Remembering D-day: Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes

Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery agree changes to General Morgan’s COSSAC plans which set the invasion date as 31 May, extending the landing area west across the Cotentin Peninsula towards Cherbourg and increase the initial seaborne force from 3 Divisions to 5 Divisions.

1 February 1944

Revised Overlord plan, Neptune, the sea transportation and landing phase of Overlord issued.

5 March 1944

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) moves from Grosvenor Gardens to former US 8th Air Force HQ at Bushey Park, near Hampton Court, code name Widewing. Eisenhower lives nearby in Telegraph Cottage, Warren Road, Kingston upon Thames.

Lance Bombardier Frank Scott, 24

165 HAA Regimental HQ Royal Artillery.

‘Inevitably all good things come to an end and we received our “Marching Orders” to proceed in convoy to the London Docks. The weather was worsening, putting all the best-laid plans “on hold”. Although restrictions as regards personnel movements were pretty tight some local leave was allowed. It would have been possible for me to see my folks just once more before heading into the unknown but having said my farewells earlier felt I just couldn’t go through that again.

‘With the enormous numbers of vehicles and military equipment arriving in the marshalling area and a continuous downpour of rain it wasn’t long before we were living in a sea of mud and getting a foretaste of things to come. To idle away the hours whilst awaiting to hear the shout “WE GO”, time was spent playing cards (for the last remaining bits of English currency), much idle gossip and I would suspect thinking about those we were leaving behind. God knows when, or if, we would be seeing them again. By now this island we were about to leave, with its incessant Luftwaffe bombing raids and the arrival of the “Flying Bomb”, had by now become a front line and it was good to be thinking that we were now going to do something about it!

‘All preparations were made for the off. Pay Parade and an issue of 200 French francs (invasion style), and then to “Fall In” again for an issue of the 24-hour ration pack (army style), bags for vomit and a Mae West (American style). Time to write a quick farewell letter home before boarding a troopship. Very soon it was anchors away. I must have dozed off for I awoke to find we were hugging the English coast and were about to change course off the Isle of Wight where we joined the great armada of ships of all shapes and sizes. It wasn’t too long before the coastline of the French coast became visible, although I did keep looking over my shoulder for the last glimpse of my homeland. The whole seascape by now was filled with an endless procession of vessels carrying their cargoes of fighting men, the artillery, tanks, plus all the other essentials to feed the hungry war machine.

‘That first night at sea was spent laying just off the coast at Arromanches (Gold Beach) where some enemy air activity was experienced and a ship moored alongside unfortunately got an HE bomb in its hold. Orders came through to disembark and unloading continued until darkness fell. An exercise that had no doubt been overlooked and therefore not covered during previous years of intensive training was actually climbing down the side of a high-sided troopship in order to get aboard, in my case, an American LCT. This accomplished safely, with every possible chance of falling between both vessels tossing in a heaving sea, there followed a warm “Welcome Aboard” from a young cheerful fresh-faced, gum-chewing, cigar-smoking Yank. I believe I sensed the smell of coffee and do’nuts!’

Three Batteries, each of two Troops of four 3.7-inch guns; some 24 guns in all, were tasked for ‘Ack-Ack’ protection of airfields once a foothold had been successfully gained and a position firmly held in Normandy. As it turned out, the Regiment not only fought in an AA role but 275 Battery came under command of Guards Armoured Division for ground shooting; 198 Battery deployed in the AA role defensive Conc. Area, and 317 Battery deployed in the Anti-tank role.

2nd Ranger Battalion marching along the sea front at Weymouth.

U.S Army

WREN Doris Hayball, 23

‘We knew D-Day was coming because we were inundated with young midshipmen. Shoreham harbour became so full of ships you could walk across it on the landing craft. For at least a month before 6 June I couldn’t get home from Hove to Worthing without a pass. On the night of D-Day I was on fire duty but when I came off at midnight I was told not to bother to go to quarters. They wanted me to help cook breakfasts at 2 a.m. So we knew this was it. We had a hotplate ten feet long. It was a very sustaining breakfast but I learned later many of the sailors who left from Shoreham were awfully seasick.’

Allied Nations Represented On D – Day

Australia

Virtually all 11,000 Australian aircrew participate in Overlord. Most of the 1,100 officers and men of the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) serve aboard British cruisers HMS Ajax, Enterprise, Glasgow and Scylla, or as commanders of several flotillas of landing craft and MTBs. On Ajax, a RANVR officer commands the 6-inch gun bombardment of the German Naval Battery at Longues-sur-Mer on cliffs 200ft above Gold Beach. Australians also serve aboard destroyers HMS Ashanti, Eskimo and Mackay.

Czechoslovakia

310, 312 and 313 Squadrons (Spitfire IXs), 134 Wing, 84 Group, 2nd TAF, and 311 Squadron (Liberator Vs), 19 Group, RAF Coastal Command.

Belgium

Two corvettes, three merchant ships and three Congo boats. 350 Squadron participate in aerial defence of Gold and Sword Beaches. 349 Squadron provide covering fire for US 82nd Airborne Division.

Canada

About 15,000 troops of the 3rd Infantry Division. RCAF commit 39 strategic and tactical squadrons, who fly 230 sorties of the 1,200 mounted by Bomber Command. Nearly 10,000 officers and men aboard 126 Canadian fighting ships, 44 landing craft among them.

Denmark

800 Danes mostly serve aboard ships.

France

329, 340 and 341 Squadrons, 145 Wing (Spitfire IXs) and 88 and 342 Squadrons, 2 Group, (Boston IIIAs) in 2nd TAF, Allied Expeditionary Air Force, and 345 Squadron (Spitfires) in No.11 Group, ADGB. Light cruisers Montcalm and Georges Leygues, Western Task Force off Port-en-Bessin, and the destroyer La Combattante, Eastern Task Force off the coast of Courseulles-sur-Mer, take part in the naval bombardment. Five frigates, four corvettes, and four submarine chasers perform escort duty. The elderly battleship Courbet is towed across the Channel and sunk off Ouistreham to act as a breakwater for the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches.

Great Britain

Second Army composed of two corps (including three British divisions with auxiliary units and services – some 62,000 men). Provides about 80 per cent of the warships. RAF flies 5,656 sorties.

Greece

Two Royal Hellenic Navy corvettes escort convoys to Juno, Gold and Sword. A number of Greek soldiers, sailors, and airmen serve in Allied Forces.

Norway

Ten warships of the Royal Norwegian Navy in exile and 43 ships of the Norwegian Merchant Navy (two of the cargo ships are scuttled to create a breakwater for landing craft) and three fighter squadrons – 66, 331 and 332, 132 Wing, 2nd TAF, flying Spitfire IXs.

Netherlands

Cruiser, HMNS Sumatra and two sloops, Flores and Soemba, (The latter two fire in support of the landings on Utah and Gold. On D+3 Sumatra, its armour dismantled, is intentionally scuttled near the shore to form part of the breakwater for Mulberry harbour. Nos. 98, 180 and 320 Squadrons, 139 Wing (Mitchell lls), 2 Group, and 322 Squadron (Spitfire XIVs), 141 Wing, all from 2nd TAF.

New Zealand

By June 1944 more than one-third of New Zealand’s overseas manpower, about 35,000 men, are serving in Britain. Of these, about 30,000 are in the RAF or in the six RNZAF Squadrons and they take part in every phase of the operation. 4,000 officers and men of the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve are in the Royal Navy. Junior officers of the RNZNVR command scores of landing craft and flotillas of New Zealand-manned MTBs.

Poland

302, 308 and 317 Squadrons, 131 Wing, 84 Group (Spitfire IXs) and 306 and 315 Squadrons, (Mustang Ills) 133 Wing, (all from 2nd TAF) and Lancasters of 300 (Polish) Squadron, 1 Group, RAF Bomber Command. Destroyers Krakowiak and Slazak take part in the Eastern Task Force’s naval bombardment of the coast. Four other Polish warships and eight merchant ships play various roles.

United States

First Army composed of two corps (five divisions with auxiliary units and services – about 73,000 troops). Navy provides 16.5 per cent of the Allied warships and hundreds of landing vessels. 8th and 9th Air Forces (6,080 tactical and strategic aircraft) in Allied Expeditionary Air Force.

Lieutenant Abe Dolim

a navigator in the 94th Bomb Group, recorded in his diary at Rougham:

‘There have been all sorts of rumours about an imminent invasion of the enemy coast.’

Vera Lynn

Forces Sweetheart, who in June 1944 was homeward bound and exhausted after a gruelling tour of Burma and the Middle East when her plane touched down in Jerba, Tunisia for a night stop over.

‘We had been told just before we landed that there was a whisper something was afoot. I was therefore hoping that there wasn’t anything going on that would stop me from getting back. We freshened ourselves up and then we went into this little tent where there was just a handful of officers. We said, “Right, let’s turn the radio on.” There was this little wireless in the corner. And that’s when the news came over that the boys had started and the operation had begun. We all gave a little toast in that tent. And we said we hoped that this was the beginning of the end.’

‘Neptune’ Factfile