D-Day Gold Beach

My next stop on the D-Day tour was Gold Beach, the British Beach in the centre of the D-Day landings. Gold Beach had 4 sectors, but due to the cliffs on either side of Arromanches, the landings were limited to Jig and King sectors. I also visited the Battery at Longues-sur-Mer as part of the visit.

Landings

The German strong points WN33 to WN38 were the main defences facing the landing troops at Gold Beach. The houses on the beach were also fortified, forcing a house-to-house clearance. The Hampshire and Dorset Regiments landed on Jig Beach and the 6th Green Howards and East Yorkshires landed on King Beach.

Jig Sector

The Hampshires landed in front of WN36 and faced heavy resistance and fire from the 75mm gun at WN37. The tanks were late due to heavy seas then several of them were bogged down on the beach or taken out by the WN37 gun. The Hampshires took out WN36 but where stopped when they pushed west to try to capture WN37.

The beaches had many obstacles, most of them at the high tide mark as Rommel believed the Allies would land at high tide to minimize the beach crossing.

Allies landed just after low tide to avoid the obstacles and give the Engineers a chance to clear lanes for future landings. The Engineers progressed slowly due to heavy fire and the rapidly rising tide created a traffic jam on the beach.

There was a TB Sanatorium adjacent to WN37 that had been fortified and delayed progress until several Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) rounds silenced the Guns atop the sanatorium. WN37 was finally taken out at 1600 when an AVRE fired a round into the rear door, and the Hampshires and Dorsets pushed their way inland. The Hampshires took Arromanches the key to the successful construction of the artificial Mulberry Harbour.

WN 37

I talked about the attempt to take out WN37 by a Typhoon attack in a previous post. Neither the bombing, nor offshore shelling had any impact on the gun as it was in action until 1600. The had a great view down the beach and wreaked havoc on the landing troops all day.

After the gun position was finally neutralized, a photo was taken from the position to show the gun’s dominating coverage of the landing beach.

WN37 after being captured.

What WN37 looks like today.

King Sector

At King Sector, the tanks were delivered right onto the beach due to heavy seas, so the tanks, Engineers and Infantry all arrived at the same time. The landing force faced heavy fire from WN33 until a flail tank fired a round directly into its aperture. The tanks were invaluable helping clear the fortified houses around Le Hamel.

The strong point at WN35 had been damaged by offshore shelling and was taken by the Green Howards with support of several AVREs. A lone flail tank cleared a path south for the Green Howards. The flail tank is a regular Sherman Tank with an attachment that spins chains in front of the tank to detonate mines.

By the end of the Day, the units are short of their objectives of clearing Bayeux and occupying the Bayeux-Caen Road to prevent counterattacks, but the Gold Beach-head is strongly held.

WN35

Paul Woodadage of WW2TV presents excellent YouTube Live streams on all aspects of WW2 and is well worth watching. He has first rate historians on, and often has live video showing the present-day locations. He did a presentation on the defences of Gold Beach that I watched because it covered WN37 that my relative Robert McKenzie had attempted to bomb at 0700 on D-Day. As part of the live stream, the crew visited WN-35 also on Gold Beach. Since it was low tide when I was at Gold Beach, I walked the sand to see the strong point.

There was a 50mm Gun, machine-gun tobruks, mortar positions, barbed wire, mine fields and a number of personnel bunkers. The area just behind the beach is very marshy and unsuitable for tanks or any heavy vehicles.

On the Aerial photo by Nr 1694 you can see an object on the beach. In the 80 years since D-Day, erosion has moved the shoreline back about 30 m, so the housing for the 50mm gun is now upside down on the beach.

You can appreciate the thickness of the walls and the strength of the structure as it is still intact despite being flipped on its back.

Some of the structures did not fare as well. This site was built up over time. The original structures were very well built, but the lack of supplies made the later bunkers less well constructed.

One of the bunkers was built out of stone, likely from the houses that were demolished to clear the fields of fire.

The remnants of the bunkers are spread over the beach.

The expanse of beach shows the distance the troops needed to cross with no cover.

Looking inland, you can see the marshy ground and the British Normandy Memorial on the heights beyond.

Zooming in you can see the British Memorial.

I received a personal demonstration of the speed of the tide during my beach walk. When I entered the beach, the tide had just started to turn.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day, so I took my time strolling down the beach and examining the strong point. On the way back I decided to walk all the way back down the beach as it was 1015 and high tide was not until noon. During my walk back there was a man with a little mop dog walking the same direction. They passed me as I stopped to look at things then I passed them as the dog found some treasures on the beach. All of a sudden, I looked around and they were on the path off the beach and the tiny rivulets running down to the sea beach had become 6-foot-wide streams that I didn’t want to ford.

I climbed off the beach and took the overland route. One hour and twenty minutes after the picture above, I got back to my starting point. The beach goes away completely.

Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis VC

Gold Beach provided the only Victoria Cross winner of D-Day, Sgt Mjr Stanley Hollis of the 6th Green Howards. As his company moved inland from the beaches after the initial landings, Hollis went with his company commander to investigate two German pillboxes which had been by-passed. He rushed the first, taking all but five of the occupants prisoner; and then dealt with the second, taking 26 prisoners. He next cleared a neighbouring trench. Later that day, he led an unsuccessful attack on an enemy position containing a field gun and multiple MG 42 machine guns. After withdrawing, he learned that two of his men had been left behind. He said to his commanding officer, Major Lofthouse, "I took them in. I will try to get them out." With his Bren Gun blazing, he rescued his men.

His only injury on D-Day was a burned hand when he grabbed his Bren Gun by the barrel after dispatching a number of Germans. He also attacked another building that was shown on the maps as a bunker. He fired his machine gun and tossed Grenades, only to find the building was actually a tram stop shelter. This building is now known as the Stanley Hollis VC Hut.

Aftermath

Total casualties, from all units involved in operations at Gold Beach, were in the region of 1,000–1,100 casualties, of which 350 were killed. German losses are unknown; at least 1,000 were captured.  By the end of D-Day almost 25,000 troops and 2,100 vehicles had landed at Gold Beach. The units liberated Arromanches on D-Day to enable the establishment of the Mulberry Harbour, and captured Bayeux the next day.

Longues-sur-Mer

In 1943, the Germans started working on a major battery on the heights between Gold and Omaha Beaches, at Longues-sur-Mer.  The battery contained four type M272 casemates requiring 600 cubic metres of concrete, and four tons of reinforcing steel were built, with walls and roofs over 2 m (6.6 ft) thick. Each casemate held a 150mm naval gun with a range of over 12 miles.

Along with the 4 guns, there were anti-aircraft sites, mortar positions and an observation bunker on the cliff operated by a garrison of 180 soldiers.

The guns positions could fire on both Gold and Omaha beaches. The 4 casemates and observation bunker are still intact today.

The impressive structure of the casemates is evident.

A mortar position close to the observation bunker.

The observation bunker on the coast passed firing information to the casemates.

View from the Telemetry Room on the top level of the bunker.

View from the front of the Bunker.

View from the cliffs in front of the Observation Bunker.

The Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches from the Observation Bunker.

This was a formidable location, so it attracted the attention of the Allies. It was not attacked early on as it may have been seen as an indication that Normandy would be the landing site. In late May and early June in the days before the invasion, the site was attacked with over 1000 heavy bombers. The ground around the casemates was devastated, but the guns remained operational.

The guns were still operational on D-Day as they fired on the advancing armada. Three of the four guns were permanently taken out by Naval fire. The fourth gun was damaged but resumed firing on D-Day afternoon with limited effectiveness. The site was captured at noon on 07 Jun.

Mulberry Harbour – Arromanches

One of the major reasons that the Germans didn’t believe that Normandy would be the Invasion landing site was the lack of a deep-water harbour. The Allied solution was to create two massive artificial harbours, Mulberry A on Omaha Beach and Mulberry B at Arromanches at Gold Beach.

The Allies charted the harbour water depths and in secret created massive modular components for the artificial harbour. The components were built all over the UK in the 9 months before D-Day. This is one of the major construction feats of WW2 and proved vital to the reinforcement and resupply of the Allied efforts.

Work started on both Mulberry Harbours on D-Day. The American harbour was complete and the British Harbour near completion when the worst storm in 40 years hit Normandy on 19 June. The two-day storm completely destroyed the Mulberry A at Omaha Beach and severely damaged the Mulberry B at Arromanches. Mulberry B was somewhat sheltered by the reefs in front of Juno Beach, but Mulberry A was never rebuilt, and its salvageable parts were used to repair and extend Mulberry B.

Details of the Harbour.

The harbour design consisted of the following components:

·       Bombardons – floating breakwaters placed furthest out.

·       Gooseberries – made of obsolete ships sunk to form a breakwater.

·       Phoenix Caissons – Steel and concrete ships that were floated over and sunk in place as breakwaters.

·       Spud Pierheads – Docking facilities for the Ships.

·       Whales – roadway structures to permit vehicles to drive off the Spuds.

·       Beetles – floating support for the whales.

Bombardons

Bombardons were cruciform shapes 60 m long and 7.5 m wide with an inflated bag on the top. The two arms and the bottom section were under water and had the ability to reduce the height of the waves by 75% and the intensity of the waves by 90%.

Bombardon with floatation device. These devices were anchored to the seabed.

Gooseberries

Gooseberries were lines of obsolete ships sunk to provide a breakwater.

Phoenix Caissons

The Phoenix Caissons were steel and concrete vessels with watertight compartments that could be flooded to sink to the sea floor. There caissons were 60 m long and built to various heights depending on the depth of the water.

Once the caisson was completed, it was sunk so the build up would not be visible to the German surveillance aircraft. A few days before D-Day they were re-floated, hence the name Phoenix, i.e. rising from the ashes.

Phoenix Caissons along with a Spud Pierhead and a Beetle in the foreground.

Close up view of the largest of the Caissons.

There are a number of caissons remaining at Arromanches, including one that is accessible at low tide. I arranged to visit Arromanches at low tide and was able to get a close up look at the caisson.

Nose on view. The bow and stern were sloped to allow for easier towing. More than 300 tugs were used to deliver the Mulberry components.

View of the Caisson from the shore at high tide taken on my 2023 tour.

A series of caissons is still in place from the original harbour.

Spud Pierhead

The Spud Pierhead provided the docking and unloading platform for the harbour. The Spud had 4 legs that rested on the seabed and the platform floated with the tide. At Arromanches the tides could be up to 24 feet.

The Spuds were 60 m long and were towed into position by tugs. All the capabilities of an unloading dock, cranes, mechanical and electrical components were all built into the Spud. Multiple Spuds were placed together to form the unloading docks.

Whales

The Whales were the roadway components that the vehicles drove across to get ashore. They were shaped similarly to road bridge sections. The Whales were 80 feet long and had a 10-foot-wide roadway capable of carrying a tank. The Whales were connected via spherical joints to allow the movement of the roadway with the tide and wave action.

Top view of the whale.

Beetles

Beetles were the pontoons that supported the Whale Road sections. They were 42 feet long, 15 feet wide and 8 feet deep. The deep-water Beetles were made largely of concrete and the ones that would rest on the bottom during low tide were made of steel. They were held in place with long steel cables and multiple sea anchors.

The Beetles in action.

There are a number of Beetles still in the Arromanches harbour that are accessible at low tide.

A colony of Beetles stacked up.

The Beetles at High Tide taken in 2023 emphasizes the change in tide levels.

Beetles in the foreground, Phoenix Caissons still in place in the background.

View of the Caissons from the headlands above Arromanches.

View of the Arromanches harbour with the Beetles in the lower right and scattered Caissons in the background. You can see that Arromanches is in a valley with high cliffs on either side, so the port was not attacked directly, but taken from the land side.

A similar view at high tide from 2023.

The Mulberry Harbour in action in 1944.

The Museum du Debarquement in the Arromanches Harbour was the first D-Day Museum built, opening in 1945. In 2023 a completely new museum was built with state-of-the-art technology.

I visited this museum on my previous tour, and it is highly recommended. It has a great section on the construction of the Mulberry Harbour, including detailed descriptions of the construction and a model of the layout.

Since the museum overlooks the harbour, the image of the former Mulberry is drawn on the windows as it would have been seen in 1944.

There are a number of videos on the construction of the Harbours. The one that best describes the design is a US video that covers the construction of the Mulberry A Harbour at Omaha Beach by the Seabees (US Navy Engineer Units). The video is 27 minutes long but does a great job of describing the composition of the Harbours.

The British Mulberry supported the Allied armies for 10 months. Two and a half million men, a half million vehicles, and four million tons of supplies landed in Europe through the artificial harbour at Arromanches. Remains of the structure can be seen to this day near the Musée du Débarquement.

As you can probably tell from this post, I was very impressed with the changes in the tides. I have a much better understanding of the importance of tide levels for the Assault plans. It is great to walk the beaches at low tide to get an appreciation of what the initial assault forces saw when the landing ramp went down. Low tide also allowed me to get up close to beach defences and the Mulberry Harbour remnants. It is similar to Hopewell Rocks near our cottage in New Brunswick. You really need to see the beaches at Low and High Tide to understand the impact of the tides.