50 years since D-Day — a midshipman remembers

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 538, 31 May 1994, Page 11

50 years since D-Day — a midshipman remembers

Unlike many theatres of war this century, New Zealand did not have an official presence at the Normandy beach head on 6 June 1 944. Only individuals serving with the RAF and Royal Navy took part in that historic event called "D-Day", 50 years ago. The following is a personal account from one individual, Ohakune resident Dennis Beytagh, who was not only there in that greatest of invasion fleets, he was on what turned out to be one of the most important vessels of the fleet.

In May 1943, as a 19year old Midshipman in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), I was posted toHMS Versatile- a V&W Class destroyer then undergoing a major refit in the Royal Naval dockyard in Rosyth, Scotland to equip it with the means to combat the U-boat threat in the North Atlantic. Following the refit we undertook our working-up trials in Scapa Flow and at Tobermory in the Western Isles of Scotland. From there we were sent to Londonderry in Northern Ireland where HMS Versatile joined the many Western Approaches escort flotillas - comprised of destroyers, sloops, frigates, corvettes and escort carriers - operating across the Atlantic convoying merchant vessels between the east coast of America and Canada otten by way ot Newfoundland and Iceland. In September 1943, because of the experience and expertise we had acquired in hunting U-boats, HMS Versatile received orders to proceed 'independentlyand at full speed' through the Bay of Biscay to help seal off the Straits of Gibraltar - the 10 mile gap between Spain and North Africa - against infiltration by German U-boats which were then trying to move from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean to attack convoys supplying the Allied landings and advances in Italy. HMS Versatile, after a balmy autumn in the Mediterranean, then returned to another winter escorting convoys across the North Atlantic. Invasion preparations In the northern spring of 1944 HMS Versatile was taken off its escort duties and assigned to an invasion force training programme. We transferred our base from Londonderry to Belfast and conducted a series of exercises with other naval vessels of all shapes, sizes and nationalities - some acting as 'the enemy' - in the almost land-locked and therefore relati vely discreet water of the Irish Sea. During these exercises we were 'attacked' by Allied submarines, motor-tor-pedo boats and aircraft including USAAF Thunderbolts and Mustangs and by RAF Spitfires, Typhoons and Tempests coming from

all directions and at any time day or night. Having survived these 'attacks' during which we were at 'action stations' almost continually for days on end, we were ordered to proceed to Plymouth, tojoin the accumulating armada of invasion vessels of all descriptions ... and this is where HMS Versatile was to begin to take on a unique role in the landings on Normandy' s beaches a month or so later. Unusual role The first indication that there was anything unusual about our forthcoming role was when a team of Royal Navy telegraphists and technicians came aboard to carry out some alterations to a space directly behind the wheelhouse which was located below the bridge where a signalling/ communications room already existed. The need for a second signalling and communication facility seemed to be somewhat 'surplus to requirements' ...thatisuntila dark-haired and non- AngloSaxon rating dressed in the uniform of a Royal Navy

telegraphist speaking with a readily identifiable German accent came aboard. In the conditions of extreme secrecy which existed at the time such a situation only added to the growing conjecture and speculation then circulating Britain. It was only later, when all communication with the 'outside world' was cut off, that we learnt that our new 'shipmate' was (and this is information that has, to my knowledge, never been divulged or published before ) a fluent German-speaking Jew who, having escaped from continental Europe, had undergone a Royal Navy signals and communications course at HMS Mercury in Hampshire, England, before joining HMS Versatile for the invasion. It was his job, once the D-Day landings had been launched, to listen into the enemy signals originating out of the two main E-boat bases in Le Havre and Cherbourg, either end of the chosen landing site. Our secret telegraphist was to translate incoming enemy messages. Because of the speed at which light surface vessels such asGerman E-boats and British MTB's operate messages have to be in 'plain language' rather than in code. He was also to identify the source of enemy signals and, having learnt their callsigns and procedures, throw

the enemy operation into total confusion by mimicking German voices and gi ving out contrary commands. Just how successful this deception was will probably never be known but rumour at the time did suggest that, on a number of occasions, the Cherbourgbased E-boats were deployed against the Le Ha-vre-based E-boats. But HMS Versatile's unique role in the Normandy landings wasn't to end there. Most senior officer Why Rear Admiral William (Bill) Tennant, one of the Royal Navy's most senior officers should have chosen a small (1130 ton) ageing and inconspicuous destroyer from which to inspect and supervise this massi ve operation on which the success or failure of 'Operation Overlord' depended was, to a mere Midshipman at the time, a mystery. He had supervised the evacuation of British and Allied troops from Dunkirk four years earlier and had been the commanding of-

ficer of the 35,000 ton bat-tle-cruiser HMS Repulse when she was sunk by Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea on 10 December 1941 - and was now responsible for the laying of the huge artificial 'Mulberry' harbour on the sandy beaches of Normandy. Perhaps it was because HMS Versatile was just such an ordinary and inconspicuous vessel among the many hundreds of similar or bigger and more modern ships in that vast invasion fleet that we were selected in order not to attract the attention of - and thus become a special target for - the German Luftwaffe and Navy. But that is exactly what happened though Rear Admiral Tennant was not due to come aboard until the invasion fleet set sail for France on 5 June 1944. The countdown As D-Day - originally planned for Monday 5 June but postponed for 24 hours because of adverse weather conditions across the Channel - approached, activity TURNTOPAGE12

D-Day remembered

FROMPAGE11 on the Solent gathered momentum with an increasing sense of urgency and excitement. A steady stream of the Royal Navy's and US Navy's capital ships (battleships and heavy cruisers) together with the smaller ships of the Commonwealth and Allied navies arrived at this, the largest and busiest assembly point on the south coast of England. The many troopships, each with assault and tank landing craft slung from davits along their sides, began to fill with the men and machines which were destined to go ashore in 'Fortress Europe'. Aboard those troopships thousands of khaki-clad men lined the decks and railings taking in this unique spectacle as the world' s greatest invasion fleet assembled and looking, perhaps for the last time, upon the friendly shores of England. On the evening of Sunday 4 June, HMS Versatile was ordered out to patrol an area in the English Channel to ensure that no fast German surface craft used the cover of darkness to penetrate the security screen around the Allied armada and observe the state of readiness of the Allied Invasion plans. We patrolled all night without incident and then retumed to the Solent where last-minutepreparations for launching 'OperationOverlord' were already well underway. In the gathering dusk of Monday 5 June, the invasion armada began to move and, as it did so, Rear Ad-

miral T ennant together with about a dozen reporters, photographers and cameramen from the BBC and the major print media (The Times, Daily Telegraph, etc) came aboard. As each vessel slipped its moorings it sailed quietly out into the English Channel to gather at a huge assembly area south of the Isleof Wight ... anddirectly opposite the Normandy coast. There, five columns of ships formed, each allocated to one of the five sectors: Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah the first three being the British and Canadian sectors, the last two the Americans. Each column comprised a line of troopships and assault landing craft with an escort of naval vessels on either side. HMS Versatile left the Solent through the Spithead channel and took up station between the Juno (Canadian) and Gold (British) columns. Directly ahead of us was another V and Wdestroyer, HMS Wrestler, but we couldn't see her - or any other ship in the armada - for by now the: complete darkness of a moonless night had descended on the Channel. Relying on radar each column began to move silently towards the Normandy coast. On board HMS Versatile, like every other naval vessel in the fleet, we were closed up at 'Action Stations' with every officer and rating knowing exactly what to do but not knowing exactly what to expect. Continued next week