Lone Horsa on LZ 'V'

Pat Curran · May 3, 2014

Hi All,

Last night I was looking through aerial footage shot from a Marauder of the 9th USAAF as shown on this Critical Past clip and noticed that it contained a seven second sequence showing what the narrator states to be:

"A crashed Allied plane a few miles west of the peninsula beachhead"
Click to expand...

Below is a still from the footage on which I have arrowed in red the 'crashed Allied plane':

Looking at the footage sequence one frame at a time, I began to doubt that the aircraft was actually 'crashed' and I wondered where the location might be :huh:

I was not sure where the narrator was referring to when he described the location as '...a few miles west of the peninsula beachhead' and I began to wonder if we had found one of our 'Far Flung' American gliders on the western side of the Cotentin Peninsula. The only problem with searching that sector was that the view from the Marauder did not seem to be orchards and pasture land as one would expect to see in the western Cotentin, but rather it looked more like orchards and arable land. The raid was also stated to be on the city of Caen, however, as we have seen on numerous occasions before, these clips are often made up of unrelated sequences, so I did not put much weight in that either.

After 3 hours of searching early this morning, I located the field in part of DZ/LZ 'V' in the British airborne sector, just north of the village of Petiville. The GE screenshot below shows the approximate location circled yellow:

Once the location was found, I then went searching for NCAP cover and found frame 3100 of sortie NCAP_ACIU_106G/0711. The extract below clearly shows the 'crashed Allied plane' to be an intact Horsa glider:

mage Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk

DZ/LZ 'V' was the most eastern of all the British Operation 'Tonga' DZ/LZs and was to be used by the 1st Canadian and 9th British Parachute Battalions, 3rd Parachute Brigade. While the 9th Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway, were tasked with attacking and destroying the nearby Merville Battery, the Canadians had the job of protecting engineers of the 3rd Parachute Squadron whilst they destroyed two bridges over the Rivers Divette and Dives at Varaville and Robehomme.

Of this force, very few men actually landed by glider - the extract below is from pages 18-19 of 'One Night in June' by Kevin Shannon and Stephen Wright:

"Only the heavy equipment for 3 Parachute Brigade Group was to land by glider...

...Seven gliders of 'E' Squadron [Glider Pilot Regiment] would take off from Down Ampney and would land on LZ 'V' in support of the 3 Parachute Brigade operations. From Harwell, four gliders of 'A' Squadron, carrying elements of the 9th Parachute Battalion and No. 3 Section, 224 Parachute Field Ambulance would also land on LZ 'V'...

...These craft [the seven gliders from Down Ampney] would carry two 6-pounder anti-tank guns, jeeps and equipment for Headquarters 3 Parachute Brigade and the 1st (Canadian) Parachute Battalion. Also included would be two ambulance jeeps. 'A' Squadron at Harwell would also send four gliders to LZ 'V'. Three of these would carry heavy equipment vital to Otway's plan to seize the Merville Battery, including light bridging sections to cross the anti-tank ditch. The other glider was to take a jeep and trailer of No. 3 Section, 224 Parachute Field Ambulance."
Click to expand...

So, if my maths is correct and there are no stray gliders on DZ/LZ 'V' (a big and unsafe assumption!), then the Horsa above might be one of these eleven gliders designated for LZ 'V'. Appendix Two (page 192) and Appendix Three (page 195) would appear to confirm eleven gliders for this LZ. Below is an extract from Appendix Three which I have put into a html table for the sake of clarity:

<table width="850" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#0066CC">CN</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#0066CC">Pilots</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#0066CC">Load</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">261</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Lt. Dodwell, C.B. Sgt.Osborne, B.S. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, Trailer & m/c </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">262</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Andrews, N. (DFM) Sgt Senier, P. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">2 ambulance jeeps, wirelesses, 2 drivers & Brig Hill's spare clothing </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">263</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Lovett, J. Sgt Wilson, J.L. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, trailer & m/c </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">264</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Gardner, A Sgt. Oliver, A. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, trailer & m/c </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">265</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Rancom, H.A. Sgt Collard, E. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, trailer & m/c </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">266</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Nerbert, W.C. Sgt Moorcraft, G.R. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">6-pdr gun, jeep & 3 troops </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">267</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">*S/Sgt Saunders, V. *Sgt Fuell, J.H. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">6-pdr gun, jeep & 3 troops </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">66</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">*S/Sgt Ockwell, V. Sgt Hellyer, T.R. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, trailer, explosives, m/c, 5 sappers (591 P Sqn RE), was correspondent. (Load included bridging material for a/t ditch in battery.) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">67</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">*S/Sgt Marfleet, W.K. *Sgt Haines, V. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">68</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Thorpe, E. Sgt Hardie, R. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, trailer, m/c & 6 men 1 CND Para Bn.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25" bgcolor="#3399CC">69</td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">S/Sgt Bramah, M. Sgt Bartley, R. </td>
<td width="400" bgcolor="#3399CC">Jeep, med trailer </td>
</tr>
</table>

[Note: Pilots marked with an asterisk were KIA on Operation 'Tonga']

It would seem to me that all eleven gliders would need to have their tails removed to unload the jeeps (I assume chalk #67 also had a jeep). So, is the Horsa in the footage one of these gliders at all?

Lieutenant-Colonel Otway's plan for the capture of the Merville Battery called for three gliders to land inside the perimeter of the complex. As far as I know, one glider never left England, one landed outside the wire fence and the third landed some miles away from the Battery. All three of these were carrying 21 troops only and so would not have needed to have had their tails removed.

I wonder could 'our' Horsa above be the 3rd glider from the 'Battery Force'?

Comments and corrections welcomed and appreciated.

Regards,

Pat

Sean · May 4, 2014

Hello Pat and all,

Nice find!

I'm afraid there are a couple of things which don't fit with the 3rd glider from Merville.
According to the Merville account on the Pegasus Archive site the missing glider landed 2 miles away, which is about the same distance. However, in Neil Barber's excellent book "The Day the Devils Dropped In" a couple of comments from a man in that glider cast doubts.
Gordon Newton:
".... it went skidding across the water and the tail came off, and left it about seventy-five yards behind"
and then
"We got out into this water which was nearly waist deep."
This glider is both intact and on land which I would guess to be too high to be flooded.

Still, as stated, a nice find and one to keep working on.

Cheers,

Sean

PS There's another nice little quote in the book- when the glider passed overhead of the waiting parachutists and then disappeared, a posh voice was overheard saying "It will be alright chaps, it will come back. The world is round!"

Pat Curran · May 5, 2014

Hi Sean,

Can you confirm only two gliders attempted to make the assault on the Merville Battery?

I ask because 'One Night in June' (p. 89) has one landing 200 yrds west of the Battery (chalk #28 flown by S/Sgt Stanley Bone and Sgt L. Dean) and the second glider (chalk #27 flown by S/Sgt Dickie Kerr and Sgt H. Walker) went in with a burning tail having been hit several times by flak. To add to their troubles, the arrestor chute caught in trees which resulted in the glider falling fifty yards into an orchard.

Do you know which of the two above (if only two) is marked on the aerial photo on the batterie-merville.com site here? The marker is about 800 yrds to the south east of the Battery.

Thanks Sean,

Pat

Pat Curran · May 6, 2014

Hi All,

Just for the heck of it, I decided to see if there was any NCAP cover for the crash site marked on the aerial photo on the batterie-merville.com site here.

First, a GE finder chart:

I found one frame from NCAP_ACIU_ 400/0240 flown on the 15th June which shows the Batterie-Merville.com crash site. Below is a zoomed extract from frame 3076:

Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk

The light being reflected from the green circled source had me sitting up until I checked another sortie, NCAP_ACIU_106G/0556, flown on the 28th May. Frame 3046 shows the same source so it cannot be the crashed Horsa:

Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk

Of interest though is the object showing in the red circle on the 15th June cover. I presume a burning tail section on landing might well lead to a near complete burn of the whole glider, so we might not be expecting to see much in the way of a Horsa shape...

,,,or is the red circle just a downed tree

Regards,

Pat

Sean · May 7, 2014

Pat,

Barber's book has it the other way around... Bone and Dean's Horsa being the furthest away, Kerr and Walker's the closest (with Lt Pond).
The one on the Merville site photo I take to be the latter, ie the closer of the two.

Cheers,

Sean

Pat Curran · May 8, 2014

Thanks Sean,

Are there any know ground photos of either glider?

Regards,

Pat

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