Operation Neptune Read online

  A section of men that has just landed in Ruquet in St Laurent sur Mer, on the rocks along the shore of Omaha littered with abandoned equipment. To the right, a DUKW. The name was not an acronym; it came about from GMC terminology. ‘D’ indicated a vehicle designed in 1942, ‘U’ meant ‘utility’, ‘K’ indicated driven by front wheels, ‘W’ indicated two powered rear axles.

  Omaha Beach, with reinforcements landing.

  Fonthill Media Limited

  Fonthill Media LLC

  www.fonthillmedia.com

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  First published in the United Kingdom 1946

  This revised edition first published 2013

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Copyright © The Estate of Commander Kenneth Edwards 2013

  ISBN 978-1-78155-127-1 (PRINT)

  ISBN 978-1-78155-379-4 (e-BOOK)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Fonthill Media Limited

  The original 1946 edition was dedicated by the Author to the Memory of Admiral Sir Bertram H. Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO. Allied Naval Commander, Expeditionary Force ‘Who Wrought and Wielded Neptune’s Trident

  The 1946 edition had a small section of illustrations, most of which have been included in this edition. This full-illustrated 2013 edition has addition photographs and captions.

  Typeset in 10/13 pt Sabon

  Printed and bound in England

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  The conception of invasion—Three men of courage—Battle of the Atlantic the key—The Grand Strategy of ship-saving—The beginnings of Combined Operations—Raids—Dieppe—Building up experience.

  Part One—PREPARATION

  I - BY FORTITUDE, FAITH AND FORESIGHT

  The beginning of the planning—Early thoughts of invasion in the Pas de Calais area—Preliminary concentration on the Mediterranean—Choice of site for invasion of Northern France—the “X Staff”—the “COSSAC Plan”—Decisions of the Quebec Conference—Appointment of Admiral Ramsay.

  II - SHIPS AND YET MORE SHIPS

  First naval requirements—Admiralty reactions—Possible German strength—General Montgomery appointed—His requirement of a larger scale of assault—Planning on the new basis—Appointment of Rear-Admiral Sir Philip Vian—Ever-increasing naval needs.

  III - PRODUCTION LINE FOR INVASION

  Landing craft production—alteration of ships and coasters—Port facilities and “hards”—Idea and production of the “Mulberry” artificial harbours—The ferry service—The “Gooseberry” shelter harbours—Admiral Kirk’s appointment.

  IV - THE JIGSAW OF PLANNING

  General Eisenhower’s appointment—“One indivisible force”—Detailed planning—The needs of an army—Ship-loading problems—Build-up and turn-round control organisations—The need for simplification—The convoy code.

  V - MEN MUST BE TRAINED

  Shortage of officers—Special training—The Lochailort system—Lessons of Dieppe—Bombardment requirements and training—Rocket craft—Bombardment organisation—Air “spotters” and “weavers”—The “V Scheme” for merchant seamen.

  VI - TO KEEP SHIPS GOING AND THE ENEMY GUESSING

  The repair organisation—The tug organisation—Repair ships and repair parties—Surveying the French coast—Final planning—Beach names—Misleading the enemy.

  VII - DECISION AND ANXIETY

  Assembly of the forces—Obstacles dictate daylight assault—Final exercises—Preliminary actions—The British mining campaign—The minesweeping problem caused by the change of tide—Anxiety about the weather.

  Part Two—EXECUTION

  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 June 6th.

  II - THE LITTLE SHIPS WENT FIRST

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

  III - THE GUNS SPOKE THE PRELUDE

  Preliminary bombardments—Neutralising the German batteries—Good shooting—The German torpedo boats attack—Supporting the Sixth Airborne Division “Drenching” the beaches with high explosive—Giving supporting fire.

  IV - INTO NORMANDY

  The Germans keep their heads down—The first wave goes into the beaches—The Germans come to life—Clearing the obstacles—Casualties and damage—The Battle of Omaha beach—The Le Hamel strongpoint—Gallantry and determination—Beach commandos.

  V - THE ROYAL MARINE COMMANDOS

  Landing under fire in a seaway—Battle for the Langrune-sur-Mer strongpoint—Battle for the Lion-sur-Mer château—A long march through enemy-held territory—The battle for Port-en-Bessin—The struggle east of the River Orne.

  VI - THE GERMANS REACT

  Air attacks on the anchorage—The German mining offensive—Killing the U-boats before they could attack—The U-boats try the “schnorkel.”

  VII - AGAINST THE E-BOATS

  Great work of the Light Coastal Forces—The close blockade of Le Havre—Daring actions under coastal guns—Actions off the Dutch coast—E-boats fail against a convoy.

  VIII - BUILDING THE STRENGTH OF THE ARMIES

  Part of the merchant navies—The critical period—Convoys through the Straits of Dover—“Planting” the “Gooseberries” and “Mulberries”—Courseulles and Port-en-Bessin—The great gale.

  IX - AFTER THE GALE

  Effects of the gale—Salvage and repair—SWORD area abandoned—Gale’s effect on German mining campaign—Making good the loss in the Build-up.

  X - SEEK AND DESTROY

  Light coastal forces stop Cherbourg evacuation—Dutch coast actions against German reinforcements—Rendezvous with U-boats and escorts off Brest—Actions off Le Havre.

  XI - DETAILS THAT COUNT

  Keeping the convoy system working—Communications—Meals and mails—Casualty notification—Further build-up—Operation Pluto.

  XII - HOLDING THE EASTERN FLANK

  The Support Squadron, Eastern Flank—The “trout line”—German human torpedoes—Booby traps—Explosive motor boats—Shelling the Germans.

  XIII - BOMBARDMENT AND CAPTURE OF CHERBOURG

  “Cruiser Division Seven”—Close range bombardment—Three hours of hot action—Importance of Cherbourg—Withdrawal of the Task Forces.

  Part Three—CONSOLIDATION

  I - CHERBOURG AND BREST

  German strategy of holding and destroying ports—The “Red Ball Route”—Clearing Cherbourg—“Human minesweepers”—Marseilles and Antwerp—Brest.

  II - CLEARING THE CHANNEL PORTS

  Importance of Le Havre—Successful actions by our patrols stop German attempts to reinforce—German attempts at evacuation have to be abandoned—Fall of Le Havre—Port clearance organization—Dieppe—Boulogne—Ostend—Antwerp.

  III - THE EPIC OF WALCHEREN

  Three-fold assault—Bad weather precludes air spotting and support—Initial bombardment—Great fight of the Support Squadron—Drawing the enemy’s fire—Work of the Commandos—Difficulty in landing supplies.

  IV - AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE IN HOLLAND

  “V” weapons on Antwerp—Von Rundstedt’s offensive—Death of Admiral Ramsay—German midget U-boats—Watching, patrolling and raidin
g—Planting a “Cuckoo” on Overflakkee—Raiding Schouwen—Second battle for Arnhem—The crossing of the Rhine.

  CULMINATION

  Scenes at the unconditional surrender of the Germans at Rheims and in Berlin.

  FOREWORD

  By Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, K.C.B., K.B.E., D.S.O.

  Allied Naval Commander, Expeditionary Force

  It is a tragedy that Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay did not live to see this book in print, with the foreword written by himself. I will not attempt to enlarge on the story given here of the conception, the planning and the execution of this great adventure. It involved intense thought, industry, co-operation and unselfish devotion to duty. I succeeded Admiral Ramsay as Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief, Expeditionary Force, after “the greatest combined operation that the world has ever seen” had been brilliantly executed, and can endorse the many tributes which the author pays to him in this volume.

  The object of the Naval Commander-in-Chief was the safe and timely arrival of the assault forces at their beaches, the cover of their landings, their support and maintenance, and, subsequently, the rapid build-up of our forces ashore. It was on the rapid build-up of our forces by sea that the military campaign, so brilliantly executed by the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, depended.

  It was always a race against time between us and the enemy. His communications were by land, ours were by sea. Before we could even break out of the beachheads we had to build up a force stronger in men, tanks and guns than he could array against us. As we advanced every port, except Antwerp, was bitterly contested and left a shambles; and even Antwerp could not be used until we commanded both banks of the long Scheldt estuary and could clear it of the mines with which it was infested. The Naval port parties wrestled with the wreckage and made the ports usable. The enemy used every device which his ingenuity could produce in order to cut, or at least to weaken, those sea lines of communication upon which our armies depended.

  But in spite of all he could do, the five divisions, landed successfully on D-day, grew into a mighty army of five million men with nearly one million tanks and vehicles. Eighteen million tons of ammunition and stores were landed to sustain them.

  I will not keep you any longer from the book itself. As this story unfolds I feel that every reader will be conscious of the sense of drama which was shared by all who took part in Operation Neptune.

  A Life Magazine aerial view of American troops and tanks coming ashore as landing craft continue to unload on the first day of Operation Overlord, 6 June 1944.

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  When I was completing the short biography of the late Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay which appeared in Seven Sailors, I considered including in it a little about “Operation Neptune.” Admiral Ramsay, however, vetoed the idea, saving that “Operation Neptune” should have a book to itself, and he was good enough to suggest that I should write it.

  Thus Operation Neptune came to be written. It has been a big undertaking, in which compression has had to play its part. If I have succeeded in giving some coherent account of this gigantic operation, the credit should go chiefly to the late Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and to his successor Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, and the many officers who have given unstintingly of their time and patience.

  K. E.

  SEEND HOUSE,

  July, 1945

  Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, (1883-1945).

  An armada of ships and landing craft approaching the beaches.

  INTRODUCTION

  The conception of invasion—Three men of courage—Battle of the Atlantic the key—The Grand Strategy of ship-saving—The beginnings of Combined Operations—Raids—Dieppe—Building up experience.

  “This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.”

  The words were those of Mr Winston Churchill when, on the forenoon of 6 June 1944, he announced to the House of Commons and to the world that the long-awaited invasion of North-west Europe was under way.

  So “D-day”—that queer cypher which had found its way into the English language and been the topic of conjecture and conversation all over the civilised world—was 6 June 1944. That date will stand beyond monuments of granite or marble. On that day liberating armies of the great forces for freedom were put ashore by their navies and under the protection of their air forces to break the tyranny that had held nearly all Europe in bondage for four years. As General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, said to Britons, Americans and Canadians of the assault forces in his special Order of the Day: “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

  It is all too easy, in considering a particular operation of war, to lose the essential perspective and to regard it as something that was achieved quite by itself. The greater the subject the more easy it is to fall into this error. An operation of extrication—such as “Dynamo,” the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force and Allied Armies from Dunkirk—may have to be improvised; but not so a great offensive operation such as the invasion of Normandy. This was nothing less than a gigantic stride along the road to victory which had been patiently surveyed and mapped by those who directed the grand strategy of the United Nations.

  It is as a part of this grand strategy, therefore, that this great undertaking must be considered, and it must be reviewed against the vast unfolding tapestry of war which led up to it and which made it possible.

  The invasion of Northern France was given the apt code name of “Operation Overlord,” and the naval component of the undertaking was known by the equally apt code title of “Operation Neptune.” Nobody has ever divulged who is responsible for the choice of the code names for our naval operations, but nobody will deny that their choice is often a clever blend of the metaphorical with the realistic. For instance, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham’s desperate task of preventing the seaborne invasion of Crete and extricating our troops from that island was known as “Operation Demon”; the invasion of French North Africa was called “Torch”; and the invasion of the south of France was given the name of “Dragoon.”

  It is “Operation Neptune” with which we are here concerned, although due weight must of course be given to the other components of “Overlord.” That is an obvious necessity in dealing with what His Majesty the King has described as “the greatest combined operation the world has ever seen—perhaps the greatest it will ever see.”

  . . . . .

  The invasion of the continent of Europe from Great Britain was conceived during the darkest days of our history; those days after the withdrawal of our armies from Dunkirk and the fall of France. There could otherwise have been no prospect less terrible than a peace negotiated with a Nazi régime which held every card in the pack. It has been said often enough that the British never know when they are beaten and that they are at their best when facing seemingly impossible odds. Yet it was not only of these qualities that Winston Churchill was thinking when he exhorted the people of Britain to stand firm and to fight, so that in a thousand years men would say of them “this was their finest hour.” More than steadfast resistance was required. If ultimate defeat or near-defeat were to be avoided and victory were to be the goal there was need of faith as well as fortitude.

  In those days Britain stood alone against the armed might of a Germany which had seized every strategic advantage of the coast of Europe from the North Cape to the Spanish frontier, while in the Mediterranean crouched her ally Italy with sufficient force in men, ships and machines to dominate the Middle Sea and the route to the East. Invasion threatened England—an England the equipment of whose army lay scattered over Northern France and Belgium, whose remaining air force was little more than an undismayed token, and whose navy had suffered such loss and damage that there was woefully little left to protect our moat or the sea lanes by which alone succour could come. The Royal Navy’s effective destroyer strength, inadequate in 1939, had been practically halved; ther
e was only one fully equipped military division in Britain; the Royal Air Force was “the few.”

  Yet, while desperately on the defensive, there were in Britain at that time men with such steadfast faith that they began at once to think and plan in terms of a British invasion of the Continent. That Britain did not lack such men at that time was a measure of her greatness. Winston Churchill towered above all others, but there were others. In particular there were the three men whom duty had called to stand against the near-certainty of German invasion in that corner of England nearest to German-occupied Europe. The Dover Command was held by Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay; commanding the military forces in the south-east was General Sir Bernard Montgomery; and Air Vice-Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory commanded No. 11 Group of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command—the group from which came most of “the few” who won the Battle of Britain overhead.

  All three of these men had courage, steadfastness, and faith; all of them visualised the day of a British invasion of German-occupied Europe; all of them worked and planned towards that goal. It was neither coincidence nor “poetic justice” that led to these three men becoming the leaders of Britain’s three Services for the invasion of Europe on 6 June 1944.

  . . . . .

  As the long and lurid tapestry of war has unfolded it has been increasingly noticeable that the warp underlying our strategy and running through so many scenes has been our preoccupation with sea-power. By sea-power one does not mean only the Royal Navy. Sea-power is a great tripod structure, of which the Fighting Navy (together with the air component over the sea), the Merchant Navy, and maritime bases are the three legs; and which must be unstable if the strength of the three legs is out of balance.

  From the moment that the Athenia was torpedoed without warning a few hours after the declaration of war, it became obvious that Germany was basing her maritime strategy upon the hope of inflicting such loss upon our Merchant Navy as to amount to a severing of our sea-lines of communication. There was sound reasoning behind the German strategy, for the long sea routes and their convergence upon the British Isles must always be the Achilles heel of the British Empire in war.