Thank you for your reply, Mr. Anderson. You're right, I don't come here very often and I'm not very good at the technology end of things. Give me a book any day, lol... But I do have an update about the LCMs - my first-ever hint. Someone posted a memorial on Fold3: Nicholas Paul Lamia: PERSON, pictures and information - Fold3 - Fold3. This is one of the SETF LCM crewmen. There's a one-page document in that photo gallery discussing the history of the Advanced Amphibious Sub-Base at Teignmouth, England. I looked up DUHA-29 but found nothing yet. Now I think some of the crews came from there but I doubt it was big enough to provide all 36. (I think that accounts for O-1 and O-2 if that meant the east and west halves of the beach. 36 is what the SETF was allotted. ) I also just found the gunfire support flotilla AARs but they don't say who was driving the LCMs, only that it was the worst station-keeping in the history of station-keeping. They towed the 8 support and 3 command boats, whose passengers were all aboard Princess Maud. All but one of them dragged, got fouled, and departed up to an hour late: the command boat for the western half. That fits everything else I've heard about where and when the teams those LCMs ferried arrived.
Waking up this somewhat old thread, the "Naval Combat Demolition units; report of" by Lt(jg) HL BLACKWELL, Jr includes the names of the commanders of the three groups of LCM involved: (a) Assault and Command Craft - Lt.(jg) Orr, USNR (LCM 27) LCM 1 to 16 & 25 to 27 (19 craft) (b) Support Craft - Ens. Williams, USNR (LCM 17). LCM 17 to 24 (8 craft) (c) Reserve Craft - Ens. Edelfelt, USNR (LCM 30). LCM 28 to 36 (9 craft) They are not LCM crew however. Michel
