-range gunfire, while the air forces were also quickly on the spot to add bombs and rockets to the shells of the ships. In the last resort, however, the honours of the struggle on that beach must go to the soldiers who held on to a small portion of beach with magnificent tenacity in face of withering fire, and to the succeeding waves of troops who flung themselves ashore in support without a moment’s hesitation. It must be remembered that these troops were not veterans; the great majority were under fire for the first time.

  Rear-Admiral Kirk thus summed up that critical period on the beach: “The initial check on the beach was overcome because of the initiative displayed by gunfire support ships, the assistance of the air force, and the intrepidity of the infantry on the shore line.” He went on: “The performance of battleships, cruisers and destroyers in support of the landing was magnificent.”

  For all the troops could do and the support of the ships and the air force, the struggle for OMAHA beach did not end until about 1 o’clock in the afternoon. By that time the German Field Division had been decisively defeated and the beach and its exits were in American hands, with armoured bulldozers demolishing the obstructions on the beach and in the beach exits. For nearly six hours that bitter struggle had waged, which will surely go down to history as “the Battle of OMAHA Beach.”

  A view out to sea from Omaha Beach with wounded and dead in the water.

  Rescuing the wounded in the surf at Omaha.

  Three Engineers prepared a rope to retrieve survivors standing on the wreckage floating in the sea at Omaha Beach. In the background mist stands the cruiser USS Augusta, flagship of Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk on board with General Omar Bradley.

  Landing Craft USS LCI(L)-83 was built by the Consolidated Steel Corp, Orange, Texas, and launched, 13 December 1942. It took art in the North Africa landings, Sicily, Salerno, and after Normandy went to the Pacific where it was at Okinawa finishing a busy war. It was part of Flotilla 10 at Normandy.

  D-Day + 2, 8 Jun 1944. American assault troops of the 3d Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st US Infantry Division, having gained the comparative safety offered by the chalk cliff at their backs, takes a “breather” before moving onto the continent at Colleville-Sur-Mer, Omaha Beach. Medics who landed with the men treat them for minor injuries.

  D-Day + 2, 8 Jun 1944. Reinforcements and artillery press inland from Omaha Beach two days after the initial invasion. Within a week of D-Day, more than 300,000 Allied troops and 2,000 tanks had arrived, but the beachhead remained pinched and crowded.

  A busy scene on Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day.

  American and German dead await burial in a makeshift morgue behind Omaha Beach. The 4,700 US casualties at Omaha, including wounded and missing, accounted for more than one-third of the Allied total on D-Day.

  Although on the British and Canadian sectors there was no pitched battle on the beach to compare with that on OMAHA beach, there was plenty of bitter fighting, mostly inland from the actual beaches. Behind SWORD beach there was a very strong German position in the village of Le Hamel. This had been engaged for some time by three destroyers, but the German strongpoint was partly in “dead ground” protected by the contour of the land against low trajectory fire from seaward. Nevertheless, the ships’ gunfire was far from being useless. Unfortunately, however, they stopped shelling this strongpoint at the time appointed on the plan, and the naval authorities received no intimation that any further fire was required. They could not, of course, reopen fire on their own initiative on a point which might well have been by that time overrun by our advancing troops.

  In fact, Le Hamel had not been overrun by our troops. The Germans were still obstinately resisting in their strongpoi
nt and not only holding up our advance but also inflicting heavy casualties upon our troops. The reason why the navy received no request for further gunfire against Le Hamel and in support of our troops attacking that place was that both the commanding officer and the second-in-command of the troops attacking Le Hamel—the 1st Battalion the Hampshire Regiment—had become casualties early in the fighting. In these unfortunate circumstances it was not until after 4 o’clock in the afternoon that the 1st Hampshires finally cleared Le Hamel of the enemy.

  We are here concerned with “Neptune” and the naval component of “Overlord,” but no account of any part of the invasion of Normandy would be complete without some reference to the epic deeds of the 6th Airborne Division. This Division was dropped from aircraft and landed in gliders to the eastward of the River Orne and the Caen Canal. They seized bridges intact and held on to their bridgeheads day after day in the face of the worst that German armour, artillery and infantry could do. Moreover, their work had an important effect upon the naval side of the invasion, for among their first objectives were batteries close east of the Orne and the Canal, the guns of which could command the sea off the assault area at close range. These batteries the airborne troops faithfully liquidated in the first hours after they landed. One glider, in fact, “landed” on top of one of the German batteries.

  “Neptune” was the greatest offensive operation of the war, in which the navy played a vital part in the van of the assault. It was by far the most hazardous undertaking in the face of the enemy ever carried out. Yet it resulted in no award of the Victoria, Cross to a naval officer or man. In fact, there was not a single recommendation for a VC. That is not so strange as it at first sight appears. “Neptune” was a triumph of organisation and collective determination and courage rather than an operation giving scope for extempore feats of individual bravery. There were certainly a very great many instances of great fortitude and magnificent courage, but it is small wonder that, with all achieving so mightily, commanders could not single out individuals for the special distinction of the highest award for bravery in the face of the enemy.

  It is possible here to outline only a very few of the instances of great courage and fortitude displayed by the crews of the landing craft and other small vessels during the assault of the Normandy beaches.

  Sick Berth Attendant Emlyn Jones was in LCI(L) 111, which was engaged in bringing wounded off the beach. The craft was just leaving the beach when it was hit below the water-line by a shell and holed. The troop-space, in which Jones was attending the wounded, at once began to flood rapidly. There were seven serious casualties and these were in danger of drowning. These Jones saved, and continued to work on the wounded in the partially flooded troop-space. He was only a Sick Berth Attendant, not a fully qualified and experienced doctor, but in those almost impossible conditions and under fire he coolly carried out three emergency operations for the amputation of shattered legs.

  It would be difficult, too, to match the fortitude of Able-seaman George Wells of LCT 898. Wells was wounded by a shell just as his landing craft “touched down” on the beach, but he carried on with his work without even mentioning it. A few minutes later he was again wounded by another shell. This time he was dreadfully injured, but still he remained cheerful and concerned only for the welfare of his messmates, some of whom were also wounded. He even found heart to joke about it while one of his shattered fingers was roughly amputated with a pair of scissors.

  One of the men who earned a Distinguished Service Medal during the assault on the Normandy beaches was Corporal George Tandy, Royal Marines, and the manner in which this decoration was earned is eloquent of the spirit in which the crews of the landing craft discharged their responsibility of putting the troops safely ashore. Corporal Tandy was coxswain of LCA 786. The craft was lowered from an infantry landing ship seven miles off the beach, but before the LCA could get clear in the sea that was running, the block on the after lowering fall crashed into the wheel and engine-room telegraph, smashing them both. In calm weather it is possible to control and to steer an LCA by manoeuvring the engines, but it was impossible to control the craft in this way in the heavy sea. Nevertheless, Corporal Tandy was determined that the troops entrusted to his charge should be duly landed. Without hesitation he slipped over the stern of the craft and stood with one foot on the rudder guard rail and the other on the rudder itself, while he hung on to the beading and a cleat. In this way, steering the craft by controlling the rudder with his foot, he took the LCA into the beach, threading his way through the mined obstructions. It would have been a skilful feat in calm weather, but in the weather prevailing off the beaches on D-day it required courage, strength and endurance as well as skill. In that following sea he was high out of the water one minute and submerged to his armpits the next, and he was considerably buffeted by the sea, so that it was a wonder that his leg was not smashed against the rudder guard rail. It was seven miles to the beach, but in this way Corporal Tandy took his craft in under fire and landed the troops in his charge at the right place and only three minutes after the schedule time of the “touch down.” Then, having landed the troops, Corporal Tandy set out to take his craft back to its parent ship in the same manner. This was for him an even worse ordeal, for with wind and sea against the blunt-nosed little craft she was pitching badly and it took two and three-quarter hours for her to cover the seven miles back to the ship. When he arrived alongside Tandy had to be hauled out of the water. He was badly bruised and spent the next two days in the sick bay, but all he had to say about his exploit was: “There were thirty-two soldiers’ lives at stake in that boat apart from the sailors manning her. Any one of them would have done the same as I did if they had had the opportunity.”

  It is traditional in the Royal Navy that midshipmen are usually endowed with considerable resource and an even greater fund of “cheek.” Midshipman Charles Fowler, the First-Lieutenant of one of the LCT’s (Landing Craft, Tanks) was no exception. As this LCT, came into the beach she came under heavy fire, and as luck would have it one of her own guns jammed at the critical moment. The commanding officer of the LCT made a dash for the disabled gun in order to help clear the jam, but he fell mortally wounded before he reached it. Midshipman Fowler took command, but as he did so the steering gear of the LCT was shot away. Nevertheless, he held her into the beach while the tanks disembarked. All this time the LCT was under heavy fire. A mortar bomb landed on the LCT but fortunately did not explode. Without a moment’s hesitation Leading Stoker Gamble picked it up and hurled it back among some Germans in a slit trench, where it exploded. Nevertheless, the casualties in the LCT were mounting—two of the crew had been killed and three were wounded.

  After completing the unloading, Midshipman Fowler tried to leave the beach, but found that she was stuck on the sand. With true “snotty’s nerve” he went ashore and found an army bulldozer, the driver of which he persuaded to come and push his craft back into the sea. Thus he got the LCT clear of the shell-swept beach and set out for England, where he arrived safely some hours later, demanding an ambulance for his wounded, repairs to his steering gear, and another load of tanks. Midshipman Fowler had only been in the service a “dog watch,” he had never before handled a vessel, and the LCT had no steering gear, but it never occurred to him to ask for assistance in handling his “first command.”

  Sub-Lieutenant Douglas Jones was another LCT commander who fended for himself and refused to complicate the tasks of others by asking for assistance although he was placed in very difficult circumstances. Sub-Lieutenant Jones’s craft—LCT 8854—had just “touched down” on the beach when a German mortar shell landed in the after end of the hold and started a fire among the vehicles. This soon assumed serious proportions and the ammunition with which the vehicles were laden began to explode. Sub-Lieutenant Jones took LCT 8854 to the assistance of another craft which was having difficulty in getting off the beach against the wind and sea. This craft he successfully towed off, and finally he succeeded in get
ting the fire in his own craft under control with only three of the vehicles burnt out.

  Another notable instance of devotion to duty on the part of a wounded man was provided by LCI(S) 505 (Landing Craft, Infantry, Small). The LCI was on the beach and her decks were being swept by enemy fire. She embarked some wounded and then tried to leave the beach. It was found that the craft was firmly held because the life-saving “scrambling” nets over her sides had become foul of some of the beach obstructions. The First-Lieutenant of the craft shouted to Wireman Arthur Martindale to cut away the nets. The crew of the craft were lying down in order to present the least possible target to the enemy fire, and when the First-Lieutenant gave this order he was unaware that the wireman had been wounded in the face. Despite this, Martindale obeyed the order without a second’s hesitation. He leapt to his feet, climbed over the side of the craft, and cut the nets free. Then he clambered on board again and was later found dressing the wounds of the wounded men who had been embarked. He had made no attempt to have his own wound attended to.

  It would be quite impossible, even today, to list all the deeds of gallantry which were performed on and off the Normandy beaches. There were occasions on which commanding officers were themselves killed before they had any opportunity to report the deeds of those serving under them, and other occasions in which no officer or man has survived to testify to an act of bravery deserving of special mention. All that can be done is to detail a few such acts and to stress the fact that they were representative of the spirit animating all. Thus the cool, calculating courage of Lieutenant J. G. Clarke of the United States Coastguard Service is representative of the dauntless devotion to duty of the members of that Service, whose craft plied hither and thither on all manner of errands and allowed no amount of enemy fire, air attack or minelaying to interfere with their duties.