Armagh Royal British Legion look back upon 'D Day' and Normandy

THURSDAY, June 6, marks the 80th Anniversary of the D Day landings when hundreds of thousands of British, American, Canadian and other Allied service personnel began the Herculean task of liberating occupied Europe from Nazi tyranny.

The Armagh Branch of the Royal British Legion will stage an Act of Remembrance at Armagh War Memorial at 6.30pm to remember those who fell during the battle of Normandy.

Below the Legion traces the lead up to the landings and one of the most titanic struggles the world has ever seen...

THE war in Europe started in September 1939 and there was a long period of inactivity which led to the campaign being called ‘The Phony War’.

Then in May 1940 the German forces went on a full Blitzkrieg (lightning offensive).

Holland, Belgium and France were quickly defeated and the British Expeditionary Force was forced to evacuate from France in June 1940 accompanied by elements of the French army.

The Germans continued to occupy these countries and continued with their campaign eastwards towards Russia. These countries remained under the control of their German oppressors until after D Day. America entered the war in December 1941 after the Japanese attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbour.

Soon the war became a World War with campaigns in North Africa and Italy. There was also fighting in the Far East.

In late 1942 the combined British and US forces started planning for the invasion of Europe. The strategic plan was to invade through France and fight right through to Germany. The allies also planned to continue fighting northwards from Italy.

American General Dwight D Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander and the commander ground forces was the British General Bernard Montgomery.

The production started of all the ships, guns, aircraft and stores that the huge force would need.

Huge numbers of personnel arrived from the USA to take part in the invasion and at one point the US troops in Northern Ireland are believed to have been 10% of the population.

American forces had first been based in Northern Ireland shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. These troops eventually moved out for the North African campaign.

In 1943 a second influx of American forces soon started to arrive in the UK in preparation for the Normandy campaign. The Germans were quite aware that an attack would eventually happen.

They had built a huge chain of defences known as ‘The Atlantic Wall’, running from Norway to the Spanish border. The Germans believed that the logical location for an attack would be through the shortest route, Calais.

The biggest problem the allies had was deception. To increase this belief by the Germans, allied aircraft when bombing Hitler’s Atlantic Wall defences in Normandy also frequently bombed the Calais area.

A phantom army was created by manufacturing huge numbers of dummy inflatable tanks, aircraft and boats.

General George Patton was named as its commander.

Whilst these dummy logistics were in plain sight the real vehicles were hidden as well as possible from view. The Americans were based at a huge number of locations throughout Northern Ireland.

Locally they were stationed in Armagh Barracks (later re-named Gough), Castledillon, Charlemont, Drumcairn Mill (beside the Mill Row), Gosford Castle, The Manor House Loughgall (also at Drumilly), the Argory, Tandragee, Tynan Abbey, and Caledon House.

In Armagh in April 1944 General George Patton addressed American troops on the Mall.

On Tuesday, 6th June, 1944, the biggest seaborne invasion in history began.

Nearly 7,000 ships/landing craft, 160,000 troops, almost 200,000 naval personnel, and hundreds of aircraft were involved.

As there were no suitable harbours in the Normandy landings area, two huge portable harbours were towed across the channel and put in place.

The Normandy landings comprised five beachheads; Utah, Omaha (both American Forces), Gold (British Forces), Juno (Canadian Forces) and Sword (British Forces).

To protect the flanks, the paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st US Airborne and British 6th Airborne were parachuted in a few hours before the landings on the left and right flanks respectively. The battle for Normandy ended in August 1944 and there were a significant number of casualties

Amongst this huge number of personnel, a number of local men who had joined the British Army fought in Normandy during and after the landings on 6 June 1944.

In the past, local men usually joined local regiments but by the outbreak of WW2 due to population movements many recruits enlisted in whatever regiment was based in their local area.

Of the ‘local’ battalions here, The Royal Irish Fusiliers battalions were in action in the Mediterranean.

The Inniskilling Fusiliers were in the East Indies or India.

The 5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards which had been mechanised, landed in Normandy about a month after D Day and joined the 7th Armoured Division (the ‘Desert Rats’). The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Irish Guards landed in Normandy on 25th June 1944.

One of the Irish Guards was Bob Crawford, who survived the war and lived in Armagh.

Both the 1st and 2nd battalions of the Royal Ulster Rifles landed in Normandy on D Day. The 2nd battalion came ashore in landing craft a few hours after the initial landings.

The 1st battalion was part of the 6th Airborne and landed by glider on the evening of D Day. This was a unique achievement as the Rifles were the only regiment of the British Army to have two battalions in action in Normandy on that day.

Many more Ulstermen, including a number from Armagh, would have landed in Normandy on D Day with other army battalions.

There were also local men serving with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy including William Cook, from Newtownhamilton, who was a crew member of a landing craft.

It is believed he was only about 18 years old and he served below decks. He went up on deck and observed the dead bodies of soldiers, some of whom would have had a short time earlier gone ashore from his landing craft. Another soldier, who was serving with an armoured unit, was Thomas McClelland, from Milford, Armagh. He was a member of the 4th London Yeomanry which was part of the 7th Armoured Division at Villiers Bocage near Bayeux.

German tank ace Michael Wittman (a well decorated veteran of the Russian campaign) was in the area and spotted an opportunity to attack the British forces.

In a sudden and short attack, he destroyed some 30 tanks and personnel carriers. (Thought to have been 20 Cromwell tanks, four Sherman Firefly tanks, three Humber Scout cars, three Stuart light tanks, and one Half Track).

Among those killed was Thomas McClelland, who is believed to have been a tank gunner.

He is buried in Hottot-les-Bagues War Cemetery which is south of Bayeux.

Michael Wittman, the German who carried out the attack on the 4th (London) Yeomanry, was killed on 8 August 1944 and is buried in La Cambe German cemetery, also in Normandy.

The Normandy campaign marked the start of the battles to free those countries under Nazi rule but it did not win the war on its own.

Battles being fought in Italy, the Mediterranean, the Far East, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans all contributed to the final victory.

The bravery of the partisans and resistance within the population of all the occupied countries played a key role and must also not be forgotten.

On Thursday 6th June 2024 at 18.30hrs, to commemorate D Day and Normandy, there will be an Act of Remembrance by Armagh Royal British Legion at Armagh War Memorial.

You are invited to attend.