Cracking Hitler’s Atlantic Wall: The 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day

272 Pages·2009·25.3 MB·English

by  Richard C. Anderson Jr.

CRACKING
HITLER’S ATLANTIC WALL
The 1st Assault Brigade Royal
Engineers on D-Day
Richard C. Anderson Jr.
STACKPOLE
BOOKS
To my father, Lt. Col. Richard C. Anderson,
USA (Ret.), 1921–2006.
Dad, we miss you.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard C. Anderson Jr.
Published by
STACKPOLE BOOKS
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Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any
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lisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Richard C., 1955–
Cracking Hitler’s Atlantic Wall : the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day/
Richard C. Anderson, Jr. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8117-0589-9
1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—France—Normandy. 2. Great Britain. Army.
Royal Engineers. Assault Brigade, 1st. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Regimental histories—
Great Britain. 4. Atlantic Wall (France and Belgium) I. Title.
D756.5.N6A48 2009
940.54'21421—dc22
2009009486
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Chapter 1 Conception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Organization, Training, and Equipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 3 Allied Planning and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Chapter 4 German Planning and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 5 Assault Force Sword: The British 3rd Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 6 Assault Force Juno: The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 7 Assault Force Gold: The British 50th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chapter 8 Assault Force Omaha: The U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions . . . . . . . . 187
Chapter 9 Assault Force Utah: The U.S. 4th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Chapter 10 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Chapter 11 The Funnies’ Impact on D-Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Appendix A: D-Day Roll of Honor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Appendix B: A Footnote to History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Appendix C: The Funnies and Omaha Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
iii
Introduction
F
FOR MORE THAN SIXTY-FIVE YEARS since with only minor amendments to correct spelling
the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, errors and to clarify the meaning of some of the
many misconceptions and flawed assumptions about abbreviated and more esoteric terms used. The offi-
how that operation was planned and executed have cial accounts by participants from the 6th Assault
become part of the accepted history of World War Regiment R.E. on Gold Beach are especially vivid,
II. One of the most misunderstood is the role and since nearly every surviving A.V.R.E. commander
accomplishments of “Hobo’s Funnies,” the 79th made a report of their activity.
Armoured Division, its 1st Assault Brigade, Royal Some may wonder why I have not addressed the
Engineers, and the special-purpose armored assault flamethrower variant of the Churchill tank that was
vehicles, especially the “Armoured Vehicle Royal known as the Crocodile. There is no disputing that it
Engineer” (A.V.R.E.), developed by the British and was a ferocious weapon with a terrifying reputation.
employed by them on the Commonwealth beaches However, it was not deployed in significant numbers
on D-Day and in Europe. on D-Day (only six were with the assault elements),
To understand the role of the 1st Assault Brigade it is not known to have seen any action on D-Day,
in the invasion, it is necessary first to understand and it was not an element of the 1st Assault Brigade
why the Allies planned the Normandy assault as Royal Engineers or the 79th Armoured Division on
they did. To do that, one must first look at how the D-Day.
German defenses were constructed and organized, It should be noted that two distinct terms are
then examine the timing and organization of the interspersed throughout the narratives, and their
Allied assault with special focus on the capabilities of actual meaning is critical to understanding the events.
the landing craft that were employed. Finally, and A “lane” was considered to be a passageway cleared of
perhaps most importantly, to understand the true obstacles and mines that extended all the way to the
effectiveness of Hobo’s Funnies, it is necessary to first lateral beach road inland of the assault beach. It
explore—albeit somewhat more briefly—what hap- could be wide enough for vehicle traffic or so narrow
pened on the two American beaches, Omaha and as to be passable only by infantry. On the other hand,
Utah, where the Funnies were absent. an “exit” was a lane that had been well enough devel-
The accounts of the D-Day assault that follow oped so as to make it accessible to either wheeled or
were primarily compiled from the original history tracked vehicles and that had a traffic-control system
of the 1st Assault Brigade, the war diaries of the in place sufficient to ensure the orderly procession
5th and 6th Assault Regiment and their assault inland of those vehicles.
squadrons, debriefings of the various gapping teams In the end, I hope this work helps to fill some of
as well as the war diaries of many other formations the gaps in the history of that famous “Day of Days.”
and units that participated, the reports of the Nep- Of course, the conclusions and interpretation of
tune naval commanders, and postwar accounts by events are my own, as are any errors I may acciden-
the participants. Many of those accounts are repro- tally have made.
duced here in full as they were originally written,
v

CHAPTER 1
Conception
T
THE ROYAL ENGINEERS (R.E.) have always been inextricably tied
to the development of the tank, so it is little wonder that a tank specifi-
cally designed for engineer requirements eventually emerged. In World
War I, Lt. Col. Ernest Swinton, R.E., directly contributed to the cre-
ation of the original tank; his experience in France in 1914 led him to
write a report that addressed ways of breaking the tactical deadlock that
was created in France by the combination of the machine gun, barbed
wire, and trenches. When he returned to England, he was asked to join
the Landship Committee that had been formed to develop methods of
crossing trenches in armored vehicles. The tank came out of the com-
mittee’s work, as did a requirement for supply tanks that could carry
supplies and engineer stores directly to the front lines.
Another early influential engineer officer was Capt. (later Lt. Gen.)
Giffard Le Quesne Martel, who served in France at the headquarters of
the nascent British Tank Corps. He was heavily involved, along with yet
another engineer, Maj. C. E. Inglis, in the early work to develop a
mobile assault bridge that could be carried and laid by a tank and in the
creation of three mechanized Royal Engineer “Special” Battalions that
were formed at Christchurch in Hants in October 1918. After the war,
Martel was promoted to major and given command of the sole special
battalion—renamed the Experimental Engineer Establishment—that
was maintained after the demobilization of the army.
1
2 conception
Martel’s Royal Engineer Tank. THE TANK MUSEUM
By the end of the First World War, the Royal however, shrinking budgets resulting from the
Engineers had defined three types of obstacles that worldwide Great Depression began to limit devel-
could impede a tank assault: opment both in the Tank Corps and the Royal
• obstacles, such as natural or man-made ditches or Engineers. By the outbreak of war in September
water courses, that required bridging before a 1939, little additional work had been done. Never-
tank could pass; theless, more than twenty-five years of steady devel-
• barricade-type obstacles, such as walls, concrete opment had laid the groundwork. The requirements
blocks, and steel posts, that would have to be of defeating the same three classes of obstacles
destroyed by demolitions before a tank could would drive further development during the early
pass; and years of World War II and become an integral part
• minefields that required removal or destruction of the planning for the assault on Hitler’s Fortress
before tanks could pass.1 Europe.
Between the wars, Martel and the Experimental Martel himself continued as an advocate of
Engineer Establishment continued to champion the armor and mechanization, first as the assistant direc-
development of specialized armored vehicles for the tor and then deputy director of mechanization at
engineers and also advocated that an armored engi- the War Office from 1936 to 1939 and later as the
neer vehicle organization should be trained and commander of the Royal Armoured Corps from
manned by the sappers of the Royal Engineers 1940 to 1943, when he became the head of the
rather than by Tank Corps personnel. By the middle military mission to Moscow.2 In early 1942, a new
of the 1920s, an initial concept vehicle, the R.E. and younger set of officers took over and brought
Tank, was completed. By the end of the decade, Martel’s work to fruition.
denovan 3
DENOVAN
The most intriguing misunderstanding about the
British Army vehicle that would become known as
the A.V.R.E. is that in a sense, it was not actually
British in origin, but rather Canadian. Little is
known about the man whose brainchild it was;
even the few references to him frequently misspell
his name. He was a very junior Canadian officer,
twenty-nine-year-old Lt. John James Denovan of
the Royal Canadian Engineers (R.C.E.).3
Denovan had been a civilian engineer and joined
the Canadian Army early in the war. By the summer
of 1942, he was in England, where he was posted to
the British Army Department of Tank Design
(DTD) as liaison officer between the Canadian and
British military engineer establishments. Denovan
turned out to be the right person in the right place
at the right time following the disaster of Operation
Jubilee at Dieppe on 19 August 1942.
During Jubilee, none of the tanks that landed
with the 2nd Canadian Division in its assault on Lt. John James Denovan.
Dieppe had managed to get inland from the TODAY’S SENIORS MAGAZINE
beaches. All had been destroyed by German fire or
had simply gotten bogged down in the sand and
shingle of the beaches. As a result, most analyses of report, but it is clear that he was affected by the ter-
the battle recommended abandoning the idea of rible casualties—some of whom were close
even attempting to land tanks in future operations friends—suffered by the Canadian forces in Jubilee.5
before the infantry had secured a firm beachhead. In Within a few weeks, on 6 October 1942, Lieutenant
that prevailing view, tanks had no place in the initial Denovan, working with Captain Schortinghuis,
assault. However, Lt. Col. George C. Reeves, assistant R.C.E., who commanded the 1st Canadian
director of the DTD, who had participated in Mechanical Engineering Company, which was
Jubilee as an observer, was unconvinced and attached to the DTD, had come up with the idea of
believed that armor might still have a viable role in utilizing a specially adapted tank as a means of car-
an assault, as long as effective ways of getting them rying the men and stores of an engineer sapper team
onto and off the beach could be developed. Imme- during an assault and had even completed a prelimi-
diately after returning, he met with his staff and dis- nary concept drawing for one.6 Denovan’s report
cussed his observations and possible solutions for the summarized the role of his “engineer tank” as
problems he had seen. Just eight days after the oper- • establishing a route through a minefield by the
ation, on 27 August 1942, they prepared a report for use of “snake,” an explosive mine-clearing device
the War Ministry “exploring the possibility of devel- consisting of lengths of pipe filled with explo-
oping devices to enable obstacles to be surmounted sives that could be pushed into a minefield by a
by a tank or destroyed by a tank crew without being tank or bulldozer and then exploded;
exposed to enemy fire.”4 • demolition;
It is unclear whether Denovan actually attended • crossing antitank ditches by the camoflet method,
Reeves’s meeting or participated in writing the that is, by filling a ditch or crater by placing
4 conception
explosives along its edge and setting them off so tic description: “Well, sure I knew the girl; she was in
that the edge would collapse into the obstacle; charge of the tank pool. But I very substantially out-
• destroying bent rail obstacles; and ranked her, so she couldn’t get into any trouble. My
• laying mines under fire.7 boss [Colonel Reeves], who knew this work was
Denovan also noted that the list of required going on, looked the other way.”10
engineer stores was to be flexible so that they could Once Denovan had his hands on the tank, he
be stowed according to the work immediately at went considerably beyond building a mere mock-up.
hand; that the drivers should be drawn from Royal After carefully hiding the tank from the prying eyes
Armoured Corps personnel; and that three engineer of the Tank Corps, he used the skills of the 1st Cana-
tanks, plus one in reserve, should be issued to each dian Mechanical Engineering Company and went to
engineer field squadron, the basic engineer unit in work. Denovan had them carefully keep the exterior
the armored division, which had two. of the tank intact, adding only mock pannier doors.
Denovan’s, Schortinghuis’s, and Reeves’s assump- Then, although officially he had no authority to
tions were supported by Maj. B. Sucharov of the alter the tank beyond that, he had them strip out all
Royal Canadian Engineers, who, in his report on the equipment not essential to his needs, including
Dieppe, had noted that tanks in an initial assault the codriver’s seat and dual driving controls, ammu-
could be equipped with mechanical devices for nition bins, the turret basket, and other ancillary
placing demolition charges and ramps to enable items. That created a thirty-six-cubic-foot stowage
them to exit the beach more easily. Further support area for engineer stores, demolitions, and tools, with
came on 19 October 1942 from Major Hawkins, room for a crew of six (commander, gunner, driver,
R.E., the commandant of the Anti-Tank Establish- loader, and two sappers). These modifications left the
ment, who wrote a short paper to the War Office, in original tank as little more than an armored shell.11
which he stated that although the task of breaching The main armament that Denovan planned on
obstacles for the passage of tanks and armored vehi- using for the vehicle was the Blacker Bombard,
cles should be that of the Royal Engineers, the cur- invented by Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker, a
rently available equipment was inadequate for the retired British Army lieutenant colonel. Stewart
task. He proposed the organization of specialized Blacker was something of a mechanical genius who,
Royal Engineer troops to address that problem.8 in World War I, had helped develop a synchronization
Reeves forwarded Denovan’s preliminary report mechanism that allowed the machine guns of Royal
to the War Office and urgently recommended devel- Flying Corps aircraft to be fired through the pro-
opment of an engineer tank. He also asked that a peller, thus ending one of the Germans’ significant
Churchill tank be supplied to his team so that a tactical advantages. His Bombard was a spigot mortar
mock-up prototype could be prepared, but since his that he had originally designed as a simple antitank
department was meant only for design and feasibility weapon during the dark days of 1940. It had been
studies and had no control of acquisition, it quickly a large and heavy—more than 300 pounds—
became apparent that it would be some time before contraption that used a black-powder charge to pro-
his request would be acted upon, if ever. Reeves pel a 14-pound high-explosive or a 19.5-pound
then turned his own attention to a new amphibious armor-piercing, shaped-charge round to a theoretical
tank design proposed by Nicholas Straussler, which maximum range of 450 yards, but it had a practical
became the duplex-drive (DD) tank.9 effective range of about 100 yards. (The design came
Then Denovan stepped in and somehow man- full circle in 1943 when the spigot mortar principle
aged to get his hands on the necessary requisition was utilized in the projector, infantry, anti-tank,
documents. According to one rumor, Denovan uti- which, known as the PIAT, was the standard Com-
lized his charms to convince his girlfriend, who was monwealth man-portable infantry antitank weapon
an Auxiliary Territorial Services clerk in charge of during the last years of the war.)
the tank supply paperwork, to turn the tank over to Denovan later claimed that he came up with the
him. Many years later, Denovan offered a less roman- idea of developing the Blacker Bombard into a