Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall.The 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day.pdf

CRACKING

HITLER’S ATLANTIC WALL

THE 1ST ASSAULT BRIGADE ROYAL

ENGINEERS ON D-DAY

Richard C. Anderson Jr.

STACKPOLE

BOOKS

To my father, Lt. Col. Richard C. Anderson,

USA (Ret.), 1921–2006.

Dad, we miss you.

Published by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

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Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by

any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the pub-

lisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Richard C., 1955–

Cracking Hitler’s Atlantic Wall : the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day /

Richard C. Anderson, Jr. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8117-0589-9

1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—France—Normandy. 2. Great Britain. Army.

Royal Engineers. Assault Brigade, 1st. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Regimental histories—

Great Britain. 4. Atlantic Wall (France and Belgium) I. Title.

D756.5.N6A48 2009

940.54'21421—dc22

2009009486

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Chapter 1

Conception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2

Organization, Training, and Equipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 3

Allied Planning and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 4

German Planning and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 5

Assault Force Sword: The British 3rd Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 6

Assault Force Juno: The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 7

Assault Force Gold: The British 50th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter 8

Assault Force Omaha: The U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 9

Assault Force Utah: The U.S. 4th Infantry Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Chapter 10

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Chapter 11

The Funnies’ Impact on D-Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Appendix A: D-Day Roll of Honor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Appendix B: A Footnote to History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Appendix C: The Funnies and Omaha Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

iii

Introduction

FOR MORE THAN SIXTY-FIVE YEARS since

the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944,

many misconceptions and ﬂawed assumptions about

how that operation was planned and executed have

become part of the accepted history of World War

II. One of the most misunderstood is the role and

accomplishments of “Hobo’s Funnies,” the 79th

Armoured Division, its 1st Assault Brigade, Royal

Engineers, and the special-purpose armored assault

vehicles, especially the “Armoured Vehicle Royal

Engineer” (A.V.R.E.), developed by the British and

employed by them on the Commonwealth beaches

on D-Day and in Europe.

To understand the role of the 1st Assault Brigade

in the invasion, it is necessary ﬁrst to understand

why the Allies planned the Normandy assault as

they did. To do that, one must ﬁrst look at how the

German defenses were constructed and organized,

then examine the timing and organization of the

Allied assault with special focus on the capabilities of

the landing craft that were employed. Finally, and

perhaps most importantly, to understand the true

effectiveness of Hobo’s Funnies, it is necessary to

explore—albeit somewhat more brieﬂy—what hap-

pened on the two American beaches, Omaha and

Utah, where the Funnies were absent.

The accounts of the D-Day assault that follow

were primarily compiled from the original history

of the 1st Assault Brigade, the war diaries of the

5th and 6th Assault Regiment and their assault

squadrons, debrieﬁngs of the various gapping teams

as well as the war diaries of many other formations

and units that participated, the reports of the Nep-

tune naval commanders, and postwar accounts by

the participants. Many of those accounts are repro-

duced here in full as they were originally written,

with only minor amendments to correct spelling

errors and to clarify the meaning of some of the

abbreviated and more esoteric terms used. The ofﬁ-

cial accounts by participants from the 6th Assault

Regiment R.E. on Gold Beach are especially vivid,

since nearly every surviving A.V.R.E. commander

made a report of their activity.

Some may wonder why I have not addressed the

ﬂamethrower variant of the Churchill tank that was

known as the Crocodile. There is no disputing that it

was a ferocious weapon with a terrifying reputation.

However, it was not deployed in signiﬁcant numbers

on D-Day (only six were with the assault elements),

it is not known to have seen any action on D-Day,

and it was not an element of the 1st Assault Brigade

Royal Engineers or the 79th Armoured Division on

D-Day.

It should be noted that two distinct terms are

interspersed throughout the narratives, and their

actual meaning is critical to understanding the events.

A “lane” was considered to be a passageway cleared of

obstacles and mines that extended all the way to the

ﬁrst lateral beach road inland of the assault beach. It

could be wide enough for vehicle trafﬁc or so narrow

as to be passable only by infantry. On the other hand,

an “exit” was a lane that had been well enough devel-

oped so as to make it accessible to either wheeled or

tracked vehicles and that had a trafﬁc-control system

in place sufﬁcient to ensure the orderly procession

inland of those vehicles.

In the end, I hope this work helps to ﬁll some of

the gaps in the history of that famous “Day of Days.”

Of course, the conclusions and interpretation of

events are my own, as are any errors I may acciden-

tally have made.

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