Operation Overlord

The 1944 landings in Western Europe

A lot has been written about 'Operation Overlord' the 1944 D-Day landings in Western Europe. To follow in detail all of the Commandos exploits is not possible. Therefore the Battles will usually be explained from a brigade and not a troop standpoint.

There is a saying: "the first to land, the last to leave" that has often been recognised what the Royal Marines do, which on many occasions is very true; but it is not always how it is meant to happen.

When the Overlord invasion started the procedure was that Army units were required to capture and control the beach and its defences so that the Commandos could go through the beachhead and attack the batteries and other coastal strong points.

It has long been recognised that the Unit that carries out the beach assault could have too many casualties to carry out further engagements inland until they were brought back up to strength.

An attack is therefore more successful if a fresh unit can carry out the next phase and then ideally, repeat this course of action. Obviously this is not always possible and some units were known to fight for many days or months before they were relieved.

The elite Commandos were required

There were a minimum of eight Commando units needed, three Army and five Royal Marine. They formed the Special Services Group commanded by Major-General R. G. Sturges, C.B., D.S.O., Royal Marines. Durnford Slater, was the deputy commander of the group. It was divided into two. No.1 Special Service Brigade and No.4 Special Service Brigade.

That day their tasks were to land on the extreme left of the British Second Army, and on the left of the American First Army. No.1 was required to clear the town of Ouistreham at the mouth of the River Orne, and then push forward to join hands with the 6th Airborne Division. Which would be dropped ahead of the invasion to capture the bridges across the Orne river and its canal at Benouville and Ranville.

To secure the left flank No.4 Special Service Brigade was to land further to the west of Lion-sur-Mer, and Aubin-sur-Mer and then push inland and make itself master of a heavily fortified strong point at the radar station at Douvres.

No.47 Royal Marine Commando was detailed to operate in the centre of the British and American armies and capture the heavily fortified harbour and town of Port-en-Bessin.

No.1 Special Service Brigade was under the command of Brigadier Lord Lovat, D.S.O., M.C., it was made up of No's.3, 4, and 6 army Commandos, No.45 Royal Marine Commando, and the 1st and 8th Troops of No.10 Inter-Allied Commando.

No.4 Special Service Brigade was under Brigadier B. W. Leicester Royal Marines consisted of No's.41, 46, 47 for part of the time, and 48 Royal Marine Commandos.

Commandos go through the beachheads

To enable No.1 Special Services Brigade to land successfully in the area of Ouistreham, No.4 Commando were called upon to repeat the feat it had so brilliantly accomplished at Varengeville two years before. It was to storm and silence a coastal defence battery while the remainder of the brigade would make straight for the 6th Airborne Division.

When the Commandos under Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. P. Dawson landed at 08:20 hours at La Breche, they found their predecessors, the 8th Army Brigade pinned down by intensive fire.

The Commandos attacked the pillbox from which issued the fire and silenced it. They then swiftly pierced through the last defences and reached the main road to their objective. Here after his second wound Dawson was forced to hand over his command to Major R. P. Menday.

No.4 then moved along the road towards Ouistreham unchecked by the fire of snipers and machine guns posted in the houses close by. This small seaside resort was promptly overrun. Arriving on the for edge of it the Commandos met a French gendarme, who was a member of the Resistance Movement. He helped the Commandos circle the strongpoints to reach their position of attack on the battery.

They went in against strong and determined resistance from a garrison manning cunningly consealed blockhouses. though several times hit by both naval shells and heavy bombs, the gun emplacements of the battery were hardly damaged.

It was only at the price of severe hand-to-hand fighting that the position was overrun. The Commandos then continued their advance leaving the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshires to engage in the mopping-up operation.

The Green and Red Berets in action

No.6 Commando landed on a shore outlined with smoke and flames, moving between the craters and maze of tangled barbed wire. They wasted no time and hastily stumbled towards the bridges where their airborne comrades awaited them.

Theirs was the task of cutting a passage through the enemy from the Beach to the all important bridges across the Caen Canal and the River Orne. They had to fight their way through the enemies defences in depth with their small arms fire only; they had no artillery support. After a difficult passage over an unpleasant swamp, the leading troop peeled off and attacked the first pillbox.

The whole operation proceeded to plan. Although the Commandos endeavoured to infiltrate through the enemy positions as far as possible, they still had four enemy strong posts to overcome. When this done they then went on to capture a four gun battery intact, while it was in action shelling the beaches. The six and half miles of enemy defences were captured by the Commandos in three and a half hours.

However they were two and a half minutes behind schedule when they reached the bridge. The cycle Troop sped across the bridge drawing the enemy fire, although bullets were cracking against steel girders with alraming frequency they only received one casualty in the crossing. Once on the other side the Commandos helped the 9th Parachute Battalion to seize the village of La Plein.

No.6 Commando dug in around the village of La Plein. No.4 had joined them after a nine mile forced march from Ouistreham. They were holding a line from Merville in the north to Bieville in the south. They had crossed the Orne and its canal with the Airborne and had formed a bridgehead; where they faced heavy and repeated counter-attacks for over two months.

Rounding up German prisoners

No's.3 and 5 Troops of No.3 Commando were ordered to clear the area around Merville. A coastal battery that had been successfully destroyed by Airborne troops, but on their withdrawal its site had been reoccupied by the Germans.

Major J. V. B. Pooley and his men advanced for the assault. They found the garrison to be small in numbers but big with fanatical courage, and they held out in the great casemates, underground corridors and ammunition magazines. One of the last men to die killed Major Pooley.

The spirit of the Commandos is shown by the behaviour of two non-commissioned officers who at this critical period crawled to within ten yards of a deep ditch with some twenty-five Germans who were maintaining heavy fire; they threw grenades into it. When their grenades ran out, the two pinned the Germans down by Tommy gun fire and by hurling back the stick grenades thrown at them. The result was half of the enemy dead and the rest surrendered.

The beach defences had almost been untouched by the naval and air bombardment. It was therefore necessary to for No.45 Commando RM to land covered by a smoke screen. Major de Stacpoole, who though wounded and cast into the sea, had swum ashore and taken command of "Z" Troop.

Langrune was seized without too much difficulty, but the Commandos could not move any further, for it was held up by a strong point set up between two parralell streets near the seashore. Attempts were made but they could not dislodge the enemy. The arrival of a Sherman tank proved too much for the men of the 736th German Grenadier Regiment and they surrendered.

Royal Marine Commandos

While N0.48 Royal Marine Commando were fighting for the strong point at Langrunes, No.46 Royal Marine Commando under Lieutenant-Colonel C. R. Hardy passed by about noon and seized their first objective, a row of strengthened houses facing the sea.

By the evening No.46 had captured a strong point at Petit Enfer, they occupied the small town and sent two Troops to seize La Deliverande, two miles inland. Its next considerable exploit was the capture of the villages of Rots and Le Hamel.

No.41 Royal Marine Commando was landed three hundred yards from its chosen beach and two hundred yards out at sea. "The beaches became visible in the swirling smoke," records Captain C. N. P. Powell who landed with them.

"There were a few houses grey in the early light; the shore was littered with black tanks and blobs of troops behind them. Everything seemed black and grey. The dirt of the towering shell bursts on the beaches and stone coloured smoke contrasted with red flashes and burning tanks...the men were slowly getting ashore. In the water beside the ramps a corpse lapped slowly back and forth with the rising tide."

Within an hour the Commandos had crossed the beach, and half of it had reached Lion-sur-Mer to find its objective to be a strong point, but it was deserted. The other half was sent to attack a chateau west of Lion. Its Commander and both Troop commanders were killed; both forward obsevrvation officers and the signalers were wounded and their wireless sets damaged, so no messages could be sent through to the guns; though both the Navy at sea and the Royal Marine Armoured Support Group onshore were waiting to fire upon the chateau.

The next objective of No.41 was the radar station near Douvres, it was possibly the strongest position on the coast; its subterranean defences had taken three years to build. The Commandos were not strong enough to do more than patrol in front of it for a number of days. After a heavy bombardment and with the aid of three tanks. Success was complete, five German officers and two hundred and twenty-two other ranks were captured for the loss of one Royal Marine wounded.

The thud of a large dud bomb

No.47 Royal Marine Commando, it will be recalled was to capture Port-en-Bessin. It landed after a perilous run-in in rough sea and among mines which knocked out four of its assault craft. The day was spent in slow battle, and by evening it had reached a hill south of its objective.

On the following afternoon, with the assistance of a bombardment from H.M.S. Emerald, and a smoke screen laid by guns of the Royal Artillery it advaced to the assault and captured two of the three powerful strong points on the edge of the port.

The Germans then counter-attacked and retook the hill from which the Commandos had launched their assault; but in the meantime Captain T. F. Cousins led fifty men up a zigzag path leading to the third strong point. Captured the German commander and one hundred of his men, only to be killed himself by a snipers bullet. The rest of the German garrison surrendered soon after.

Only At night would the Luftwaffe make any attacks wherever they thought it appropriate - never by day. One night there was a peculiarly heavy thud in the lines of No.45 Royal Marine Commando; it seemed to indicate the presence of a very large dud bomb.

That, at least, was the view of the Marine in the slit trench across which it fell. His friend urged him vainly to push it aside. It was too heavy and it might go off. Without sleeping the two men waited in the bottom of the trench until dawn. Revealed in the vague light of dawn was a jettisoned petrol tank.

Holding the pivotal point was crucial

So the battle continued. It seemed that the relief originally promised for forty-eight hours after the landing would never come. The Commandos believed their peculiar functions had been forgotten and that they were condemned to share indefinitely the lot of the infantry of the line. They did not realise that what they were doing was a compliment to their unique ability.

The Americans had asked that the best troops must hold this position; it was the pivotal point upon which the great turning movement to be carried out by the Americans, ultimately depended. That is why the green and red berets remained together till, on 28th August, the long awaited order to advance finally came.

The Jerries could not see them

The village of Dozule, was attacked by No's.46, 47, and 48 Royal Marine Commados. The high ground had been attacked twice previously without success so the Commandos were called in. They were led towards it through the darkness by their commanding officer, on a compass bearing.

"It was a slow and ponderous job and seemed to take hours." records Lieutenant J. C. Marsh, "we also seemed to make a hell of a lot of noise; with those thick hedges, woods and fences to negotiate in pitch darkness. Then luckily enough for us it started to drizzle."

"Coming up the hill we heard an awful moaning. It was a Jerry who was badly wounded, lying in front of Jerry's forward defence localities. Why he had not been fetched in we did not understand. The Commandos halted Lieutenant D. T. Burrows crawled forward and clubbed him."

"Again we moved forward. Then just as we neared the top of a hill...A white Very light was fired. Everyone lay prostrate. The light burnt out and we were about to move again, when a burst of fire from a German machine gun came over our heads...By sheer luck we were just under the protection of a rise in the ground...Jerry could not have seen us because after a few minutes the firing gradually petered out."

"When Captain Pierce yelled out "Charge!" Pandemonium was let loose in the dark. Every Commando yelled as loud as they could as they charged; we reached the farm buildings and cleared them out.

The hill was ours, in the darkness we built a defensive perimeter ready for the usual counter-attack. No.48 Commando pushed past the village of Dozule, and occupied some high ground at Point 120, cutting off a number of Germans and destroying their vehicles.

Surprise was complete

The attack had to be carried out by night, and Mills-Roberts, only received his orders late in the afternoon; he had to devise his plan an the way back to Brigade Headquarters. To reach and seize the targeted position by dawn it was necessary to start one hour before midnight. The brigade moved to its forming-up point, partly on foot and partly in the vehicles that were available.

No.4 Commando was the first to start and twenty minutes later the main body moved forward in single file with No.3 Commando in front followed by No.45 Commando and then No.6 Commando. A difficult route was chosen; in order that the element of surprise might be increased. Luckily the night was exceptionally dark. This made progress very slow, but with the aid of white tape laid down by the advance, the column followed in exactly the same steps as its leaders.

Surprise was complete. The Germans learnt that an attack had been launched on them when Lieutenant A. Pollock shot the sentry outside enemy headquarters. "He fell to the ground groaning and making a great deal of noise, someone shot him again."

The tactical handling of the brigade had been perfect; it had slipped through all of the enemy lines undetected, although every man had at one moment to cross a bridge covered by a German machine gun post less than a hundred and fifty yards away. By breakfast time - most of it supplied by the Germans - the brigade was firmly established and throughut the day they beat off four fierce counter-attacks.

In one counter-attack Lieutenant Clapton, with his Troop, charged a group of the enemy as they were gathering their breath for a final rush, killed their officer with his own hand, and brought back twenty-five prisoners. Few who attacked against so experienced a body of men as Commandos had any chance of success. Their fire discipline was so good at this time that the Commandos would wait until the Germans were within a few yards, and then open-up and kill the lot.

No troops, however good - and the Germans were the most skilled - will continue to make attacks from which on one returns. At the cost of one officer and eleven other ranks killed, one officer and forty-two other ranks wounded, the brigade had captured and held a position which the enemy might with justice have regarded as impregnable. This was their last considerable action in France.

Germany had been beaten beyond recovery; but many weary months were to pass, much peril had to be encountered, and many brave men died before the war eventually came to an end.

Operation Overlord

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