The fleet that fought in Operation Neptune was more than a random assemblage of warships, support vessels and landing craft. Like the tens of thousands of sailors manning these vessels, the ships themselves had attained a remarkable range of combat experience before 6 June 1944.
There were 208 warships and auxiliary vessels in Operation Neptune, along with thousands of landing craft, including 229 landing ships, tank (LST), 900 landing craft, tank (LCT), 250 landing craft, infantry (LCI), and 1,500 smaller vessels.
The British had the largest component with 106 Royal Navy warships, followed by the U.S. Navy with 80. Also present at Normandy were eight Canadian warships and one Australian warship. In addition, crews from five Nazi-occupied countries who had enlisted on the side of the Allies were there on 6 June 1944, manning warships provided by the British. They included Free French (four), Polish (four), Norwegians (three), Dutch (two), and Greeks (two).
The Neptune fleet was unprecedented in its size, diversity and the wide variety of operational achievement of its warships. To expand upon an old adage, there was:
Something Old . . .
Both the Americans and British deployed older battleships to the bombardment force, calculating that their firepower would be more than sufficient to blast holes in Adolf Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.
The USS Arkansas (BB-33), commissioned on 17 September 1912, was the oldest warship at Normandy. Like the other two American battleships in Operation Neptune—the USS Texas (BB-35) and Nevada (BB-36)—she had briefly served in World War I, operating with the British Grand Fleet in 1918 as part of Battleship Division 9. The warships did not see combat. After the United States entered World War II on 8 December 1941, both the Texas and Nevada saw early action. The Texas was part of the bombardment force at Morocco during Operation Torch in November 1942. Surviving the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, the Nevada fought in the recapture of the Aleutians in May 1943.
The Arkansas performed convoy escort duties to Great Britain and North Africa during 1942–44 before being assigned to the bombardment force at Omaha Beach. However, prior to 6 June 1944, the 31-year-old warship had yet to fire her main battery in combat.
Unlike the U.S. battleships, the two Royal Navy dreadnoughts at Normandy had both fought in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the historic clash between the British Grand Fleet and Germany’s High Seas Fleet.
Commissioned on 8 March 1915, HMS Warspite was operating with the Battlecruiser Force when the two fleets engaged. While her gunners managed to hit a German battlecruiser, the Warspite took 15 direct hits that caused serious damage, killing 14 crewmen and wounding another 16.
HMS Malaya had a similar experience. Commissioned just three months before the battle opened on 31 May 1916, the Malaya struck a German battlecruiser with her 15-inch guns, but in turn was hit eight times, suffering serious damage and losing 65 crewmen.
Earlier in World War II, the Warspite was the flagship for the British invasion of Norway. Both British warships fought in several battles against the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean. The two ships also spent time as Atlantic convoy escorts.
Fourteen other British warships at Normandy also served during World War I, including the light cruisers HMS Ceres, Danae, and Dragon, eight destroyers, and a monitor.
Something New . . .
Given the massive fleet expansions of both navies prior to 1944, it was inevitable that a significant number of warships at Normandy were on their first deployment after commissioning. Fourteen warships and four auxiliaries in the U.S. component of Operation Neptune had been commissioned less than 12 months earlier. They included six destroyers, four destroyer escorts, four auxiliaries, and three minesweepers.
The British force at Normandy included 21 warships that were less than a year old, including three light cruisers, ten destroyers, four frigates, and a sloop.
Two of the American newcomers served as headquarters ships. Commissioned on 20 November 1943, the attack transport USS Bayfield (APA-33) was designated the flagship for Rear Admiral Donald P. Moon, commander of the bombardment ships of “Force U,” the U.S. Navy task force at Utah Beach. The attack cargo ship USS Achernar (AKA-53) was even newer, having been commissioned just four months earlier on 31 January 1944. The Achernar was the headquarters ship for the First U.S. Army under General Omar Bradley.
The USS Meredith (DD-726) had the shortest, most direct route to D-Day. Lieutenant Commander George Knuepfer and his 335-man crew commissioned the Allen M. Sumner–class destroyer on 14 March 1944 at the Boston Navy Yard. The ships were part of Destroyer Squadron 60, which included the newly commissioned USS Barton (DD-722), Laffey (DD-724), and O’Brien (DD-725)—all of which would see combat for the first time on D-Day.
After two weeks of fitting out and familiarization drills, the Meredith undertook a brief shakedown cruise to Bermuda. Upon her return, the ship spent most of April undergoing rigorous shakedown training in antisubmarine warfare and gunnery drills. On 8 May, the Meredith—along with the Barton, Laffey, O’Brien, and three other destroyers—left New York escorting 13 merchant ships in Convoy TCU-24B for an 11-day Atlantic crossing to the United Kingdom.
Upon arrival in Plymouth nine days before the invasion, Lieutenant Knuepfer received orders that the Meredith would join “Force U,” assigned to land the 4th Infantry Division at Utah Beach. The destroyer’s specific mission was to escort a convoy of 16 LSTs and six “Rhino” barges laden with supplies.
The Meredith successfully delivered the amphibious vessels to Utah Beach early on 6 June, then spent the rest that day and the next in an offshore patrol screen. The ship’s war service came to an abrupt end two days later when she set off a submerged mine that ripped a 60-foot-hole in the side of the hull, destroyed both engine rooms, knocked out communications, and killed 35 crewmen. After the crew abandoned ship, a tug took the Meredith under tow, but the next day salvage efforts ended when she was struck by a 2,000-pound German glide bomb. The crew abandoned ship, and the Meredith broke in half and sank nine hours later.
Something Borrowed . . .
While the British and American navies comprised the overwhelming majority of warships in Operation Overlord/Neptune with 186 out of the 208 combatants, 20 ships manned by crews from five Nazi-occupied countries flew their flags at Normandy.
During the early years of World War II, as Germany invaded and occupied countries from the Eastern Mediterranean to Scandinavia, scores of warships evaded capture or sinking and joined the Allied naval campaign. The Royal Navy reinforced this effort by transferring more than 30 of its older warships to the French, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Greek forces operating alongside the Union Jack. Prior to Operation Overlord/Neptune, these allied warships served alongside the British and U.S. Navies in Atlantic convoy escort duties, as well as other operations worldwide.
The naval armada that struck Normandy on 6 June 1944 included four Free French warships (two cruisers, a destroyer, and a corvette); four flying the Polish banner (three destroyers and a destroyer escort); three Norwegians (two destroyers and one patrol vessel); two ships from Greece (corvettes), and a pair of Dutch-manned vessels (patrol gunboats).
One of the Free French warships in Operation Neptune already had distinguished itself in combat. The Aconit was one of nine Flower-class corvettes leased by the Royal Navy to the Free French.
Commissioned on 19 July 1941, the Aconit served as a local escort based in Newfoundland until joining Escort Group B-3 in the fall of 1942. The group was one of five British formations in the Mid-Ocean Escort Force shepherding convoys from North America to the British Isles and back. Between October 1942 and November 1943, Escort Group B-3 protected ten transatlantic convoys (five eastbound and five westbound) with a total of 466 ships, while losing just seven merchantmen and one escort to the U-boats.
Twice during that period, the small warship made headline news. On Christmas Eve 1941, the Aconit was the flagship of a unilateral Free French naval operation that seized the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland from Vichy control. Fifteen month later, while escorting eastbound Convoy HX-228, the corvette sank two German U-boats that had earlier torpedoed a Liberty ship and sank the escort leader HMS Harvester (see “A Bloody Encounter in the North Atlantic,” Naval History, June 2023).
Something Blew Up . . .
When the destroyer Meredith struck the mine that ended her combat service and naval career after just two days, the fleet at Operation Neptune already had suffered losses due to the massive number of antiship mines the Germans had sowed in the English Channel and the Bay of the Seine. But ships went down from torpedo hits and aerial bombing as well.
The first warship lost, the minesweeper USS Osprey (AM-56) struck a mine and sank halfway across the English Channel the night of 5 June. Her six fatalities were the first combat losses of Operation Neptune
On the morning of 6 June, the destroyer USS Corry (DD-463) struck a mine and sank in shallow water off Utah Beach when evading German shore batteries at the outset of the invasion. German gunfire and the mine strike killed 24 crewmen and wounded another 60.
Also on 6 June, the destroyer HMS Wrestler struck a mine that caused extensive damage. While she was towed to England, the damage was deemed too severe to repair her. Later that day, the Norwegian-crewed Svenner was torpedoed by an E-boat, exploding in half and sinking within minutes with 33 killed and 185 rescued.
The frigate HMS Lawford sank on 8 June after being struck by an aerial bomb. The blast killed 37 crewmen. That same day, the destroyer escort USS Rich (DE-695) set off three mines, which broke the hull in two and killed 27 crewmen.
In addition to the ship casualties, the Allies lost 43 large and medium landing craft, all but a few due to unswept mines. Dozens of smaller craft and amphibious tanks were sunk or blown up by German gunfire.
No End to the Fight
For the many Neptune warships, there was scant reprieve when the campaign ended on 30 August 1944. Nineteen of them, including the three battleships, already had deployed to the Mediterranean to bombard the Southern French coast during Operation Dragoon. They and seven others would find themselves six months later fighting in the two bloodiest battles of the Pacific war: Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Nine Neptune veterans would suffer damage and deaths at the hands of the Japanese kamikaze suicide aircraft, with a total of 275 crewmen killed. Suffering the heaviest losses were the USS Shubrick (DD-639), which was severely damaged on 29 May 1945 by a kamikaze that struck the ship, detonating its bomb and setting off one of the ship’s depth charges, killing 35. While surviving the attack, the Shubrick was knocked out of the war.
Her fellow Gleaves-class destroyer USS Emmons (DMS-22) had an even harder end. She was struck by five kamikaze aircraft while minesweeping off Okinawa on 6 April 1945, with 60 sailors killed and 77 wounded. Deemed too damaged to repair, she was abandoned and sunk by gunfire.
A third Neptune destroyer, the USS Laffey (DD-724) achieved historical acclaim at Okinawa. Having served in three Philippines amphibious landings (Ormoc, Mindoro, and Luzon) and Iwo Jima without incident, the Laffey’s luck ran out off Okinawa on 15 April, when a large kamikaze formation attacked while she was on radar picket patrol north of Okinawa. Despite her gunners and U.S. Navy fighters shooting down ten attacking aircraft, the Laffey was struck by four bombs and six kamikazes, losing 31 crewmen killed and 71 wounded.
But the Allen M. Sumner–class destroyer not only survived that inferno but went on to serve for three more decades. Placed in reserve in 1947, the Laffey was called up to serve in the Korean War and later would operate with the Atlantic and 6th Fleets until her decommissioning on 9 March 1975—nearly 30 years after her combat debut at Normandy.