Landing Table First Tide British 3rd Infantry Division

Welcome to the forum!

I suppose that you are trying to find the pendant of your uncle's craft on D Day? Or do you know it already? Or do you know what the LTIN of his craft was?

I am curious to know what made you think he might have landed elements of 2 E YORKS or 1 S LAN R, because, as you can see from the Landing Table, 538 Assault Flotilla ex-EMPIRE BROADSWORD (S73) were not planned to carry any of these troops.

Please give us the data you have regarding your uncle, his craft on D Day and her load, so that we may help you to go further if we can.

Michel

 

Thanks Michel. The 2 E Yorks & 1 S Lancs information came from an obituary of my uncle's CO on the day (and later) which stated

"John Langdon commanded the first wave of landing craft putting British troops ashore at Sword beach on D-Day. As a Royal Marines lieutenant, he had nine landing craft assault (LCAs), each manned by four Marines to carry the leading companies of the 1st South Lancashires and 2nd East Yorkshires seven miles through a heavy swell to the Normandy shoreline.
Shortly before the men clambered into the LCAs from the landing ship Empire Broadsword, he had listened to Major Charles King of the East Yorkshires — who would win the DSO and bar before being killed in France — read aloud to his men Shakespeare’s Henry V speech before Agincourt:" ​

I had previously been in correspondence with John Langdon (and others in the Flotilla) and they provided me with much information about my uncle's death but, stupidly, I hadn't gathered D Day details that I later realised would have been useful.

"Sword Beach" by Stephen Fisher, on the other hand, states, on Pg 50m that 538 Flotilla landed 1 Suffolks.

At this stage, I don't know for certain which troops he landed (hence the query) nor the Pennant No of his craft.

See also John Langdon (priest) - Wikipedia and The Revd John Langdon.

I am booked to visit Kew next week and have ordered the war diaries of all three units in the hope (probably vain) that one of them might shed some light on the issue. The specific reference to Maj King and the Agincourt speech tends to lend weight to the E Yorks suggestion but if you can shed any more light then that would be useful.

Thanks again.

 

Thanks for the details. The obituary mixes facts with fantasy. Major Charles King was indeed OC A Coy 2 EAST YORKS, but he was on board EMPIRE BATTLEAXE, not EMPIRE BROADSWORD.

Temporary Lieutenant John Bonsall LANGDON, RM was 2 i/c 538 Assault Flotilla on board EMPIRE BROADSWORD, therefore indeed nominally in charge of 9 of its 18 LCA. However, on D Day he was leading a flight of 8 LCA.

You can copy the War Diaries for May and June 1944 of 2 E YORKS and 1 S LAN R if you like (and send them to me too ), but do not expect to find anything of value for your search, because neither of those two units were on EMPIRE BROADSWORD.

In order to be able to help you, I would need your answer to the following questions:

Do you know whether your uncle was in Lieut Langdon's LCA, or whether he was just in one of the nine LCA under his command, or in the same flight on D Day?

Do you know the name of any member of the crew of your uncle's craft on D Day? Any detail, however insignificant it may seem, about the troops he carried?

Do you know of any incident related to your uncle's craft (for example, was it able to get back to its mother ship)?

Finally, could you please give us the full name (and rank and offical number if you know them) of your uncle?

Michel

 

We are talking here about PO/X 118012 Cpl Geoffrey F E Robbins (sometimes Robins) who completed his initial training in 530 Squad at Lympstone. I don't have the letters from John Langdon to hand at the moment (only my extracted notes from them) but it was he who told me that Geoff was in the first wave ashore and another member of the Flotilla, Frank Warren, told me that as he was heading in to the beach he passed Geoff heading back out. Neither of them gave any indication of any other particular incidents for Geoff's craft on the day or until the Empire Broadsword was sunk. Geoff was subsequently KIA in the far east at which point his crew was Mne Frank Glass (also to be KIA), Mne Wally Bridger and Mne Adam Bond with John Langdon also aboard. The implication of some of the correspondence was that they had been crew mates a long time but whether John Langdon habitually sailed with Geoff, I don't know. He was also friends with Frank Warren and Norman Lambkin.

If the E Yorks & S Lancs weren't on the Empire Broadsword, then going by the LTINs it must have been the Suffolks he carried ashore?

 

Thank you for these precious indications.

Corporal Geoffrey Frank Edwards ROBBINS, PO/X 118012
Royal Marines, 780 L.C.A. Flotilla.
Died 12 February 1945 age 21
Son of Alderman Horace J. Robbins and Mrs. Robbins, of Brighton, Sussex.
Commemorated at PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL Panel 93.

From your indications, we now know that Geoffrey was in the first of the two LCA waves from BROADSWORD (LTINs 181 to 188). Additionally, we know that his LCA did not remain wrecked on the beach or founder on the way back.
Thanks to forum member DannyM we know the pendant numbers of the nine LCA which returned to their mother ship:
LCA Nos. 673, 637, 665, 387, 1376, 638, 905, 906 and 635.
Of these:

- 906 was part of the 2nd wave and should therefore be discarded;
- 635, 637 & 673 were part of the 1st wave
- the wave of the remaining 5 craft, i.e. 387, 638, 665, 905 & 1376, is not known (but only 3 of them were in the 1st wave.)​

Geoffrey was therefore in one of the following 8 craft:
LCA 387, 635, 637, 638, 665, 673, 905 or 1376

Narrowing this further would require additional information. There might be more useful snippets in Lieut Langdon's letters if you can access them. For example, anything that could show that Lieut Langdon was in Geoffrey's craft would be valuable.

Michel