Operation Neptune: D-Day Landings in Normandy June 1944

544 pages

Rear Admiral Guy Liardet

Being way out of touch, I had not hoisted in that Dartmouth college had sprouted a museum in 1999 nor that it was sponsoring a series of Britannia Naval Histories of World War II, titles of which include Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo; Fire and Ice, Arctic Convoys 1941-1945: Rise of the Aircraft Carrier, Pacific Naval Strategy 1941-1945 and so forth. They draw upon battle summaries written up by naval officers during the conflict and soon after 1945. Once stamped ‘Confidential’ or ‘Restricted’, they are now held available in an archive at BRNC.

A brief Foreword by Craig Symonds, much published Professor Emeritus at the US Naval Academy where he taught for 30 years, welcomes this addition to the series and notes that the goal was to articulate useful lessons rather than produce a triumphalist narrative, thus this ‘succinct and focused account’ has particularly candid assessments. G H Bennett is an associate professor at Plymouth University and is again a much-published historian who writes the 40-page Introduction. This sets the Normandy invasion in its strategic context with chilling remarks about the consequences of failure – huge losses amongst inland parachutists and scant opportunity to mount another attempt before summer 1945 by which time Soviet armies would have dominated Western Europe.  He describes the large number of complex training exercises including the tragic ‘Tiger’, intercepted by E-boats with loss of many American lives and two LSTs. There is emphasis on the importance of naval gunfire support with an account of the rescue of the desperate situation at Omaha beach by destroyers approaching so close as to be hit by small arms fire. There is a full account of the efforts by the Kriegsmarine, which often gets only a passing mention, but here shown to be “more active, with a higher degree of success over a much longer time than many accounts of D-Day acknowledge.” Doenitz in captivity without access to records thought that U-boats fitted with schnorkel had good results. Five escorts were sunk with two landing craft and four merchant vessels. But Appendix L of the Naval Staff paper shows 43 U-boats sunk between June and September, supporting John Terraine’s view that the inshore campaign was a “fiasco”.

Michael Pearce has served with MoD (Navy) for 40 years including 12 years teaching at Dartmouth and as a historian is a trustee of the Britannia Museum and a series editor. In Part 1, he has compiled 57 pages of contemporary photographs of every type of ship and nation and various weapons as well as aerial shots of the beaches accompanied by interesting commentary. For example, here is the battleship Rodney artificially heeling the ship to raise the elevation of her 16-inch guns above 40 degrees to achieve a range of 22 miles.

Part II Battle Summary No. 39 Operation NEPTUNE. The Introduction sets out the objectives, summarises the opposition and describes the ‘overwhelming’ Allied air contribution – excluding non-combat types – 5,886 aircraft. The Naval Problem included the co-ordination of the movement of over 5,000 ships and then the firepower of warships.  Planning started in 1942 when the war situation was bleak in Russia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.  The summary continues with the story of development of the plan with early decisions for a daylight landing, the place and the initial forces needed. Improvised harbours had to be provided by D+4.

Eisenhower’s system and structure of command is fully described.  In the Conclusion, Admiral Ramsay “expressed his deepest admiration” for the manner in which the Supreme Commander directed and coordinated the efforts of so many Commands of all services of “both our countries.”

A mass of maps show the minesweeping effort, the largest ever undertaken with 250 sweepers, the convoy routes to the beaches, lowering areas, ranges expected from German artillery, ship by ship counter-battery allocations. A telling map shows how that there were no spare anchorages in the Solent or Spithead.

The narrative of the assaults follows with its successes and disasters. The British clearly benefitted from Montgomery’s insistence that DD tanks should land with infantry and from General Hobart’s ‘funnies’ (flail tanks, flamethrowers, AVRE tanks, beach clearance tanks). The weather was if anything slightly worse than forecast and June 19 brought a very damaging northerly gale lasting four days.

Part VII covers the post-Assault Period with the organisation of beachmasters controlling the astonishing volumes of men, stores, ammunition and vehicles. By about 24 June casualties from mines, mainly air dropped, were becoming serious, particularly the new unsweepable ‘pressure’ mine. It’s not mentioned here that the unfortunate mining of the Scylla, Admiral Vian’s flagship, was due to the admiral’s trademark impatience with the counter of very slow speed that had been instituted. I had not realised that German shelling forced the closure of Sword beach from 25 June, the other two beaches being capable of accepting the extra traffic.  On 5 July (D+29) the millionth man was landed in France.

I find I don’t have the words to describe the stunning amount of detail in this 500-page book.  Appendices A to Q catalogue command structures, list participants from battleships to cable ships, endless pages of names of destroyers, frigates, sloops, corvettes (62 Flower-class! Didn’t we have a huge navy in those days!), coastal forces, minesweepers. RNVR and RNR utterly dominate the commanding officers of minor war vessels. Cheer-on messages from Eisenhower and Ramsay, casualties enemy and friendly, rate of Allied build-up, pre-arranged fire plan, a chronology and glossary and much, much more.

Market? It’s an astounding story for the enthusiast but I doubt will be much seen on private bookshelves. As an unsurpassed and permanent record of a unique military event, it is invaluable.