Bowman - Air war D-Day

Other volumes in this series

Bloody Beaches

Volume 1 The Build-Up

Volume 2 Assaults from the Sky

Volume 3 Winged Pegasus and The Rangers

Volume 5 Gold - Juno - Sword

First Published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Martin W Bowman, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78159-178-9
PDF ISBN: 978-1-47382-933-6
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-47382-679-3
PRC ISBN: 978-1-47382-635-9

The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

I am enormously grateful to the following people for their time and effort and kind loan of photos etc, not least to my fellow author and friend Graham Simons, for getting this to press-ready standard and for his detailed work on maps and photographs: My thanks to Ray Alm; Ed Cotton Appleman; James Roland Argo; Peter Arnold; John Avis; Les Barber; Harry Barker; Mike Bailey; Carter Barber; Neil Barber, author of The Day The Devils Dropped In; E. W. D. Beeton; Franklin L. Betz; Bill Bidmead; Rusty Bloxom, Historian, Battleship Texas; Lucille Hoback Boggess; Prudent Boiux; August C. Bolino; Dennis Bowen; Tom Bradley; Eric Broadhead; Stan Bruce; K. D. Budgen; Kazik Budzik KW VM; Les Bulmer; Reginald Punch Burge; Donald Burgett; Chaplain Burkhalter; Lol Buxton; Jan Caesar; R. H. Chad Chadwick; Noel Chaffey; Mrs J. Charlesworth; Chris Clancy; Roy Clark RNVR; Ian Nobby Clark; P. Clough; Johnny Cook DFM; Malcolm Cook; Flight Lieutenant Tony Cooper; Lieutenant-Colonel Eric A. Cooper-Key MC; Cyril Crain; Mike Crooks; Jack Culshaw, Editor, The Kedge Hook; Bill Davey; S. Davies; Brenda French, Dawlish Museum Society; John de S. Winser; Abel L. Dolim; Geoffrey Duncan; Sam Earl; Eighth Air Force News; Eastern Daily Press; Chris Ellis; Les Tubby Edwards; W. Evans; Frank R. Feduik; Ron Field; Wolfgang Fischer; Robert Fitzgerald; Eugene Fletcher; Captain Dan Flunder; John Foreman; Wilf Fortune; H. Foster; Lieutenant-Commander R. D. Franks DSO; Jim Gadd; Leo Gariepy; Patricia Gent; Lieutenant Commander Joseph H. Gibbons USNR; Larry Goldstein; Bill Goodwin; Franz Goekel; Lieutenant Denis J. M. Glover DSC RNZNVR; John Gough; Peter H. Gould; George Jimmy Green RNVR; Albert Gregory; Nevil Griffin; Edgar Gurney BEM; R. S. Haig-Brown; Leo Hall, Parachute Regt Assoc.; Gnter Halm; Roland Ginger A. Hammersley DFM; Madelaine Hardy; Allan Healy; Andre Heintz; Basil Heaton; Mike Henry DFC, author of Air Gunner; Vic Hester; Reverend R. M. Hickey MC; Lenny Hickman; Elizabeth Hillmann; Bill Holden; Mary Hoskins; Ena Howes; Pierre Huet; J. A. C. Hugill; Antonia Hunt; Ben C. Isgrig; Jean Irvine; Orv Iverson; George Jackson; Major R. J. L. Jackson; Robert A. Jacobs; G. E. Jacques; Marjorie Jefferson; Bernard M. Job RAFVR; Wing Commander Johnnie Johnson DSO* DFC*; Percy Shock Kendrick MM; the late Jack Krause; Cyril Larkin; Reg Lilley; John Lincoln, author of Thank God and the Infantry; Lieutenant Brian Lingwood RNVR; Wing Commander A. H. D. Livock; Leonard Lomell; P. McElhinney; Ken McFarlane; Don McKeage; Hugh R. McLaren; John McLaughlin; Nigel McTeer: Ron Mailey; Sara Marcum; Ronald Major; Walt Marshall; Rudolph May; Ken Mayo; Alban Meccia; Claude V. Meconis; Leon E. Mendel; Harold Merritt; Bill Millin for kindly allowing me to quote from his book, Invasion; Bill Mills; John Milton; Alan Mower; Captain Douglas Munroe; A Corpsman Remembers D-Day Navy Medicine 85, No.3 (May-June 1994); Major Tom Normanton; General Gordon E. Ockenden; Raymond Paris; Bill Parker, National Newsletter Editor, Normandy Veterans; Simon Parry; Albert Pattison; Helen Pavlovsky; Charles Pearson; Eric Phil Phillips DFC MiD; T. Platt; Franz Rachmann; Robert J. Rankin; Lee Ratel; Percy Reeve; Jean Lancaster-Rennie; Wilbur Richardson; Helmut Romer; George Rosie; The Royal Norfolk Regiment; Ken Russell; A. W. Sadler; Charles Santarsiero; Erwin Sauer; Frank Scott; Ronald Scott; Jerry Scutts; Major Peter Selerie; Alfred Sewell; Bob Shaffer; Reg Shickle; John R. Slaughter; Ben Smith Jr.; SOLDIER Magazine; Southampton Southern Evening Echo; Southwick House, HMS Dryad, Southwick, Portsmouth; Bill Stafford; Allen W. Stephens; Roy Stevens; Mrs E. Stewart; Henry Tarcza; Henry Buck Taylor; June Telford; E. J. Thompson; Charles Thornton; Robert P. Tibor; Dennis Till; Edward J. Toth; Walt Truax; Jim Tuffell; Russ Tyson; US Combat Art Collection, Navy Yard, Washington DC; Thomas Valence; John Walker; Herbert Walther; Ed Wanner; R. H. G. Weighill; Andrew Whitmarsh, Portsmouth Museum Service; Slim Wileman; Jim Wilkins; E. G. G. Williams; Deryk Wills, author of Put On Your Boots and Parachutes! The US 82nd Airborne Division; Jack Woods; Len Woods; Waverly Woodson.

Chapter 1

Omaha

Major Werner Pluskat was feeling cold, tired and exasperated. Hours earlier he had been woken by the sound of aircraft and gunfire. Two years of bitter experience on the Russian Front told him that that this was much more than just a routine raid. He telephoned his regimental commander Oberstleutnant Ocker, who was greatly displeased at being woken. My dear Pluskat he snapped we dont know yet whats going on. Well let you know when we find out. Now dont bother me again - and get some sleep.

The telephone went dead. But Pluskat was not convinced and he decided to go over Ockers head and contact Major Block the intelligence officer at divisional headquarters. Block was an old friend and merely laughed off Pluskats nervous enquiries. Pluskat sat on the edge of his bed wondering whether to rush to Wiederstandnest 60 on the coast or wait for further orders. Suddenly the telephone rang. It was Ocker on the line. He sounded nervous, even shaken. Paratroopers have been reported on the peninsula. Alert your men and get down to the coast. Now!

For a reason he could not quite pinpoint a great uneasiness kept gnawing at Pluskat as he peered through his Donkeys Ears [high powered artillery binoculars] into pre-dawn darkness of the Channel. Even his friendly Alsatian dog Harras sensed this edginess and stood close to his master, watching his every move. Pluskat swung his binoculars slowly round to the left, pausing over the darkness of the Cherbourg Peninsula. There was a low mist everywhere and the sea seemed peaceful. He sighed and turned to two other men in the bunker, Kapitn Ludz Wilkening and Leutnant Fritz Theen. Theres nothing out there he told them - and turned back for a final look