The article didn’t say what sort of nightly mission they were doing on the French coast in the month before D-Day.
“The article didn’t say what sort of nightly mission they were doing on the French coast in the month before D-Day.” [wideminded, post 19]
Possible missions: surveillance, probing of enemy defenses, misdirection/deception; crew proficiency. Probably more none of us have heard about.
A great many details had to be discovered and recorded, then disseminated to the right people, to get everyone and everything to work smoothly.
A very few: beach width, sand composition & depth, location of enemy defenses (tens of thousands of landmines had been emplaced from points in Norway all the way south to the border with Spain; marine mines were a concern as this man’s crew discovered). Planners had to discover how wide beaches were, to determine where to land equipment & supplies; composition of beach sand had a direct correlation to what vehicles could cross it without becoming bogged down.
The Royal Navy sent miniature submarines to the landing areas a couple days early, which sat on the bottom until D-Day. A couple hours before landing time, they erected radio antennas to give landing forces radio beacons to steer by. Their hiding spots had to be surveyed to ensure the water there was deep enough, but not too deep.
The British worked up elaborate deceptions to hoodwink the Germans into believing the Normandy landings were a diversion; Americans may have heard about the nonexistent forces built up under George S Patton Jr, but there was more.
German radar stations along the coast were subjected to air attack; the ones behind the planned landing beaches were attacked enough to reduce German confidence that they could see the situation. Those near Calais (where the English Channel was most narrow) were treated to a different attack pattern, to make sure they could see approaching vessels.
On the night of 5/6 June, several files of RAF bombers advanced from England toward Calais in oval patterns, giant loops or “racetracks” with each succeeding southeast curve just a few miles closer to the French coast. When each bomber reached its farthest advance of that racetrack, it dispensed chaff that would give the German radar operators a big target. Length, timing, and increment of advance were adjusted to make it look like a giant fleet of ships was steaming toward Calais at six knots or so, scores of miles across and many miles in length. Each chaff burst imitated a ship on radar.
The objective was to convince the Germans that the main attack was aimed at Calais. It worked, long enough to confuse OberKommando West and cause hesitation when it came to directing reinforcements.