Many thanks Danny - this confirms for certain and helps to confirm the timeline, we will definitely be paying a visit and paying our respects on the 6th June.
Every now and then I come across a photo attributed to the Imperial War Museum which doesn't appear to be on the IWM website. The picture below, which is printed in David Young's 1972 book on 45 Commando, is one such example. I assume that the IWM has significantly more photos relating to the Normandy landings than are currently accessible on its website. If anyone here has previously accessed the IWM research facilities and is able to confirm the extent to which additional photographs are available of 45 Commando, either embarking their landing craft at Warsash on 5 June, landing at Queen Red Beach on 6 June or fighting on the Orne Bridgehead in the weeks following D-Day (when they were in Sallenelles, Merville village, Franceville Plage, Le Plein and Amfreville), I would be very interested to hear from you. I'm also particularly keen to locate additional photos of LCI(S) 518. The only photo I have so far been able to find of it is BU 1184 (displayed in my previous post above), which appears to be a still from the following short film: LANDINGS ON 'SWORD' BEACH, 6 JUNE 1944 (PART 3) [Allocated Title]. Many thanks in advance.
Your post was tremendously helpful, Danny. I managed to purchase a copy of "Soldier, Sailor", published by The Bombardments Units Association in 1947. There is a further quote from Capt. Goodall on page 119. I would love to know what the authors of the book were quoting from (presumably Capt. Goodall's daily FOB reports) and whether any of that primary source material still exists. Sadly, I suspect not.
This is a cropped version of IWM H39044 by Capt Evans, showing LCI(S) 501: Capt Evans shot a number of photos showing Commandos prior to and during embarkation at Warsash (H39025 to H39049). Film A70 25-1 also features Commandos embarking. Michel
Thank you. So, that is actually a photo of No. 3 Commando rather than 45 Commando. Perhaps all the IWM photos are available on their website then… I think part of the problem is that a lot of the IWM photos are badly labelled. For example, BU 1184 incorrectly states that it shows commandos of No. 4 Commando. Another photo I was unable to locate on the IWM website, despite being credited to the IWM, is attached below - said to be of two men from 45 Commando digging a slit trench near Amfreville.
I think the proportion of IWM images that have been digitised is comparatively low, but if a book or similar was being readied predigital era good old fashioned "photo research" was done by someone going through the physical archive, viewing a negative and then ordering a print. Have you tried searching without "digitised assets only" selected? Although we're then into the issue of how well they have been labelled.
Thanks. From a search of records without digitised media, I can see that IWM has some reasonably large photo collections that are still unavailable online, some of which contain various photos from Normandy (e.g. 4700-29). There's nothing to suggest that there are any further photos of the commandos at Warsash, other than what's already available online.
