6th Airborne Division 6th June 1944

Several UK newspapers have been printing memories from veterans for the 60th anniversary...I was surprised to read the following comment from a 'Able Seaman Terry Gull'...'Two miles off the French coast our landing craft took on 200 Paras who we landed on Juno Beach. They said there weren't enough planes to go round.'
This is the first time I've heard of the 6th Airborne Division going by sea to Normandy..not that I believe everything I read in the papers especially if it is uncorroborated. Has anyone heard of this before?...I'm wondering if he is confused with the seaborne tail from the 1st Airborne Division who landed in Normandy in mid August 1944....

 

Never heard that... not in any of my airborne books. Some airborne troops may have landed mid-july, I think its in Otways book that he mentions some paras arriving by sea, but certainly not read anything about paras landing on d-day by boat... I do have an account of British paras missing the drop zone and being near the beach but nothing that corresponds to that. All sources I have point to troops arriving later in the day, some paras who missed the drop went in, in gliders in the evening landings.

Will check 'Airborne Forces' by Otway and have a look through my research from Airborne forces museum and imperial war museum...

 

Nothing about that in Gale's book With The 6th Airborne Division In Normandy either...

 

You beat me to that one, Stevin - I also looked through Gale's excellent book this morning and as you say, can find no mention of this.

 

nothing in Otways report for the War Office...

Will continue checkin...

 

I find that hard to beleive.
Sapper

 

Thanks for the posts gents....I was a bit astounded to read the comment and whilst respectful of everything the guys did 60 years ago...after all this time I guess events have become clouded. As I said it was and from these comments must remain an uncorroborated account.
It may well relate as I said to men of the 1st AB Divsion's seaborne tail landing in August.

 

You would think that by the time those seaborne landed troops would have met their collegues at their objective, the airborne's mission would have been over anyway.

Anybody seen the D-Day program on the BBC last night about the airborne assault on the Mellville Batteries?

 

Watched the D-Day coverage and they interviewed a guy called Tom Mann, who was in the Royal Devonshire Regiment, and he said that two companies of his unit , including his, were landed on the 6th june with an anti-tank gun battery due to a lack of gliders...

 

Hmm, well those of you reading Gale must have been doing so with your eyes shut. See this quote from p.49

And from the 12th Devons war diary entry on D+1:

And there you have your 'mysterious' sea landing. The chap quoted must have been with 12th Devons or the anti-tank battery (I think there were also some 'tail-end' units that came over the beaches as well).

Hope that clarifies matters,

-SC

 

Wow!! And it took 4 years to clear that up?

 

Sorry to argue a point but the 12th devons D company, did go to normandy by LCI but they were in place in the channel ready for the original date june 5th, and stayed in the channel until june 6th.My point being they did not join on the day a few miles out and the 12th devons were not PARA'S so this still contridicts the original story.

 

You raise a good point, but I think to a seaman the fact that they were "airlanding" not "parachute" troops may not have made much difference, they were still designated airborne and hence "paras".

In reference to it being on D-Day, I discounted that beacuse the quote has no context so it's hard to tell if he is explicitly referring to D-Day or a later occasion (just because it was printed as part of D-Day commemorative article does not always mean it is referring to D-Day itself). I just assumed (dangerous I know) that he was talking about D+1.

As for picking them up a few miles out, what about the other sea-landed companies of the Devons? Do you have the details of their embarkation/disembarkation?

-SC

 

Got my info from "Three cheers for the next man to die" by Dudley Anderson, in which he tells his story of his time in the 12th Devons he says "The first thing we learned when we arrived at the staging camp in Essex at the end of may 1944 was that the rest of the battalion were not there, and we were told that there were not enough gliders or tow planes to take the whole battalion across the channel.so D company, as the junior company was to travel to the second front by boat" He also mentions that once on board the Lci they were informed d-day was june 5th then came the wait for the weather and they went in on june 6th.hope this helps

 

I felt I should post on this thread.

Three years late!

However,I can confirm troops from the 6th Airborne did indeed land by boat,this I know as a 92 year old gentlemen I work for was one of those that did.

I will post up further info in due course,I've just returned from a trip to France where whilst there I visited Pegasus Bridge.

I'll be chatting him with him soon as Pegasus Bridge was where his company was defending.

Roger