German Gun Boats Pegasus Bridge

Xavier,

Good find on locating 3 of the Ouistreham HSBs on the Luftwaffe-zur-See site. Fuhrertreu and Kehrwieder were destroyed by aerial bombardment. Whereas according to Google Translation the Hedwig was said to have "self-immersed after shelling"? These boats are also accounted for in the "Gesamtverluste 1939-1945" spreadsheet with the first of six Quistreham entries beginning at 19835. The other three are the Petrus-Paulus, Monique and Durandel (?).

Lt Parrish at his outpost mentions 4 gunboats total. 3 passed his party on their way upstream to the bridge. Not soon after another vessel from Quistreham stopped at a landing stage near their sand pit position. Later 2 of the boats returned from the bridge after their encounter there and moored at same landing. Sometime afterwards the Germans set fire to all 3 vessels and abandoned the area. It should be noted according to most accounts only 2 gunboats approached Pegasus Bridge, not 3 as Parrish claims.

Regards ...

 

Hi,
I found another list...
http://www.schiffswrackliste.de/BRT1944.htm
There are five boat sunk in Ouistreham in this list, not 6. "Durandal" isn't in this list.
There are more information about the twi Vorpostenbs who were sunk, may be the two who came from Caen.
Another people works on the subject...
Regards,
Xavier P

 

"Durandal" is here...but alone !!
http://www.schiffswrackliste.de/ts1944.htm
I don't understand the difference between these two lists.

 

Xavier,

Your links didn't work but lead to the home page of Schiffswrackliste which belongs to Kurt Hoffmann who it turns out is the original compiler of the Gesamtverluste 1939-1945 spreadsheet. On the Statistik page the spreadsheet can be found along with links to charts and statistics. The spreadsheet there appears to be read only with 31,946 entries (1939-1945).

"BRT" and "ts" are column names and are measurements of a ship's internal volume and weight. I quickly got loss trying to figure out what is actually being measured here.

BRT - Bruttoregistertonnen (German: Gross Register Tons)
Standard-Tonne <ts> · ton standard <ts>

With "ts" I'm not sure what ton measurement is being used - long, short or metric. Under the ts column the "Durdanel" is said to be 350 Ldt (Ladegewicht)? It is also said to be a HSB/Kahn type vessel?

Attached is a capture of relevant portion of D-Day ship losses.



Regards ...

 

Xavier,

Your links now work for me. As far as I can make out these are just separate lists for "BRT" and "ts" for the year 1944 from the same spreadsheet.

Regards ...

 

Sapper Shorey also confirms that two gun boats were destroyed on the canal

 

Hi Cee,
There are a difference with the first file where these ships weren't present :
"06.06.1944 - V 206 x OTTO BRÖHAN - Kanal zw. Ouistreham und Caen (versenkt)
06.06.1944 - V 212 x FRIEDRICH BUSSE - Kanal zw. Ouistreham und Caen (versenkt)"

 

Is there a picture of Ouistreham harbor just after the Dday ?

 

Navire allemand échoué dans le canal

 

Xavier,

The Otto Brohan and the Friedrich Busse were dated June 6th in the list I first pointed to and were later moved to June 12th on the Schiffswrackliste site spreadsheet. Not sure if that answers your question. The site linked to by Itdan also has info on the two vessels.

Every time I dig into that page on the "Caen et la SGM" site I find something new. There is great deal of variation in the many accounts of the gunboats that approached the bridge on D-Day. As for aerials NCAP has quite a few of Ouistreham post D-Day. I have a stitch of the area from June 7th but frustratingly it only catches portions of the locks and canal.



Regards ...

 

From Facebook...
8th July, Canal at Ouistreham...

 

Xavier,

A great photo with a good view to south! The small vessel with large smokestack is interesting. Here is a postwar postcard of Ouistreham showing the western lock. You can see the same tall electric installation near the Bailey bridge.



The original position of Tower I Bridge was on the southern edge of the platform as can be seen in this IWM film shot on June 15th. No good views of the Canal at Ouistreham unfortunately.

ACTIVITIES IN THE ORNE BRIDGEHEAD, JUNE 1944 (PART 7) [Allocated Title]

Regards ...

 

Facebook...
Another picture...
We know it...

 

Two thoughts of the day :
-Lt Parrish saw the boats one time, from Ouistreham to Pegasus Bridge. He not mentionned them a second time. So they were destroyed or abandonned between his position and Pegasus Bridge ?
-How boats without armement (Larkins interview) could have caused loss to the entrenched men of Lieutenant Parrish and could fire at the headquarters of 7th Parachute Battalion ? May be the boats who arrived near the Pegasus Bridge were not the same...

 

I am obsessed...a little bit crazy I think !!
The boat on the bank was 400 meter from the bridge...it's a long way for a PIAT.
May be (always may be...sorry for that), it's not the Godbold boat...it's the Larkin's boat...

 

I enjoy this thread like a classic detective novel - tres bien

 

A timeline for German gunboats encountered by the Lt. Parrish party.

Sometime before 08:00 (?) 3 armed vessels of the fishing type travel up from Ouistreham and pass the Parrish party outpost. His men fire at the 4 or 5 Germans seen on their decks with Stens which he thought must have caused casualties. The gunboats continue on toward the Benouville bridge. Not soon after at 08:15 another vessel arrives from Ouistreham and moors at the small landing stage near his position. This would have been close to the stone house near where York I bridge was later built. The German crew makes a landing and sniper fire from them in the next while results in one 7 Para man killed and another wounded.

Later at 14:30 he claims that 2 of the 3 vessels that passed them earlier return from their encounter at Benouville bridge and put in at the same docking site near their outpost. This is approximately 6+ hours later? Perhaps Lt. Parrish is misremembering the proper time for this event - don't know? At any rate the vessels are watched closely and after 2 hours a great deal of noise from small arms and grenades is heard. Lt. Parrish believes a crossing was attempted just below the landing stage (north?). A patrol is sent out and they discovered all 3 vessels had been set alight and the Germans had vanished. No wounded or dead Germans were found. Does use of the word "crossing" indicate the Germans attempted to cross the canal to east side?

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There is some variation on what exactly occurred when the two gunboats from Ouistreham arrive at the bridge. Lt-Col. Pine-Coffin in his account has them appearing at the same time General Gale and other high ranking Officers arrive at bridge sometime mid-moring 9:30 to 10:00. It was actually General Gale who spotted them first:

"The general, whose position gave him a good view down the canal, shouted to get down as there were two boats coming up the canal towards the bridge and he could not see quite what they were. All four accordingly lay down on the bank and got a wonderful view of a most interesting event."

In another WD entry Pine-Coffin claims that the gunboat that was put out action by a PIAT shell was armed and shot up the 7 Para HQ area resulting in one minor casualty.

I need to think about your current theory ....

Here is an undated aerial of the Ouistreham port found on R.G. Poulussens' Twitter.



Regards ...

 

Hi Cee,
You bring me exactly where I want...
If I believe in Lt Parrish, during X times, there were some vessels between him and Pegasus Bridge...with very little place to hide...
And about the "crossing", remember the 45RM should cross just South of Parrish Outpost...near the landing stage...

 

...

 

Another possible location of the landing stage was here...but in this case...time to sleep for me !!