Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist: World War II

Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 June 2014

More on Dad's War - Gooseberries!

First I want to thank all of you who responded so positively, both here and on Facebook, to my post on Dad's D-Day.

A few more things have come to light and, rather than add to the first post (I did put a postscript to it yesterday), I though they deserved a follow-up post.

The Black Watch

First, it wasn't unusual for a lad from the outskirts of Manchester to be in the Black Watch.

The experiences of the First World War had shown the authorities the dangers of localising recruitment too much - if a Pals' Battalion met a couple of well-prepared German machine gunners, it made for a very bad day back in the home town*. Once the Second World War got underway, it was therefore decided to make efforts to mix-up drafts (this hadn't been the case with regular soldiers and territorials - the casualty lists from the BEF and the fall of Singapore have a heavy localised element). Dad's draft was used to fill in some of the gaps left in the Highland Brigade following the fall of France.

*This however, did make for some odd situations. As late as the 1980s, the biggest export market for Benedictine liqueur was Burnley.

Orkney at War

WWI defences remain

Although they may seem a back-water now, during both wars, the Orkney Islands were an important part of the country's military machine. The naval base at Lynness, using the sheltered anchorage of Scapa Flow, was established in 1904 as a base for the Grand Fleet, facing any enemy coming from the Baltic. It's remoteness was a definite advantage and it was the major naval port during the First World War.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the base (then known as HMS Propserine) was again selected as a 'safe' anchorage - safe because it was thought to be out of range of German airfields and immune to submarine attack (there had been a couple of attempts by U-boats to penetrate the anchorage during the First World War, but they were unsuccessful). The sinking of HMS Royal Oak by U-47 in October 1939 with the loss of over 800 lives, along with an air-raid three days later, was a major blow to British military confidence. Immediate steps were made to boost the defences, blockships were sunk and causeways built to close off entrances to Scapa and an RAF station (RAF Grimsetter, later HMS Robin, now Kirkwall Airport) was established.

Dad was part of the military garrison. For a rambler and bird-watcher, it was ideal.

The Reconnaissance Corps

At some stage (and I should really apply for Dad's service record) he transferred to the Reconnaissance Corps.

The Recce Corps had been established in 1941 to act as a mobile spearhead for infantry divisions (hence the design of the cap badge - not a Christmas Tree, but lightning strikes and a spear). Squadrons consisting of troops of three Humber Light Reconnaissance Cars or Bren Carriers would push forward of the main advance. It was intended that this should have the ethos of an 'elite' force. At the end of the war the Recce Corps was disbanded and its duties absorbed into the Royal Armoured Corps.

There's a photo at the Bovington Tank Museum of Dad peeling potatoes (it came as quite a shock for my sister to see it there on the wall!). Given the amour connection (and that NCOs don't do spud-bashing!), I suspect that this is from his time in the Recce Corps.

D-Day, Canadians and Gooseberries

As I said the other day, by D-Day Dad was in the Royal Engineers. He sailed from Portsmouth and landed with the Canadians on Nan Sector of Juno Beach (Bernières-sur-Mer) - I added some pics of this to the other post last night. Dad said the locals were quite amused by French-Canadians - they spoke in an olde-worldy, almost Victorian, way*

He was quite pleased to land without getting his feet wet - he hitched a lift on a tank. This was probably one of the amphibious tanks from the Fort Gary Horse of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, but possibly an AVRE (Armoured Vehicle, Royal Engineers) from the 79th Armoured Division. If he was with the Fort Garry Horse he was lucky - amphibious tanks on other beaches had a poor record of reaching shore safely. I don't think Dad ever learned to swim.

The fact that he landed at Juno (which I'd kind of known beforehand) and something he said to me about landing equipment directly onto the beaches, makes me wonder I was wrong in assuming that he was involved in the construction of Mulberry B. Thinking on it, I wonder if instead he was worked at the Gooseberry 4 Harbour on Juno.

Configuration of a Gooseberry Harbour

The Gooseberries are much less well-known than the Mulberries. They were a lot less impressive engineering feats, and didn't have the same propaganda value.

Note the calm area to the lea of the blockships

The five Gooseberry harbours, which were on the flanking beaches, were smaller than the two Mulberries. Basically blockships, code-named 'Corn Cobs' (there were eleven of them forming Gooseberry 4 off Juno), were scuttled off the beaches to provide a sheltered anchorage and run inshore. With the Mulberries this was only the first stage and extra elements were added to create docks, etc. In Gooseberry harbours, men and equipment were landed directly onto the beach from landing craft. Interestingly, the American decision (against RN advice) to re-configure the Gooseberry at Utah greatly contributed to the loss of Mulberry A during the storm of 19-21 June.

* As an aside, when I was doing postgrad work at Bangor, I was wingman to a guy from Quebec. This led to two approaches:-
1. ME (to fellow students): "My friend's from Quebec and I'm telling him about different accents. You're from Middlesborough, right?", and
2. HIM (to local girls): "Hello I'm part of a linguistic minority" [UNSAID: being a monoglot Anglophone from Qubec]"
The second was quite risky - we had some very scary Welsh nationalists come back to our place! In the end he hitched up with a girl from South London doing a PhD in Marine Biology (AKA "The Crab Doctor).

Friday, 6 June 2014

D-Day Family Memories

Hubert King (1922-2010)

As I'm sure nobody needs telling, today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the start of the Normandy Campaign. My Dad was there. A young WO with the Royal Engineers (he had previously served in the Black Watch and the Reconnaissance Corps) he landed in the second wave at about 8.00am that morning with a Canadian Division.

Mulberry B

His job was in the receiving and management of supplies from the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches. The Engineers built a pre-fab harbour out of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties, and had ten miles of floating roadways to land men and vehicles on the beach. This was completed in just three days, becoming operational on 9 June. The plan was that harbour would avoid the necessity for a quick capture of one of the French ports and would be used for about three months following the landings to land men and materiel. In the event the British harbour, Mulberry B (soon known as Port Winston), was used for much longer than that (the American Mulberry at Omaha Beach was destroyed by a storm on 19 June). In the period D+4 to 31 October (D+147), 628,000 tons of supplies, 40,000 vehicles and 220,000 troops were put ashore - expressed in another way, that was 35% of British stores, 17% of British vehicles and 23% of British personnel. An original report to SHAEF on the harbour can be read here.

Churchill visits Mulberry B, July 1944

The shells flying overhead as they worked during the naval bombardment of Caen made an indelible impression on Dad.

I only know a very little about Dad's time in France - he preferred his time guarding the Orkney Islands, and never lost his love of Scotland! He did retain a fondness for Camembert (he used to swap his cigarette ration with the French farmers). At some stage before the end of 1944 he took a strictly-against-regulations lift from a motorcycle despatch rider. They were involved in a serious accident - Dad was flown back to England and spent most of the the rest of the war in a military hospital; he never quite lost his limp. On the last day of the war he was hiking in Snowdonia with his brother.

Revisiting Normandy for the first time, 1994

Dad never dwelt on the war - he never wanted to be one of those men he remembered from the 1930s going on pilgrimages to Flanders and belittling the next generation. He never applied for his medals, and he used his tartan trews for decorating trousers! However, as the 50th anniversary of D-Day approached, he decided that he wanted to go back and, in June 1994, he and Mum had a very enjoyable holiday in Normandy, where the veterans were treated as stars by the French.

My Dad. I miss him.

Thank you to the other bloggers who have inspired me to post this today.

EDIT

A Sister Writes...

Lovely to read this and Jimmy'a comments. Arramanches was on sword beach, Dad landed on Juno at Bernieres-sur-Mer, with a Winnipeg Canadian unit. He dug a fox hole in front of the only standing house on the front. Completed a notice board which was used for the visit from the king etc.