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https://news.sky.com/story/irish-postmistresss-wea...

Interesting piece on the weather forecast prior to the D-day landings. I knew the invasion was delayed by weather. This adds a bit of detail to that fact.

Doesn't belong on US policy board, so I put it here because it was nature and science, not a deity involved. 😁

Interesting piece on the weather forecast prior to the D-day landings. I knew the invasion was delayed by weather. This adds a bit of detail to that fact.

The weather, then as now, comes mainly from West to East. That means that whatever happens in Europe, it likely begins somewhere out in the Atlantic before being pushed across the continent. Obviously there were very few weather stations in 1944 out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, so predicting the weather for the D-Day landings was fraught.

It’s devilishly hard to coordinate a landing of thousands of ships, tens of thousands of troops, floating the mulberrys across the harbor, arranging for the logistics of ammunition and artillery and tanks and so forth, and once it was all arranged it was like a slingshot pulled back to the max, waiting for the “go” order. Eisenhower could delay for a day, but probably not two, certainly not three. The attempt to bring the mulberrys over in rough seas would have doomed the effort entirely - and now there are thousands of men overstuffed on ships and landing crafts and whatnot, paratroopers who need to advance in, uh, advance.

That weather forcast, coming from the most reliable site most westerly of the continent was crucial. And after delaying for a day Eisenhower got the word that there would be break (although there were scattered reports from Allied ships further out in the ocean that a second front followed closely) and he gave the go-ahead and the landing proceeded.

Apropos of nothing, the Germans had almost no view of the approaching weather, even their Atlantic submarines (which weren’t exactly in great shape to see the weather anyway) were useless… and given the weather that had preceded Hitler was confident enough to sleep, Rommel took a couple days off to attend his wife’s birthday party deep in France, and the Nazi defense was left in the hands of second- and third-stringers.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Hitler wouldn’t be wakened from his sleep for hours, no one could make a decision to move support troops without his OK, and the allies faced only a thin cohort of front line troops on their arrival. (That still didn’t prevent massive casualties at some of the landing beaches, while at others the Allies landed almost unscathed.)

The importance of the mulberrys was demonstrated a few weeks later when another large storm system swept through and destroyed all of one “port” and most of another, leading to a severe drop in the Allies ability to get materiel ashore for weeks. But it didn’t matter, by then beachheads had been established and fortified, Hitler was fooled for long enough to keep his backup Panzer divisions out of the action, and the Allies game was on.

A quirk in the weather. On which the fate of the world turned.

One interesting side note: the Manhattan Project, at least the political dimension of it, was planning to use the atomic bomb in Europe, not Japan, because Hitler was known to be the larger threat (and Japan was mostly on the ropes, the tide having mostly turned against them after Midway, almost two years earlier.) Imagine if the invasion had failed, 1944 and 1945 continued in stalemate, and the Allies only recourse had been to use the bomb on Berlin rather than Nagasaki and Hiroshima. What a different world we wojuld live in.

Both Mulberries were destroyed by storms. The first never made it to Omaha Beach. The second was in operation at Gold Beach for several months before a storm wrecked it. The latter is still visible at Gold (I've seen it personally).

The point of the article was honoring the woman who submitted the weather report that delay Overlord by a day. As you say, it could have been a very different result, and different world of not for that report.

Both Mulberries were destroyed by storms. The first never made it to Omaha Beach. The second was in operation at Gold Beach for several months before a storm wrecked it.

Nope. Both made it, one to Gold, one to Omaha, and both were in use by D Day+1. The one at Omaha was destroyed in a storm a few days later, the one at Gold lasted weeks, months, giving the Allies enough time to take some of the natural ports along the French coastline (Marseille and Toulon.)

 Two Mulberry harbours were built for D-Day. Mulberry A was constructed off Omaha Beach to supply 
US forces. Mulberry B was built off Gold Beach at Arromanches to supply British and Canadian troops.

Mulberry A was destroyed in a storm a few days after it was built. Mulberry B was operational for 
10 months after the landings. 

https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/w....

 The idea for floating harbours came from several people. Winston Churchill had suggested them 
as early as 1917.

Military chiefs became interested in the concept after a disastrous British attack on the 
German-controlled port of Dieppe, France in 1942.

The failed raid showed that the Allies needed a way to get supplies across beaches in the early 
stages of an invasion. 

You're right. Mulberry A did deploy briefly before being destroyed. I recently read about a piece of Mulberry still in a bay in England. It was destined for Omaha, but sank before they could tow it across the channel. As your article states, the rest of Mulberry A was damaged beyond repair a few days after it was deployed.

You're right. Mulberry A did deploy briefly before being destroyed. I recently read about a piece of Mulberry still in a bay in England. It was destined for Omaha, but sank before they could tow it across the channel.

The confusion comes from the fact that “mulberrys” is commonly used to describe both the building blocks of the harbors and the harbors themselves. The giant concrete “floating” caissons were constructed off English ports, partially sunk (to keep them out of German aviators’ sight as much as possible), refloated and towed across the Channel and then assembled like giant Lego blocks to form deep water harbors.

Most of the caissons were actually used as “breakers”, to lessen the wave action of the seas, and there were more than 400 such caissons in all. It’s not surprising that a few might have sunk along the way, or even not been able to be properly refloated once the order came to do so.

The logistics must have been a nightmare; building them, getting them out of the way so more could be built, then refloating them, towing them across the Channel, and then sinking them in place to form the harbors, such as they were. And then constructing the infrastructure to allow smaller ships to offload and transport the goods to shore.

Daunting. I have read that in spite of the Allies attempts to keep them secret the Germans knew of them but couldn’t figure out what they were for. Only a small fraction were visible at any time, so the scope of the project never came to light until June 6. Perhaps the Germans thought the Allies were trying to construct cement boats or something? Odd, the things that go on in a war of deception and intrigue.

I love stories where one normal person, doing (or failing to do) their everyday job, has such a huge impact.

My father in law went in through Normandy on D-Day +4. He was in the group that would eventually be commanded by Patton - and he said the guys he was with would follow him anywhere and do anything, and I believe it. He had some great stories, none of which I remember anymore, a few having to do with inconsequential battles in towns I’ve long lost memory of, but most of the stories were about the typical GI complaint of “hurry up and wait”. He met a French girl he wanted to marry but his father wouldn’t allow it - that’s what society was like back in the 40’s - so he came home, took over his father’s junkyard business, married a local, got thrown out of the house, divorced, and had an otherwise uneventful life.

My father was on a ship in the Pacific, and he did not want to talk about it, which is/was a shame because I have always been fascinated with World War II. The Great War, Civil War, Revolutionary War not so much, and Dad was there for “The Big One” (he did tell a few Kamikaze stories) but didn’t want to talk about it.

Shame.

Obviously there were very few weather stations in 1944 out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, so predicting the weather for the D-Day landings was fraught.

One would think that the steady line of and troop transports, especially liberty ships, constantly crossing that pond were sending real time observations for the benefit of the logistics folks on both sides. Still, without the satellite technology we enjoy today that allows surfers to precisely follow giant swells across the ocean, forecasting was what it was.

Anecdote. My uncle tried to enlist as soon as he got the US. He really wanted to become a machine gunner, go home and shoot Nazis. The Army wouldn't take him since he was an Austrian deserter from the German army. Having acquired his PhD in Vienna, he got hired by Villanova's math dept. His first job; teaching Navy guys math necessary for shipboard operations (navigation, radio, etc). He found it humorous that they tasked with that because, except for crossing the channel to the UK and then to the US in 1938/
39, he had zero exposure to the ocean.

I’ve long lost memory of, but most of the stories were about the typical GI complaint of “hurry up and wait”. He met a French girl he wanted to marry but his father wouldn’t allow it - that’s what society was like back in the 40’s

My Dad was also not into telling stories since he was in the grisliest of Army jobs as a doctor working in advancing field hospitals on the Italian mainland. He did talk about the miserable food, and how, when they reached Rome, they tossed hand grenades into a Vatican City pond to harvest fresh carp.

My father in law was a Navy 'frogman'. The predecessors of SEALS. He served in the south pacific -without the benefit of scuba gear- clearing the way for landing craft. He also never wanted to talk about it.

One of the best captains I employed drove everything from brown water patrol craft to destroyers during the VietNam war. He also never wanted to talk much about it.

Those guys, never wearing their heart on their sleeves, so to speak, are such a contrast to those extreme rightwing vets of today who do tout their service as though it's a testament to some greater pool of wisdom that everybody else.

Hey, thank you for your service, but let's be real. Doing a tour or two that didn't make you suddenly qualified to decide what's best for everybody or legislate. Brian Kolfage is a crook. Chris Kyle was an idiot done in by his own ammosexuality.

I had a high school teacher ( can't even remember the class name, but sure remember him ) who was in airborne, dropped in the night before the landings. He was in the thick of things, he ended up being in charge when his seniors were killed in the fighting. He made it 2 months or so before he was severely wounded by a German "burp" gun, took him 5 years to recover. He had been a cop prewar, but after the war he went to college to become a teacher. Like the other men I knew who were combat vets, was always very respectful toward him, and a touch scared of him. Got the sense that there was something just below the surface that you didn't want to bring out.

My dad came later, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I was told he had multiple tanks shot out from under him ( he drove the tank ). Each time, the crew got out, walked back toward the Allied lines, and were put into another tank and sent forward as soon as possible. Like your dad, he never spoke of it to me ( although older brothers heard some stories ). His brothers ( my uncles ) were also in the thick of some scary stuff, and they were also reticent to speak of it to any of the kids. 1 uncle was in North Africa when the Germans were kicking the Allies butts. He was in a group that was surrounded and under siege, and they all thought at best they were going to be POW's, or dead. Many survived, and after the war they held annual reunions until maybe 1970 or so, in different spots across the USA. I was too young to ever go, but some of the older cousins got to go.

I grew up with images of Vietnam on the TV. You know how to infuriate an 8 year old? Interrupt Roadrunner with Vietnam battles.

But as I got older, I would get some stories from a few relatives. My stepmother's stepfather was a combat engineer. He told a few. He was on Omaha. I believe he also was at Anzio. My great uncle on my mother's side told me some stuff that his wife had never heard. It seems most people who have been in the <excrement> don't really want to talk about it. For whatever reason, some would talk to me. Maybe because I was a WWII buff. Dunno. They're almost gone now (my relatives are gone, but there are still a few vets left). Very few people left to tell their stories.

I heard about a project that interviewed war vets and holocaust survivors to get their stories before they expired. Don't remember what it was called. A worthy effort. Hopefully they managed to get a lot. Then they just need to figure out how to get those stories to the public. War isn't Rambo or John Wayne. It's more like Tom Hanks (Private Ryan).

The WW2 vets I met said they might get hit with artillery, but they were behind the lines and never really saw anything, just moved forward into bombed and burned out towns with some civilians. My father got there later and was a Doctor for SHAPE.

My father was in the Army Air Corps, later Air Force, in the Pacific. Working on the ground for a reconnaissance/surveillance operation that flew modified P38s for aerial photography. He never talked much about the war until late in life, not because of terrible things he had experienced or seen, but because of the simple modesty that seemed so typical of that era of vets. He once admitted to me that he felt a little 'guilty' about his wartime experience because for him, not being in much danger, it was a great adventure and he loved the various south Pacific islands where he had been stationed.

My father-in-law, Jim Corson, on the other hand, was in a B-24 that was shot down over Germany. It was just his second mission. Seven of the ten crew on board died. Six went down with the plane and four bailed out. One of those who bailed out was executed by a German soldier (who after the war was sentenced to death and hung). Three were taken prisoner. After landing in his parachute, Jim was in the process of being beaten by Germans from a village near Hildesheim, Germany, when an older man stopped the beating (probably saving his life) and told the angry mob that Jim was a prisoner of war. As a result of the beating he had double vision for months afterward.

Jim turned 21 in a POW camp but here's the interesting thing: he was an exceptionally bright and verbally gifted guy and he managed to keep a diary during his captivity. It was near the end of the war, so his captivity only lasted about 8 months but as the fronts were closing in on the Germans the prisoners were forced to march away from the enclosing allied forces. It was winter weather and a miserable experience. And the German guards, now consisting of only the old and infirm who were not able to fight in the Wehrmact, were just as miserable and quite aware that the end was near. An odd anecdote that Jim tells is about one of the old guards slipping on the ice and falling down, his rifle skittering across the ice and out of reach. One of the POWs helped the old man get back up, while another retrieved his rifle and handed it to him.

My wife has that original hand written diary and we've had a number of typewritten transcriptions made. Much of it is, not surprisingly, about food and hunger. At times Jim wrote about fears for what might happen to them near the war's end. No one at this point was talking about or planning escape. Another subject was the wretched latrine situation. The pumper trucks that were supposed to clean out the latrines kept getting destroyed by allied fighters and so the overflowing latrines turned the grounds into a lake of sewage. The prisoners suggested that the Germans paint a large cross on top of the pumper trucks to make them look like ambulances and that did the trick; finally the trucks could make it through. After the war Jim wrote a humorous essay about the Scheissewagen episode.

Here's the unusual coda to Jim's story. The older gentleman who had saved him from being beaten to death had briefly had him at his home and Jim remembered seeing the man's daughter. He knew by now the man who had saved him would probably be dead and gone, but he wanted to try to thank the daughter for her father's saving his life. So, in the early 1990's he went back to the Hildesheim and did just that. And not only did the citizens there not resent him and his wartime occupation as a bomber crew, they feted him, arranged a banquet and wrote a long article in the local paper about him.

This was a turning point for Jim who had almost never talked about his POW experience and who had bitter feelings towards the Germans. It was after that that he brought out the diary and he also sat down and let me record the oral history of his wartime service.

Jim just turned 100 and is still mentally sharp with a remarkable memory. He is in a nursing home but doing well for his age.

I hope his writings, and your audio recordings of him, will be available for the project I mentioned earlier.

Googling, there appear to be several such projects. Though many are "local" (one in NYC, one is Atlanta, etc). I remember it being a national project.

It may have been Military Voices Initiative, or Veteran's Oral History Project. I don't think it was anything as corny-sounding as "Voices of Freedom". But I found all of those, and more, with a quick google. I would try to contact some organization like that to preserve his words for future generations.

Yes, some of this material has been sent off...not sure exactly where. His children have taken care of that.

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