Operation Neptune - They come by sea!

foreign [Music] now just a quick caveat before we start obviously there's no way we can go into anything like all the detail necessary for Operation Neptune in half an hour 45 minutes an hour Etc so this is of necessity a high level overview looking at some of the general features the characters involved and some of the general highlights at some point in the future we might revisit specific sections so if there is a specific element of the operation that you either know about or you hear about in this video that you want to be expounded upon then obviously leave a comment below and we can have a look at that at a future time now with that said we've probably all heard of Operation Overlord the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy but what's not often appreciated is that Overlord was not the designation for the entire operation it covered the actual Invasion itself but in order to get that Invasion from the British Coast to the French beaches without being attacked by U-boats s boats our boats destroyers torpedo boats the luftwaffe ETC are blown up by mines or sunk by Coastal batteries all those landing craft would need a naval escort and not just any Naval escort pretty much one or if not the largest Fleet ever assembled that would have to block out a corridor the full width of the English Channel conduct rapid mind sweeping so as not to give away the invasion too early engage in ferocious Jewels with numerous heavy Coastal artillery emplacements provide direct fire support to the Troops and bring across two entire artificial harbors and all of this would collectively be rolled into Operation Neptune but before assigning ships it was vital to work out who should be in command of those ships with General Eisenhower in overall command of the invasion as a whole Admiral Bertram Ramsey of the royal Navy was selected to lead Operation Neptune he was widely seen as a very good fit for the role he'd spent half of World War One leading a destroyer that was part of the Dover Patrol so he knew this section of the channel pretty well and although he'd retired in 1938 the outbreak of War had seen him brought back into service and once more assigned to the Dover area this in turn meant that he'd ended up being the brains behind operation Dynamo the evacuation of over 300 000 men from the beaches of Dunkirk and he then got on to assist with or lead elements of Operation Torch in North Africa and operation husky in Sicily he was thus probably the single most experienced Allied Admiral with an extensive knowledge of both amphibious operations and the area that those operations were supposed to take place in in the case of Neptune one level of command down the forces offer the beaches would be split into two the Western force would support the American beaches Utah and Omaha and the Eastern force would support the two British and one Canadian beaches gold sword and Juno the Western force would therefore be placed in the hands of American Admirals specifically rear Admiral Alan Kirk who in a pleasingly retro futuristic symmetry had HMS Enterprise placed under his overall command with riyadmills Hall and moon as his deputies respectively commanding the forces off Omaha and Utah Beach like Ramsay Kirk and Hall also had a variety of experience in amphibious Landings between them having been in command positions during torch Husky and Avalanche the last being the invasion of Italy Admiral Moon meanwhile had extensive experience commanding Destroyers over on the anglo-canadian side of things was none other than rear Admiral Sir Philip Vian his combat experience had included the Battle of Jutland the capture of the altmark the Norway campaign the pursuit of Bismarck amphibious raids on occupied Norway and extensive operations in the Mediterranean against the regime Arena followed by most recently taking part in both operations Husky and Avalanche working for him off of Sword Beach would be rear Admiral Talbot a torpedo and aircraft carrier specialist Commodore Douglas pennant was stationed off of Gold Beach with experiencing Cruisers and from Husky and Avalanche alongside Admiral Ramsay and finally Commodore Oliver of Juno Beach who was a Gunnery expert who'd commanded one of the naval support elements off the beaches of Sicily each of the two overall task forces was also assigned a reserve Force B backing up the American Beach forces was under the command of commodore Edgar an American Transport and Logistics specialist whilst Force L backing up the anglo-canadian forces was under the command of Admiral William Parry who'd spent most of the war shooting at or chasing things amongst various other achievements he led HMS Achilles at the Battle of the River Plate and had later spent a good chunk of the war charging around the Mediterranean and various other places as Captain of HMS Renown over an occupied France their three main opponents were Admiral kranka a torpedo specialist and World War One Destroyer veteran who'd commanded the Heavy Cruiser Admiral Shear early in the war and who had overall command of all things Naval in occupied France including Coastal artillery below him assigned to Coastline defenses specifically was vice admiral Riva a man who had mostly shore-based experience and whose one major seago in command to the light Cruiser karlsruhe had ended rather spectacularly when the submarine HMS truant had put torpedo into her off of Norway and finally Conta Admiral henecker who was specifically in charge of the western part of Normandy he was an artillery officer who therefore appropriate enough was in charge of the various local Shore defenses and between them the German commanders also had a large Minefield 49 U-boats of various types and sizes five small destroyers 23 e-boats 116 minesweepers 44 small Patrol ships and 42 artillery barges of somewhat questionable open C value all of which were scattered amongst the ports of laharva Dunkirk bologna cherborg San Malo Vega and wistream I think that last one's felt a bit weird anyway um however outside of quick sneak attacks it was fairly clear that any significant invasion was going to end up mostly being opposed by the shore batteries of which there were quite a few armed with a truly eclectic array of weapons ranging from near obsolete French guns that dated back to the start of the 20th century and in some cases even the late 19th alongside some more modern French equipment admittedly some of it looted from other places in France others installed by the French in the interwar period and that was accompanied by a bewildering array of ex-soviet Czech polish and other artillery that had been taken during the various occupations and invasions of Europe there were believe it or not even some German guns in there although the biggest weapons the 15 and 16 inch caliber emplacements were generally in place further up the coast near Calais although there was also a 15-inch battery at La Havre should the Allies wander in that direction coming against them was an Allied Fleet that numbered no less than 1206 warships everything from the Bismarck killer HMS Rodney and the Apparently plot shielded HMS War spite down to a pair of [ __ ] submarines to that were there to help the landing craft with navigation and in between there was everything from battleships to Cruisers destroyers for its Loops Corvettes minesweepers motor torpedo boats motor gun boats sub Chasers motor launches and a pair of especially vicious Dutch gun boats which had proved to be rather unusually effective in a laundry list of previous amphibious operations they in turn were there to escort the over 4 100 landing craft and transports and the almost 1 700 strong Supporting Cast of Supply ships tugs and block ships all of which began to collect together into a massive Fleet just south east of the Isle of Wight with convoys of vessels sometimes themselves hundred strong steaming in from almost every port in the southern half of the UK arriving at various sub Rendezvous points and then all sailing to make the grand rendezvous and it was a truly multinational Force whilst the Royal Navy had the predominant weight of numbers and the U.S Navy was in a very strong second there were also strong contingents from the Royal Canadian and other Commonwealth navies and also from almost every single free Navy in existence the Polish Norwegians Dutch Greek and Belgian forces were all represented to name most of them and of course the free French navy had also committed much of its strength to this first step in the liberation of its Homeland the first ships of this Armada were actually already off the Normandy Coast whilst the bulk of the ships were assembling off of the Isle of Wight HMS X20 and x-23 a pair of [ __ ] submarines were quietly patrolling offshore establishing their exact position so that they could act as navigation points for sword and Juno beaches the next chips to show up were also quite small the 55th flotiller of motor torpedo boats under Commander Donald Bradford who recalled the following I had been tremendously pleased to discover that my boats of the 55th flotiller had been given the place of honor in The Invasion Fleet we were to scout ahead of the minesweepers who were to clear a path for the Destroyers protecting the first wave of assault craft we were actually the spear point of the assault I with my four of my boats was to escort and if necessary fight clear a route for the minesweepers of force J heading for Juno Beach until they reached the lowering position where the small assault craft would be put in the water from their mother ships then we would take station between them and La Havre to protect them from any surface attacks from that quarter the four boats then sailed out into Portsmouth Harbor in into the solent to take our places ahead of the massive shipping that was already jockeying for position in the Fairway the weather was definitely not ideal a small sea was running even in the sheltered Waters of the Portsmouth approaches and the strength of the wind told of a nasty chop in the channel behind them as Commander Bradford indicated came the minesweepers whose job once they had cleared safe channels was to place marker Boys called Dan's to let other ships know where it was safe for them to sail they had to establish two major corridors one for slower vessels and one for faster vessels Lieutenant Maine was aboard one of these minesweepers off of Sword Beach and he would later write Dan laying especially at night is a very tricky job and ensuring that the lights on top of the Dan's stay were burning and the wires clear of the ship's crew is very difficult the tide was half Springs and started off to the Eastwood and Midway through our run changed to Westward our swept channel was to be four cables or 800 yards wide from our point of view the operation proceeded excellently we cited what was afterward confirmed as a German Convoy proceeding into lehave but it took no notice of us and we naturally kept very quiet not wishing to advertise our presence during the hours of Darkness we heard our aircraft passing overhead many were Towing gliders and formed the spearhead of the army some were our bombers which carried out a heavy bombardment of lahav just before we arrived at the lowering position the explosions and fires on Shore were tremendous after completing our Channel we anchored just to the west of it the captain let the anchor go underfoot but it would not hold so we ended up steaming about in small circles with The Landings due to start at Utah Beach at 0630 and spreading East with the tide until sword Beach where operations were to begin at 0.725 and then finally Juno Beach at 0745 the first waves of landing craft and their escorts began the journey South shortly before midnight thus on the 5th of June but whilst the fleet Advanced with ships peeling off to form or reinforced Cordon lines the almost 140 strong bombardment force was sweeping into position taking station in the Darkness at various points between 0-200 and 0-300 and readying themselves to open up with full force 30 minutes before the first troops were due to hit the sands off of Utah Beach where the battleship Nevada the monitor Erebus the heavy Cruisers Quincy Hawkins and Tuscaloosa the light Cruisers Enterprise and black prince that last one being a very deliberate placement by a royal Navy officer who obviously had a sense of history as the medieval black prince who'd given his name to the cruiser had landed just to the west of the target beaches hundreds of years earlier on the road to Cressi also along for the ride was one of the two Dutch flores-class gunboats eight destroyers and two Destroyer escorts from the Royal Navy and a pair of Royal Navy frigates progressing East would be the force off of Omaha Beach the battleships Arkansas and Texas the light Cruisers bologna Glasgow George legu and Montcalm plus 10 U.S Navy destroyers and three Royal Navy frigates off of Gold Beach were the light Cruisers Ajax Argonaut emerald and Orion the other Dutch gunboat and 12 Royal Navy destroyers plus a single polish Destroyer Juno Beach was host to the light Cruisers Belfast and diadem plus two Canadian one Norwegian one French and six Royal Navy destroyers and lastly sword Beach saw the battleships ramalis and warspite The Heavy Cruiser frobisher light Cruisers arath user Danny dragon and Mauritius along with 12 British one polish and two Norwegian Destroyers slightly behind them a number of ships were held in reserve including HMS Rodney and her sister Nelson along with a number of Cruisers plus the two area flagships the Western area was USS Augusta with Admiral Kirk in command and on the East hmacilla with Admiral Vian Dawn crept closer and Commander Bradford of the 55th motor torpedo boat flotilla was looking around in the growing light he said I could easily distinguish the low-lying coast of Normandy without using my binoculars it seemed utterly fantastic that all the conglomeration of Warships that by this time were prowling within a few miles of the enemy Coast could have arrived and taken up position without the knowledge of the Germans not a shot had been fired from the shore batteries ostensibly the bombardment was supposed to start at 0530 but everything kicked off a little early with ships as diverse as the USS Fitch USS Quincy HMS Orion HMS Belfast the free French Hmong calm and HMS War spite amongst others all claiming to have fired the first shot what is somewhat more certain however that in the run-up to it all one of the three French destroyers maneuvering a little too close to the Normandy Coast managed to run aground prompting a congratulatory signal from a nearby Royal Navy Cruiser to the first Allied Forces to make contact with French soil in fact they had of course been Fierce fighting between German troops and Allied paratroopers for several hours beforehand but it was still a nice symbol despite the bombing raids and the paratroop attacks during the night there was as mentioned no real idea amongst German High command of the forces assembled off the coast until 0520 a report was sent by a German Coastal artillery unit Advanced observers of artillery groups 2 and 4 report perception of noises probably Naval units moving towards the Via Estuary and gray Point du hoc 29 ships of which four are quite large destroyers or Cruisers are observed at a distance of six to ten kilometers at forming he one polish pilot has been made prisoner the number of landing craft in front of port on basar is about 50. this comforting illusion of perhaps maybe this being the Deep raid on a slightly larger scale would promptly be shattered at 0530 when the main bombardment groups opened up almost simultaneously in a mass broadside the light like of which hadn't been seen since the Battle of jotland depending on the precise location this assault would continue for as long as two hours increasing calls would now begin to filter into German High command as more and more Coastal emplacements began to call in the ships that they could locally spot in the flickering light of the hundreds of muzzle flashes that were lighting up the sea almost simultaneously with bombardment came the first Allied loss of a major warship that day three small German destroyers AKA torpedo boats appeared through the smoke screen that was established to the east of The Landings and began bullying Torpedoes at the bombardment forces these Salvo of about 18 Torpedoes passed harmlessly between warsbyte and ramalis and the Destroyers now aware of just how large a force they'd run into turned quickly and fled back through the smoke three armed trawlers had been following them expecting to flank a small raiding Force but they too quickly made haste back to lahav after one of War Spike's turrets took notice of them turned briefly away from its bombardment of the shore and casually obliterated one of the trawlers with a direct hit from a 15-inch shell another near Miss disabled t28s radio transmitter and so she was unable to let hikamar know of just what size of armada she'd stumbled across until sometime later when she got back to Port the German torpedo Salvo wasn't entirely without success though the Norwegian Destroyer svena took a direct hit and exploded although about 85 percent of her crew would be rescued from the water under the cover of this bombardment the landing craft moved in whilst the skies above buzzed with over 500 Allied heavy bombers making final runs on various German targets behind them on the other side of the channel the two Mulberry Harbors were in sections making ready to set sail in a few hours once the beaches had been confirmed as cleared even as Landing operations were commencing some of the outer break Waters made up of bombardons see the Mulberry Harbors video for what those are were already being anchored in place over the heads of the arriving troops there were also the Cruisers and battleships of the Allied navies fighting deadly Jewels with the German Shore batteries but they were quickly generally gaining the upper hand as a series of direct hits silenced both bunkers and open field artillery positions other batteries would prove somewhat harder to knock out but every minute the water spouts were falling around Arkansas or Texas War spite families or Rodney when she was eventually called into action later in the day meant that those large caliber shells were not being directed at the infinitely more vulnerable landing craft Landing Croft specially adapted and packed full of rockets were also souring their payloads in direct fire support and as troops began to call in difficulties some ships switched to closer support missions in particular destroyers began to work their way in progressively closer and closer to shore to provide a pinpoint for gunfire support this was not without cost however the Destroyer USS Corey was hit and sunk probably in my estimation struck by Coastal battery fire and she sank very quickly shortly after 0630 although the cause of the loss would later be attributed in some sources to striking a mine but the nature of its loss suggests perhaps an 8-inch battery was more responsible again at least in my estimation Lieutenant Dennis Brown of the royal Navy volunteer Reserve was leading one of the landing craft assault flotillas towards Gold Beach and he recalls I led the first wave and we formed up in two columns in line ahead to in the Rendezvous area the sea was very rough but so far everything had gone to plan meanwhile the bombardment of enemy gun positions ashore by Cruisers and destroyers had commenced after the lsis had anchored and even before my lcas had been lowered into the water the lcas were to link up with a procession of craft forming up and heading for the shore ahead of us were several groups designated to give heavy cover during the approach and then actually on the beaches these included a force carrying duplex Drive tanks this was something quite new the tanks had been fitted with inflatable skirts and would be launched from lcts while still at Sea the skirts filled with compressed air would keep them afloat while they reached the shoreline firing beyond the beach while the LCA is carrying the assaulting infantry touched down among them a great idea but in the event the sea was much too rough to attempt to launch them so this Force pulled out of line the lcts went in and beached and the tanks drove ashore directly having dropped their skirt somewhat later we were on time in good order and kept excellent station on our escorting motor launch as promised Skipper played his signature tune for us which blared out over his loud hailer the tune being we don't know where we're going until we're there which was a popular tune at the time and not bad for a navigational leader We Were released by our motor launch about a mile or so offshore and soon after I deployed my boats to port and starboard in line abreast for our touchdown on the beach gun ships were firing over our heads and lcts firing huge clusters of rockets which hissed right over our heads our aircraft had not been idle as I saw the buildings of the village of lehamel just to my right disappear in bomb bursts all of this fire with that from destroyers was intended to stun the Enemy by sheer weight of concentrated gunfire and thus hopefully make them Keep Their Heads down while the first wave of assaulting an infantry landed and with any luck stormed and cleared the beach it had been planned that mine should be the third or fourth group's touchdown but because of Heavy Seas and consequent loss of support I was actually the second first ashore was a tank landed by LCT equipped with chain flails which pounded up and down the beach with its flails thrashing in front of it to blow up any mines and clear a path for the Infantry this tank beached at exactly the appointed time of 0725 I timed it myself my 10 craft touched down exactly on the right beach at the appointed time of 0732 in the right order and disembarked my troops the disembarkation was not as Swift as it might have been but it couldn't be helped the sea was pretty awful many men having been seasick and just could not be hurried the beach was shallow only gradually shelving and with the most unpleasant surf so that boats actually grounded about 50 yards offshore and the troops had to Wade This distance through the breakers all my boats got off safely and we turned and headed out to sea as my boat left the beach a shell or mortar bomb burst on either bow but no damage was done whilst the Seas were rough as mentioned at the Eastern end of The Landings once the troops were sure the array of specialist armored vehicles which were also mentioned in that account and the support of the Destroyers and the Cruisers actually saw things progressing fairly smoothly at least as much as could realistically be expected over on Omaha Beach however things were not going quite as well but the U.S Navy's destroyers assigned the area Rose to the occasion with a plum working their way to within a thousand yards of the coast ships such as the Emmons Jeffers and karmic opened up with everything from their main batteries right down to their 40 millimeter bofer and 20 millimeter all-icon anti-aircraft guns when they began to lose contact with the shore parties that were supposed to be providing them with Fire Control directions whether due to radio damage those parties becoming casualties or interference from other radio Transmissions they simply started engaging anything that looked particularly hostile emins for example spotted some German troops coming towards the beach and opened up with a full full Assad of 40 millimeter fire car mix or a small contingent of U.S tanks engaged in a desperate firefight with something that they couldn't quite make out but having concluded that whatever the tanks were shooting at was probably hostile and a worthwhile thing to blow up car makes Gunners promptly smothered the area with 5-inch fire which did have a rather deleterious effect on the enemy's health meanwhile a message managed to fight its way through the radio interference from ashore a large steeple was believed to be a German observation post emin's 5-inch battery Unleashed a barrage and sent the ancient structure toppling to the ground batteries covering the exits to Omaha Beach opened up on the troops in the landing craft which gave away their positions to the waiting destroyers who then promptly knocked them out elsewhere the Rangers were making their famous assault on point to Hawk and struggling under intense defensive fire in response various destroyers including Harding satterly and McCook sailed in close and let loose a barrage of shells that knocked out at least one German gun simply by blasting away so much of the cliff that the gun had nothing to support it and it just fell down onto the beach whilst all of this was going on landing craft that had delivered their payloads were returning back out to sea with the wounded but the Destroyers offered to quickly offload them and on their unengaged sides and sped the wounded down to the dressing stations which no doubt saved many lives that might otherwise had been have been lost had the landing craft had to struggle at four to five knots the 11 miles out to sea that would have been needed to reach the main casualty receiving ships Comics crew also found themselves assigned an additional job in rotating parties they had to hose down the glowing gun barrels of their main battery to allow them to continue firing as she lofted two-thirds of her total 1500 ammunition capacity downrange in less than an hour having approached to just over two miles offshore which was effectively bayonet range for Battleship the USS Texas was Blazing away with both Main and secondary batteries a following reports that tennis of an especially irritating sniper Nest one of the 14-inch turrets sighted in and removed that particular feature from the landscape nearby the Nevada got so close to the landing craft that she was supposed to be helping that the shock waves generated from her guns firing caused some of the lighter landing craft to heal over rather precipitously before writing themselves although some of the bunkers above Omaha were theoretically intact somehow the concussion of the near misses and the occasional smaller caliber hit had rendered most of those inside incapable of movement or indeed even speech in one of them a phone rang and the major in charge answered to be asked please give an exact location of the incoming fire to which he responded they're falling all over the place you idiot what do you expect me to do go out and measure the craters with a ruler before slamming the phone back down again and trying to clear his head a bit more over to the Eastern side remarkable shooting by ramalis and warspite had rolled back a number of German heavy artillery emplacements and most of the shoreline German defenses had been overrun in Fairly good order with the advancing troops having none of their own artillery ashore yet they were still able to continue their Advance by radiating in the locations of enemy concentrations to the supporting Cruisers destroyers and battleships offshore who promptly responded with a hail of high explosive by Nightfall all five Landing areas had established beachheads and reinforcement convoys were beginning to make their way across the channel many of the hundreds of lighter craft motor torpedo boats motor gun boats and the like were being arranged in a physical Skirmish line east and west of the landing areas to act as a tripwire against incoming e-boats which might be expected to attack overnight and were low enough profile that surface search radar might not pick them up until it was too late as the sun began to set Convoy etp1 was making its way through the Strait of Dover this was the first large Allied merchant ship Convoy to make the passage in nearly four years the journey went uncontested by the Calais gun batteries who couldn't see a thing through the massive smoke screen that had been laid to Shield the Convoy there would be however one last Naval action to play out on June the 6th for which we return to Commander Bradford who by this point had been awake and leading his motor torpedo boat flotiller for almost 24 hours with a few snatches of sleep here and there late in the afternoon of our first day off the assault beaches we made for the Cruisers Silla flag rear Admiral Sir Philip vien Commander Eastern task force to attend conferences on the night's dispositions we were assigned our Patrol positions where we were to lie with engines cut and to which we were to return immediately if we lost contact with the Enemy should we be fortunate enough to have a brush and chase them HMS seller would provide us with radar cover from her birth on the edge of the Anchorage and inform us of any unidentified craft moving outside the Eastern flank giving us a range and bearing we arrived at our Patrol position as dark set in it was roughish and by no means comfortable to be stopped beam onto the swell after a few minutes of it I had to howl for my own special bucket all was kept handy at the back of the bridge and invariably in use during some part of each trip to see that I made then warned Bradford of the approach of six enemy craft and he continues they were obviously out on a mine laying sortie I ordered illumination Rockets fired and crap the boat was crash started my unit slipped into a quarter line for battle without orders they knew what it was going to be and how it would be fought without being told the Germans opened fire at the same time as us the range was 500 yards and closing rapidly as we got into our stride from their shooting and the fact that they had immediately altered course I guess their hearts weren't in their work and I don't blame them they were caught in a gun battle each boat with six or eight mines on board some five tons of Highly temperamental explosive ironmongery Exposed on Deck where it wouldn't do the least good if hitting the right spot they scattered as we charged into them the German boats understandably fled jettisoning their minds as fast as they could with Bradford's boats pursuing and continuing to fire he continues in in the excitement of the Clash I had completely forgotten about the German minefields but my navigator hadn't who held up the voice pipe from the Chart House sir we're a mile inside them however so were the enemy so they couldn't be more danger to us than to them I felt certain we had them in the bag and was really elated our first meeting with our German opposite numbers in the assault area and we had them on the run as if we were a pack of fox hounds suddenly there was a tremendous explosion followed by a gigantic column of water between us and the enemy and then another closer stern of us the mines life was starting to be difficult I was left with a choice of risking a known and self-advertised danger to my boats and Men by continuing at full speed or breaking off the action without a definite kill to teach the Germans a lesson I decided to go ahead and risk it more Minds went up some near some far away and then in a vast Inferno the last our boat in line disappeared leaving nothing but a flurry of water and a pool of smoke either it had hit a mine or are shooting had detonated one of the mines on its deck before the crew could shut throw it overboard I decided it was time for us to think of self and devote our attention to getting out of the Dangerous Waters into which we'd had so gayly headed I ordered the helm put over and reduced speed to a mere crawl and we commenced picking our way out of the Minefield content with our Victory and thinking we'll Live to play another day we nosed our way out rather daintily everyone on my boat began talking in unaccustomed Whispers and walking about on tiptoe as if that would have helped and with that Naval action ceased on June 6 1944 largely because it was about to become June 7th the following days would see still more bombardments assaults by German lightcraft and destroyers a rather one-sided fight between some German tanks and HMS Rodney and Captain Kelsey of HMS warpite saving 50th division by issuing the slightly terrifying order 50 rounds 15-inch rapid fire but all of that is for another time that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 132,874

Keywords: wows, world of warships, D-Day, Operation Overlord, OPeration Neptune, USS Texas, USS Arkansas, HMS Warspite

Id: M0FD2GK06KA

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2022