Fred Vogels Fred Vogels
  • Home
  • the history
  • Overview
  • Photos
  • search
  • maps
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home
  3. the history
  4. Naval Operations
  5. Ships
  6. Coasters
  7. 843 SIGNALITY
  8. Anchor point before D-Day, position 111 in area 3 (N) in The Solent for: Signality

Fred Vogels Contact

Fred Vogels Fred Vogels
  • Home
  • the history
  • Overview
  • Photos
  • search
  • maps

Anchor point before D-Day, position 111 in area 3 (N) in The Solent for: Signality

Anchor point before D-Day, position 111 in area 3 (N) in The Solent for: Signality
Position-number 111 and name/type of the ship(s): Signality.
This ship or these ships was/were located in The Solent area 3 (N). For the exact location in this area, please look at the map. Read this little story: during the preparation of D-Day, the ships assembled in The Solent. Every ship was anchored in an area numbered 1-31 (sometimes divided in North or South). Therefore a Plan of Anchorage for the final assembly of all D-Day ships was made. The location was near the Island of Wight, The Solent.
A witness: Robert Millan watched the Allied fleet assemble in the Solent, before D-Day: I was a signalman in the Royal Navy. I was sent with my best mate, a freckle-faced Yorkshire lad called Foley, to the busy signal station in Gosport called Fort Gilkicker, to augment the regular signal staff prior to the invasion of Europe.
The build up was tremendous, a spectacle never to be forgotten. The Solent waters gradually filled up with every type of naval craft, from battleships down to corvettes and motor torpedo boats. Meanwhile with all the constant reading and sending of signals by 10-inch signal lamps, my mate and I were suffering terribly from conjunctivitis. When we complained about the long 24 hours stretch of duty to the chief yeoman in charge of our watch, we were consoled by how lucky we were; that all that lot out there in the Solent (pointing out to the massive gathering of ships) were going to die, while we would survive. So we had to crawl back into our shells and get on with life as it was.
Then it all happened. I was off duty the night of 5th June, and about 9pm noticed a steady stream of naval craft underway, making for the open sea. As daylight dawned, the whole sea area seemed still. Everything had gone, apart from one ship, H.M.S. Alresford, anchored nearby, and an array of small craft, mostly used for ferrying duties. The invasion had begun. It was indeed D-Day, 6th of June 1944.
Source: Frank and Joan Shaw Collection, D-Day Museum

If you have more information about this record, please sent your information to Fred Vogels, webmaster of WW2 History Europe.
Thanks to WWII veteran Sapper, PATS and Roy Martin

Listing Details

Date
1944-06-04
Status coordinate
Exact location
E-mail publisher
Record views
400
Map
<
User

Fred Vogels

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. <ul class="list-special pb-0 mb-0"> <li>Real he me fond show gave shot plan</li> <li>So insisted received is occasion</li> <li>Oh smiling amiable am so visited cordial in offices hearted</li> </ul>
« Previous listing in 843 SIGNALITY | Next listing in 843 SIGNALITY »
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home
  3. the history
  4. Naval Operations
  5. Ships
  6. Coasters
  7. 843 SIGNALITY
  8. Anchor point before D-Day, position 111 in area 3 (N) in The Solent for: Signality

Welcome to Fred Vogels History

Welcome to History.FredVogels.com, a place for those who want to explore the past.
Discover stories, people, places and events that keep memory alive.

Visit

Zwolle, Netherlands

Contact me

Contact

About

  • login/out
maps
 

Explore history by map

A new map section is now available at maps.fredvogels.com.

You can choose a location anywhere on the map and discover nearby records, names and events from the history database.

The search starts within a small radius, so the map remains useful for the visitor, not overloaded with thousands of records at once.

Visit the map

This message is shown only once.