11. Holiday, Eve, interview.
12. Churchill, Sarah, A Thread in the Tapestry (Andre Deutsch, 1967), pp.57, 59, 65.
13. Churchill, Sarah, Keep on Dancing, pp.67–76.
14. Reid (née Ewen), Helena, script for audio recording for Medmenham Collection, 2001.
11
D-DAY AND DOODLEBUGS
In the summer of 1942, Ursula Powys-Lybbe was detached from Medmenham to work at General Headquarters (GHQ) at Norfolk House in St James’ Square, London. This was the centre for planning Operation Torch, the code name for the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, and preparations for the future invasion of France, Operation Overlord. She was attached to the 21st Army Group and soon encountered several former Army Section colleagues from Medmenham. Ursula found herself the only officer wearing an air force blue uniform among all the brown army ones:
21st Army Group needed information about airfields and landing areas for the moment when the troops were to go in. I was asked to submit preliminary reports regarding the selection and suitability of certain specific areas for landing gliders and dropping parachute troops. The reports would then be passed to the geologists for their opinion on the terrain, and receive the final assessment from other experts.1
Ursula’s work on landing areas for gliders and dropping zones for parachutists was just one small, but vital, part of the overall preparations for Overlord, which called for extensive intelligence input from all sources. One of the first orders to be implemented, more than two years before the invasion, was an increase in the number and frequency of photographic reconnaissance flights, with a corresponding increase in the volume of photographs being delivered to Medmenham. Tens of thousands of PR sorties were to criss-cross north-west Europe collecting information specific to the invasion, while the routine flights continued. Photography was one of the most efficient means of gathering intelligence for the planning of the largest amphibious invasion the world had ever known.
Since the fall of France and the failure of the German plan to invade Britain in 1940, both sides knew that at some point an Allied invasion of France would be launched, followed by an advance through the Low Countries and into Germany. By 1942 several major events made it possible to envisage and plan for a future invasion. The entry of the USA into the war against the Axis powers in December 1941, and their decision to prioritise the defeat of Germany before dealing with the Japanese domination in the Pacific, was crucial to any plans for a European invasion. The huge resources of US industry and manpower were essential for the planning and implementation of all Allied operations. The reverses inflicted on German forces following their invasion of Russia in 1941, had resulted in large numbers of troops being moved from Western Europe to reinforce the Eastern Front. The successful North African landings at the end of 1942, the first Allied operation, provided the springboard for a subsequent invasion of Italy and an advance northwards to the southern German territories.
The raid carried out on 19 August 1942 against the German-occupied port of Dieppe acted as a rehearsal for the future invasion of Normandy. It was designed to test the feasibility of capturing and holding an enemy-occupied port for some hours using combined ground, naval and air forces. In the event, none of the major objectives of the raid were achieved and accounts from prisoners revealed that the enemy had foreknowledge of the attack. While the Dieppe Raid provided valuable lessons in the planning of Overlord, it graphically illustrated how difficult the Allied invasion of Europe was going to be.
All Medmenham sections were involved in intensive long-term interpretation in the preparations for Overlord, but none more so than the Army Section. As a deterrent to invasion, the German forces had constructed a massive armed fortification, known as the ‘Atlantic Wall’, stretching along the north coast of France and the Low Countries. PR squadrons carried out repeated photographic sorties of a 30-mile-wide swathe of coast, from Holland to the French–Spanish border, providing information on the state of enemy defences that the invading Allied forces would have to overcome. Army PIs undertook the long-term task of examining all these photographs to locate and plot every existing gun installation and flak battery, updated with details of all enemy reinforcements. This was of vital importance for briefing air crews and indicating targets for Allied bombing raids. In addition, as described in Chapter 4, the PIs of the army sub-section, ‘B6’, including several WAAFs, located nearly 400 underground factories and depots constructed throughout mainland Europe from France to Czechoslovakia.
‘B6’ Army Section PIs examine the plan of the underground aircraft factory at Kahla, on the border of Czechoslovakia. Standing: Helga O’Brien (left), Geoffrey Orme and Sarah Churchill.
A key issue for the invasion was the selection of a suitable amphibious landing area. There were two possibilities: the Pas de Calais, which included the ports of Calais and Dieppe, or Normandy around Cherbourg. Photography was a prime source of information in the final choice of landing beaches and PIs examined the whole coastline of northern France, recording depths and tide levels at different times of the year, an enterprise in which even family photographs of children paddling at French holiday resorts before the war proved useful. The difficulty of moving tanks and tracked vehicles on pebbled terrain had been a major concern at Dieppe. For Overlord the expertise of several Medmenham PI geologists was called upon to examine samples of the Normandy terrain of sand and gravel, and to determine where beach landing craft could safely discharge heavy armoured vehicles. Dieppe had also shown the vital need to detect the beach and underwater obstructions that both landing craft and troops would encounter. Particular PI attention was paid to plotting these hindrances and traps in the form of stakes, spiked ‘hedgehogs’ and tripods, and also to the detection of the belts of mines buried in harbours and beaches.
This low-level oblique photograph of defensive devices on a Normandy beach in 1944 reveals rows of stakes and ‘hedgehogs’, some mined, concreted into the beach. The two horses and dray were used for transportation on the sandy terrain.
The landing had to be of sufficient strength to set up a strong bridgehead before the enemy had time to react and bring up reinforcements. Normandy had no sizeable port equipped for oil-storage or discharge facilities and ensuring continuous fuel supplies was crucial. PLUTO – Pipe Line Under The Ocean – was the answer. Oil would be carried through a flexible hollow cable laid on the bed of the English Channel from Dungeness on the Kent coast and Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, to Normandy. This solution provides an example of the role of the Allied defensive camouflage detection that Joan Bohey was examining at Nuneham Park. The concrete mixers needed for construction work were located in the ruins of the Royal Spa Hotel in Shanklin, and every time a lorry came along the front, men were detailed to brush out the tyre marks in case enemy aircraft came over to take photographs. Further along the coast the pipeline was hidden from view in the shingle of Dungeness beach: ‘The effectiveness of this camouflage was tested each week by aerial photography, courtesy of the RAF, and no changes were ever visible.’2
Two prefabricated military harbours were towed, in sections, across the Channel with the invading armies, and were assembled off the coast of Normandy. They were called Mulberries and provided all necessary port facilities, including piers and roadways. The American one was destroyed in a storm early on but the one at Arromanches, named Port Winston, which was built, operated and maintained by the Royal Engineers, saw heavy use for eight months, despite being designed for only three.
‘Bunny’ Grierson, carrying out First-Phase interpretation at RAF Benson, remembered D-Day and an early sight of these structures:
How did we, as a team of 15 or so UK and US interpreters, react to the news of the Second Front – at last? We all worked together at Ewelme, as necessity arose, very flexible, no-one having to explain their movements. In spite of watching the increases in enemy defence, the day by day, week by week, month by month, waiting had all became a background to me; until we started a
lottery which went on for some weeks – ‘winner takes all’. I chose 9th June, my brother’s birthday, and won, being the nearest to the 6th!
The Mulberry Harbour in place.
Shock – I heard it at breakfast in the Mess. There, and down at Ewelme later, I remember quiet, and hoping for news; as far as I remember that is all we were hoping for. Joy came, as I was lucky, I had no-one close likely to be part of the invasion force, at that time. Where was it? As we met up, any more news was shared. I wasn’t the only one feeling quiet, and any new news was shared, even what was heard on the radio; some with hope, some with fear. In spite of all this, still a sort of quietness. You saw people talking in groups, no secrets, anything new spread by word of mouth, eventually getting a wider picture by radio.
But we had film to work on, another sortie somewhere, I can’t remember. But I do remember the hope and purposeful determination to get on with our work.
Some time later, perhaps a day or two, we had some photographs which were sent straight to us to see. They were low obliques of platforms, at all angles along the edge of a long beach. There were various floating connections attached to the structure. The harbour became news later – it was called Mulberry.3
The construction of airfields was a top priority as soon as a beachhead was established. In the months before the invasion, Medmenham PIs identified suitable sites from air photographs where airstrips could be quickly set up. In addition, an estimation of the enemy’s air strength was made from coverage of all the Luftwaffe bases in France. Just two days after the invasion, Allied aircraft were operating from airstrips built since D-Day, and within three weeks thirty-one squadrons were able to transfer to airfields built in north-west France. By 12 June the Mulberry harbours were constructed and operational. The Communications Section had produced comprehensive and updated reports on all transport routes leading to Normandy. In the early months of 1944, an Allied systematic bombing campaign started, which destroyed much of the means by which the enemy could reinforce the area.
The first Normandy terrain models were started late in 1942 and built on a scale of 1:25,000, about 5 miles to 1ft of model, showing the pattern of rivers, roads, railways and towns. These were soon followed by an order for a single model of the entire Normandy coast and going a few miles inland, on a scale of 1:5,000, about 1 mile to 1ft, which included the finest possible detail for combat briefing. It became the largest and most accurate model in military history. Every road, path or track had to be painted in by hand to a precise width and colour, complete with hedge-rows, trees, houses and other buildings, all copied in detail from air photographs. It took the model makers eighteen months to build and the work on its construction had to be fitted around all the other requirements for current operational demands. These included models for the V-weapons search and for specific D-Day operations such as the model for Pegasus Bridge, the site of the first glider landings in Normandy.4
While the Americans made the models for their invasion beaches, Utah and Omaha, the British modellers worked on those for the British and Canadian forces: Gold, Juno and Sword. Each section of the main model was built on a standard wooden base, approximately 4ft by 3ft, which could be fitted firmly together to be viewed as a whole by tightening the clamps underneath. A young model maker was usually detailed to fulfil this task and one day Mary Harrison was busy clamping under the table when an extra-large number of high-ranking visitors arrived and crowded round the table to view the model. Her exit was barred by a forest of legs and she started pushing legs and pulling trousers to escape. Eventually a space cleared and a somewhat dishevelled Mary emerged to find herself in front of the Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command.
Bomber Harris looked down at me as I emerged and said, ‘And what did you do in Civvy Street?’
I replied, ‘I was an art student’.
To which Bomber replied, ‘Oh well, that explains it!’5
By a stroke of genius the Section discovered a way to reproduce the individual plaster models, which a limited number of men could be briefed on, into a sturdy, transportable form using a mouldable latex substance. These were unbreakable and small enough to be referred to in the field.
When she heard of the invasion on 6 June, Mary wrote in her diary: ‘Invasion of France. I felt cold when I heard the news and wondered if either of the boys [her brothers] were in it.’ The following day: ‘A twelve hour shift and it seems like the longest day ever.’ Three days later: ‘Saw some invasion photos today and how they connected up with our work.’
The troops viewing a model of the scene they would encounter as they left their landing craft on the Normandy beaches would memorise the distinctive landmarks, such as a house with dormer windows or the shape of a church tower, in order to orientate themselves quickly. Specially printed maps, known as the ‘Bigot’ series, at a scale of 1:25,000 and overprinted with complete details of the German defence system and topography of the area, were issued to all units prior to the invasion. In addition, each platoon commander, in charge of approximately thirty men, carried a map of his sector of responsibility with landmarks marked. The Photogrammetric Section worked non-stop on preparing and supplying large-scale maps and plans of individual towns and villages in France, Belgium and Germany in support of the invasion. The speed of map production and delivery was a crucial factor in maintaining the continuity of the Allied forces’ advance. The section set up a 24-hour turnaround service from the receipt of a map request at RAF Nuneham Park, to the delivery to the commander in the field somewhere in Europe. This incredibly short period of time included finding and enlarging the relevant photographic cover, possibly of some obscure village the troops were planning to attack the following day, then fine drawing and annotation by hand, followed by quantity machine reproduction. Lastly, transport by truck and aircraft delivered the maps to the field unit that had placed the order. The work for the three Cambridge friends, Sophie, Lucia and Ena, required great concentration and meticulous attention to detail. There was no leave and they did not find any time for off-duty activities: ‘We all just wanted to win the war as soon as possible.’6
With all the planning and preparations going ahead, the big question remained: where and when would the invasion take place? The ‘when’ was decided at the Teheran ‘Big Three’ conference in November 1943, when Stalin pressed for a Western second front to relieve the pressure on Russia. For years Hitler had considered that the Allies would strike in Normandy, while his senior officers were convinced that the attack would be made across the narrowest part of the English Channel to the Pas de Calais. Many inventive Allied deceptions were put into place to support the latter belief, including a bogus British army equipped with rubber tanks in south-east England, designed to provide German reconnaissance aircraft with evidence of a military build-up in that area. In the spring of 1944 Hitler changed his mind and a significant part of the German forces was retained in the Calais area, far from the Normandy beaches where the invasion actually took place.
One of the vital tasks undertaken by air reconnaissance in the preparations for D-Day was to locate all the enemy radar installations, in order to protect the invasion fleet as it crossed the Channel from its bases in southern England. In 1944 the enemy had increased the scope and density of its radar network in northern France by erecting many new stations in anticipation of an invasion. The Wireless and Radar Section at Medmenham undertook this interpretation work and produced very detailed target material of every type for existing radar stations along the Channel coast of France, from the Belgian frontier in the north-east to beyond St Malo in the west and stretching 20 miles inland. In the last two weeks of May 1944 Allied air forces carried out attacks on radar sites all along the Channel coast and destroyed almost all of them – but deliberately left some to function normally. These were to be utilised to ensure that the enemy picked up the signals of a large invasion force heading for the Calais area – except that this was another Allied deception. On 6 June a squadron of bombers flew at a sp
ecified speed along the Channel dropping ‘window’, strips of silver foil, at regular intervals, producing the same readings on the few surviving enemy radar detectors as a flotilla of ships.
Pat Peat recalled the evening of 5 June:
We stood outside our hut and heard and saw the planes towing gliders going overhead very low. The planes had no doors and they were flying so low that we could hear the men in the gliders talking to one another.7
Elspeth Macalister also remembered that time:
The time leading up to D-Day was exciting and I remember the morning of 6th – wave after wave of gliders going over to France. Two days before, I was cycling up from Henley to Medmenham and could not cross the main road because of all the Army vehicles, tanks and all sorts trundling past, hour after hour, making their way down to the embarkation ports.8
Over 8.5 million photographs were produced for the D-Day preparations alone and similar quantities would be extensively used throughout the Allied advance across north-west Europe. The non-stop processing, the accurate plotting and long hours of patient PI examination of air photography played a substantial part in the success of the Normandy invasion, the advance to Berlin and victory in Europe.
Jeanne Adams wrote about her experience of D-Day:
I had a rare insight into the preparations for the D-Day landings. My unit had been busy examining photographs of the Normandy coast, looking at ports, beaches, harbours and estuaries for suitable landing areas for the invasion. However, despite my work, I was still unprepared for what happened on 6 June 1944.
Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos Page 24
