2015 June The Veterans Memorial Museum Newsletter

June 2015 The Museum is open Wednesday - Saturday 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. To set up a tour call the Museum at 256-883-3737 during Museum hours.

Museum News by Dennis Gaare  - Buy a General Admission ticket to the U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum for a friend. Tickets may be obtained at the Museum office.

 The City of Huntsville has vacated the Health Clinic, located on the backside of the Museum. The Museum Staff has moved into the former clinic and has almost completed stocking the shelves with books and articles relocated from the former archives. To date 7,400 books have been archives  On 13 May the Warrant Officers Association, held its monthly meeting.  On May 30, the Museum supported the Aviation Heritage Fly-In at the Huntsville Executive Airport with display of the Vietnam era USMC “MUTT” (Jeep) by Mr. Bob McCoy. Museum volunteer Chief Warrant officer 5 Jeff Oosting also displayed his Vietnam era 2 ½ ton truck (deuce and a half).  On 30 May, Museum Volunteers John Omenski and Brian Knox displayed the Museum’s HMMWV (Hummer) at the Madison Public Library.  On Monday 1 June, the AUSA had a breakfast meeting at the Museum.  On Wednesday, June 3, a group from the Veterans Administration toured the Museum. Page 1 2015 June

Upcoming Events The following events are scheduled at the Museum:  On Saturday June 6, the Museum will display a military vehicle at the Vets with Vettes car show at the Milton Frank Stadium from 1000 to 4PM. Come out and see a lot of nice cars. June 11 the Burwell Tae Kwan Do Summer Program will tour the Museum  June 12 Museum staff will meet with a representative of the Gadsden Museum of Art to coordinate support for their Veterans Display  Saturday 13 June the Museum will be a stop in the Poker Run by the Vietnam Vets Legacy Motorcycle club.  Wednesday 17 June the Veterans Affairs, Huntsville, will tour the Museum.  Saturday 20 June a group from the Harris Home will tour the Museum.  Saturday 20 June the Antique Car Club of Murfreesboro, TN will tour the Museum.  Tuesday 23 June, The Civil War Roundtable will meet at the Museum.  Tuesday 30 June, A group from Woodmont Baptist Church, Florence, will tour the Museum.

Museum Artifact by Rob Robley Operation Overlord D-Day: 6 June 1944

D-Day: Was the greatest amphibious operation the world has ever seen. D-Day was a truly staggering feat of logistics that involved putting ashore at Normandy a total of 176,475 men, 3,000 guns, 1,500 tanks, 15, 000 other assorted vehicles. Some 11,000 ships were committed to invasion force. 10,500 air sorties were flown by allied Air Forces. Allied commanders secretly predicted that as many as 10,000 men might die in the initial assault, fewer than 2,500 allied soldiers were killed on D-Day.

D-Day, the actual invasion date in military jargon, however was only the start of a long and arduous campaign which was not to end until Germany finally collapsed in the spring of the following year. The basic object of Overlord was to secure a beachhead in France from which further operations could mount. The assault phase of the operation was code-named Neptune, which envisioned the landing of five divisions between the mouth of River Orne and neck of the Cotentin Peninsula. To seal off the battlefield airborne troops would be dropped at either end in advance of the actual landings. The coast was divided into two sectors. British and American, and subdivided into five actual beaches,

American First Army: Utah 4th Inf. Div

Omaha: 1st Inf. Div

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British Second Army: Gold 50th Inf. Div

Juno 3rd Canadian Inf. Div

Sword 3rd Inf. Div

To the left of our 40&8 boxcar is our D-Day display of soldiers, sailors, and airmen in invasion uniforms and some weapons and artifacts used during the invasion. Included in the display is a prop M-1 Rifle used in the movie "Saving Private Ryan", A "Cricket" used by the Airborne troops to identify each other during the night drop in Normandy. I click (Are you friend?), 2 clicks (Yes!) and sand from Omaha and Utah beaches.

To put things in perspective; envision moving the population of the city of Huntsville, to Mobile in absolute secrecy in three days, and depositing them in precise order.

Part of the deception prior to D-Day, was the use of General Patton. Patton had been relieved of command for slapping a soldier in Italy. He was relegated to being the commander of a "Ghost Army", stationed in Northern England. Gen. Patton was the most feared commander due to his victories in North Africa, and Italy. Poised in Northern England, giving the impression of an Army preparing for a cross channel invasion from Dover to Cherbourg, which was the most direct route to France, The "Phantom Army" broadcast messages, had inflatable trucks, tanks and aircraft to give the impression of an Army preparing for a cross channel invasion, thus forcing the Germans to move their Armor to repel Patton's Army.

Historical facts by Rob Robley U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum.

Most of us know the names of the famous leaders of the invasion forces on D-Day. "Ike" General Eisenhower, "Brad" General Bradley, "Blood and Guts" General Patton, and "Monty" British General Montgomery. One of the least know of the Generals, who was instrumental in assuring the success of the invasion was Maj. Gen Percy Hobart, he was one of a small group of British officers who pioneered the use of tanks between the wars, Known as "Hobo", who incidentally was Monty's brother-in -law. Hobart was forced to retire from the army on account of unorthodox" views and in 1940 was serving as a corporal in the Home Guard. Rescued from oblivion by the direct order of Churchill, he was put in charge of development of armored vehicles designed to perform specialist tasks. He set up his small organization at Bovington, the home of Royal Tank Regiment, and from the workshop there emerged a whole series of armored vehicles that were to play a decisive role on D-Day, and the campaign in northwest Europe. Many of these vehicles were given animal names as a cover, hence the nickname of "Hobart's Menagerie" also known as "Hobart's Funnies". The Crab or flail tank was a device for clearing minefields and barbwire,

Page 3 2015 June consisting of rotating drum on the front of a conventional tank. This had a length of chain attached literally flailed or beat a path through the minefield.

NOTE: (This concept is still in use today.) The Crocodile was a Churchill tank chassis, fitted with a flamethrower, a weapon much hated by the Germans. The fuel was towed behind the tank in a specially designed armored trailer.

One of the lessons learned from an earlier commando raid on the French port city of Dieppe, was the difficulty of tanks crossing obstacles such as sea walls and anti-tank ditches. To cope with this, Hobart developed a number of bridge carrying vehicles including the Arc. The Bobbin tank uncoiled a matting roadway from a huge drum to lay a path over soft sand and fascine, which could drop a large bundle of branches into a crater or ditch. The vehicles were all variants of Armored Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), which could also be used for firing a heavy explosive charge at concrete fortifications. Instead of the normal gun in the turret, a large spigot mortar was fitted. The projectile from this was known as the "flying dustbin" owing to its size. (NOTE: In Page 4 2015 June modern times, The US Army combat engineers had 152 and 165mm short barrel "bunker buster" projectiles in both HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) and HEP (High Explosive Plastic) configuration, on their Combat Engineer Vehicle (CVE), based on the M-60 Chassis, soon to be replaced by a CEV on the M-1 "Abrams" Chassis.)

Other devices did not progress much further than initial test, many of which were carried out on the beaches of the South, including the "Panjandrum". This was like a large Catherine (Ferris) Wheel designed to crush through barbed wire, which when tested ran amok, Highly successful, however was the Sherman Duplex Drive (DD) Tank. This was a swimmable tank, which was kept afloat by collapsible canvas screens. The engine could drive either propellers or the tracks, and on D-Day, the DD tanks swam onto the beach to support the initial infantry attack waves.

In early 1943, all these vehicles (other than the DDs ) were formed in to the 79th Armored Division commanded by Hobart. The Americans proved skeptical and other than the DD, did not accept the help offered. ON The British beaches , specialist armor was to prove invaluable and saved considerable number of lives.

PLUTO:

These initials literally stood for Pipe Line Under The Ocean, an idea that was born as far back as April 1942. At that time, Lord Louis Mountbatten was considering the problems of fuel supplies to an army which had landed on the Continent. During the following year a number of trials were undertaken and two systems were developed, both of which were in fact used after D-Day. The first was a flexible hollow cable known as "Hais" which would be laid on the sea bed in the same manner as telephone cables. The other called Hamel and consisted of lengths of 3" diameter Steel pipe which could be welded together and coiled into 30 foot diameter drums. These were known as Conums. In all 172 million gallons of petrol was supplied through Pluto, which continued operation until July 1945. Pumping into a system on land pipelines reaching out well inside Germany.

MULLBERRY HARBORS:

As early as the First World War, Winston Churchill had suggested the use of concrete element]s to form an artificial ,harbor, and he returned to the subject in May 1942 when Combined Operations were considering ways and means for a cross-channel assault. In a memo to Mountbatten he referred to piers for use on open beaches which 'must float up and down with the tide. It was not until June 1943 that the scheme of providing complete harbors was seriously considered. By then, the awful lesson of Dieppe had been absorbed. that it was impossible to capture a defended port - and the planners thought that it was unlikely that Cherbourg and the Brittany harbors would be free for use until D-Day +40. The COSSAC staff came up with a requirement for two artificial harbors each the size of Dover, which could be towed in sections across the Channel and be assembled of the Normandy beaches

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The basic scheme was as follows. As soon as possible after the actual landings, lines of old ships (Corncobs) were to be sunk of each beach to form a breakwater or Gooseberry. These would provide a modicum of shelter for immediate unloading operations.

In the meantime, the first units of the artificial harbors would be on their way across the channel, consisting of concrete caissons known as Phoenix’s. Each was almost as big as a five-story block of flats (apartments), measuring 200 feet in length, 55 feet in width and 60 feet high. Their total weight was 6,000 tons each. The Phoenix Caissons would be joined to the line of "Corncobs" to form an outer breakwater, and when flooded would sit firmly on the bottom of the sea. The next stage was then to construct floating roadways running out from the beach connected to steel pier heads known as whales. These slid up and down on Spud legs standing on the bottom of the bottom. One Mulberry was to be located near the British beaches and the other, for the Americans to Omaha Beach.

To give just some idea of the scale of the operations, a total of some two million tons of pre-fabricated material had to be towed across the channel and assembled. Seventy-four obsolete ships were used as corncobs, and 213 Phoenix caissons were built, as well as 93 Bombardons, huge floating pontoons designed to form a further breakwater for deep draught ships to seaward of the Mulberries. Every available Tug both in Britain and the United States was pressed into service to transport the mass of material to the invasion beaches.

General Information

The U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum, located in Huntsville, Alabama, is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. There are more than 30 historical military vehicles from World War I to the present as well as artifacts and other memorabilia dating back to the Revolutionary War. Displays include a "Merci" 40 et 8 boxcar from World War I, a Cobra attack helicopter, a collection of jeeps, Sherman tanks and Stuarts, a half-track and flags, maps, uniforms and other artifacts from every U.S. conflict. The Museum is located just west of Memorial Pkwy in John Hunt Park at 2060A Airport Road, Huntsville, Al 35801. The U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum is dedicated to promoting the accomplishments of American military men and women.

The Museum's web page is www.memorialmuseum.org. The Museum email of is [email protected]. If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, send “REMOVE” to [email protected].

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