Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Passages: The 12 Hours Before D-Day Normandy

The Prose of War



Canadian Corvette officer James B. Lamb, aboard the sturdy, swift Minas, recalls - with remarkable clarity and feeling - a great deal of his experience on June 5 and 6, D-Day Normandy, 1944 in his book The Corvette Navy. And certain paragraphs in Chapter 11, The Channel War, pointedly caught my attention. I present them here accompanied by five photographs from H.M.C.S. by Royal Canadian Navy photographer G. A. Milne.

               5:30 PM June 5: The Sweep

   The sweep across for us, once we had got
   clear of the incredible traffic jam east and south
   of the Isle of Wight, was simple enough.

   We got out our sweeps at 5:30 in the afternoon,
   and two hours later we entered the enemy minefields,
   my knees shaking with patriotism as I kept close watch
   on Cowichan ahead for any mines she should cut.
   By midnight the show was on: the air force
   began to kick the stuffing out of the coast, and
   Port en Bessin ahead was a tremendous spectacle,
   with fires raging below and a fireworks show
   of flak and searchlights up above.

 West and south of the Isle of Wight: 'Passing the Needles'

Map from forecast-weather.com

               3:00 AM June 6: We Were Home Free

   At three in the morning we did our thing,
   a slow turn to starboard, with the ship almost stopped,
   and so close to the beach we could make out every detail
   in the pale light of a wan moon.

   When we finished our turn, without a glove
   laid on us, we knew we were home free; from
   here on it was downhill all the way,
   a piece of cake.

   Behind us stretched a great wide channel of swept
   water, lit up by lighted dan buoys at regular intervals;
   off to starboard were two other similar channels,
   like lighted streets leading to the beaches,
   cut by "the famous Fourth", a fine old bunch of
   First World War coal-burners, and the 14th,
   a flotilla of mixed British and Canadian ships.
   The roads well and duly cut and blazed,
   we stood to one side, as the Coxswain said,
   "to watch the Pongoes get on with the job".

The five photographs below are from H.M.C.S. by G. A. Milne

 'Every ship in the world' passed through swept channels

               Before 5:00 AM June 6: Heart-Stopping Intensity

   It was full daylight as we
   recovered our sweeps, right off the beach.
   To seaward was an unbelievable sight;
   every ship in the world seemed to be steaming
   over the horizon, heading for the beaches,
   now lying veiled under clouds of smoke
   from the night's bombing.

   Troop-carrying liners
   were headed for their anchorages,
   to off-load their men into assault boats;
   long lines of landing craft, infantry,
   and landing craft, tanks, were
   trundling along in close formation,
   while the big battleships and cruisers of
   the bombarding squadrons were taking up position
   and spitting in their palms, getting ready
   to buckle down to work.

   For a moment we in the sweepers were conscious
   of an instant of almost heart-stopping intensity;
   a moment of historical confrontation between
   what seemed to us to be the forces of
   freedom and tyranny, of good and evil.


               Past 5:00 AM June 6: Fur Began to Fly

   Behind us to seaward all was light,
   the pale flush of dawn on the light paint-work,
   the bright white ensigns of the ships;
   ashore all was dark and sombre and sullen,
   the squat grey concrete of the German batteries,
   with their black slits and deep embrasures,
   like so many malformed skulls.

'We freemen looked for the first time on the dark forces'

   For a long moment,
   we freemen looked for the first time on the
   dark forces we had fought against for so long,
   brought to bay at last like some
   fearful monster of romance;
   and they, in their bunkers and casemates ashore,
   surely they looked out at us,
   and saw at last their doom.

   And then,
   sharp at ten minutes past five,
   our bombarding ships opened fire,
   and the fur began to fly.


'And the fur began to fly'

Please link to Passages: Heaven and Hell

Unattributed Photos by GH

No comments:

Post a Comment