Gary's Soapbox: 70th Anniversary of D Day (the largest combined sea, air, and land military operation in history), We must remember them and the sacrifices made.

Friday, 6 June 2014

70th Anniversary of D Day (the largest combined sea, air, and land military operation in history), We must remember them and the sacrifices made.

Operation Overlord

"Do you realise that by the time you wake up in the morning 20,000 men may have been killed?" {Churchill to his wife the night before D-Day}

On the 6th of June 1944 175,000 troops landed on the Normandy coast, helped there by more than 5,000 ships, crewed by 195,700 personnel from the Allied navies and merchant navies.

The allies put ashore 5 divisions on Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. By the end of the day nearly 4,500 had died achieving the beachhead.

Despite various films attempts to portray D Day as a predominately US operation this is a myth and Overlord was the brainchild largely of Gen. Bernard Montgomery, the land force commander. The majority of Warships, Landing craft and Aircraft involved were British.

My uncle was a sailor on a landing craft and they had to return for repairs after the landing craft hit a mine. Uncle Charlie was in the army but not sure where, he never made it back.

My Dad landed on D Day +6 (that's 6 days later) as part of the Royal Engineers at Arromanches, probably as part of one of the below. Still trying to locate which one, and I remember him saying that his commander was Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks

14th Field Squadron Royal Engineers
615th Field Squadron Royal Engineers
148th Field Park Squadron Royal Engineers
11th Bridging Troop Royal Engineers
Guards Armoured Division Postal Unit Royal Engineers
5th Guards Armoured Brigade Workshop Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
32nd Guards Brigade Workshop Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

Dad helped build the Montgomery Bridge and had something to do with the bridge at Nijmegan and was with REs helping troops back across the river at Arnhem after the failed Market Garden operation.