D-Day's Forgotten 6th Beach

[Music] d-day most famous invasion in military history most people even halfway familiar with the normandy landings can name one of the beaches normally omaha beach due to saving private ryan there were in fact two u.s beaches omaha and utah then three british commonwealth beaches gold juno and sword but i have discovered that there was in fact a sixth d-day beach that somehow is virtually unknown today written out of the story of the landings but which was almost used allied forces standing by just offshore ready to storm the beach in landing craft the name of that beach band seen here marked on president franklin d roosevelt's personal d-day map band beach was to have been the location of two daring commando operations to help protect sword beach to the west originally the british beaches were all named after fish from west to east goldfish jellyfish swordfish and banned fish however the canadians rightly objected to landing on a beach code named jelly and the name was altered to juno the fish element of the names was then dropped leaving gold sword and band so what purpose did ban beech play in the overall d-day plan one of the biggest problems facing the allies was the number and position of german heavy gun batteries dug in all along the normandy coast their large caliber guns would wreak havoc for allied forces storming ashore and threaten allied naval vessels offshore there were three ways of neutralizing them firstly bomb them from the air which was a problem as most had large concrete casemates protecting the guns and multiple bunkers and trench systems option two destroy them with naval gunfire using battleships monitors and cruisers if all else failed there was option three stormed them using either paratroopers dropped from the air or commandos landed on the beaches the sector of shoreline code name band lying east of the orn river was covered by several german batteries three batteries in particular could fire into the eastern flank of sword beach potentially seriously disrupting the british landings there one of the most important was merville battery closest to the eastern edge of the british landing area which the allies believe was equipped with heavy caliber guns that would disrupt the british landings that sword 8 miles to the west of the battery on the 6th of june it was attacked by elements of the british sixth airborne division that dropped in the area in the early hours of d-day in the event this assault was only partially successful but regarding ban beach two further german batteries that gave the british cause for concern were those at hoolgate and benneville the next along the coast from merville hoolgate battery consisted of six 155 millimeter schneider guns captured from the french in 1940 and reused by the germans two were in concrete casemates and four in open positions the latter able to hit sword 10 miles to the west the position sat atop 300 foot high cliffs the german battery at benevil also consisted of six 155 millimeter guns and was located a further five miles east along the coast from hoolgate this battery could not directly hit sword but could menace the landing's eastern flank particularly as the british advanced as well as shipping offshore both batteries needed to be put out of action some softening up had occurred in the weeks leading up to d-day two weeks before the invasion american b-26 marauders had hit hoolgate with 500 tons of bombs leaving two of the six guns inoperable the original plan for dealing with hull gate and benevole was an amphibious assault on the coast hence the creation of banned beach the original assaulting force was to have been number four commando a battalion-sized british army unit that had already undertaken several raids on the french coast earlier in the war including the infamous diep landings in august 1942 led by the flamboyant lieutenant colonel lord lovett they were transferred to another equally important task landing on sword beach to deal with the whistrum gun batteries however the british decided that contingency plans would be put in place concerning hoolgate and benneville it was the responsibility of the royal navy to try and knock out the batteries on d-day hoolgate was assigned to the monitor hms roberts armed with 15-inch guns and the cruiser hms mauritius while the battleship hms ramelise would destroy the beneville battery but what if the naval bombardment failed two supplementary operations were created both including commandos storming ashore on the sixth d-day beach banned the plan was simple after the navy had given both of the batteries a substantial thrashing on the 6th of june if the german guns continued to fire at either sword beach or offshore shipping on d plus 1 that is the 7th of june the landing operations at band would commence in the early morning hours hoolgate battery was to be targeted by operation frog consisting of number 46 royal marine commando this was a battalion sized force at 0 200 hours on the 7th of june 1944 six landing craft would bring in 180 men of the commando to land on banned dog beach they would be followed by a second wave of eight landing craft with the remaining men aboard they would then scale the cliffs under heavy fire and eliminate the german battery simultaneously operation deer would witness the landing of number 47 royal marine commando up the coast opposite benevil battery again two waves of a total of 14 landing craft would deposit a total of 430 commandos ashore for the assault in total ban beach would witness commandos come ashore in a forgotten invasion to battle the germans for their guns so what actually happened the ships carrying numbers four six and four seven commandos formed up off the isle of wight in southern england sailing for normandy at 12 30 on the 6th of june in the meantime the naval shore bombardment vessels had already started work hms roberts opened up on hoolgate battery at 0-5-23 hours from a range of 20 000 yards offshore she fired 27 15 inch shells at the facility but caused little damage around the same time hms ramelise opened up on benevole battery in 80 minutes sustained firing her 15-inch guns knocked out four of the german guns she would knock out the last two german guns by the evening whilst this was going on british paratroopers were assaulting merville battery the closest to sword beach the german commander there rang hoolgate and requested it fire onto his own position which it did not interfering in the main british landings that soared in the meantime numbers four six and four seven royal marine commandos arrived of sword beach opposite the town of wiestrom at 19 30 hours at this point both commandos were ready to move to ban beach in preparation for their twin assaults scheduled for 2 am the following morning but the commander of force s the bombardment group covering ban beach decided that the landings would not be necessary as one battery beneville had already been knocked out and the other battery at hoolgate was not causing undue problems the landing force commander pressed for operations frog and deer to proceed to ensure that the remaining german guns were silenced but this was denied the bad sea state at the time was also a factor that prevented frog and deer from happening the landing force anchored off juno beach for the night and the next morning landed in support of infantry operations ashore seeing some hard fighting over the decades operations frog and deer faded into obscurity and along with it the story of d-day's forgotten sixth landing beach banned so concludes the story of band beach the d-day beach almost completely written out of the history books that is until now thanks for watching please subscribe and share and visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 498,587

Rating: 4.9733582 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Operation Overlord, D-Day, Commando

Id: 5z-CjczAGuM

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ProCamo]

His videos are so good. Really interesting and well researched as well as engaging!

[u/warwick8]

I have read about how a photographer who landed in the first wave on D-Day and had taken both still pictures and film of what was happening right there and then he was returning to the ship with the film but as he was climbing up the ladder to the ship he lost his balance causing him to lose the bag which contained the film in the ocean thus losing forever this historic moment in time and places. so have every picture or film about the landing on beach on D-day been released or are there ones that hasn’t been released for reason or another.