It was the Rangers what saved the day.

[Ken Estes]

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewto.../start=330.html

 

And Bill, the more time I hang out on ARRSE, the more cynical I become about the "Special Relationship". There's been some fire on this site directed against the Brits, but from reading ARRSE, nobody in the world is quite so very puh-recious as the British soldier, especially when the "septics" (name says it all) come up. The parochialism and anti-US (sorry, "spam") bigotry rampant on ARRSE is vomit-inducing. Which is why I can only surf for a few days before having to leave the site for 6-12 months before giving it another go.

On the other hand, if you have watched the know-it-all attitude of US units in NATO exercises over the last 20 years, you can see from where it comes. BTW, does anybody really have a warm & fuzzy about the Mogadishu op as a testimony of US tactical and operational prowess? Looked like a cock-up to me at the time. The blaming of SecDef Aspen and POTUS Clinton for not allowing tanks there as a scapegoat indicates some of the amateur horseplay that was going on. If you have spent time around SOF before their moment came in 1990/91 and 2002-present, you will know what I mean. Badly planned, badly executed. The army Mech Inf Bn there could have done the extraction, had they been clued into the op form the beginning!

[Rich]

Correct me If Im wrong, but wasnt this battery discovered about a year ago? Im sure I recall something about it in Britain at War magazine.

 

Er, no, it's hard to "discover" something that has been known to exist for sixty years. Most of the site, like most of the other inland positions, had been more or less infilled over they years to restore cropland and were also badly overgrown. So what was done was an excavation of a known site, which has been followed by a very commendable restoration. But the hoopla about "secret" positions and "extraordinary" discoveries is just that, hoopla, and has nothing to do with reality, but possibly quite a bit to do about commercial realities, it takes a large amount of money to do such work and only attention like this will generate the endowments, grants, and public donations that will help keep such a project solvent. So I make no judgment of motives, but wish there were better ways to do it that didn't involve tacit deception of the general public.

[BillB]

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewto.../start=330.html

 

And Bill, the more time I hang out on ARRSE, the more cynical I become about the "Special Relationship". There's been some fire on this site directed against the Brits, but from reading ARRSE, nobody in the world is quite so very puh-recious as the British soldier, especially when the "septics" (name says it all) come up. The parochialism and anti-US (sorry, "spam") bigotry rampant on ARRSE is vomit-inducing. Which is why I can only surf for a few days before having to leave the site for 6-12 months before giving it another go.

Bit poor evidence that, Jim, two comments about a *feature film* in a thread inhabited by numerous Yanks who haven't batted an eyelid, one of which is a fair if sarky summing up of the situation. What was that you were saying about folk being precious? I've seen a lot worse, I've also seen Brits ripping into other Brits for being anti-American, and there is no shortage of equally vomit inducing shite coming the other way on plenty of US oriented web boards and even the feedback columns in the Daily Torygraph. The only reason you don't get more of it in here is because the Mods won't wear it.

 

As ARRSE offends you so much the simple answer would seem to be to simply stay away, especially as you only seem to bother going in so you can have something to get outraged about in here.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Er, no, it's hard to "discover" something that has been known to exist for sixty years. Most of the site, like most of the other inland positions, had been more or less infilled over they years to restore cropland and were also badly overgrown. So what was done was an excavation of a known site, which has been followed by a very commendable restoration. But the hoopla about "secret" positions and "extraordinary" discoveries is just that, hoopla, and has nothing to do with reality, but possibly quite a bit to do about commercial realities, it takes a large amount of money to do such work and only attention like this will generate the endowments, grants, and public donations that will help keep such a project solvent. So I make no judgment of motives, but wish there were better ways to do it that didn't involve tacit deception of the general public.

Well said Rich, nail on head.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Good to see the Telegraph is as up to snuff on their research as are the US newrags. The "newly discovered" location are WN 83 and 84, the two Maisy batteries of III./Art.-Regt. 1716. One consisted of four 10cm Czech howitzers (the same as at Merville Battery) and the other of six French 15.5cm howitzers (essentially the same as the US M1918). They are actually quite different from the field positions that were prepared for the Point du Hoc guns while their casemates were being built and there is nothing either mysterious or unique about them. Interestingly enough this is about the third or fourth article "revealing" the find over about the last two years since the "discoverer", er, "found" it. Although the bit about the map in the G.I.'s trousers is a new addition to the story I believe?

Down to the BBC this time I reckon though, Rich. Got to get the viewers in somehow (hence fronting it with a guy who is famous for co-hosting a motoring programme!) before they flog the docu to the Hitlery Channel of someone.

 

Speaking of the latter, I'll take your word about Simon Trew being a good egg and knowing his stuff, but I can't see any sign of it regarding Normandy. I know him as one of the all purpose talking heads they wheel out to state the blindingly obvious in an authoritive manner in a lot of those crappy TV docus that are the staple fare on the Hitlery Channel et al. To his credit he does try to steer one of the radio guys in the podcast away from his nonsense, but he doesn't try very hard and thus misses the chance to put the record straight...

 

BillB

[BillB]

@ Phil Gollin - just checked and it was unexpectedly strong currents that caused the problem at UTAH as well. The sea state was right on the edge of the envelope and pushed the landing force south along the coast. Nobody noticed because that stretch of the coast is very flat and featureless, and the pre-landing bombing was on target (unlike OMAHA) and threw up a lot of dust & smoke that effectively screened the coastline - IIRC there may also have been a naval smokescreen in the mix too.

 

BillB

[Marek Tucan]

Also just recalled, weren't some of the pilot ships for Omaha landings sunk/detached in collisions and evasive maneuvers?

[philgollin]

@ Phil Gollin - just checked and it was unexpectedly strong currents that caused the problem at UTAH as well. The sea state was right on the edge of the envelope and pushed the landing force south along the coast. Nobody noticed because that stretch of the coast is very flat and featureless, and the pre-landing bombing was on target (unlike OMAHA) and threw up a lot of dust & smoke that effectively screened the coastline - IIRC there may also have been a naval smokescreen in the mix too.

 

BillB

 

Strange. What were the naval forces (i.e. command vessels) doing ?

 

They had to be pretty positive regarding navigation during the approach due to the need to be kept within the swept channels. The naval vessels (bombarding and command) would have had their positions exactly known visually and by radar (also radio location - a variant of gee). They didn't seem to be able (????) to communicate their awareness to the landing craft. Currents at the launching area would have been readily assessed by any of the larger ships as their courses would be affected and the gunnery and navigation members would be making the captains aware of the currents. You can't fire at targets unless you know where you are and you know your movement through the water.

 

The command ships (at least the British ones) had radar specifically for the marshalling/despatch of the landing ships/craft.

 

The only thing I can think of is that once a wave of landing craft was going off at an angle it was "easier" (i.e. the only practical thing to do) to let them go in an organised mass rather than disorganising them by trying to adjust their course. Is that sensible ?

[Ken Estes]

It was more complicated. The radio channels were filled with all kinds of transmissions to all the waves of various sorts. Radar in its infancy was more range-sensitive than azimuth, hence plotting the progress, course and speed of a strung out wave of low-reflectors such as LCA, LCVP might have remained daunting. In short, I doubt that the command ships and wave guides knew when they were off course until too late and, as you suspect, any notion of turing them around would have been fatal for the overall effort. Once a wave crosses the line of departure, usually located close to the transport area, it remains committed until its beaching. I also doubt there was much communication between the gunfire ships and the transport groups. The currents close to shore likely would not be apparent to the gun line.

 

Somebody mentioned loss or breakdown among the wave guide or wave command boats, and that always has a certain incidence, without even considering effects of enemy actions.

[Marek Tucan]

Currents at the launching area would have been readily assessed by any of the larger ships as their courses would be affected and the gunnery and navigation members would be making the captains aware of the currents. You can't fire at targets unless you know where you are and you know your movement through the water.

 

The gunnery line was well off the beaches, partly also due to minefields and most of all they didn't need to be that close to beaches (except that two DD's tasked later with supporting Pointe du Hoc assault), so the currents close to beach would not affect them/won't affect them so much.

[JWB]

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewto.../start=330.html

 

And Bill, the more time I hang out on ARRSE, the more cynical I become about the "Special Relationship". There's been some fire on this site directed against the Brits, but from reading ARRSE, nobody in the world is quite so very puh-recious as the British soldier, especially when the "septics" (name says it all) come up. The parochialism and anti-US (sorry, "spam") bigotry rampant on ARRSE is vomit-inducing. Which is why I can only surf for a few days before having to leave the site for 6-12 months before giving it another go.

Jeeeeeeez JM, you need to lighten up. ARRSE is hilarious.

[Jim Martin]

Jeeeeeeez JM, you need to lighten up. ARRSE is hilarious.

 

Oh I get a load of laughs from ARRSE. I also find myself rolling my eyes on an extremely frequent basis as I soak up the obsessively anti-spam atmosphere.

[Getz]

Oh I get a load of laughs from ARRSE. I also find myself rolling my eyes on an extremely frequent basis as I soak up the obsessively anti-spam atmosphere.

 

Well, I'm not in the service, but I know a few people who are and according to them, most of the anti-American feeling in the British Army stems from two factors.

 

1) Apparently, the US Army has a bad habit of acting like dicks around British Soldiers.

2) Apparently, the US Airforce has a bad habit of killing British soldiers.

 

Whether either charge is justified, I do not know - but that's certainly the way three of my friends feel and they claim it reflects the way much of at least their regiment feels. Go figure.

[BillB]

Strange. What were the naval forces (i.e. command vessels) doing ?

 

They had to be pretty positive regarding navigation during the approach due to the need to be kept within the swept channels. The naval vessels (bombarding and command) would have had their positions exactly known visually and by radar (also radio location - a variant of gee). They didn't seem to be able (????) to communicate their awareness to the landing craft. Currents at the launching area would have been readily assessed by any of the larger ships as their courses would be affected and the gunnery and navigation members would be making the captains aware of the currents. You can't fire at targets unless you know where you are and you know your movement through the water.

 

The command ships (at least the British ones) had radar specifically for the marshalling/despatch of the landing ships/craft.

 

The only thing I can think of is that once a wave of landing craft was going off at an angle it was "easier" (i.e. the only practical thing to do) to let them go in an organised mass rather than disorganising them by trying to adjust their course. Is that sensible ?

With all due respect Phil, I don't think you really understand the practicalities of what you are talking about. There were getting on for 5,000 vessels milling about in the dark off the Normandy beaches and the two (IIRC) command vessels were busy keeping track of all that. It wasn't their task to micromanage individual LCIs etc.

 

The bombardment vessels were cruising parallel to the coast and further out than the landing vessels for obvious reasons, and I doubt they would notice currents that would severely intefere with comparatively tiny landing craft. And that's assuming that the currents ran so far offshore anyway. Also, I don't think there was very much time between the bombardment vessels and landing craft arriving on station for the former to be dicking around measuring currents, and I don't think the comms links with the landing craft were as sophisticated as you seem to think either. I don't think most had radios and all their station keeping and IIRC "navigation" was done on visually once they had shaken out into their waves after loading and marshalling from the transports. As there were winds of between 16-20 knots causing the LCAs to go up and down as much as 30 feet I think most LCA coxwains had all on staying on a heading for land with their wave. So ref the last bit, once the wave began its run in it was too late to adjust direction or anything else, if only because to do so would have caused chaos for the following waves. Once things statred it was esentially a seaborne conveyor belt stretching all the way back to Britain, and there was no mechanism for stopping or reversing it.

 

Finally, you can't really compare the British and US beaches in this regard, because AIUI the currents that intefered with the US landings were the result of the rough weather in the mouth of the Channel being channeled around the Cotentin Peninsula and had dissipated against the shore and offshore reefs before they reached the Brit & Canadian beaches. I suspect that is why the OMAHA Mulberry at St Laurent was wrecked by bad weather while the GOLD one at Arromanches survived.

 

BillB

[Rich]

With all due respect Phil, I don't think you really understand the practicalities of what you are talking about. There were getting on for 5,000 vessels milling about in the dark off the Normandy beaches and the two (IIRC) command vessels were busy keeping track of all that. It wasn't their task to micromanage individual LCIs etc.

 

The "command vessels" I think you mean were Augusta (TF 122), Ancon (TF 124), Bayfield (TF 125), Bulolo (Assault Force G), Hilary (Assault Force J), Largs (Assault Force S), Apollo (ANCXF), and Scylla (Eastern Naval Task Force Commander) were just that - command ships - they were not intended to be guidance vessels. That role was taken Primary and Secondary Control vessels, which were usually PCs or LCI (L) fitted as command and control ships, so denoted officially as LCC (on the Commonwealth beaches frigates were also used as command vessels). The proximate causes of the misslanding at UTAH were the sea conditions - the unexpectedly swift current caused by the storms running north to south - and the loss of a Primary Control vessel to a mine, PC-1261, assigned to TARE RED. That would have been okay, except that the Secondary Control vessel LCC-80, had fouled her screws putting out of port. Worse, LCC-80 was also the left guide for the TARE RED assault group and because she was absent, PC-1261 had also taken that position. So when she went down there was no Primary or Secondary vessel for TARE RED. LCC-90 was the backup secondary control vessel, but was unaware that PC-1261 had went down and was positioned as the right control vessel, so was out of position to prevent the drift southwards (to the left). The curious thing is that the TARE GREEN control group (PC-1176, and LCC-60 and 70) apparently decided to conform to the movement of the TARE RED group, evidently deciding they knew what they were doing, but then did attempt to have LCC-60 take over as the Primary Control for TARE RED when it was realized that PC-1261 had gone down. The upshot of the various missteps was that the entire formation drifted 1,000 to 1,500 yards south of the intended touchdown point, despite the use of "special navigation equipment."

[philgollin]

With all due respect Phil, I don't think you really understand the practicalities of what you are talking about. There were getting on for 5,000 vessels milling about in the dark off the Normandy beaches and the two (IIRC) command vessels were busy keeping track of all that. It wasn't their task to micromanage individual LCIs etc.

 

The bombardment vessels were cruising parallel to the coast and further out than the landing vessels for obvious reasons, and I doubt they would notice currents that would severely intefere with comparatively tiny landing craft. And that's assuming that the currents ran so far offshore anyway. Also, I don't think there was very much time between the bombardment vessels and landing craft arriving on station for the former to be dicking around measuring currents, and I don't think the comms links with the landing craft were as sophisticated as you seem to think either. I don't think most had radios and all their station keeping and IIRC "navigation" was done on visually once they had shaken out into their waves after loading and marshalling from the transports. As there were winds of between 16-20 knots causing the LCAs to go up and down as much as 30 feet I think most LCA coxwains had all on staying on a heading for land with their wave. So ref the last bit, once the wave began its run in it was too late to adjust direction or anything else, if only because to do so would have caused chaos for the following waves. Once things statred it was esentially a seaborne conveyor belt stretching all the way back to Britain, and there was no mechanism for stopping or reversing it.

 

Finally, you can't really compare the British and US beaches in this regard, because AIUI the currents that intefered with the US landings were the result of the rough weather in the mouth of the Channel being channeled around the Cotentin Peninsula and had dissipated against the shore and offshore reefs before they reached the Brit & Canadian beaches. I suspect that is why the OMAHA Mulberry at St Laurent was wrecked by bad weather while the GOLD one at Arromanches survived.

 

BillB

 

Some very valid points from you and others, especially, I think, about the individual communications and the possible overwhelming of the control channels. I do worry that the Navy didn't help out as much as it could have in terms of its superior radar and navigational materiel - that "annoys" me as they should have thought about it.

 

(I cannot accept the comments regarding the US Mulberry as the currents affecting and exposure of the US Mulberry were well known and designed for - there is continuing "disagreement" about that issue).

[philgollin]

The "command vessels" I think you mean were Augusta (TF 122), Ancon (TF 124), Bayfield (TF 125), Bulolo (Assault Force G), Hilary (Assault Force J), Largs (Assault Force S), Apollo (ANCXF), and Scylla (Eastern Naval Task Force Commander) were just that - command ships - they were not intended to be guidance vessels. That role was taken Primary and Secondary Control vessels, which were usually PCs or LCI (L) fitted as command and control ships, so denoted officially as LCC (on the Commonwealth beaches frigates were also used as command vessels). The proximate causes of the misslanding at UTAH were the sea conditions - the unexpectedly swift current caused by the storms running north to south - and the loss of a Primary Control vessel to a mine, PC-1261, assigned to TARE RED. That would have been okay, except that the Secondary Control vessel LCC-80, had fouled her screws putting out of port. Worse, LCC-80 was also the left guide for the TARE RED assault group and because she was absent, PC-1261 had also taken that position. So when she went down there was no Primary or Secondary vessel for TARE RED. LCC-90 was the backup secondary control vessel, but was unaware that PC-1261 had went down and was positioned as the right control vessel, so was out of position to prevent the drift southwards (to the left). The curious thing is that the TARE GREEN control group (PC-1176, and LCC-60 and 70) apparently decided to conform to the movement of the TARE RED group, evidently deciding they knew what they were doing, but then did attempt to have LCC-60 take over as the Primary Control for TARE RED when it was realized that PC-1261 had gone down. The upshot of the various missteps was that the entire formation drifted 1,000 to 1,500 yards south of the intended touchdown point, despite the use of "special navigation equipment."

 

Thank-you - an excellent reply and very helpful.

 

Any idea what went wrong on Omaha ?

 

.

[Jim Martin]

Thank-you - an excellent reply and very helpful.

 

Any idea what went wrong on Omaha ?

 

.

 

 

For one thing, Omaha was defended by a full-up Infanterie Division, at the beach for exercises. Weren't permanently stationed there. Had the normal garrison been the only defenders, things would have been a lot easier. Had the other beaches been as heavily defended, you'd have seen far heavier casualties there as well. Note that even though Utah was a goat-rope as far as landing the troops at the right place, it was Omaha which was a bloodbath.

[philgollin]

For one thing, Omaha was defended by a full-up Infanterie Division, at the beach for exercises. Weren't permanently stationed there. Had the normal garrison been the only defenders, things would have been a lot easier. Had the other beaches been as heavily defended, you'd have seen far heavier casualties there as well. Note that even though Utah was a goat-rope as far as landing the troops at the right place, it was Omaha which was a bloodbath.

 

No, the thread is concerned with the problem of the landings being out of position on Omaha, as well as the more well known Utah problem.

[Rich]

For one thing, Omaha was defended by a full-up Infanterie Division, at the beach for exercises. Weren't permanently stationed there. Had the normal garrison been the only defenders, things would have been a lot easier. Had the other beaches been as heavily defended, you'd have seen far heavier casualties there as well. Note that even though Utah was a goat-rope as far as landing the troops at the right place, it was Omaha which was a bloodbath.

 

Actually Jim, no, the "there for exercises" bit was an incorrect post-battle asumption by V Corps G-2 trying to understand why they were there. In fact, 352. Inf.-Div. had started to take over positions of 716. Inf.-Div. in early April when elements of the divisional artillery moved up. By the end of the month the former 7 K.V.A.-H (Seventh Army Coastal Defense Sector "H") known as "K.V.A. Caen" occupied by 716. Inf.-Div. was formally split into two sectors 7 K.V.A.-H1 "K.V.A. Caen" and 7 K.V.A.-H2 "K.V.A. Bayeux", with 352. Inf.-Div. taking command in H2. Curiously though, since the units of 716. Division remained in place, those in H2 being attached to 352. Division, the change made no improvement on the beaches in H1 for 716. Division. OTOH as part of the realignment a Panzergrenadier and the Panzerjaeger battalion of 21. Panzer were placed in reserve along Periers Ridge and the rest of the Panzergrenadier regiments closed up on the eastern side of the Orne nearer to Caen (which made the actions of 6 Airborne that much more critical, limiting the options of how those additional battalions and the Panzers of the division could be committed across the river).

 

As far as the mislandings on OMAHA goes it was due to a number of factors. One was the current problem, but another was that the naval bombardment had managed to set large parts of the heather on the bluffs between Colleville and St. Laurent alight, which produced a lot of heavy smoke, obscuring the few landmarks in that zone. Add in the very heavy German fire on the boat waves that created quite a bit of turmoil and things quickly fell apart. Of course note that the worse problems were encountered by the first boat waves, 32 LCT, 48 LCA/LCVP, and 36 LCM, with the worse problems occuring amongst the LCA and LCVP, which were the least maneuverable. There did not appear to be problems with the control boats, but for some reason fewer were assigned, proportionately, than at UTAH, five LCC for two regimental sectors at OMAHA as opposed to the two PC and four LCC for the two battalion sectors at UTAH. And the Ranger assault on Pointe du Hoc did not have any control boats asigned at all apparently under the mistaken assumption that the geogrpahy was so obvious there was no need, which was incorrect.

[Ken Estes]

What I said. Moreover, for Phil, I repeat that surface navigation radars are not up to the precision you infer. These are not fire control radars, and have much less precision in details of bearing, although they are good for rangetaking. Moreover, the notion of tracking a wave assumes the return from a wooden hull LCVP will be sufficient and that a plotting room can distinguish the different waves, let alone show course & speed. None of this was conceivable in 1944. Thus the navigation was mostly piloting against a coastline that even today lacks much definition.

[philgollin]

............. As far as the mislandings on OMAHA goes it was due to a number of factors. One was the current problem, but another was that the naval bombardment had managed to set large parts of the heather on the bluffs between Colleville and St. Laurent alight, which produced a lot of heavy smoke, obscuring the few landmarks in that zone. Add in the very heavy German fire on the boat waves that created quite a bit of turmoil and things quickly fell apart. Of course note that the worse problems were encountered by the first boat waves, 32 LCT, 48 LCA/LCVP, and 36 LCM, with the worse problems occuring amongst the LCA and LCVP, which were the least maneuverable. There did not appear to be problems with the control boats, but for some reason fewer were assigned, proportionately, than at UTAH, five LCC for two regimental sectors at OMAHA as opposed to the two PC and four LCC for the two battalion sectors at UTAH. And the Ranger assault on Pointe du Hoc did not have any control boats asigned at all apparently under the mistaken assumption that the geogrpahy was so obvious there was no need, which was incorrect.

 

Thanks again. Don't really understand what the navy was up to though.

[philgollin]

What I said. Moreover, for Phil, I repeat that surface navigation radars are not up to the precision you infer. These are not fire control radars, and have much less precision in details of bearing, although they are good for rangetaking. Moreover, the notion of tracking a wave assumes the return from a wooden hull LCVP will be sufficient and that a plotting room can distinguish the different waves, let alone show course & speed. None of this was conceivable in 1944. Thus the navigation was mostly piloting against a coastline that even today lacks much definition.

 

Navigation radars were perfectly accurate for assessing ship's own passage through water - it is elementary navigation in coastal waters. They were doing that with metric radars in 1941 on East Coast UK convoys through swept minefield channels.

 

Tracking waves would not just be from wooden hulled landing craft.

 

Rich's explanation seems much more likely, it merely raises the issue of what the navy was thinking of.

[A2Keltainen]

For one thing, Omaha was defended by a full-up Infanterie Division, at the beach for exercises. Weren't permanently stationed there. Had the normal garrison been the only defenders, things would have been a lot easier. Had the other beaches been as heavily defended, you'd have seen far heavier casualties there as well. Note that even though Utah was a goat-rope as far as landing the troops at the right place, it was Omaha which was a bloodbath.

 

Det är en vitt spridd missuppfattning att 352. divisionens närvaro var en ren slump. Enligt officiella amerikanska uppgifter var det av övningsskäl som divisionen vid tidpunkten ifråga hade skjutits fram så långt att den i tidigaste skede kunde sättas in mot landstigningen. I verkligheten förhöll det sig så att den vid Saint-Lo utgångsgrupperade divisionen redan i mars 1944 hade beordrats överta västra delen av 716. kustförsvarsdivisionens vidsträckta sektor. Denna omgruppering var helt i linje med Rommels princip om kraftsamling mot kusten. Hur de allierades underrättelsetjänst kunde föras så bakom ljuset är en av krigets ouppklarade gåtor. Amerikanerna har länge hållit fast vid sin uppfattning, eftersom de vid Omahastranden tog fångar ur båda divisionerna. Detta förklaras emellertid av att vissa delar ur den ursprungliga divisionen, huvudsakligen besättningar i strandbunkrar, kvarstannade även sedan det nya förbandet hade övertagit kustsektorn. Det bör dock observeras att 716. divisionens högra gräns, som samtidigt var kår- och armégräns, gick i närheten av Cabourg, inte vid Orne.

Alarm i atlantvallen

Bertil Stjernfelt

Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek

2004

 

My translation:

 

It's a widespread misunderstanding that the 352nd division's presence was a coincidence. According to official US information, it was because of training reasons that the division had been pushed so far forward, that it could be used against the landing at the earliest moment. In reality, the division, which had its starting positions at Saint-Lo, had already in March 1944 been ordered to take over the western part of the 716th coastal defence divisions extensive sector. This regroupment was completly in line with Rommel's principle about consolidation of power at the coast. How the allied intelligence services could be so deceived/mistaken is one of the unsolved mysteries of the war. The Americans have long held their opinion, since they captured prisoners from both divisions at Omaha beach. This is explained by the fact that certain parts of the original division, mainly beach bunker crews, stayed even after the new unit hade taken over the coastal secor. It should be noted that the 716th division's right borde, that at the same time was the corps and army border, was in the vicinity of Cabourg, not at Orne.

 

The 352nd division was an ordinary field division, while the rest of the troops assigned to the Normandie beaches (the 243rd, 709th, 716th, 711th, and 346th coastal defence divisions) were a mix of the old, the young, the sick/wounded, (mainly Soviet) POWs taken into German service, and other similar bottom-of-the-barrel personnel.

[Marek Tucan]

Navigation radars were perfectly accurate for assessing ship's own passage through water - it is elementary navigation in coastal waters. They were doing that with metric radars in 1941 on East Coast UK convoys through swept minefield channels.

 

Tracking waves would not just be from wooden hulled landing craft.

 

As for perfect accuracy, they weren't, esp. close to the coast, they were very prone to getting various kinds of false echos in such conditions.

 

For the convoys - typical convoy craft would be much larger radar target than landing crafts, esp. those of first waves, and would also have much better conditions to maneuver on its own. Also the large coastal radars had plenty of time to calibrate their readings accurately and I won't be surprised if they were helped by some radar reflectors on buoys.

 

Sure, in landing waves weren't just wooden hulled ships and if such guidance was deemed neccessary, it would be possible to mount radar reflectors on pilot ships, but I'm afraid the invasion crafts would be lost in ground clutter long before hitting the beaches. Don't forget that even the sea state was pretty bad and high waves further add to the clutter.