June 6, 1944

'As we approached the beach, we quickly came under fire from a large gun to the east. The first shell landed on the port side, with the noise as if we had been hit on the underside by a giant hammer.'


ABOARD LCT 405, there was immediate drama. ‘A submarine had been detected and destroyers began racing up and down the convoy dropping depth-charges,’ George Baker recalled. ‘As they exploded, the landing craft almost jumped out of the water with the blast.’

In choppy seas, the massive convoy – in the 3rd Division assault force alone, there were 350 vessels, including 132 tank landing craft – steamed through the short summer night.
On board, apprehension was growing. ‘But the main feeling was that we wanted to get on with it,’ said George. ‘We still didn’t realise what we were going into, but there was no turning back.’

On LCT 408, the crew of Gun F3, despite their desperate seasickness, made a pledge among themselves. When the traditional naval rum issue was handed out during the crossing, none of them drank it. Instead, their NCO Sergeant Bill Fletcher suggested that they should pour each individual portion into one single jug and put the whole lot to one side aboard the gun for safe keeping. The rum would not be drunk, they vowed, until they could use it to toast the end of the war.

High above the darkened ships, men of the British 6th Airborne Division were also en route for France. At 16 minutes after midnight, a specially-trained reinforced company of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry commanded by Major John Howard landed by glider almost on the Benouville bridges. In a swift and dramatic coup de main attack – easily the most successful operation of D-Day – they captured both crossings from German soldiers who were stunned by the unexpectedness of the assault.

The canal crossing was later renamed Pegasus Bridge in honour of the winged horse symbol of the Airborne forces and the river crossing was dubbed Horsa Bridge, after the gliders which carried the men to war.

Control of the bridges, and keeping them intact, was vital to the success of the invasion. It meant the Germans could not use them for a flank attack on the seaborne assault troops, while Allied forces could cross them and form a defensive shield east of the Orne. F Troop’s D-Day mission was to race to the bridges, deploy its guns around them, and stop enemy planes destroying them or ground forces recapturing them.

As the grey dawn of June 6 broke in the Channel, a sight unfolded that would forever be imprinted on the memories of the men who saw it. More than 6,000 vessels covered the sea from horizon to horizon, the greatest seaborne force ever assembled, carrying 150,000 troops of the spearhead divisions to the beaches of France.

The air shook with a deafening barrage of noise. Waves of bombers and fighters blasted German positions, battleships sent massive shells roaring overhead towards the shore and rocket–firing vessels recoiled violently as they unleashed their deadly cargoes. ‘It was incredible.’ said George Baker. ‘You would never believe how it could have been done – the organisation it must have taken to land so many men and all their vehicles and equipment in such a short time.’

At 7.25am, preceded by amphibious Sherman tanks of the 13th / 18th Hussars, the assault infantry of 3rd Division’s 8 Brigade began landing on Queen sector of Sword Beach between the small seaside resort of La Breche d’Hermanville and Lion sur Mer and started fighting their way inland. On their left, towards Ouistreham, a Commando force under Lord Lovat, memorably accompanied by Piper Bill Millin, headed for the Benouville bridges to reinforce Howard’s hard-pressed Airborne troops.

Next to land would be 185 Brigade, followed by 9 Brigade – to whose convoy the 92nd’s two LCTs were attached. However, the first men ashore from the regiment were the F Troop CO, Captain Reid, and Sergeant Francis Connor, whose job was to reconnoitre suitable positions where the Bofors Guns could be sited around the bridges. They went into the beachhead with the assault infantry, then made their way to Benouville by motorcycle with the Commando force to be ready to receive the main body of the troop.

F Troop’s two LCTs started their run-in at 1pm and were due to touch down on the beaches at 1.25pm. But heavy fire from German artillery began landing dangerously close to the convoy, sending up gigantic plumes of water as the shells roared in. The vessels had to turn back while the battleship HMS Warspite went in to reply with its own formidable firepower. On LCT 405 (whose regular number was LCT 627), there was a brush with danger as a loose mine floated along the port side, but fortunately passed by without doing any damage.

For Ken Nash, a young driver-operator aboard the landing craft, there came a moment of poignancy amid the drama. By coincidence, his father, a naval officer, was aboard the corvette escorting the convoy. As the run-in started again at 2pm, his father sent across a message of good luck. Soon, Queen Red beach was in sight – smoke rising from it as the German bombardment intensified, with long-range guns from Le Havre, nearly 20 miles away to the east, finding their range among the packed Allied ships.

Jim Holder-Vale, another young driver-operator of 92nd LAA aboard LCT 405, recalled: ‘The first shell landed not too far away on the port side, with the noise as if we had been hit on the underside by a giant hammer. We were told to go to the sides of the LCT, where wooden packing cases had been placed to help us keep afloat in the event of us being hit and having to abandon ship. The next round landed in the sea on the starboard side, and I remember thinking, “We’ve been bracketed!” But we were now close to the beach and had to join our vehicles and start up.’

At 2.30pm, as the landing craft approached Queen Red near the village of Coleville sur Orne (renamed Coleville Montgomery after the war in honour of Field Marshal Montgomery), its First Lieutenant, Arthur Walters, went forward to supervise the lowering of the ramp and the disembarkation of men and vehicles. He recalled: ‘I can remember during this time seeing bodies floating past and wrecked landing craft drifting some way off the beach – in particular, an LCT of similar mark to my own, with an empty open tank space but with a vacant, flattened, smoking quarterdeck, where there used to be a wheelhouse, wardroom, and bridge superstructure – and no sign of life. The sight of such a familiar craft in such an unfamiliar, almost unrecognisable, state, I found quite uncanny.’

Ahead of the First Lieutenant went an Able Seaman – an Irishman named Breen – wearing a lifebelt and attached to a lifeline, with the unenviable task of checking the submerged beach for hidden shallows and mines before the vehicles began rolling off the LCT. He returned safely and was rewarded with an extra tot of rum.
Jim Holder-Vale recalled: ‘When the ramp came down, the first vehicle off was one with a winch at the rear in case of any mishap and a vehicle needing help, but it drove straight into a large crater in the sand and we had all disembarked by the time it was freed.’

As First Lieutenant Walters watched the guns and men safely disembark, he clutched thoughtfully at the Colt .45 pistol with which he had been issued before setting out. ‘I had orders to wear it and to use it against any unauthorised person who might attempt to board while we were beached,‘ he recalled. ‘And it was made clear to me that this included friend or foe.’

At this hour of the invasion, the military planners had anticipated a counter-attack by the Germans being in progress, with the possibility that some British troops might be keen for a quick return to England. Thus came the uncompromising command to the landing craft officers. ‘I was relieved at not having to put this order into effect,’ said Arthur Walters. ‘And at not causing myself any accidental damage, for which these Colt .45s were notorious!’

At 3pm the LCT, despite triggering a small beach mine, pulled back off the sand to return to England and pick up further loads for Normandy. The vessel immediately on its starboard side, LCT 1023, was not so lucky. It suffered a direct hit from a German shell and was badly damaged, but later salvaged.

For the other F Troop men on LCT 408, there was equal drama and hazard. Approaching the beach, the landing craft was diverted at the last minute by a patrolling Navy motor launch – thought to have been the Crocus – possibly because of some unseen hazard, such as a mine.

Then, when it finally started its run-in, a wave carried it on to an overturned landing craft, and the impact pierced the side of the vessel. The LCT became stuck fast on the wreck, with shells starting to land all around it. But, just as its prospects were starting to look bleak, a second wave came along – and, mercifully, pushed it off again. However, the peril was not over. As the landing craft came free, the hole in its side left it in danger of foundering.

The skipper urgently ordered everyone to move to the opposite side of the vessel, and the listing LCT 408 managed to complete its run-in on to the beach. Because of the diversion, the landing craft came ashore at La Breche on Queen Green beach, about a quarter of a mile west of its designated sector. By now, the rapidly rising tide was narrowing the strip of sand on Sword, which was a melee of men, guns, vehicles and wreckage under constant enemy fire.

As the ramp went down, the same sailor who had called out to the men during the pre-invasion Fabius exercise appeared again to give them a final send-off, shouting: ‘Soldiers, you are about to find out this is the real thing.’ But as the guns splashed into 4ft of water, the crews had a more immediate worry: Would they come to a dangerous, perhaps fatal, halt in the shallows, or would the engine waterproofing work?

Seconds later, they had their answer as engines revved healthily and the three SP Bofors powered up out of the surf. Aboard F3, a spontaneous cheer went up for driver Ike Parry – who was responsible for the waterproofing – and Gunner Leo McCarthy reached forward to pat him gratefully on the back. The first test had been passed.

Having become separated from their comrades in LCT 405 – who had already set off for Benouville – the three guns made all speed to catch up. Weaving through the chaos, carnage and confusion on the beach, they drove up the sands and on to the coastal road, past lines of infantry who were digging in – and the tragic figures of soldiers who had fallen. Eventually, they were reunited with the other three guns in Colleville and the whole troop began an agonisingly slow trek through the afternoon to try to cover the four hazardous miles to Benouville.

At St Aubin d’Arquenay, all traffic was halted for a time because the road ahead was under accurate enemy fire from nearby woods and from Benouville itself. ‘From somewhere came the order that, “We shall have to go and clear the buggers out”, and we were told to fetch our small arms and any grenades,’ recalled Jim Holder-Vale. ‘Almost at the same time, deliverance arrived.’

This ‘deliverance’ came from the skies – the follow–up waves of the British Airborne attack. At a few minutes before 9pm, the men of F Troop watched awestruck as the sky suddenly started to fill with Dakotas and Halifaxes towing 250 Horsa and Hamilcar gliders, bringing reinforcements of 6th Airlanding Brigade into the Benouville bridgehead. Minutes later, the gliders cast off from their towplanes and began sweeping into land, crashing and tearing across fields and through hedges, straight across the line of advance of the six Bofors.

Nothing, it seemed, was going to stop them. ‘The Germans had planted the fields with huge poles which ripped the wings off as the gliders landed,’ George Baker recalled. ‘But the Airborne poured out, firing at anything – including us.’ As the glider troops sprayed machine gun fire, several infantrymen from the Suffolk Regiment, one of the 3rd Division assault battalions, were hit and fell wounded by the roadside. The Bofors crews also had to take cover, having possibly been mistaken for Germans.

‘The reason, I am sure, was because of our helmets,’ recalled Len Harvey. ‘Just before we left England, we had been issued with the new-style helmet which had a rim curving slightly downwards towards the back In profile, and from a distance, it could have looked to the Airborne troops like a German helmet. I found out later that they were just following their training – to get out of the aircraft as quickly as possible, firing all the time, until they could take cover by the wheels. But their arrival threw everything into confusion.’

With the column of vehicles temporarily stalled by the Airborne landings, German snipers took advantage – leading to a remarkable brush with death for one man of the 92nd.
Bill Husband, another driver-operator, tells the story: ‘I was standing up in the cab of our lorry and two or three trucks in front, a gun mechanic was also standing up. Suddenly, he disappeared. I crawled down to a ditch to find out what had happened to him. He was okay. When I asked what had happened, he showed me his tin hat. A sniper, probably in the wood, had taken a shot at him. The bullet had gone into one side of his hat, parted his hair and come out the other side – luck!’

That evening, finally reaching the outskirts of Benouville, the Bofors crews found buildings still occupied by snipers. One particularly troublesome German was targeting the British from the belfry of the church tower at nearby Le Port and when the F Troop convoy arrived, it too came under fire from him. But an Airborne officer told the artillerymen to turn their guns on the church and the sniper was rooted out with a blast of 40mm, leaving a big hole in the tower.

The German survived and was taken captive. Many snipers on both sides were routinely shot out of hand, but this German was a young man and the compassion of his captors even in the heat of battle may possibly have saved him. Or it could simply have been the case that prisoners were more valuable alive than dead at this stage of the invasion, because they might provide vital intelligence.

According to the history of The Loyal Regiment by Captain C G T Dean, the guns were also fired at short range directly into windows and doorways and the troop took 12 prisoners.
But, because of the disruption caused by the Airborne landings, it was decided to dig in for the night on the approaches to the bridges, rather than attempt a direct deployment in the gathering darkness. Huddled in their slit trenches, the men kept a tense vigil until dawn.

At 7am, F Troop finally deployed its guns – two around the canal bridge, two around the river bridge, and two in between. Troop headquarters was set up on the edge of a field along the Le Port road, about a quarter of a mile from Benouville town hall and offering a good view of Pegasus Bridge and the Caen Canal. Today, that view is obscured because trees have grown along the canal bank.

Half an hour later, the first enemy aircraft – a squadron of Messerschmitts – came roaring in and were engaged by the Bofors. Throughout the next nine days, as the Germans tried to retake the narrow Airborne bridgehead east of the Orne, the F Troop men were to endure a true baptism of fire, including 11 attacks by formations of up to 30 aircraft. At the same time, persistent German shelling, sniping and mortaring of the gun positions started inflicting casualties.

As the first day wore on, with the Bofors constantly in action, it became apparent that the troop’s expected reinforcements would not be arriving. Unknown to the gunners around the bridges, the liberty ship Sambut, carrying the rest of 318 and RHQ to Normandy, had been sunk around noon on D-Day by shellfire ner the Goodwin Sands in the Dover Strait. Eight men of the 92nd died and all guns and equipment were lost.

Despite this, the bridges had to be defended at all costs. On June 8, waves of FW 190s came in at treetop height to attack both crossings, and time after time were repulsed by the Bofors.

The following morning, more enemy aircraft were engaged and at midday the river bridge came under a ferocious mortar barrage, lasting half an hour. During the bombardment, the breech of Gun F3 was set on fire and Sgt A Clements risked his life by courageously unloading its high-explosive shells – earning a Mention in Dispatches. When the barrage finally lifted, Gunners Leo McCarthy and Joe Lavender of Gun F3 were found to be wounded and were evacuated.

There were some bizarre moments. During one particularly fierce mortar attack near Pegasus Bridge, when most men were huddled in slit trenches, George Baker glanced across from the gulley where he had taken refuge and was stunned to see a padre from the Airborne calmly conducting divine service. Another gunner, doubtless trusting to the greater protection of the Almighty, left his own refuge and ran across to join in the prayers.

One stricken Messerschmitt crash-landed close to George’s gun. He watched as the pilot strutted Nazi-style out of the wreckage – to be helped into captivity by a push from the rifle butt of a Royal Ulster Rifles infantryman. Men reacted in various ways to their first experience of war, George recalled. ‘Some took to it like ducks to water, others couldn‘t stand it.’

The first four days around the bridges saw desperately intense action, with F Troop firing 5,000 rounds of 40mm at German raiders and shooting down 17 – but it paid off. Enemy aircraft continued their attacks over the next two days, but at higher level, having found their treetop tactics too costly. As Len Harvey recalled one Airborne corporal remarking to the weary F Troop men: ‘It looks like your guns have won Round One.’ Captain Reid was later awarded the MC for leading the defence of the bridges.

Thwarted by day, the Germans instead launched night sorties, mainly dropping the hated anti-personnel bombs, capable of tearing a man apart. On June 9, the marching party of 60 men from 318 Battery – which had landed in the Canadian sector, east of Sword Beach, having travelled separately from the Sambut contingent – reached Benouville, bringing some respite to their hard–pressed comrades at the bridges.

A REME workshop detachment also arrived. But there was still no sign of the battery’s remaining guns. Next day, the F Troop men finally heard news of the Channel tragedy from the CO, Colonel Bazeley, who made his way into the bridgehead. The Sambut had sailed from Southend in convoy early on D-Day, with the remainder of 318 and RHQ – 120 officers and men – aboard. In all, the liberty ship was carrying a total of 562 troops from 28 different units, 63 crew, plus vehicles, weapons and large quantities of ammunition and high explosives.

Just after midday on June 6, disaster struck. Three miles off Dover, the ship was hit by two 16-inch shells fired from German gun batteries in Calais – the most terrible misfortune, for the salvoes could not have been aimed. Fierce fires broke out and could not be tackled because the pumping gear was put out of action.

After about 45 minutes, the master had to order abandon ship. ‘The troops went over the side in a very orderly manner,’ wrote Captain Bill Almond of 92nd LAA. ‘The wounded were also taken off the ship and by 1400 hours she had been completely abandoned and the survivors had been picked up by a variety of small craft. One officer and 73 other ranks swam to a corvette and were not disembarked in the UK until three days later, after enjoying a ringside view of the landing beaches, whither the corvette was steaming at the time.’

In his book Liberty – The Ships That Won The War, author Peter Elphick gives fuller details of the Sambut disaster, pointing out that she was the first Liberty ship lost during the Normandy campaign. The Sambut, launched in August 1943 in Portland, Orgeon, as the C S Jones, was under the command of Captain Mark Willis.

The first shell which struck her landed just behind the engine room, the second just forward of the bridge. Inflammable equipment on deck, including lorries loaded with explosives and cases of petrol and diesel, immediately caught fire. The petrol cases had been covered with sandbags, but that did not prevent them igniting. Unfortunately, the first shell damaged much of the firefighting equipment and in consequence within ten minutes fire had really taken hold.

A few minutes later, a consignment of gelignite in a lorry stowed on No 2 hatch exploded, completely wrecking the bridge and the port side lifeboats. Captain Willis later reported: ‘As the fire was spreading rapidly, I rang the emergency alarm bell and ordered abandon ship. All my crew were clear of the ship in the two remaining starboard lifeboats by 12.30. The ship carried some 30 rafts for the troops. These were released and I told the soldiers to jump overboard to them.

‘At first some were rather diffident at the thought of jumping, but they quickly jumped on being told that the ship was likely to blow up at any moment. Everyone should have been wearing lifebelts and I had given specific instructions to the OC troops at 0600 that morning that lifebelts were to be worn from that time onwards. The pilot, chief officer and I were last to leave the ship at approximately 12.40.

‘We jumped over the side and swam to a raft. A number of dead bodies were floating in the water, many with lifebelts on. It is possible that many of the missing troops were drowned, but some were undoubtedly killed as they were having dinner in the troop deck which was in the vicinity of the explosion.

‘Four Naval motor launches from Dover appeared very quickly, but I thought were extremely slow in picking up survivors. MLs are totally unsuitable for rescue work, sides too high and inexperienced crews. I would like to point out that the convoy did not use a smokescreen. After my vessel was struck, I started my own smoke apparatus and other ships in the convoy followed my example.’

The author gives the loss of life as 130 soldiers, plus six Sambut crew members. Of the 92nd contingent, three men were killed, four were missing presumed dead, one died of wounds and 14 were wounded. All the regiment’s equipment and records on board the ship were lost. The burning hulk of the Sambut, rocked by explosions, was finally sunk by a Royal Navy torpedo at location 51 08 N, 01 33 E because its wreckage was a hazard to the rest of the invasion fleet.

Those who died from 92nd LAA were Sergeant Frederick Blaker, Sergeant Percy Ring, Bombardier John Wolfe, Gunner Wilfred Lever and Gunner Walter Hartley – all of 318 Battery – Bombardier Sidney Crane and Gunner Herbert Davies – both of RHQ – and Corporal George Challinor, of the Royal Corps of Signals, attached RHQ.
For the F Troop men dug in at Benouville and Ranville, it was a tragic loss, both in comrades and much-needed reinforcements. But gradually, Luftwaffe raids against the bridges became sporadic and the gunners were able to lend more support to infantry operations with ground shoots.

On June 12 came a potentially more formidable task. A German counter-attack from the east by Tiger tanks was thought to be imminent, and all the Bofors Guns were driven back to the bridges and loaded with armour-piercing shot ready to meet the assault. Fortunately – especially since tank armour was unlikely to be penetrated by the relatively light 40mm Bofors fire – the ground assault never materialised. On June 15, F Troop was finally relieved by corps LAA and sent to defend the airstrip at Plumetot.

7. BATTLE OF THE BRIDGEHEAD