Proposed landings Summer 1941, where?

At last! My opportunity to offer some facts from my records. I have Operation Envelope: Combined operation in Cherbourg area (1941) but no more than that at the moment.

 

It certainly was not a enemy held area....Not at that time. for we had damn near nothing to defend ourselves let alone offensive operations

 

Sapper
It certainly was not a enemy held area....Not at that time. for we had damn near nothing to defend ourselves let alone offensive operations
Agreed , attempting to landing anywhere in France in 1941 would have been insane.

 

James,
could this Diplomatic/Political problem be related to a contingency plan in case German troops landed and occupied Southern Ireland?

Just a thought.

Regards
Tom

 

It might be talking about an attack on the port of Cherbourg in 1941/1942 that General George C. Marshal proposed. Mr. Churchill wanted to invade Italy in southern Europe.

 

I did wonder about the Channel Islands anyway it might be listed in here Owen
WW2DB: Allied Operations

 

Owen, would you think that having them stage at Glasgow would help support your supposition? Sounds reasonable to me. Is it a port or does it have a port nearby that has access to the Irish Sea?

 

Slipdigit -
Can understand your question regarding Glasgow being a port etc - the City itself is a little bit inland on the River Clyde but that didn't stop it from building the majority of the luxury liners which plied the whole world pre war.

two main liners - The Queen Mary and the Queen Eliabeth transported most of the US divisions to Europe unescorted and many of your troops to Australia and other parts of the Pacific.

The River Clyde flows West to Gourock and Greenock which was the assembly point for most convoys for troopships to go all over the battle areas - this River flows into the Irish Sea and by passing over the North end of Ireland reaches into the North Atlantic.

The main reason for the assembly of troopship there was that it was further for the bombers to fly from e.g France or Germany - Norway etc but of course they did not escape all the bombing.
Hope this helps

Cheers PS - the Queen Mary now rest at San Diego as a floating restaurant and the Queen Elizabeth has just made it's way to Dubai for the same purpose. - Correction - The queen Elizabeth burbnt out at Hong Kong - it is the QE 2 that is now in Dubai ....

 

Found this website which underlines the thoughts of intervention in Ireland.

The War Room - Allied Forces

Regards
Tom

 

nah, Channel Islands was British & Occupied , it wouldn't cause a Diplomatic row in WW2 or 1949.
I think Ireland has to top of the list.
I did also think Spain or Sweden.
As the Officer mentions a beach where he spent childhood, I still think Ireland is it.

Sorry,

Re Read your original post and yes I would tend to think Rep of Ireland would be the likely candidate. Is there any info of troop numbers or a build up of troops in Northern Ireland? A march across the border would seem more logical and a safer option.

 

I know this is from Wiki, but up to now is all I can find on my search.

Plan W - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regards
Tom

 

I still cannot find anything more than the Wiki article.
Does anyone have any more corroboration of Plan W?

Regards
Tom

 

EDIT by Owen, I've copied this post of Phaethon's from the Channel Islands thread into here.
Thought it might be useful to this discussion.

Some of you may remember that I was having trouble a while back finding the 1st guards bde war diaries at TNA; the forum was very helpful but while I was searching the archives I came across the following:

"Operation Blazing: movements of the 1st guards bde."

Operations Blazing and Concubine were plans for attacks on Alderney and Jersey. The third operation of the trio (the only one conducted) was Jubilee, which is a little better known because it was the raid on Dieppe.

Blazing was in the advanced stages of planning, and the guards were to be shipped off to the isle of white for training (I'm not sure if they ever arrived yet, i'll need to check the war diaries more, I think they were); however at the last minute blazing was called off because, according to the document i revewed (mentioned above), it was impractical, not because of the loss of man power, but the loss of air power, which at that particular stage of the war was considered more vital. The RAF apparently could not afford the losses from all three operations and theres a quote in the file saying as much; a key plan was to use the RAF to defeat the coastal instalations and without the RAF: Blazing could not be conducted.

It made very interesting reading, the plans were so advanced permission to use the guards had already been given. Everything it appears, was ready to go.

 

As a side note to the above, I do now believe that the diplomatic difficulties mentioned were internal with mountbatten, high command and the RAF, not external as we had all been assuming.

unsurprisingly a second raid was planned later in august '42 on alderny called operation aimwell.

National archives: (some of the topics, there are a few more)
"Blazing" and "Aimwell" DEFE 2/106
"operation blazing" AIR 8/868
"Operation blazing" 39/2
"operation blazing" 39/81

the original document I looked at:
"blazing: moves of the 1st guards brigade" WO 106/4177

There's also something in the Kings college london archives about it (an utterly brilliant collection of personal documents which I have had the pleasure of visiting and which i thouroughly reccomend)