NAVY NEWS D-DAY SUPPLEMENT X I I I Options
Motor torpedo boats on patrol in the Channel. They were among the forces which countered enemy attacks on the Allied lifeline to Normandy.
FOR THE third night running the E-boats had scored kills in the Channel. In the early morning of J u n e 7 t h e y had claimed an A m e r i c a n tank landing ship and the previous night had sunk two British landing craft. Now the fast, torpedoarmed attackers had in darkness and rain evaded escorting warships to mortally damage two more American LSTs. As accompanying destroyer HMS Beagle moved in to start the rescue operation, her commanding officer, Lt Cdr Norman Murch, knew that to save the lives of American troops he would have to put his ship at risk. Steaming in what he knew to be a German minefield, he ordered the destroyer's searchlights to be switched on to illuminate the survivors struggling in the b i t t e r l y cold w a t e r . Everyone on board was aware that if any E-boats were still lurking out there in the darkness, Beagle's light was presenting them with a target beacon that could be seen for miles.
Ablaze As she neared the LST she lowered scrambling nets and several of the ship's company climbed down. Waist-deep in the choppy sea they helped exhausted GIs to clamber to safety. A whaler was launched and pulled away into the night in search of other survivors, while six ratings jumped into the water in an effort to reach men too weak to swim. One of the sailors, a torpedo g u n n e r ' s mate, narrowly missed being cut to pieces by Beagle's propellors as he went over the stern to help a survivor. Soon the frigate HMS Retalick arrived on the scene. From her Able Seaman N o r m a n Ryder could see that the LST was ablaze from stem to stern and glowing red hot. Her ammunition was exploding and flying in all directions — and 20 men left on board were huddled up in the bow section. Those who had entered the tossing waves were finding it difficult to swim towards the R e t a l i c k , and the frigate's motor boat had to make three trips to the burning vessel to save the men still on board and to recover all those who could be found in the sea — including
The good shepherds • Operational units available to the German Navy to counter the Allied invasion fleet on June 6 included three destroyers, four torpedo boats, 29 E-boats and 36 U-boats. Allied escort groups and coastal forces comprised hundreds of vessels from aircraft carriers to motor launches — the vast majority of the ships being British. Their main purpose was to deny attackers access to "The Spout" — the cross-Channel convoy route to the beaches — and to protect the beachhead anchorages. For many vessels this entailed hunting U-boats, dodging enemy shore batteries, beating off air attacks, fending off midget submarines and fighting running battles with German surface forces at night. The mines were a 24-hour hazard. three bodies. The harrowing events of that night formed just one of a series of incidents in the unremitting battle to keep the Normandy beachhead resupplied and reinforced.
Thwarted For those unlucky enough to die by fire or by drowning in a cold sea, the battle was lost at the greatest possible cost to themselves. But in the wider context of the battle for Normandy the destruction of two LSTs out of the hundreds of ships plying back and forth to France came nowhere near to closing the sea lanes. The enemy would have to do better than that. Elsewhere that night their efforts to increase naval pressure on the Allied lifeline were being thwarted. The commander of Hitler's weak maritime forces in the West, A d m i r a l Theodor Krancke, was attempting under cover of darkness to deploy his serviceable destroyers from their base at Brest. His orders had been intercepted and decoded by Allied intelligence — and ships of the Royal Navy's
Tenth Destroyer Flotilla were waiting . . . For Able Seaman Sydney Kennerley in the Tribal-class destroyer HMS Ashanti, Operation Neptune seemed to have been going on since the previous winter when the flotilla was first given the task of making offensive sweeps of the Channel in preparation for the invasion. Ashanti had already sunk enemy minesweepers and torpedo boats. Now she and her flotilla-mates were on the hunt again — this time for Krancke's destroyers. They had to be
•'"
on the night of June 10-11 when HM Steam G u n b o a t Grey Goose was on patrol with her sister-ship Grey Wolf. Able Seaman gunner Frank Haworth in Grey Goose was c o n t e m p l a t i n g the past few days and n i g h t s on "The Mason-Dixie Line," nickname for the outer perimeter of the anchorage for the Eastern Task Force. Then from their control ship, the destroyer USS Frankford, they were warned of an imminent E-boat attack. The enemy vessels had been picked up on the warship's radar. Firing starshells, the gunboats spotted two of the German vessels at a range of only 1,200 yds. The E-boats immediately opened fire, their green tracer bursts whipping over the Grey Goose's mast.
Mother ship
American survivor of a sunken LST enjoys naval hospitality on board HMS Beagle (pictured below off the Normandy beaches).
found before they could wreak havoc in "The Spout." The German ships were intercepted off He de Batz as they headed north-east up Channel. Chasing the enemy destroyers ZH1 and Z32, Ashanti set the first on fire. But the British force did not go unscathed in the running fight: Z32 scored hits on HMS Tartar, causing a fire on board and knocking out her flotilla communications. Successfully e x t i n g u i s h i n g the flames, Tartar was still in the fight. She and A s h a n t i scored hits on Z32 and more on the battered ZH1 which by this time was ablaze.
Finally. Ashanti delivered the coup de grace by firing a salvo of torpedoes, two of which hit ZH1 which blew up and sank. Later the damaged Z32 was driven ashore on He de Batz by the Canadian destroyer Haida. Krancke's desperate bid to make a significant surface attack on the Allied supply route had failed. If his destroyers were no longer a threat, the E-boats were. For weeks they would operate every n i g h t t h a t weather permitted, snapping up a coaster here, a landing craft there. But in many more instances thev were seen off— as
.
Pictures: Imperial War Museum
The British vessels returned fire and there ensued a short running battle from which the outgunned and damaged Eboats retired under cover of smoke. Small and vulnerable to damage, the MTBs and gunboats did not a l w a y s r e t u r n uns c a t h e d . A b l e Seam J o h n Squires in the cruiser HMS Scylla listened nightly to the dramatic radio traffic between the little ships as they sighted and engaged their German opposite numbers. Until she was mined on June 23 Scylla was flagship of Rear A d m i r a l P h i l i p V i a n comm a n d i n g the Eastern Task Force. She acted as "mother ship" for many of the MTBs and in the mornings Squires would sometimes watch as the boats returned, often with dead and wounded among their tiny crews.
Ammo fire In Motor Launch 294 Stoker Arthur Waring came very close to being one of those casualties. While on night patrol ML 294 was surprised by E-boals. They hit and seriously wounded the rear gunner, damaged the radar tower and — most dangerously — set on fire the ammunition locker at the stem. Her c o m m a n d i n g officer yelled for Waring to start the pumps. Obeying, he dropped down the engine-room hatch and laboured to help save the craft. After a short while he realised he was the only member of the crew below — and the fire on board was very near the • Turn to next page