Written by reader and blogger Chap, and originally posted here.

~ Alan

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Today, my friends and classmates meet in Talloires and Normandy, for a reunion and to be present for the sixtieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion. I cannot attend because I go to sea too soon and I wish I were there. I would gladly violate my personal boycott of French products for this occasion.

This isn’t emotional writing–it’s just history, and history that affects how I do my job today.

The American submarine force defines itself through its actions in the Pacific. The British submarine force, however, had significant exploits in the Atlantic. One of these operations enabled D-Day to happen.

In the Pacific, the US submarines Nautilus and Argonaut, small diesel boats, embarked two hundred and twenty two Marines led by a Colonel Carlson, who had spent time in China and took the phrase “work together”–gung ho–for the Marines’s own. They performed a raid on Makin Island. While the Marines were ashore the submarines went destroyer hunting. Upon the completion of the raid, some of the Marines weren’t there. They had been captured by the Japanese and beheaded.

I had the honor, once, of meeting some of these Marines, although I didn’t understand who these geezers were at the time. (Yes, I was an idiot.) I just knew they had done something important that they wouldn’t talk about. Fifty-some years later, they went back and found their compatriots and brought them home.

Some important lessons about amphibious warfare were learned on the Makin Island raid. More painful lessons were learned at the cost of innumerable Canadians at an early landing in Dieppe–on the tactical level, it was a bloody disaster on the level of a Gallipoli attack. Strategically, the Dieppe landing bought time and more importantly taught lessons that paid off on D-Day.

One lesson learned by the British was that you had to know where you were landing and what type of beach you were landing at. For this, they used a team called the COPP, and small submarines called X-Craft.

Tiny, weak, short legged X-Craft were small boats. A lieutenant commanded. They were towed to their operation area, a dangerous and exhausting feat in itself. They could carry things–explosives on a belt on the outside–but also small boats with people in it.

In other amphibious landings, some landing craft discharged troops in the wrong place, or landed where the sand was too soft for the machinery, causing men to die before they even could get to the beach. To counter this, pairs of men were put on tiny folding canoes and sent out on the submarines to perform beach feasibility surveys (what we call them today, anyway). In my last ship we did much the same as they did them–but we ride in a lot more comfort, and they invented it.

The survey complete, the X-craft beached themselves and turned lights on as navigation beacons for the ships riding in. The Americans refused this help and some of their craft landed a mile off target.

The southeastern tip of the Island housed the Most Secret of all establishments. COPP (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) was based in what is now Hayling Island Sailing Club: a band of adventurers who had volunteered for Special Service without being told what this involved! Here the 57 officers and men, expert canoeists, swimmers and survivalists -trained in all weathers in strictest secrecy. Like the famous Cockleshell Heroes, their targets were those impossible for conventional attack and usually so dangerous that a COPP mission was regarded as a one-way ticket. COPPs specialised in the unorthodox - and on many occasions it worked.

Midget submarines, or Xcraft, 50ft long, 6ft wide, displacing 30 tons, were crewed by COPPists. Packed together inside were diesel engines (2 Gardineror Perkins), electric motor, air compressor, batteries, escape compartment-cum-heads, and canisters to re-cycle foul air. Then there was the crew and their gear, all the navigation and signalling instrumentation, food, water - every inch of space held some piece of equipment, some lever or wheel…or the cramped men. Keeping silence during a mission meant no movement: the hull plating was only 3/8 inch thick: in fact the crew could hear German asdic pinging off their hull, time for evasive action! Xcraft of the 12th Submarine Flotilla played a vital role on D-Day. They were to guide inthe first assault boats to the correct landing areas of Sword and Juno beaches. COPPists on an advance recce, using canoes, had secured samples from these beaches which proved the ground suitable for the advance-guard heavy tanks. Canoes used were folboats and could carry 480lbs; a tiny sail of camouflaged parachute silk could be hoisted on the mast, whose other function was for mounting a powerful signalling lamp.

Lt George Honour, RNVR had (most unusually) been briefed about the D-Day COPPs mission three weeks in advance. Such was the degree of secrecy demanded that he dared not go for a run ashore during that tense waiting period. He was to command X23 with a Sub/Lt and an Engine-Room Artificer as crew, but taking two extra men: navigation experts. This made for much increased discomfort in the tiny vessel.

X23 was ordered to sail on 2nd June, and was towed towards the French coast. Here the midget submarine was submerged for l7hrs 59mins. This detailing of the EXACT length of time indicates the ghastly strain of prolonged inactivity in confined quarters and foul air. On June 3rd they moved cautiously to within 1 & 1/2 miles of the beach, and checking their position through the periscope found they were spot-on - and German soldiers could be seen playing on the beach!

Expecting 5th June to be D-Day, the Xcraft thankfully surfaced after a further 12 hours underwater, to await their coded message via the BBC. Nothing. In great anxiety they tuned in again at 01.00: Invasion postponed 24 hours; this meant an extra 24 hours of hell waiting on the bottom. At 04.45 on 6th June they surfaced for action and flashed the guiding lights for the in-coming armada as planned. The crew watched landing-craft forging ahead to the beach and our troops swarming down the ramps to wade ashore, ant-like on the great sweep of sand.

The job done, X23 turned away for its rendezvous with HMS Largs; this proved the most dangerous time of the whole operation. Vessels of every kind were charging towards the shore - nothing should stand in their way now - least of all a tiny, barely visible midget submarine!

And they weren’t American. They were brothers-in-arms saving American lives with their efforts.

For this Decoration Day, I hope you will take a thought about the sacrifices being made around the world by all of us, and the Americans who died hard and without recognition–but who made the difference. Let us strive to live up to their ideals.

Chap.