| The Funnies!
What must be remembered is that Hobart’s funnies came in many different guises, From flails, to tanks that fired huge explosive charges, to bridging, And those that carried huge bundles of chestnut palings to fill gaps. The whole range of AVRE had something pretty much for any situation. But it all had to work in unison with the rest of the forces.
Where the British scored so highly was the organisation. For example: the British army had dedicated teams of assault engineers to land before anyone else, with the task of clearing the beach obstacles. This they did. Unfortunately the water and tide driven by the wind made a much higher watermark than anticipated, narrowing he beach area considerably. Therefore the landing area was reduced.
During this time the Assault Engineers continued to make the beach obstacles safe, by continuing to swim amongst the defences removing mines and shells, as the tide rose even higher, many of those men while still carrying on with the tasks were drowned.
But their sacrifice made everything possible. At about the same time other dedicated Assault demolition and Assault mine clearing teams landed with task of creating mine free paths, from the beach to the lateral road. With the explosive charges (Beehives) to remove or destroy any enemy concrete gun, or defensive positions.
All that was completed as ordered. It must be remembered that nowhere on the Normandy Invasion Coast, did there exist the strength of enemy defences that the Assault troops had to face on Sword Beach.
I know that in American circles, Sword Beach was looked on as “Easy” never was. The heaviest enemy defences, and in depth.
The following from one of the assault ships log, lays this misinformation to rest, what follows later, is Stan Hough’s record taken from the log of one of the ships that carried the Assault craft. Princess Astrid. Bless her! She hit a mine in the channel after the war and sunk!
The Princess lost 4 out of her 8 Assault landing craft.
Princess Charlotte lost 7 out of 8
MV Victoria lost 5 out of 6.
Prince Henry lost 5 out of 8.
Finally Prince David lost all 8.
On reflection, the loss of 29 Assault craft out of a total of 38 with only 9 saved, hardly bears out the idea of an "Easy landing" In passing, the continuous rain of films and documentaries over the last 60 years about the war, have created a rather one sided view, at times having very little do to with what actually took place. But, such is the power of propaganda that these myths are assumed to be true and become fixed as part of the Legend of D Day.
One of those huge defensive positions was “Hillman” 650 meters by 450 meters. Successfully breached by Lt Arthur Heal C de G, from My RE Company. In the company of the infantry.
I suppose it would be well to name these companies that gave so much.
5th Assault Regiment Royal Engineers
629th Field Squadron Royal Engineers
263rd Field Company RE
246th Field Company RE
17th Field Company RE
253rd Field Company RE
79th Assault Squadron RE
591st Para Squadron RE
With that in mind, the question must be asked? Would bloody Omaha ever have happened if they had adopted these special dedicated assault Engineer teams? In my mind they were unprepared, and paid a terrible price for that. That gives me no satisfaction at all. It just seems such a terrible shame that so many young men had to perish.
Sapper |