by Mark Zuehlke
Bayfield started taking water forward, while Thunder developed a serious condenser leak and started to give way. The struggling Bayfield took her in tow. In the following convoy, the flotilla flagship Caraquet was towing Vegreville. Bayfield was first to limp on a high tide into Horta on February 29. The Portuguese pilot put aboard Mul-grave to guide the ship into harbour made a navigating error that put her aground and caused serious damage. While the rest of the sweepers soon set out on the final leg of the voyage, Mulgrave stayed behind awaiting an oceangoing tug that could tow her to Plymouth for repairs. She would not reach the final destination until March 22.
By then, the rest were heavily engaged in minesweeping exercises. The Commander-in-Chief of Plymouth harbour, whose command the ships came under, had quickly realized that the Canadian Bangors were far from ready to assume operations in hostile waters and instituted a rigorous training plan, nicknamed “Pious Dream.” Each training phase was designed to last a week, but this schedule had to be abandoned as the ships—particularly those fitted with the deficient winch systems—were beset by equipment defects. Finally, it was decided that the ten most reliable ships would form a single flotilla, while the remaining vessels beefed up understrength British flotillas.
Caraquet became the flotilla flagship, with Acting Commander H.G. “Tony” Storrs in command. Bayfield was among the ships assigned to the flotilla. By March 27, the Canadian flotilla swept a dummy minefield in rough seas, cutting a total of ninety-four mines, of which all but one lost in heavy fog were successfully destroyed. The Admiralty staff reported being satisfied and deemed the flotilla fit for operational service.17
In addition to the minesweepers, the British Admiralty had requested that the RCN select several corvettes and two Canadian National Railway fast liners for participation in Operation Neptune. As the corvettes could make the Atlantic crossing quickly, they would not be required until almost the last minute. The liners, which had been converted shortly after war broke out into Armed Merchant Cruisers and were currently undergoing conversion to Landing Ship Infantry, Medium, were given sailing orders in late December 1943. With the refit at Burrard Dry Dock in Vancouver far from complete, Prince David and Prince Henry set out just after New Year’s Day on an almost month-long voyage to Britain.
Prince David arrived at Clyde on January 28 and “was at once besieged by the staff of the Rear Admiral, Landing Ships Unallocated who came aboard to see what she needed and what Canadian LSIs were like.” They were greatly impressed by the cafeteria-style mess. Equally impressive were the bunks, which a report written after the inspection described as “tubular steel frames stretched with canvas and slung in layers from stanchions so that they could be folded down out of the way when not required.” This system was deemed far “more comfortable… and slightly more economical in space than the hammocks and messing plan in RN LSIs.”18
On February 3, Prince Henry arrived. Dockyards were so in demand, however, that the two ships were not able to enter John Browns Yard at Clydebank for completion of their refits until February 22. More than one hundred modifications and equipment installations were required to ready the ships for their new role. Two twin Oerlikons were mounted on the flag deck’s forward wings, encryption machines were added to the signals room so the ships could serve a headquarters function, and various advanced radar systems were fitted into the chart room. More mundane equipment, such as a loud hailer system, was also installed. These ships would not carry the troops directly to the beach. Rather, eight LCAs mounted in davits on the main deck would run the infantry ashore by companies.
No sooner had this refitting operation got underway than severe labour unrest struck the shipyards. Strikes and slowdowns were common throughout the spring of 1944. Consequently, the work on Prince Henry and Prince David proceeded sluggishly. The former was only ready for trials on April 10 and the latter three days later. Trials were cursory, for on April 18 both ships sailed for Cowes on the Isle of Wight where Force J’s ships were concentrating.19
WHILE THE MINESWEEPERS and LSIs were sailing from Canada to Britain and completing their refits, most of Force J had been conducting increasingly complicated mock invasion exercises. Some of these focussed purely on the naval aspects of the plan, but more often they were carried out in tandem with 3 CID units. For Brigadier Stanley Todd, the divisional artillery commander, Exercise Savvy on February 12 was the most pivotal. Included in Savvy was an artillery firing demonstration from the decks of ships that was performed under the watchful eyes of Montgomery, King George VI, and a miscellany of other dignitaries and high command staff. With the new communication systems in place, the firing accuracy proved such that Montgomery readily agreed to the technique being incorporated into the division’s assault plan. This brought much relief to Todd’s staff, who had feared the entire scheme they had laboured long and hard over might be shelved.20
Between the larger exercises, navy and army units engaged in weekly schemes that focussed on mastering one specific skill. For Force J, “there were numerous LSI, LCI, and LCA flotilla manoeuvring, beaching, night navigation, signals and firing exercises.”21
Along with General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Montgomery was again present during Exercise Trousers. The codename “gave staff signals officers plenty of scope for fun with such code signals as ‘Trousers Down,’ ‘Trousers Up,’ ‘Trousers Wet,’ and ‘Trousers Torn,’ meaning to [respectively] start or stop loading, or postponement or cancellation of the exercise.” Exercise Trousers was conducted over several days in mid-April and involved ships from the entire invasion force attacking a series of beaches near Portsmouth.22
On April 12, Lieutenant Peter Hinton’s LCIL 262 and eleven other craft of the same type drawn from the three Canadian LCI flotillas put their assault troops dry-footed on a stiff gradient beach under the watchful eye of the assembled dignitaries. “To our delight,” he later recalled, “Monty detached himself and strode down the beach and I thought he was going to give us some inspiring message, but all he did was stop, unbutton his fly, solemnly urinate, button his pants up, and return to the group. I always thought it might have been editorial comment on our performance.”23
But that performance was becoming ever more polished. All that remained was one final full-dress rehearsal—Exercise Fabius. On May 4, Force J and all elements of 3 CID carried out a full-scale landing exercise. So extensive was the lead-up that rumours circulated wildly the night before that this was to be the real thing and they were bound for the French coast. Force J sailed from the assembly ports “in daylight and, in bright moonlight with a calm sea, spent the night on an excursion 25 miles into the Channel southeast of the Isle of Wight.”24 The waters through which the ships passed had been sporadically mined by German aircraft and there was the constant threat that lurking German motor torpedo boats, called E-boats, might pounce out of the darkness. Ahead of the main body of ships, a flotilla of British minesweepers cleared away the first threat, while destroyers and cruisers guarded the flanks against possible E-boat incursions. Shortly after dawn, Force J hove to off a long beach ten miles east of Portsmouth in Bracklesham Bay.
During the disembarkation of troops from Flotilla 262, of which Hinton’s LCIL 262 was part, a dangerous groundswell broke the grip of several heavily laden British soldiers from the steadying lines and the men quickly drowned. Hinton considered their deaths a bitter lesson in how “not to do things.” But he also thought it inevitable “that there was going to be a casualty rate with training.”25
Becoming a training casualty seemed an all too likely possibility to Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ Major Lochie Fulton during Fabius. Standing on top of a Duplex-Drive tank turret, watching 1st Hussars ‘A’ Squadron commander Major Dudley Brooks steer the tank in an ungainly manner towards shore, Fulton feared the contraption would sink any moment. As Brooks tried to keep it running true, the tank tossed back and forth in the current and waves slopped sporadically over the canvas screen. Fulton was unco
mfortably aware that, having been tasked to accompany the tank ashore as a familiarization exercise, he had not been provided with a life jacket.
There was another worrisome problem. The scheduled bombardment of the beach by the guns on the ships had passed and all shelling had ceased. But, as yet, the flotilla of rocket ships that was to smother the beach with explosive charges had failed to fire. “You better slow down, Dudd,” Fulton told Brooks, as they closed on the shore. “Those rockets haven’t fired yet and there’s no place in that tank for me.”
Brooks replied that the tank had only one speed and given the increasingly rough waters he was going to have to land or risk being swamped. As the tank rumbled out of the sea onto the sand, hundreds of rockets started to whoosh towards them. Fulton yelled at Brooks to stop the tank and jumped down on the sand, throwing himself between the tracks. Rockets were exploding all around and making a hell of a noise. But when they finished exploding, Fulton crawled out from under the tank and saw no sign that they had caused any real damage. On D-Day, he suspected, the rockets would again be all flash and noise with little useful effect.26
Despite various glitches and delays, the Canadian assault battalions did get ashore quickly during Fabius and proceeded to conduct a mock breakout from the beach. The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment pushed inland, captured several vital bridgeheads, and by evening was dug in on its assigned objective. The next morning, the battalion loaded onto the backs of supporting Fort Garry Horse tanks and pushed well out ahead of the rest of the division to seize a key tactical feature. On May 6, Fabius concluded, with the umpires, who had been monitoring and assessing the performance of the North Shores, deeming that the battalion had successfully completed all its tasks.27 The question left to ponder, for all but the senior commanders in the know, was the degree to which Fabius mirrored the plans for the invasion itself. By early May, there was no question that the invasion of northwest Europe was imminent.
[ 4 ]
Death or Glory
WHILE FORCE J AND the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division trained for the amphibious invasion, the Western Allies were engaged in an intense air campaign intended to smooth the way for the landing forces by weakening Germany’s ability to defend the French coastline. This campaign started in late 1943 within days of the appointment of Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory as Air Commander-in-Chief of the specially formed Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF). Leigh-Mallory answered directly to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and was given operational command of the Royal Air Force 2nd Tactical Air Force, the U.S. 9th Air Force, and the squadrons of the Air Defence of Great Britain.
The fifty-one-year-old Leigh-Mallory had joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, won the Distinguished Service Order while commanding an aerial reconnaissance squadron in 1918, and had been commanding 12 Group—a RAF fighter unit—when World War II broke out. His handling of the group’s fighter wings during the Battle of Britain helped turn the tide against the Luftwaffe. By 1942, Leigh-Mallory headed up RAF Fighter Command and came from that illustrious posting to the AEAF.
At first, AEAF operations were hampered by the continuing commitment of medium and heavy bombers and fighter escorts, particularly those of the U.S. 9th Air Force, to Operation Pointblank—a massive raiding program intended to destroy Germany’s aircraft factories and oil refineries. Operation Pointblank’s chief advocate was Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Force, who argued against shifting squadrons to Leigh-Mallory’s control.
As the invasion date neared, however, the Combined Chiefs of Staff acknowledged that Pointblank was failing to achieve its purpose, while air operations against coastal defensive and communication targets desperately needed to be beefed up if they were to prove effective. Consequently, in March 1944, they directed that Operation Over-lord “should have priority over Pointblank and that the direction of strategic air forces should pass from the British Chief of Staff” to Eisenhower. This gave Leigh-Mallory a free hand to direct all British and American bomber forces against targets at will.1
The most effective support the air forces could “give the Army during the preparatory phase,” he believed, “would be by attacking the enemy’s rail communications, with the object of so disorganizing his railway system that he would find it difficult to supply his divisions in northern France when the fighting started and still more difficult to bring reinforcements into the lodgement area.”2 Dubbed the Transportation Plan, this facet of AEAF operations was given planning priority. But other targets could not be ignored. Leigh-Mallory knew that to protect the invasion fleet and troops once they landed on the beaches the Allies must have complete air superiority. He therefore had to hit hard at German air bases within striking range of the invasion beaches in an attempt to smash the Luftwaffe. The same held true for German combat vessels lurking in Channel ports along the French and Belgian coast. Finally, almost daily photo-reconnaissance missions were required to gather intelligence on German dispositions and other information vital to the invasion planning.3
The U.S. 9th Air Force had 2,909 operational aircraft, while the RAF and RCAF counted an additional 2,768, for a total of 5,677. Not all of these were combat planes; there were 1,090 transport planes, 154 artillery observation aircraft, 219 reconnaissance planes, and 1,133 gliders. While the gliders and transport planes were to play a pivotal role in the planned landings of airborne troops on the night preceding the amphibious landings and the reconnaissance planes would perform vital intelligence-gathering tasks, that left just 3,081 fighters and bombers to conduct the AEAF’s offensive plan.4
Six Canadian squadrons that had arrived in Britain only in mid-March were among the RCAF units tasked to the AEAF—Nos. 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, and 443. The first three squadrons were equipped with Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers. Designed to serve as both a low-altitude bomber and a fighter plane, the Typhoon could carry two thousand-pound bombs and had four 20-millimetre machine guns mounted in its wings. Rocket rails could replace the bomb racks—making the Typhoon a particularly deadly threat to tanks, artillery, and transport vehicles.
Conducting a rocket attack against a German tank required significantly different skills than dive-bombing a bridge, however, and switching bomb racks for rocket rails was a six-hour job. For these reasons, each Typhoon squadron was specially trained to work either with bombs or rockets. The three Canadian squadrons formed 143 Wing, RCAF commanded by Wing Commander R.T.P. “Bob” Davidson. Originally from Vancouver, Davidson had gone to Britain and joined the RAF in 1937. He had seen combat in skies over Greece in 1940 and 1941, tangled with Japanese Zeros in a Hurricane fighter at Ceylon the following year, and been flying Typhoons since April 1943 in Britain. Davidson’s Distinguished Flying Cross citation stated that he “displayed extreme keenness for ops (operations).”5 It was a keenness that he had at first to keep in check, as replacement aircraft were in such short supply that all Canadian and British Typhoon squadrons were held back to preserve their numbers. Leigh-Mallory’s staff believed “the primary role of Typhoon fighter/bomber squadrons will be attacks in close support of our ground forces using bombs or RP (Rocket-Projectiles) and cannon.”6
Squadrons 441, 442, and 443 were equipped with Spitfire Mark IXs and formed 144 Wing, RCAF under the command of the British flying ace Wing Commander J.E. “Johnnie” Johnson. This new-model Spitfire mounted two .303 Browning machine guns in each wing, could exceed four hundred miles per hour as well as climb and turn nimbly, and easily matched any Luftwaffe fighter. Designed primarily as a fighter, the Spitfire could be fitted with bombs. The Spitfire squadrons’ primary role was “day fighting” and their secondary role “ground attacks using bombs and/or guns; bombing attacks are to be carried out by dive-bombing.”7
Johnson’s three Canadian squadron leaders were all combat veterans. Twenty-six-year-old George Hill of Pictou, Nova Scotia held a Distinguished Flying Cross and had downed his first German during the massive aerial battle of the disastrous Dieppe raid. He had gon
e on to rack up thirteen more victories while flying in North Africa. Frankly outspoken, Hill commanded 441 Squadron. Also holding a DFC, Brad Walker had served a tour in Britain and then commanded a squadron in the Aleutians. At Digby, he took the helm of 442 Squadron. Pushing thirty, almost ancient in the fast-reflex world of fighter pilots, Wally McLeod had chalked up thirteen victories, primarily during the defence of Malta. Johnson considered the tall man from Regina to be an instinctive “killer” and was glad they were comrades rather than foes.8
Flying Officer Gordon F. Ockenden was assigned to McLeod’s 443 Squadron. Although the squadron quickly started flying missions, it also spent a good amount of time “under canvas,” a nickname for establishing ad hoc airstrips. The idea was to prepare the squadrons to support the expected rapid advance of Allied troops beyond the invasion beachhead. To move all the personnel, equipment, mess and hangar tents, plus accommodation tents, required about two hundred trucks. By the time the lead elements of the convoy had arrived at the designated location—usually nothing more than a farm field or meadow large and level enough to fly fighters off—an advance party would have prepared a strip to receive the squadron’s eighteen planes. Ockenden, a twenty-year-old from Vermilion, Alberta, would set his Spitfire down on the new field and then pitch in alongside the mechanics, armourers, cooks, and other personnel that constituted a squadron in setting up the new facility. A few days later, they would be on the move again.9