Since I didn’t do a separate post on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, here’s a Mark Felton video that covers ships from Operatune Neptune, the naval portion of D-Day, that have survived.
Operation Neptune was “under British control, commanded by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey, the man who had been responsible for the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940.”
“Can you imagine the size of the force of ships required to land over 150,000 British, Canadian, American and French troops on five different beaches? It was almost 7,000, from huge battleships to tiny landing craft.”
“Britain supplied 892 warships out of the 1,213 involved, and 3,261 landing craft out of a total of 4,126.
Brits crewed many landing craft carrying American soldiers to the beach.
“112,113 Royal Navy personnel served on D-Day, plus 25,000 British members of the Merchant Navy, with the United States Navy providing the second biggest contingent: 52,889.”
The invasion fleet was split into the Western Naval Task Force under U.S. Admiral Alan G. Kirk, supporting Omaha and Utah beaches, and the Eastern Naval Task Force, under British Admiral Sir Philip Vian, covering Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.
Minesweeping operations began even earlier than the landings.
The landing was originally scheduled on June 5, but had to be delayed due to bad weather.
HMS Medusa arrived at the beach 12 hours before the US Landings began to “act as a marker to show the entrance to a narrow channel to be swept by mine sweepers.” “HMS Medusa still looks exactly the same as she did during World War II, having been extensively restored and carefully looked after, and she could be found today at Haslar Marina in Crossport in Hampshire.”
“Today only one D-Day veteran minesweeper still exists, USS Threat, and incredibly she is still serving in her original role, though no longer with the United States.” She was sold to Mexico, and currently serves as to Mexico where she currently serves as the ARM Francisco Zarco.
The destroyer USS Laffey screened for German ships on D-Day, and performed some shore bombardment on June 8-9. She’s preserved as a museum ship in South Carolina.
The bombarding forces flagship of Omaha Beach still survives: The battleship USS Texas. An old ship in 1944, Texas dated from around 1912, a dreadnaught battleship of the old school. In World War II she had been pressed into convoy escort duties in the Atlantic, and shore bombardment during the Operation Torch landings in North Africa in 1942. She had been modified over the years, and her systems upgraded, and her ten 14 inch guns gave her a formidable hitting power, able to pulverize targets over 20 miles away. On D-Day, Texas was assigned to provide fire support to the Western half of Omaha Beach, where the US 29th Infantry Division was landing, and Pointe du Hoc, in support of the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
The Royal Navy light Cruiser HMS Belfast also carried out shore bombardment, and survives as a museum ship on the Themes.
A surviving Liberty Ship, SS Jeremiah O’Brien, was not only preserved, it carried American veterans across the Atlantic to participate in the 50th Anniversary commemoration, and today she remains fully seaworthy.
Various other, smaller ships (tank landing craft, light ships, and a German patrol boat) have survived in various roles and in museums.
As the largest conflict in human history passes out of living memory, so much of what was common knowledge of that conflict fades into obscurity. People still know Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, but if you were to ask today’s college students “What is the significance of the names Gold, Juno and Sword?”, I venture that most wouldn’t know the answer.
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“People still know Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, but if you were to ask today’s college students “What is the significance of the names Gold, Juno and Sword?”, I venture that most wouldn’t know the answer.”
Exactly right. They would think you’re talking about some MMORPG* or a type of crypto-currency.
Re: “People still know Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, but if you were to ask today’s college students “What is the significance of the names Gold, Juno and Sword?”, I venture that most wouldn’t know the answer. ”
I am an American and a longtime WW2 historian. Your prognosis as to historical knowledge of today’s college students is overly optimistic, at least if my experience is any indication. Almost twenty years ago, the National D-Day Museum (now the National World War Two Museum) in New Orleans, Louisiana had just opened. Naturally, I wanted to see it. My spouse could not accompany me, so I went alone.
The night before seeing it for the first time, I dined at a place on Bourbon St. and decided to do a little experiment: I devised a short “quiz” of five relatively easy questions about the invasion of Normandy, and started asking them of the young people working as staff in the restaurant. If memory serves, not one of them had a clue what D-Day was. The questions were not difficult; things like “Who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1944?” and the like.
I was dejected, of course, since I love history – but upon reflection, I started to realize just how distant in time was 1944 to those young people. In the early-mid 2000s, WW2 was roughly sixty years in the past. As a school-boy in the mid-1970s, the Great War would have been that long ago.
As an aside, I have long-wished for a British-themed D-Day film to be made, one which tells the story of Gold, Sword and Juno in somewhat the same manner “Saving Private Ryan” did for the U.S. “The Longest Day,” released in 1962, was fairly even-handed, but not much since then. One can always read Antony Beavor’s superb history of the event, which covers all five beaches and much else, too.
There is one source of historic knowledge being imparted which is off-the-radar for many people my age (fifty and older), and that is video games such as “Call of Duty.” For those who are unaware, these video games now rival top-line fillms for their realism and production values, and many are well-researched and realistic in their own way.
So, a young person may not get the information in class, but perhaps will in a video game. Weak tea, but better than nothing, right?
To play Devil’s Advocate… Why, specifically, should young people of today know the details of which beach was named what, and who went ashore there? What makes that knowledge they should have, as opposed to a thousand and one other things that are arguably more important?
I’d leave it at “Yeah, the Allies invaded Europe on June 6, 1944…” and call it good. If you need more detail, go find a decent reference.
I’m way more concerned that the average idiot doesn’t know what I consider more important, which is what led up to the entire war in the first place… I would prefer that the average student could explain what happened that led to the rise of Nazism and the way that led to the war.
Imparting history and doing any other sort of instruction requires a sort of intellectual triage: What is truly important. What lessons are there to be taken from events, why were they important. For a military specialist, the details of D Day are absolutely of import… For the average person? Not so much.
“She had been modified over the years, and her systems upgraded, and her ten 14 inch guns gave her a formidable hitting power, able to pulverize targets over 20 miles away.”
I don’t know if the USS Texas is the same ship, but… I heard about one of the D-Day ships did something innovative – they flooded the ballast on one side of the ship so the other side (where the guns were pointing) got additional angle and could send the shells a few more miles further inland. I’m pretty sure it was on this site where I read about it.
The lack of knowledge is how people are manipulated. It is how they know what never occurred. Without the facts they believe the myths and “stories” that those who wish to create history. This is why the facts matter. The important “ideas” are useless without context. This is what those who torture history and butcher it wish for.
This is why we get a Disney version of the French Revolution or WWI. Its amazing how few Americans understand what the Civil War was about because they do not know the facts because they have been groomed to know the “important” ideas.
12,113 Royal Navy personnel served on D-Day, plus 25,000 British members of the Merchant Navy, with the United States Navy providing the second biggest contingent: 52,889.”
[…] Baldilocks: Deadline, When God Was In The Music, and Speaking Of Music, BattleSwarm: Surviving D-Day Ships, NYTimes Hacked, Source Code Stolen, and Adobe Just Wants Unlimited Use Of Everything You Create […]
“People still know Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, but if you were to ask today’s college students “What is the significance of the names Gold, Juno and Sword?”, I venture that most wouldn’t know the answer.”
Exactly right. They would think you’re talking about some MMORPG* or a type of crypto-currency.
*(Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game)
Re: “People still know Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, but if you were to ask today’s college students “What is the significance of the names Gold, Juno and Sword?”, I venture that most wouldn’t know the answer. ”
I am an American and a longtime WW2 historian. Your prognosis as to historical knowledge of today’s college students is overly optimistic, at least if my experience is any indication. Almost twenty years ago, the National D-Day Museum (now the National World War Two Museum) in New Orleans, Louisiana had just opened. Naturally, I wanted to see it. My spouse could not accompany me, so I went alone.
The night before seeing it for the first time, I dined at a place on Bourbon St. and decided to do a little experiment: I devised a short “quiz” of five relatively easy questions about the invasion of Normandy, and started asking them of the young people working as staff in the restaurant. If memory serves, not one of them had a clue what D-Day was. The questions were not difficult; things like “Who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1944?” and the like.
I was dejected, of course, since I love history – but upon reflection, I started to realize just how distant in time was 1944 to those young people. In the early-mid 2000s, WW2 was roughly sixty years in the past. As a school-boy in the mid-1970s, the Great War would have been that long ago.
As an aside, I have long-wished for a British-themed D-Day film to be made, one which tells the story of Gold, Sword and Juno in somewhat the same manner “Saving Private Ryan” did for the U.S. “The Longest Day,” released in 1962, was fairly even-handed, but not much since then. One can always read Antony Beavor’s superb history of the event, which covers all five beaches and much else, too.
There is one source of historic knowledge being imparted which is off-the-radar for many people my age (fifty and older), and that is video games such as “Call of Duty.” For those who are unaware, these video games now rival top-line fillms for their realism and production values, and many are well-researched and realistic in their own way.
So, a young person may not get the information in class, but perhaps will in a video game. Weak tea, but better than nothing, right?
To play Devil’s Advocate… Why, specifically, should young people of today know the details of which beach was named what, and who went ashore there? What makes that knowledge they should have, as opposed to a thousand and one other things that are arguably more important?
I’d leave it at “Yeah, the Allies invaded Europe on June 6, 1944…” and call it good. If you need more detail, go find a decent reference.
I’m way more concerned that the average idiot doesn’t know what I consider more important, which is what led up to the entire war in the first place… I would prefer that the average student could explain what happened that led to the rise of Nazism and the way that led to the war.
Imparting history and doing any other sort of instruction requires a sort of intellectual triage: What is truly important. What lessons are there to be taken from events, why were they important. For a military specialist, the details of D Day are absolutely of import… For the average person? Not so much.
“She had been modified over the years, and her systems upgraded, and her ten 14 inch guns gave her a formidable hitting power, able to pulverize targets over 20 miles away.”
I don’t know if the USS Texas is the same ship, but… I heard about one of the D-Day ships did something innovative – they flooded the ballast on one side of the ship so the other side (where the guns were pointing) got additional angle and could send the shells a few more miles further inland. I’m pretty sure it was on this site where I read about it.
The Texas is indeed that ship, and that detailed was covered in this linked video.
I must confess, i would much rather have been crew on the USS Texas, than a grunt on Omaha Beach
The lack of knowledge is how people are manipulated. It is how they know what never occurred. Without the facts they believe the myths and “stories” that those who wish to create history. This is why the facts matter. The important “ideas” are useless without context. This is what those who torture history and butcher it wish for.
This is why we get a Disney version of the French Revolution or WWI. Its amazing how few Americans understand what the Civil War was about because they do not know the facts because they have been groomed to know the “important” ideas.
12,113 Royal Navy personnel served on D-Day, plus 25,000 British members of the Merchant Navy, with the United States Navy providing the second biggest contingent: 52,889.”
Huh? That math doesn’t seem to work out.
There was a “1” dropped somewhere along the way in the first number, now fixed.
[…] Baldilocks: Deadline, When God Was In The Music, and Speaking Of Music, BattleSwarm: Surviving D-Day Ships, NYTimes Hacked, Source Code Stolen, and Adobe Just Wants Unlimited Use Of Everything You Create […]