A Coast Guardsman’s Ground Combat Odyssey

In observing the 75th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, the first things that come to mind for many are the landings at Omaha Beach by the U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry divisions, or perhaps the night drops by the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions behind the invasion beaches. While some history enthusiasts may know the U.S. Coast Guard’s important D-Day role operating LCI(L)s—large infantry landing craft—relatively few are aware that a naval reconnaissance unit led by a Coast Guard officer participated in the liberation of the major Normandy port of Cherbourg. 

Breaking with the traditional roles played by Coast Guard officers, Commander Quentin Walsh led his men in ground combat, helping to defeat Cherbourg’s German garrison and capturing hundreds of prisoners. Moreover, Walsh and his reconnaissance team admirably fulfilled their chief assigned roles: to assess and promptly report to Navy headquarters on the extensive damage to the port and to oversee its repairs so that the Allies could maintain their offensive in France.

Early in the planning stages of the invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, Allied strategists recognized that the key to the long-term success of an offensive in northwestern Europe would be the uninterrupted flow of supplies and reinforcements to their forces. LSTs (tank landing ships) would land equipment on the invasion beaches, and soon thereafter matériel would be offloaded at nearby Mulberry artificial harbors. But ultimately, victory would depend on the rapid capture and then use of deepwater ports in northern France, including the critical port of Cherbourg, along the north shore of Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula. 

In a step toward meeting this demand, the commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe, Admiral Harold Stark, established U.S. Navy Task Unit 127.2.8, which Commander Walsh was selected to command. 

From Private to Task Unit Commander

Quentin Walsh’s life and Coast Guard career were far from typical. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 4 February 1910. At age 18, Walsh enlisted in the Connecticut National Guard, serving as an infantry private. He was released from the National Guard to attend the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, which he graduated from in May 1933.

The newly commissioned ensign embarked on a career of excitement and action that began with combating rumrunners while stationed on board the Coast Guard destroyer Herndon (CG-17), a former Navy four-piper. The following year, he transferred to the 192-foot cutter Yamacraw, in which he gained further experience against rumrunners as a boarding officer. In 1937, Lieutenant (junior grade) Walsh was selected from a pool of 48 applicants to serve as a regulatory inspector on the whale processing ship Ulysses. During this two-year tour, he was at sea for as long as six months at a time and oversaw the processing of more than 3,600 whales, reporting his observations to Coast Guard headquarters. His experiences and analyses directly contributed to many of the international antiwhaling laws still in existence.

Over the next three years, Lieutenant Walsh served on board the Coast Guard Cutter Campbell (WPG-32), conducting neutrality patrols in the North Atlantic, and then on board the Coast Guard–manned Navy transport Joseph T. Dickman (AP-26). After six years of sea duty, now–Lieutenant Commander Walsh requested shore duty in the continental United States. His wish partially was granted when he received orders to the Planning and Logistics Section of Admiral Stark’s staff in London, England, in October 1943. In this capacity, he served as the chief staff officer to the commander of advanced bases, Navy Captain Norman Ives. By February 1944, he had drafted and submitted for approval the plan for the occupation, clearance, and operation of Cherbourg’s port. The plan was later expanded to include other German-occupied ports in northern France.

To forestall the ports’ use by the Allies, German defenders were expected to heavily sabotage them before their capture. Walsh’s study convinced his superiors that the best way to assess port conditions was from inside the facilities shortly after their liberation, versus observing them from offshore. Walsh suggested that Seabees, men of the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions, led by a small cadre of naval officers, be embedded with attacking Army units so they could assess harbor facilities as soon as possible after liberation. His role and familiarity with the plans set him up for selection as the commanding officer of Task Unit 127.2.8 in April 1944, soon after it was established.

Training the Team

Walsh selected Lieutenant Commander Jack Curley, a Seabee and former Marine, as his executive officer and Naval Reserve Lieutenant George LaVallee, a native Frenchman, as his communications officer. They and 52 Seabee volunteers assembled at Roseneath, Scotland, for training overseen by 13 officers and enlisted men from the U.S. Third Army. 

A typical training day lasted a nonstop 17 hours and consisted of heavy physical exercise; weapons, explosives, urban warfare, and reconnaissance instruction; map reading and orientation; booby-trap detection and disarming; use of camouflage; and more. It was far from a walk in the park. According to Walsh, “My idea was to make the training so tough and arduous that combat would seem easy by comparison.” The team completed its instruction on 23 May, and five days later Walsh reported to U.S. Major General J. Lawton Collins, whose VII Corps would be responsible for seizing the Cotentin Peninsula.

Task Unit 127.2.8 had been ordered to land on Utah Beach and proceed to Cherbourg as quickly as possible alongside the VII Corps division tasked with capturing the city. After enemy resistance was silenced, the unit’s men would assess damage to the port, confirm sea mine placement, and establish a U.S. naval headquarters, which would assume control of the port and reopen it to sea traffic as quickly as possible.

Walsh was promoted to commander on 6 June—D-Day—and he and his men came ashore on D+4. Several days later, they set out in overloaded jeeps for Cherbourg. The floors of each vehicle were lined with sandbags as protection against land mines, and an antidecapitation device—a tall hooked iron bar—was mounted to the front bumper of each jeep as defense against taut wires strung across roads. Before deployment, each officer had been issued a Thompson submachine gun and .45-caliber Colt automatic pistol, and the enlisted men had drawn M1 Garand rifles. Most of their transit to Cherbourg in their uncovered jeeps was during stormy weather, rendering the men wet and miserable. This uncomfortable environment did not diminish their enthusiasm to reach their destination and complete the mission.

Arrival in Cherbourg

On 22 June, Walsh and his men halted 15 miles from Cherbourg, near Mountebourg, to await a response to General Collins’ surrender ultimatum to the city’s German commander. He refused to capitulate, and over the next few days, Walsh and his men observed the exchange of artillery fire and Allied air attacks on German positions. Finally, in the early hours of 26 June, they were back on the move to Cherbourg. Riding ahead, Walsh and his jeepmates, Seaman Richard Boucher and Yeoman Edward Perry, arrived on the outskirts of the city at the heavily fortified Fort du Roule soon after U.S. infantrymen had captured it.

The trio then accompanied Company G, 314th Infantry, 79th Division, as it advanced into the city. Walsh would recall that he and his two “constant companions” were the first U.S. naval personnel to enter Cherbourg, which was still the scene of heavy fighting. Turning right off a country road, they slowly drove down the Avenue de Paris as nearby German machine guns fired through basement windows on advancing GIs and jeeps loaded with wounded men whipped past them. 

Walsh reached the eastern section of the waterfront at about 1700. Later that evening, the rest of Task Unit 127.2.8 arrived, and the commander messaged back to the Western Naval Task Force commander, U.S. Rear Admiral Alan Kirk, that U.S. forces held the eastern portion of the port, but the western half was inaccessible because of enemy machine-gun and sniper fire. He reported that the facilities he observed had sustained massive damage, with many structures ablaze. Walsh noted that parts of the main waterways were blocked, but they were still usable.

By 27 June, the Army had quelled most of the enemy resistance. A captured Wehrmacht officer reported to Walsh that the purpose for the previous day’s stiff defense was to buy time for German naval personnel to further destroy and booby trap the port and lay additional sea mines in the harbor. Walsh later wrote that the Germans succeeded in creating “one helluva mess.” Despite the task unit’s access to the eastern waterfront, there remained pockets of determined defenders deep within the port’s western strongholds. 

The 28th was no easier. Walsh’s team began an in-depth inspection, often under enemy fire, and was able to:

• Complete a full water survey, locating and charting several wrecks and other purposely placed obstructions
• Install radio and signal stations and establish a harbor entrance control post 
• Reconnoiter and take control of the building that would become the headquarters for the U.S. Navy Advanced Bases, France; the port commander; and the port director and supporting staffs 
• Reconnoiter and take over buildings and facilities that would become barracks, workshops, and storage areas for men charged with repairing and reopening the port 
• Obtain transportation and vehicles for naval personnel who would be arriving
• Interrogate prisoners to locate and chart mines in the harbor 
• Assess damage to discharging facilities and their wharfs and ships’ piers, reconnoiter the depth of water alongside them, and provide a general assessment of the overall port damage
• Establish an aid station
• Reconnoiter and assess the feasibility of reusing the port’s oil facility versus building a new one
• Establish the naval headquarters, which included liaising with the French Navy and local civil authorities.

Clearing and Assessing the Arsenal

While most of his men worked to complete these tasks on the 28th, Walsh led a team armed with submachine guns, bazookas, and hand grenades to the western sector’s fortified Naval Arsenal, which was still held by a large German force. Heavy landside fortifications, including a moat and five large bastions, shielded the arsenal’s factories, ship basins, and construction and repair facilities.

To their surprise, Walsh and his men arrived at the arsenal’s main entrance to find a group of Germans being disarmed by U.S. Army troops. A U.S. paratrooper on-scene advised him there were still pockets of German resistance inside. Among the newly captured prisoners of war was a German sailor who spoke English. Walsh discovered that he had worked at the port for the past three years and was very familiar with the German strongholds and port facilities. The prisoner willingly accompanied Walsh’s team, guiding them through the arsenal and pointing out mines and booby traps. He also alerted the team where German holdouts were ensconced deep within the complex. 

Walsh later wrote that over the course of the next couple of hours, his group

killed several snipers, silenced machine gun nests, and cleaned out about 200 Germans by using grenades and bazookas against the steel doors of the strong points, which were located about ground level, with sunken steps in a well leading to the entrances. Many prisoners were taken near the E-boat pens, which had been blown up [by the Germans] by detonating stacked up torpedoes. 

It was in the vicinity of the pens that Lieutenant Commander Curley was killed, likely by machine-gun fire, Walsh reported. The task unit’s executive officer left behind a wife and five children. 

Shortly thereafter, the commander detached 15 of his men to escort the POWs to Army personnel back at the arsenal entrance, while he and Lieutenant Frank Lauer, a Seabee officer, continued their port assessment within the arsenal. They soon encountered another English-speaking German, who immediately surrendered. He revealed that another large group of Germans he believed were ready to surrender were in a nearby bunker. Walsh agreed to allow the prisoner to talk with the Germans in the bunker, all of whom immediately capitulated. 

Last Fort in Cherbourg to Fall

These men informed Walsh of a group of U.S. POWs being held in a nearby fortification, Fort du Homet, which was on the waterfront. With this news, the commander instructed one of the English-speaking prisoners to lead the other POWs to the U.S. soldiers at the arsenal entrance, warning him that if they did not march with their hands behind their heads, Americans in the area would surely kill them all.

After conferring with Lauer, Walsh decided it would be better to negotiate the surrender of the Germans in Fort du Homet than to ask the Army to organize an assault. After approaching the fort, the officers hid under a truck as they waved a white piece of parachute Lauer had been wearing as a scarf. In less than an hour, a German officer exited the fortification under a white flag of his own. He guided the naval officers around a mine-laden trench and inside the fort to a room where six other German officers awaited. 

There ensued much haggling between Walsh and the officers, as he tried to convince them that the overall German commander of Cherbourg had surrendered, and it was in their best interest also to do so and to turn over their prisoners. One of the U.S. captives who spoke German helped with the negotiations. Walsh finally resorted to bluff, telling the fort’s commander that 800 U.S. soldiers were nearby and ready to attack. That did the trick. 

The U.S. prisoners turned out to be 53 members of the 101st Airborne Division who had been captured on D-Day after mistakenly being dropped near Cherbourg. Of note, the paratroopers indicated they had been treated very well and brought into the fort for protection when U.S. forces began bombarding the city. At about the time the fort’s German prisoners were turned over to the Army, Walsh’s Seabees completed their work in the port’s eastern sector. Homet was the final fort in Cherbourg proper to fall, while another fort in the outer harbor would hold out for a day or two longer.

That evening, Walsh reported to U.S. naval headquarters the extent of mining at Cherbourg and the significant damage he had observed throughout the day—almost every building in the arsenal complex was destroyed and burned out. Earlier on 28 June, Captain Ives had arrived in Cherbourg and assumed command from Walsh as the senior naval officer present. Walsh was designated as Ives’ chief of staff. The Army had silenced all remaining pockets of resistance by noon the following day. Naval intelligence later reported that a German officer had provided them information on every mine in the harbor.

Walsh remained as Ives’ chief of staff until 15 July, when he was appointed assistant port director of Cherbourg. He served at that post until 2 August, overseeing the work of revitalizing the port. 

Follow-Up Operations

On 31 July, Captain Ives and a reconnaissance group of 98 naval officers and men set out for the ports of Granville and Saint-Malo to perform an identical mission as performed by Walsh and his men at Cherbourg. However, on 2 August, a force of about 600 German paratroopers ambushed Ives’ team shortly after it entered Brittany en route to Saint-Malo, killing him and 16 others. 

Walsh and men from his original reconnaissance team, augmented by about 350 Seabees, quickly assembled to complete Ives’ mission. By 15 August, Saint-Malo had fallen to the Allies, and Walsh’s force reconnoitered the port. It then pressed forward to take part in the heavy fighting at Brest, whose port it inspected. Walsh and his men next returned to Normandy to evaluate La Havre. On 12 September, they entered the port city with Canadian troops and quickly got to work. 

Five days later, Walsh was relieved of command to seek medical treatment for a respiratory condition that had plagued him for the previous two months. After five months of heavy training and combat duties, he and his men were finally relieved. They all had lost considerable weight and were heavily fatigued from their nonstop operations. Walsh was hospitalized and eventually returned stateside because of his condition. During the Cherbourg operations, Walsh’s command had suffered approximately 25 percent casualties, with three men killed and ten wounded.

The following year, Walsh was awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery in reconnoitering Cherbourg’s port facilities and his actions in subduing German forces in the arsenal. He went on to be medically retired, but not before his promotion to captain in 1946. However, his Coast Guard service was not over. He was recalled to duty in 1951 and continued in service until his retirement in 1960. Captain Walsh passed away on 18 May 2000 of respiratory failure, most likely linked to the condition he had contracted while overseas.

The actions and sacrifices of Quentin Walsh and his men at Cherbourg and other French ports helped ensure that those on the front line obtained the logistical support needed to keep the Allied offensive in northwestern Europe moving forward, thereby influencing the course of the war.