by Mark Zuehlke
Briefing over, the ship captains proceeded to Caraquet’s quarter-deck to await boats that would take them back to their respective ships. For a time, nobody spoke and Green noted each man’s grim expression. Finally, one officer dug a set of dice out of a pocket, knelt down, and rolled them on the deck. A rough, hard crap game ensued with every man throwing in pound notes without the slightest care if they were lost. At first, Green raked in the loot, then he fell into a losing streak that continued until his wallet was emptied.14
Shortly after the briefing of the ship captains, Royal Canadian Navy Vice Admiral Percy Nelles addressed the crew of Caraquet. Among those assembled was Stoker 1st Class George Irwin, who listened to Nelles calmly explain that the minesweepers were expected to suffer 75 per cent losses. As Caraquet would be in the lead, the vice admiral fully expected the ship and its entire crew would be lost. For that reason, he offered everyone in the crew a chance to stand aside without fear of penalty. They would merely be confined ashore until the invasion was launched and then reassigned to other duties. No one took the offer up.15
WHILE FEW FALTERED, a good number flinched when told the precise nature of their assignments. Rifleman Hugh Lamb of the Queen’s Own Rifles’ ‘A’ Company discovered he was to be the third man off his Landing Craft, Assault. He was to dash across the sand to the concrete seawall and blast a hole in the tangles of barbed wire on top of it with a bangalore torpedo. During landing exercises, the rifleman raced towards imaginary concrete seawalls with his hollow explosive-filled pipe on a shoulder and imagined what it would be like on the real day. Germans dug in behind the wire, ripping away with machine guns, and him running straight into their fire. Lamb saw himself dead, his wife left without a husband, his son orphaned.
He had married young, at seventeen, on August 7, 1939 and promised his wife that despite having spent four years in the militia he would not enlist until they were settled. For the first year, he and his bride were too poor to live on their own, so each lived separately with their respective parents in Mississauga. Then their son came along and Lamb found a job as an apprentice carpenter with a sash-and-door company in nearby Georgetown, where the young couple set up a home. But on January 3, 1943, Lamb and his brother went to the local RCAF recruiting depot to enlist. When his brother was rejected, however, the two walked over to the army depot and enlisted there, with the idea that they wanted to stay together.
Little concerned with the desires of two brothers, the army promptly split them up. Lamb’s militia experience was such that he fast-tracked through training at Camp Borden and was sent overseas just six months after his enlistment. At Aldershot, he asked to join the Queen’s Own Rifles for no better reason than he liked their dress uniforms and knew they were Canada’s second-oldest regiment. Surprisingly, the army actually gave him the requested assignment.
But Lamb didn’t want this current assignment. He searched desperately for any way short of desertion to avoid carrying that bangalore torpedo and found his opportunity when a call went out for volunteers to the pioneer platoon. Despite the fact that the platoon was nicknamed “the suicide squad,” Lamb figured his survival odds were better in its ranks than being the third man out of that LCA. To his relief, he was accepted.16
SOUTH ENGLAND LITERALLY seethed with men and equipment as the month of May drew to a close. Ships clogged every port and it was the rare open field not cluttered with tents or vehicles. Every day, more ships steamed into the harbours until eventually they overflowed so that vessels were sent to any sheltered anchor point along the coast or around the Isle of Wight. The destroyer HMCS Algonquin steamed out of a clinging night fog into brilliant morning sunshine at Portsmouth on May 27 to find the sea “a mass of shipping of all types.” Eventually, Captain Desmond W. Piers tracked down an oiler to refuel. When that was completed, the destroyer was conducted to an anchorage off Seaview on the Isle of Wight. It was 2230 hours when the Algonquin dropped anchor alongside HMCS Huron and the other ships of 26th Destroyer Flotilla.17
Until being ordered south to join the invasion fleet, this flotilla had been part of the Home Fleet based at Scapa Flow, Scotland, serving primarily as escorts for convoys sailing to Russia or launching fast raids on German shipping in Norway. When the flotilla started practising shore-bombardment techniques in the late spring, however, Piers had realized they were to be part of the forthcoming invasion. This was a complex new form of gunnery to learn, as it combined the use of radar and visual tracking both from the destroyer itself and from spotting craft offshore to bring accurate fire down on beach targets. Then there was the added complication of firing indirectly on invisible inland targets with fire direction provided by officers operating alongside the advancing troops. That the invasion was imminent was rammed home when Algonquin’s gunnery training became so intense that for the better part of ten days “the hands were continuously at action stations for up to fifteen hours at a stretch and every form of action organization was tested.”18 This training ceased on May 25 and after a quick resupply the flotilla sailed south.
After many dreary months in Scapa, southern England in springtime seemed a paradise. Piers, who was nicknamed the “Smiling Tiger” because his smile never reached the eyes that seemed to be constantly alert for any dereliction of duty, had joined the navy in 1931 at age seventeen and took command of Algonquin in the early part of 1944. He was a strict disciplinarian, who would never hesitate to break a subordinate officer’s career if he deemed it necessary, but would surely do so in a polite and friendly manner. On Sunday, May 28, Piers took a break from his duties and went ashore with another ship’s captain. “All the things we missed at Scapa were here,” he later wrote, “trees in full foliage, gardens in bloom, people bathing on the long sandy beaches, everybody enjoying the lovely summer sun. At this point war seemed very far away.”19
The war was, however, very close, as the vast armada of assembled shipping standing off the beaches attested. Piers quickly found it difficult to cut himself free for shore visits as each day was eaten up “reading the unbelievable amount of Operational Orders that are necessary for such an operation as this. However the instructions are very clearly laid out and it is easy to find any information required.”20 The masses of documents were supplemented by various briefing sessions as the destroyer captains learned their role in the invasion. Algonquin would at first protect Major General Rod Keller’s 3rd Canadian Infantry Division headquarters aboard HMSHilary during the channel crossing and then bombard targets on Juno Beach. That Algonquin would be supporting Canadian troops delighted Piers and his crew. On June 2, when Algonquin returned from a night patrol in the channel and entered Portsmouth harbour to hook up with an oiler, Piers saw troops everywhere going aboard landing craft and realized the invasion was imminent.21
LOADING THOUSANDS of soldiers and their mass of weaponry and vehicles onto ships was a vast logistical undertaking. The first Canadians entered “the sausage machine” on May 30 just a few days after the division was equipped with new battle dress uniforms and assault helmets specially designed for the Commonwealth invasion forces. With a less distinctive brim than the traditional piss-pot “Tommy” helmet, the new model fit more snugly and was wrapped with camouflage netting into which twigs and leaves could be woven to break a man’s outline. The new battle dress jerkin was touted as being “waterproof, gas proof, rat, mouse, and louse proof,” wrote the North Shore Regiment’s Catholic padre, R. Miles Hickey. It was also thick, coarse, and heavy. Hickey found his could stand on its own without collapsing, “like the old time starched dresses of years and years and years ago.”22 They were also liberally supplied with pockets, into which most of the men stuffed extra magazines of ammunition.
When the soldiers moved out of the security camps to board the trucks that would carry them to the ships, each man carried only his battle kit. Still, they were staggering under the weight. Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlander Private Danny Darling weighed his gear load and discovered it tallied seventy-eight p
ounds. His kit was basically the same as every other Glen carried. He “carried two Bren gun magazines, two No. 36 grenades, one No. 75 anti-tank grenade, two smoke grenades, one No. 69 grenade and three bandoliers of rifle ammunition, besides socks, towel, gas cape, respirator, ground sheets, a small collapsible bicycle, two 24-hour ration packs and a commando knife.”23
Troops in the 7th and 8th Canadian Infantry Brigades were spared the weight of the folding bicycle with which some 9 CIB soldiers were equipped. This brigade’s three regiments would land on the heels of the assault brigades, whereupon some infantry companies were to immediately assemble the bicycles and then breezily pedal along country roads to Carpiquet airfield with their company commanders riding along on small James motorcycles. In the absence of the weight of the bicycles, most of the assault troops opted to pile on more ammunition and grenades, fearful of running out at a critical moment. Captain Ronald Shawcross of the Regina Rifles noted that each man in ‘A’ Company generally carried 150 rounds of ammunition for their Lee Enfield rifles as well as several magazines for the Bren guns. At the time, it didn’t strike him as excessive. He had burdened himself with a rifle and stuffed his pistol inside his tunic, figuring that waving a pistol around would only mark him as an officer to any German sniper.24
For the infantry, the entire process of assembling kit and moving down the pipe to the ships proved an orderly undertaking. But the tankers of 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade were left fretting until virtually the last moment as to whether they would have enough tanks for everyone. During the training phase, the three regiments had been equipped with outmoded Rams and Valentines, with a complete changeover to Shermans promised by the end of April. In the end, even as the squadrons were being ordered to ready for shipboard loading, the Shermans were just arriving. These tanks were a mixed bag of diesel-powered Sherman IIIs and Sherman Vs equipped with Chrysler gasoline engines. Many, particularly among the Sherman IIIs, were in poor condition.25 Those sent to the 1st Hussars had come direct from long service at a firing range, where the guns had fired off ten thousand rounds each. The morale of Lieutenant Bill McCormick’s ‘C’ Squadron troop crashed the moment the men saw the tanks they were to take into combat. He scrounged a can of paint and dressed up the interior of his Sherman, but there was nothing to be done about one of the three tanks that had an engine in such bad shape it was unable to keep up even during column marches around the camp. McCormick managed to wangle a replacement, which proved to have an unfixable chronic fuel leak. When yet another replacement was provided, the gun muzzle was found to have a bad burr that affected its accuracy, but the crew managed to file the steel edge smooth. With two extra tanks fit only for the wrecking yard, teams of 2 CAB’s Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RCEME) Workshop and regimental fitters cut their tracks into pieces and welded these to the fronts of many Hussar tanks to strengthen the armament of the thin-skinned Shermans.26
A 2 CAB report noted “that it was only thanks to Trojan work by [these personnel] that the regiments were able to go into battle with more or less ‘battleworthy’ tanks.”27 Fort Garry Horse commander Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Morton worried that the delay in delivery meant that ‘A’ Squadron, which was not equipped with Duplex-Drive tanks, had almost no opportunity to learn how to operate the new tanks before the invasion itself. He was even more concerned about the reconnaissance troop, which received its light turretless Stuarts, known as Honeys, so late that the crews’ first chance to drive them was en route to the loading docks.28
The Canadians moved from the camps to marshalling points near the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, where they were divided into specific loading complements for each vessel. In the marshalling areas, each soldier was handed a small pack of French currency, a Mae West lifebelt, pills to prevent seasickness, and, should the pills fail to work, a vomit bag.29 Many factors beyond maintaining unit integrity determined who was assigned to which ship. Weight factors had to be considered, as did each vessel’s scheduled approach to the beach and its means for disembarking troops. Detailed manifests drafted to control the process proved their worth as the loading proceeded with few glitches or last-minute changes.
On Landing Ship, Tank 155, Fort Garry Horse Major E.M. Wilson was the senior army officer and therefore commanded all army personnel aboard. In addition to his tankers, there were sixteen additional units. These included some British airborne engineers, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps personnel, medical staff, and heavy anti-aircraft gunners. “The staff work behind the successful marshalling and embarkation of a force this size,” wrote the Fort Garry Horse war diarist, “staggers the mind.”30
Not everything proceeded without mishap. When engineers started backing a group of heavily loaded twenty-ton trailers aboard LST 155 on June 3, one gathered such momentum going down the ramp that the eight-wheeled monstrosity plunged overboard with its tractor dragged helplessly along. Although much of the equipment was damaged, nobody was injured.31
There were disruptions to the carefully drawn manifests that also had nothing to do with loading procedures. On June 3, the 1st Hussars Regiment’s ‘C’ Squadron and Regimental Headquarters tanks lined up on a street next to the Southampton docks to load on several Landing Craft, Tank. Trooper Ralph Burley was loitering beside the tank in which he was a gunner when a group of the regiment’s officers came up and one announced, “This tank won’t go in on D-Day.” Burley and his mates were dismayed. They had been working towards this moment for years and now were to be denied a role. The officer curtly informed them that the tank would be shuffed over to join the regiment’s rear echelon elements as a security detail and would land well after the invasion.
No sooner had Burley absorbed this unwelcome news than the squadron’s sergeant major approached Burley. “You’re not getting off that easy,” the man said. “You’re going with Lieutenant Irving. He’s going to be on a landing craft with two 17-pounder Shermans mounted on the bow and you’re going to be ammunition detail. You and three other guys.” The twenty-one-year-old Torontonian joined Lieutenant Fleming Ladd Irving’s party on an LCT and found the two tanks chained down on the vessel’s bow. Irving told the four men they were to pass ammunition stored behind the tanks up to the loaders while the gunners engaged a fortification next to Courseulles-surMer that was protecting a German gun. The lieutenant explained that the ammo-passing detail was necessary so that when the tanks finished the fire mission they could immediately land with still full ammunition racks.32
British tank specialists had developed the 17-pounder Sherman Firefly to give Commonwealth armoured regiments a tank capable of winning head-to-head shootouts with the German Tiger and Panther V tanks. With a muzzle velocity of 2,900 feet per second, its armour-piercing rounds had almost twice the penetrating power of the Sherman’s standard 75-millimetre gun. Whereas only the occasional fluke round from a 75 would pierce the thick hide of a Tiger or Panther, a hit from a Firefly meant an almost certain kill. The 17-pounder barrel was much longer than the 75-millimetre, however, giving it a distinct profile that was hard to camouflage. Being the new star in the Allied armoured parade, the Fireflys allotted to 2 CAB regiments were usually commanded by troop leaders and, because of the late delivery of these tanks, the average crew had only been able to fire six test rounds before marshalling for loading. They would have to learn the strengths and limitations of the new gun in battle.33
With D-Day scheduled for the morning of June 5, most of the division was well along in the loading process by June 2. Some of the assault infantry companies were berthed aboard former passenger liners (Landing Ship Infantry, Large) that were well equipped with kitchens and sleeping quarters below deck, such as the Canterbury that Major Lochie Fulton’s Royal Winnipeg Rifles ‘D’ Company boarded. But the armoured regiments that would be involved in the initial assault and the artillery regiments that would be firing from ship decks were loaded onto flat-hulled LCTs lacking accommodation areas. These tankers and gunners found whatever clear space
s they could beside their tanks or guns and bedded down on the hard steel. Still, nights were warm and days sunny, so the men were content. They sunbathed, wrote letters, and gambled. Officers threw in the occasional route march up and down the docks to keep their troops limbered up.
June 4 dawned windy but clear. The 1st Hussars were ushered off their boats and marched up and down the docks for several hours.34 Many craft were already at sea, having sailed the day before to anchorages in the Solent. Canterbury and Laird Isle—the latter carrying ‘B’ Company of the Royal Winnipegs—had sailed from Southampton into the Solent on June 3. ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies, along with a reserve company of the Reginas, were already anchored nearby, having sailed on Llandovery Castle the previous day.35
As the morning progressed, the weather began to turn. Clouds moved in, the temperature dropped, a strong northwest wind came up, and light showers fell. The sea in the Solent grew rough. Despite the worsening conditions, Llandovery Castle and many other ships weighed anchor on schedule and started creeping slowly into the English Channel. Lieutenant Russell Choat, the navigating officer for the Landing Craft, Assault boats that would take the soldiers onto the beach from the ship, worried that the appalling sea conditions would result in some of the smaller vessels being lost during the crossing. Then late in the afternoon, with the ship about eight miles out, a radio signal ordered the ship back to harbour. The invasion was cancelled.36
For the ships like Llandovery Castle that were equipped with radios the order was immediately acknowledged and acted upon. But many vessels, such as Landing Craft Infantry 262 and the rest of the LCIs of the 262nd LCI Flotilla, had no radios. Lieutenant Peter Hinton, commanding LCI 262, saw large vessels on every side of him suddenly swing about while his twelve-ship flotilla plodded onward. Then a destroyer swept past with its signal light madly blinking the order to turn back. Hinton brought the helm about. During the brief but chaotic return voyage, Hinton witnessed several collisions, including one between a heavy cruiser or battleship and a Landing Craft, Tank that threw up “a great shower of sparks from the LCT.”37 From his vantage, it looked as if the LCT had been sliced in two, but there were no ships reported lost that day.