OPERATION NEPTUNE

'Operation Neptune' was the assault landing operation of Operation Overlord, the precursor to the Battle of Normandy during World War II. D-Day for the operation, postponed 24 hours, became June 6, 1944. The opening assault was conducted in two phases, an air assault landing of American and British airborne divisions shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry divisions on the coast ofFrance commencing at 06:30 British Double Summer Time. It required the transport of soldiers and materiel from England and Wales by troop carrier airplanes and ships, the assault landings, air support, and naval fire-support. There were also subsidiary operations to distract the Kriegsmarine and prevent its interference in the landing areas.
Over 1,000,000 personnel were involved, including 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel. ''Neptune'' took place on the Cotentin Peninsula, the east bank of the Orne River, and the Baie de la Seine, offshore and along the Normandy coast where five invasion beaches were assaulted: Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah. It was considered officially complete on June 30 1944, by which time 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles and 570,000 tonnes of supplies had been landed by 7,000 vessels for the loss of 59 ships^[1].

Contents

Naval participants

Allied warships

Battleships

Cruisers

Destroyers and escorts

Other warships

Operation ''Gambit''

Naval screen

Naval bombardment

Definition

See also

References

External links

Naval participants

The primary ground-force participants in the landings that began Operation ''Neptune'' were nine divisions drawn from the American, British and Canadian armies. During subsequent weeks more units were landed as reinforcements.
The Invasion Fleet was drawn from eight different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels (1,213 warships, 4,126 transport vessels (landing ships and landing craft) and 1,600 support vessels which included a number of merchant vessels).
The overall commander of the Allied Naval Expeditionary Force, providing close protection and bombardment at the beaches, was Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay who had been responsible for the planning of the invasion of North Africa in 1942 and one of the two fleets carrying troops for the invasion of Sicily in the following year. The Allied Naval Expeditionary Force was divided into two Naval Task Forces: Western (Rear-Admiral Alan G Kirk) and Eastern (Rear-Admiral Sir Philip Vian – another veteran of the Italian landings).
The warships provided cover for the transports against the enemy whether in the form of surface warships, submarines or as an aerial attack and gave support to the landings through shore bombardment. These ships included the Allied Task Force "O".

Allied warships

Battleships

Six battleships took part: three British and three US:

★ USS ''Arkansas''

★ HMS ''Nelson''

★ USS ''Nevada''

★ HMS ''Ramillies''

★ USS ''Texas'' (Flagship of Rear Admiral C.F. Bryant)

★ HMS ''Warspite''

Cruisers

Twenty-five cruisers (19 British and Commonwealth, 3 US, 2 Free French, 1 Polish and 1 Dutch), including:

★ HMS ''Ajax''

★ HMS ''Arethusa'',

★ HMS ''Argonaut''

★ USS ''Augusta'' (Flagship of Rear Admiral Kirk - Lt. General Omar Bradley embarked)

★ HMS ''Belfast'' (Flagship of Rear Admiral Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton)

★ HMS Captetown (British Light Cruiser - sister ship of the HMS Ceres)

★ HMS Ceres (British Light Cruiser)(Flagship of U.S. Service Force)

★ HMS ''Danae''

★ HMS ''Diadem''

★ HMS ''Durban'' (used as a blockship in "Gooseberry" breakwater)

★ ORP ''Dragon'' (Polish, damaged in July and then used as a blockship in "Gooseberry" breakwater)

★ HMS ''Emerald''

★ HMS ''Enterprise''

★ HMS ''Frobisher''

★ ''Georges Leygues'' (Free French)

★ HMS ''Glasgow''

★ HMS ''Mauritius'' (Flagship of Rear Admiral Patterson)

★ ''Montcalm'' (Free French, Flagship of Rear Admiral Jaujard)

★ HMS ''Orion''

★ USS ''Quincy''

★ HMS ''Scylla'' (Admiral Vian's flagship, mined and seriously damaged, out of action until after the war)

★ HNMLS ''Sumatra'' (Dutch, decommissioned due to crew shortages and losing her guns to HNMLS Flores and Soemba, used as blockship in"Gooseberry" breakwater)

★ USS ''Tuscaloosa''

Destroyers and escorts

135 ships (eighty-five British and Dominion, 39 US, 7 Free French and 7 other Allied):

★ HMCS ''Algonquin''

★ USS Amesbury''

★ USS ''Baldwin''

★ USS ''Barton''

★ HMS ''Bleasdale''

★ HMS ''Boadicea'' (torpedoed and sunk 13 June)

★ USS ''Carmick''

★ HMS ''Cattistock''

★ HMS ''Cottesmore''

★ USS ''Doyle''

★ HMS ''Eglinton''

★ HMS ''Faulknor''

★ USS ''Frankford''

★ HMS ''Fury'' (mined 21 June and not repaired)

★ HMS ''Glaisdale''

★ HMS ''Grenville''

★ USS ''Harding''

★ USS ''Hobson''

★ HMS ''Jervis''

★ HMS ''Kelvin''

★ HMS ''Kempenfelt''

★ HMCS ''Kitchener''

★ ORP ''Krakowiak'', (Polish, former HMS ''Silverton'')

★ ''La Combattante'' (Free French, former HMS ''Haldon'')

★ USS ''Laffey''

★ USS ''McCook''

★ HMS ''Melbreak''

★ HMS ''Middleton''

★ USS ''Murphy''

★ USS ''O'Brien''

★ HMS ''Pytchley''

★ USS ''Satterlee''

★ HMS ''Saumarez''

★ HMS ''Scorpion''

★ HMS ''Scourge''

★ HMS ''Serapis''

★ HMCS ''Sioux''

★ ORP ''Slazak'' (Polish)

★ HMS ''Stevenstone''

★ HNoMS ''Stord''

★ HNoMS ''Svenner'' (hit by German torpedo and sunk off Normandy at dawn, 6 June)^[2]

★ HMS ''Swift'' (mined and sunk 24 June 1944 off Normandy)

★ HMS ''Talybont''

★ HMS ''Tanatside''

★ USS ''Thomson''

★ HMS ''Ulster''

★ HMS ''Ulysses''

★ HMS ''Undaunted''

★ HMS ''Undine''

★ HMS ''Urania''

★ HMS ''Urchin''

★ HMS ''Ursa''

★ HMS ''Venus''

★ HMS ''Verulam''

★ HMS ''Vigilant''

★ HMS ''Virago''

★ HMS ''Wrestler'' (damaged by a mine and not repaired)

Other warships

508 ships (352 British, 154 US and 2 other Allied):

★ USS ''Bayfield'', attack transport

★ HMS ''Centurion'', old battleship sunk as a blockship in "Gooseberry" breakwater

★ ''Courbet'', Free Naval French Forces, old battleship sunk as a blockship in "Gooseberry" breakwater

★ USS ''Charles Carroll'' attack transport

★ HNLMS ''Flores'', Dutch gunboat

★ HNLMS ''Soemba'', Dutch gunboat

★ HMS ''Lawford'', frigate (bombed and sunk}

★ HMS ''Roberts'', monitor

★ HMS ''Bulolo'', H.Q. ship
The British 9th and 159th minesweeping flotillas and U.S. 7th Minesweeping Squadron provided minesweeping protection. A distant anti-submarine screen to the operation was provided by HMS ''Onslow'', ''Offa'', ''Onslaught'', ''Oribi'', ''Melbreak'' and ''Brissenden''. Additional protection from E-boats was provided by various Motor Gun Boat flotillas.

Operation ''Gambit''

A small part of this operation was Operation ''Gambit'', when British midget submarines (X-Craft) supplied navigation beacons to guide landing craft.

Naval screen

An important part of ''Neptune'' was the isolation of the invasion routes and beaches from any intervention by the German Navy – the Kriegsmarine. The responsibility for this was assigned to the Royal Navy's Home Fleet. There were two principal perceived German naval threats. The first was surface attack by German capital ships from anchorages in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea. This did not materialise since, by mid-1944, the battleships were damaged and the cruisers were used for training and the Kriegsmarine's fuel allocation had been cut by a third. The inactivity may also have resulted from Hitler's disillusion with the Kriegsmarine. In any case, the Royal Navy had strong forces available to repel any attempts, and the Kiel Canal area was mined (Operation ''Bravado'') as a precaution.
The second perceived major threat was that of U-boats transferred from the Atlantic. Air surveillance from three escort carriers and RAF Coastal Command maintained a cordon well west of Land's End. Few U-boats were spotted, and most of the escort groups were moved nearer to the landings.
Further efforts were made to seal the Western Approaches against German naval forces from Brittany and the Bay of Biscay. Minefields were laid (Operation ''Maple'') to force enemy ships away from air protection where they could be attacked by Allied destroyer flotillas. Again, enemy activity was minor, but on 4 July four German destroyers were either sunk or forced back to Brest.
The Straits of Dover were closed by minefields, naval and air patrols, radar, and effective bombing raids on enemy ports. Local German naval forces were small but could be reinforced from the Baltic. Their efforts, however, were concentrated on protecting the Pas de Calais against expected landings there, and no attempt was made to force the blockade.
The screening operation destroyed few German ships, but the objective was achieved. There were no U-boat attacks against Allied shipping and few attempts by surface ships.

Naval bombardment

Warships provided supporting fire for the land forces. During ''Neptune'', it was given a high importance, using ships from battleships to destroyers and landing craft. For example, the Canadians at Juno beach had fire support many times greater than they had had at Dieppe in 1942. The old battleships HMS ''Ramillies'' and ''Warspite'' and the monitor HMS ''Roberts'' were used to suppress shore batteries east of the Orne; cruisers targeted shore batteries at Ver-sur-Mer and Moulineaux; eleven destroyers for local fire support. In addition, there were modified landing-craft: eight Landing Craft Gun, each with two 4.7-inch guns; four Landing Craft Support with automatic cannon; eight Landing Craft Tank (Support), each with a single salvo of 1,100 5-inch rockets; eight Landing Craft Assault (Hedgerow), each with twenty-four bombs intended to detonate beach mines prematurely. Twenty-four Landing Craft Tank carried Priest self-propelled howitzers which also fired while they were on the run-in to the beach. Similar arrangements existed at other beaches.
Fire support went beyond the suppression of shore defences overlooking landing beaches and was also used to break up enemy concentrations as the troops moved inland. This was particularly noted in German reports: Field-Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt reported that
:''... The enemy had deployed very strong Naval forces off the shores of the bridgehead. These can be used as quickly mobile, constantly available artillery, at points where they are necessary as defence against our attacks or as support for enemy attacks. During the day their fire is skillfully directed by . . . plane observers, and by advanced ground fire spotters. Because of the high rapid-fire capacity of Naval guns they play an important part in the battle within their range. The movement of tanks by day, in open country, within the range of these naval guns is hardly possible.''

Definition

Although many references state that ''Operation Neptune'' refers to the naval operations in support of ''Operation Overlord'', the most reliable references make it clear that ''Overlord'' refers to the establishment of a large-scale lodgement in Normandy, and that ''Neptune'' refers to the landing phase; i.e. ''Neptune'' was the first part of ''Overlord''. According to the D-day museum:^[3]
:''"The armed forces use codenames to refer to the planning and execution of specific military operations. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of north-west Europe. The assault phase of Operation Overlord was known as Operation Neptune. (...) Operation Neptune began on D-Day (6 June 1944) and ended on 30 June 1944. By this time, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and continued until Allied forces crossed the River Seine on 19 August 1944."''

See also

References

1. The Oxford Companion to World War II, John Keegan, Oxford 2001
2. Investigations indicate that the ''Svenner'' may have been hit by an early version of a German anti-shipping missile (possibly a Fritz X, since there is little indication that German MTBs came at firing range and no accounts of German naval activity in the invasion area itself have been recorded. There have also been reports of German bombers releasing long, torpedo-like bombs, but from a very long distance, no way near firing-range. The most likely, though, is that it was hit by a torpedo, but accounts point in either direction.
3. http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/faq.htm#overlord

External links

★ ''American D-Day: Omaha Beach, Utah Beach & Pointe du Hoc''

★ US report on ''Neptune''

★ D-Day : Etat des Lieux - 6 June 1944 and Battle of Normandy

★ Naval details for ''Overlord''

★ HMS ''Tanatside''

★ Encyclopaedia Britannica