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On 10 November 1942, in the wake of El Alamein, Britain’s first major victory of the war, Winston Churchill gave what would become one of his best-known speeches. ‘Now this is not the end,’ he told an audience in London. ‘It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ That quote may have become overused in subsequent decades – but it remains an important marker of how the tide of World War II was finally beginning to change.
It should be remembered that at the same time as Churchill uttered those words, the Red Army was crushing the Germans at Stalingrad, in the crucial battle for the Eastern Front. For in our fascination with Normandy 1944, it is often forgotten that without those seismic events two years earlier in the east, the ‘Second Front’ (as the invasion of France was known) and, ultimately, the toppling of the Third Reich may never have happened.
For another piece of the jigsaw, we need to look to the Trident Conference, attended by Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., in May 1943, as it firmly set the agenda for an invasion of France the following year. From that moment on, Britain and the US would be utterly focused on the death blow that Operation Overlord (the codename for the Allied invasion of Europe) was meant to be.
Now, other articles in this series and in earlier editions of MHM have dealt further with the strategic setting of the Normandy landings. Here, we will look at the results of all those decisions made by politicians, diplomats, admirals, and generals – for what was hammered out around the conference tables would become the bloody anvil on which ordinary soldiers died in the meadows and hedges of Normandy.
The term ‘D-Day’ itself has come to be synonymous with those operations on the Normandy coast, but its use can be traced back to World War I. A technical military phrase, it refers simply to the particular day on which an operation starts (with further precision being added by ‘H-Hour’, among other terms). As such, every operation has its own D-Day – leading many veterans to complain: ‘I was at XX [adjust number as appropriate] D-Days and not one of them was in France!’
On 6 June 1944, around 150,000 Allied troops from five divisions – two American, two British, and one Canadian – would fight their way on to Normandy’s beaches, soon to be followed by hundreds of thousands more. Here we will attempt to bring that experience to life by focusing on accounts of what happened to just three British units – starting with the tank soldiers of 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards.
The 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards
Formed in 1922, the 4th/7th had seen no action since Dunkirk in 1940, and had been drained of experienced personnel as a result of being used to form a new wartime unit: the 22nd Dragoons. Still, the regiment had had plenty of opportunity to train in England: by June 1944, it was fully manned and (as part of 8th Armoured Brigade, within the now famous 79th Armoured Division) had been equipped with amphibious vehicles.
These tanks and other specialist armoured fighting vehicles (often referred to as ‘Hobart’s Funnies’: see ‘Planning for Victory’ here) had many different types, but the 4th/7th had received Sherman Duplex Drive (DD) tanks in late 1943. These were equipped with canvas flotation screens and propellers: once ashore, the screens could be ditched and the engine power diverted to the tank’s tracks. Despite their light-hearted nickname, however, such ‘Funnies’ required a new tactical doctrine which the regiment had to master.
As they discovered, disembarking heavy tanks into the sea was extremely tricky – with plenty of potential for the canvas screens to be overwhelmed, causing the vehicle to be swamped and to sink like a brick, taking its crew with it. Also, it was envisaged that these tanks should ‘swim’ from as far as two miles from the 4th/7th’s designated landing sites on King sector, at the eastern end of Gold Beach – a journey that might take the best part of an hour to complete. On the morning of 6 June, however, the water was so choppy that a rapid change of plan was made, with the regiment disembarking only a few hundred yards from the shore. Even so, five tanks sank, resulting in the loss of valuable crewmen, before the rest of the armoured vehicles snorted ashore, dropped their screens, and – amid plumes of black diesel smoke – churned the sand in support of the assaulting troops.
Breaking the beach defences was the detailed job of the sappers, gunners, and infantry: the tanks were designed to thrust hard into the Germans’ prepared positions on the coast, to establish a secure beachhead, and to allow subsequent waves to exploit it right into the enemy’s depths. Of course, all of this had been practised by Allied units with varying success at amphibious assaults such as Dieppe, Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio – but, in war, nothing ever goes according to plan.
Certainly, 2 Troop of A Squadron could vouch for this. Its commander, Lieutenant Michael Trasenster, had already lost two of the four tanks under his command when he closed with a series of blockhouses at Ver-sur-Mer, within sight of the sea. One of the acts that famously earned CSM Stan Hollis from 6th Battalion Green Howards the Victoria Cross was the storming of these emplacements – yet Trasenster’s troop outflanked the positions before slamming straight into some very close fighting: ‘My driver saw two dead infantrymen lying in the road,’ he recalled, ‘so we turned off through the garden of a big chateau… and overran the headquarters of a static German Division, and they surrendered to us after one large German soldier threw a grenade on the back of our tank, lacerating personal kit stowed in kitbags at the back of the turret.’
Soon afterwards, they came on a German tank. They were:
hit by an armoured-piercing shot knocking off our spare bogey, eight foot of our aerial and the Troop Pennant, also a chunk of armour was gouged out near Tpr Cox’s head! The Panther tank missed at a hundred yards as we were approaching the river bridge. By putting down smoke, one of which miraculously landed on the bridge, we got to cover and our supporting infantry cleared Creully village very rapidly… As soon as we got through Creully, the Squadron advanced towards the ridge, our D-Day objective. Then we really hit trouble and 9 tanks were knocked out in about as many minutes from an anti-tank gun in front.
Trasenster’s bald statement conceals the grim truth. Later, he talks about a tank ‘brewing up’ – using the slang term comparing a burning tank with a boiling kettle. Imagine the reality of ammunition, fuel, and bodies blazing in a riven steel hull, and, of course, the sickening, roasting smell. This was the fate of those nine tanks from just one regiment on D-Day, which bears witness to the bloody nature of armoured warfare in the fight for the beaches.
The 1st Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment
We have glimpsed the horror faced by tank soldiers – but what of the foot soldiers who lacked any protection at all beyond their steel helmets? The bitter, toe-to-toe fighting that 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment saw was typical of many infantry battalions in Normandy, although their previous experience was not.
A regular battalion serving in India when war started, their move back to Britain meant that they missed the campaign in France in 1940 and remained in home defence rather than being sent to another theatre. What battle-experienced officers and other ranks they had came from other battalions – but by the time they joined 185th Brigade and then 3rd Infantry Division, they were fresh, fully up to strength, and raring to go.
Landing at 0725hrs on 6 June, on Queen Red sector, towards the east of Sword Beach, they soon found themselves facing the 736th Grenadier Regiment. The Germans were holding a complex defensive position, codenamed ‘Hillman’, which overlooked the beach from the high ground known as the Périers Ridge. Much of Hillman can be seen today: it remains a sprawl of artillery observation posts linked by concrete-lined communication trenches and deeper trenches for infantry reserves, and it is clear where armoured firing and counter-attack positions were sited.
To overwhelm these defences, three infantry battalions, an armoured regiment, self-propelled artillery, naval gunfire support, and a division’s worth of artillery with air observation and support were all organised in a coordinated all-arms assault. Bear in mind, however, that the Germans were on the defensive, firing their artillery on carefully registered targets over ground they knew well.
The term ‘registered targets’ needs to be explained. An artillery gun is only accurate once its crew – who cannot see the target – get enough data to adjust it correctly. That data comes from assessing where fire is likely to be needed (for instance, at crossroads, or forming-up points) and then observing where the shots fall and sending corrections to the crews. In defence, all this should be done before the enemy appears, and, in the case of the Normandy landings, the Germans had had years to prepare.
This made the prepared defences very hard nuts to crack. Yet, despite all these preparations, it was the dash and grit of the infantrymen, along with their small arms, grenades, and bayonets, that would carry the day.
Acting in support of 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who were attempting to outflank Hillman and the nearby village of Lebisey, the Norfolks’ historian noted:
Unfortunately the Warwicks’ attack went off at halfcock and they found themselves in a very difficult position, being unable to move. There was nothing for it, and we had to go and restore the situation. 4pm was H-Hour and up we went, through a sniped village, across the anti-tank obstacle and up through open corn to the wood. It was not easy going, but we managed to get out anti-tank guns and mortars to a position from which we could give some support. The forward companies were having a bad time and we suffered quite a number of casualties; enemy tanks were also reported and altogether it was most unhealthy.
Each unit had to keep a ‘war diary’ – an official blow-by-blow account of events, usually written by the adjutant, often under very trying circumstances. The tone of these documents depended on individual character and circumstance, but the Norfolks’ is particularly laconic:
Under very heavy fire of all kinds, the C O remained in position until dark and then drew out under cover of artillery and naval artillery support. The Battalion took up old positions on ROVER [an adjacent defensive position] and after checking, the casualties were found to be 40-50, including Lt Sharp and Campbell of ‘C’ Coy missing.
The same events seem understandably more harrowing from the more vivid perspective of an infantryman’s personal account. ‘First we had to capture the woods called Lebisey,’ the author writes, ‘and, as we advanced along a sunken road in full view of the Germans, they let us have it. Mortars and shells came raining down.’
The Norfolks soon realised how lethal an operation against prepared positions supported by carefully registered mortars and artillery was going to be. The account continues:
With no cover at all, all we could do was bury our heads in the dirt. We lost a lot of lads that day, arms and legs everywhere. Then, as we advanced up the fields towards the wood, Jerry snipers were sending up the dirt all around us. We reached the edge of the wood only to find it had been mined by the Jerries, who by now had pinned us down with rifle and machine-gun fire. Once again I buried my face in the dirt, lying on my belly trying to dig a hole to crawl into.
Combined Operations Headquarters
As we have seen, the tanks and the infantry and all the combat arms had a torrid time on the beachhead – but none of the coordination of aircraft, ships, guns, manpower, and the avalanche of logistics would have been possible without careful staff work. An amphibious operation with intimate air support is especially difficult, despite all the experience that the Allies had gained in other theatres. So, to harmonise such operations, Combined Operations Headquarters was created.
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen worked in mixed units, and if any of them thought they would be safely tucked away from enemy lines, the experiences of signallers such as Lewis Goodwin proves just how wrong that could be. Initially a Highland Light Infantryman, Goodwin soon found himself transferred into the Royal Signals, and in June 1944 was being pitched about in the operations room of HMS Largs, a captured French banana ship, which had been fitted out as a Combined Operations’ command ship.
Goodwin discovered how hair-raising close combat at sea could be, when Largs was among a clutch of capital ships shelling enemy depth positions. ‘Suddenly,’ he recalled,
at around 0530hrs, a small flotilla of German ‘E’ boats appeared out of the smokescreen that our aircraft and escorting warships had laid… They immediately fired off all their torpedoes at the various warships including Largs. Fortunately the Officer of the Watch saw the wake of the torpedo heading for us and immediately ordered ‘Full Speed Astern’, which slowed the speed of the ship. The torpedo passed within a few feet of our bows!
Shortly thereafter, Largs sailed closer to the shore. ‘At 0900hrs we moved inshore to take up our main function as Operational Headquarters for SWORD Beach,’ Goodwin continued. ‘We came under spasmodic gunfire throughout the day from German coastal batteries: life was very hectic over and around the beachhead!’
It was then that Goodwin had a chance to see Combined Operations working as they should: ‘A large force of Marauders flew inland on a bombing mission,’ he reported,
and LCRs [rocket ships] were firing their banks of rockets over and beyond the beaches. A strong fighter cover flew constantly over the beachhead throughout the day. At 2000hrs 100 Flying Fortresses flew overhead on another bombing mission. At 2100hrs the sky clouded with aircraft as two waves of gliders being towed by Stirlings and Whitleys flew low directly over the ship. There must have been at least 300 aircraft with the same number of gliders!
Finally, however, the command ship’s luck ran out – albeit temporarily. As Goodwin recalled: ‘Three days later we were eventually hit by a shell which blew a hole some four feet square just above the waterline!! A repair ship was called up and she simply bolted a plate over the hole and carried on.’
End game
Much bitter fighting lay ahead for all these units. In August 1944, the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards were at the Falaise Gap, the decisive engagement which opened the way to Paris. The following month, they participated in the ill-starred Operation Market Garden, around Arnhem in the German-occupied Netherlands.
For their part, the 1st Royal Norfolks suffered 20 officers and 260 other ranks killed, with well over 1,000 wounded or missing, in 11 months of almost continuous fighting. Later in the Normandy campaign, on 6 August 1944, they would win a Victoria Cross – as a result of the bravery displayed by Corporal Sidney Bates in charging a German position – while Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery would describe them as ‘second to none’.
For HMS Largs – twice damaged off Normandy – further adventures also beckoned. Deployed to the Pacific in 1945, she coordinated a series of operations in Thailand and Malaya as Combined Operations reached their zenith.
These actions were all still to come for the officers, soldiers, airmen, and ratings who had to do the fighting and dying to win victory in the weeks and months following 6 June 1944. To borrow Churchill’s words, D-Day itself was just the end of the beginning.
Patrick Mercer is a former soldier, journalist, and MP. He is a regular contributor to MHM.
What happened next - a timeline of the Normandy campaign, from D-Day to Paris, here.
More D-Day: Nick Hewitt's new book, Normandy: the sailors’ story, is reviewed here.
All images: WikiMedia Commons, unless otherwise stated
