D-Day: 3. Clear The Mines

[@peterh6281]

My late Father was an 18 year old able seaman on the Royal Navy Corvette HMS Heather. Even at that young age he’d already completed 4 or more Atlantic convoys, and 1 Arctic convoy. He’d left home to join the navy and fight after his mother died, and his Father remarried . He was a remarkable man .

[@68air]

This is a very overlooked key to the success of the D-Day operation.

[@sargintrock2538]

Amazing story that most people NEVER think about as ALL the hype about Operation Overlord centers on the Airborne drops and beach Landings! Well done!

[@germanjake1288]

Yea only the war "action" gets credit not the War or Battle preparation.

[@Mike12522]

There is a ( probably quite true ) WW2 story I heard decades ago, from someone who's uncle worked aboard a minesweeper in a south coast British port. He told her parents, in secrecy, about this. He had heard this story from others in the know who worked around the docks. This lady, as a very young child playing nearby, was ignored, but overheard, and remembered, the entire conversation. A certain German minelayer went out each night, for many months on end, to dutifully lay contact mines in a certain area of the English Channel. They knew that during the next day, a British minesweeper would go out and dutifully sweep up the mines laid in that area the previous night. One day, an unknown higher-up British Home Waters Sea Defense person had a crafty idea, and some questions. What would happen if they skipped clearing the mines one day only in a certain area ? Would, or could, the Germans detect that ? Had the Germans perfected sonar to the point where they could detect submerged mines ? The Allies could not. If that was so, that would be a huge advantage for the German side. Were the German minelayers even equipped with sonar at all ? ( Allied minesweepers and minelayers were not. ) It was an intriguing puzzle. The British Admiralty, Navy, and the British War office, had no anwers to these questions. Because, to the best of their knowledge, skipping mine clearing had never been tried before during WW2. It was debated at first if a had-to-be almost stationary German minelayer could be captured intact. It sounded simple, but was soon realized to be difficult, dangerous, and not likely to go well. So, this course of action was not approved by the British Admiralty. It was finally decided to play it safe, and grant permission for just one very minor action to proceed. One particular minesweeper did not go out. The official reason, to anybody who asked: ' Departure delayed due to fixing engine problems '. It had never occurred to the Germans that the British might have the audacity to shirk their duty, and literally ' take the day off. ' That same night, the German minelayer, *assuming their area was clear,* arrived, and began laying mines in virtually the same places as always. But, they somehow set off one of their own uncleared mines, too close to their own ship. Probably a new mine, or a chain, cable, pontoon, or mine anchor weight they were putting out accidentally hit another contact mine already submerged there. ( The mines were set in water anywhere from 15 to 150 feet deep. ) ( The shock, concussion, and pressure waves from an exploding contact or magnetic mine, even 50 to 100+ feet away, could bend or crack steel plates or welds, and pop rivets in a relatively small, unarmored ship's hull. Hitting a single mine with the hull was almost always fatal, like a torpedo hit. ) The minelayer started to leak badly along some seams, and sank fairly quickly. If the crew had sent a distress call, all they could say was that they were sinking, and were abandoning ship. The Germans would never know what had really happened. The British were nearby, watching, in small patrol boats, and quickly rescued all the German crew, before expected German patrol boats turned up. The German crew were furious that they had been tricked, and that the English had not done their expected duty during the day. That was: ' not cricket ' ( fair ). But the British got the answers to their questions. ( Editor's note: To the best of my research, no German minelayers or minesweepers were ever captured intact during WW2, though some were sunk. )

[@frostyrobot7689]

Really good wee story, thanks for sharing that.

[@turbodel1788]

Dam that was smart.

[@Drnken229]

I as a German am now angry too about the British not doing their duty.

[@Mike12522]

@@Drnken229 - ' All is fair in love and war ' . John Lyly - English poet. Circa 1578

[@Drnken229]

@@Mike12522 I dont care about that poem. They better keep doing their duty now.

[@patmcdonald766]

NO DOUBT Canadian Sailors cleared the mines with 10 passages Anthony Stores lead a MAGNIFICANT work - dangerous and hard but tremendous work effort before and weeks after D Day proceeded to keep the 31st Flotilla I salute you all

[@allythevan]

Ex mine warefare rating myself. Proud to have done this job first hand. Double “oo” plus team sweeping..

[@silkeotd7194]

I came here because I’m reading about the minesweepers in the book « Juno Beach » and thought I would share a passage that struck me as to the courage of these men: « Not everyone appreciated the manner in which briefing officers warned of a possible slaughter. In late May, a Royal Navy Commander briefed the 31st Canadian Minesweeping Flotilla’s ship captains aboard HMCSCaraquet. Lieutenant Commander James Green, captain of Wasaga, was deeply disturbed by the man’s cold-blooded manner. First, he dismayed the captains with the news that, instead of clearing the invasion route for Force J’s crossing to Juno Beach, the Canadian flotilla was now to sweep the lanes ahead of the American force sailing to Omaha Beach. He followed up this bad news by saying that the minesweepers leading the way into the beaches were particularly vulnerable to being crippled by shore battery fire and could expect heavy losses among their crews or even the disabling of their ships. In the latter event, he warned, the damaged vessel would immediately be blown out of the water so it would not get in the way of the landing craft carrying troops and equipment to the beaches. Shortly after the briefing of the ship captains, Royal Canadian Navy Vice Admiral Percy Nelles addressed the crew of Caraquet. Among those assembled was Stoker 1st Class George Irwin, who listened to Nelles calmly explain that the minesweepers were expected to suffer 75 per cent losses. As Caraquet would be in the lead, the vice admiral fully expected the ship and its entire crew would be lost. For that reason, he offered everyone in the crew a chance to stand aside without fear of penalty. They would merely be confined ashore until the invasion was launched and then reassigned to other duties. No one took the offer up. »

[@canadianvalour]

Thank you! Few Canadians know about our minesweepers.

[@arthurcrego8297]

A new tidbit of history from our neighbors of the north.

[@Biffo1262]

Real unsung heroes of D-Day.

[@amyrichard3203]

My father in law was aboard a minesweeper for a year in the Pacific, aboard an Auk-class minesweeper, the biggest the Americans built, of which there were 95. His was the USN Sprig, they were all named after birds, apparently. The most famous being the later-named Calypso that Jacque Cousteau leased after the war and used all over the world. The Auks were only 183 feet long, and the Pacific is big. The Sprig cleaned up American mines in Japanese, Chinese and Korean waters for a year after the war. They would cut them loose and when they floated, shoot them with rifles. The Auks were built of wood, so they wouldn't set off magnetic mines.

[@canadianvalour]

Thanks for sharing the story about your Father!

[@markkover8040]

My father served on the Abnaki class fleet tug U.S.S. Pakana ATF-108 in the Pacific. The interesting thing was, both the Abnakis and the Auks used the same diesel engines and drive bearings. In time of need, they could support each other with spare parts. The drive bearings were notorious for burning out. My father was a motor machinist mate on the Pakana.

[@beachbum77979]

My dad served on a minesweeper in WWII. He was on YMS 352, a yard minesweeper meaning it was primarily built for coastal and harbor work, shipyards, channels, coastal patrol. They were wooden hulled ships. I still have a picture of it. It just says 352 on the bow. I asked him the name, Dad told me they didn't name YMS hulls. But he too was there on D-Day. The YMS was 136 feet long, 24.5 feet wide and had a draft of 8 feet, 481 built. So Dad's ship was clearing a path for landing craft, big ships were farther offshore firing huge guns at the gun emplacements on the cliffs, they did a few rescues, picked up too many bodies. He was on the way towards Japan when the war ended, and his hitch was over, so he transferred to a ship headed to the US and YMS 352 continued to clear mines there. He didn't talk about the war much, but I was raised in a three boat family and spent lots of time on boats with him over the years and things came out in little bits over many years. The Calypso was BYMS 26, The BYMS same as YMS except built for the Brits. I grew up watching "The Silent World of Jacques Cousteau". I even got to see Calypso when it was in Galveston, but it was there for repairs so I didn't get to go aboard. Another YMS hull is now named the Wild Goose, John Wayne named it that when in was his yacht. I think you can still go on dinner cruises on it. The Calypso and Wild Goose were both built at the same shipyard, Ballard Marine and Railway in Washington state, USA. The Auk (AM) class was a larger minesweeper with a steel hull. According to Wikipedia, it was 221 feet long with a beam of 32 feet and a draft of 10 feet, 9 inches. 95 Built. I may have seen the Sprig (AM384) when it was in the reserve fleet in Orange Tx. There were lots of "mothballed" ships there in the 60's. There was another class, the Admirable (AM) class, that was 184 feet long with a beam of 33 feet, and draft of 19 feet. 123 built. Of steel. There is one on display in Omaha Nebraska, the USS Hazard (AM240). But when I look up the AM class I don't see the Sprig, but I do see it in the Auk class. So yeah, two very different ships with the same class letter designation but different ship name designations. Dad told me that the Navy didn't always make sense. He was glad the war was over and he and his brother and cousin survived. Dad taught me a lot about boating, we took SCUBA together, went diving off out 40 foot shrimp boat, sailing on my 16 foot day sailor, water skiing with our 18 foot outboard. I miss Dad.

[@danielstarnes7354]

​@@beachbum77979cool. My grandfather Jack Starnes was an officer on YMS-350. They hit a snag mine off Cherbourg and sank on July 2, 1944 with 9 killed. Jack used to say that minesweeping was the softest duty in the Navy, except when you're sweeping mines.

[@rogerfentem5275]

The large sweepers were lead in by motor launches (MLs) equipped as sweepers. They swept a passage to enable the bigger sweepers to clear their designated channel. The book "Passage to Sword Beach" gives an excellent account of this in relation to ML137.

[@UncleBoratagain]

Great job! Three family trips to Normandy, the highlight being the Juno beach centre guided tour inc the German defence bunker.

[@billsmith305]

Well done Canadians,from a Brit'

[@davidhimmelsbach557]

The most bloodied American formation on D-Day was lost due to German marine mines. These were vastly more sophisticated than those shown in the video. That technology dates from WWI and even before. The American 9125st Battalion is totally obscure -- even to intense historians. It was an elite, specialty battalion solely oriented towards building airstrips. The plan was to have the first airstrip up and running on D+1 right atop the bluff at Omaha Beach. The airstrip (A-1, later re-numbered A-19 or A-21) was a combination strip and MASH unit. For it was dedicated to medical evacuations -- with a triage hospital right along side it. Its existence is the reason why the US Army went crazy during the first days after D-Day to shove the front out of artillery range of this hospital. This push had priority over ALL other US 1st Army objectives. Once achieved, then 1st Army began the big push to link up V and VII Corps. Plan A died when the 9125st hit TWO trick German marine mines. These had trick fusing which would not react to classic magnetic sweep techniques -- and which had no cables -- as seen in the above video. These mines lay flat on the sea floor -- in shallow water. They had much of the same logic as German acoustic-homing torpedoes... just no motors. To trigger them they had to get both sound and magnetism indications... in the right profile. Further, they would not automatically fire off at the first indication. Consequently, even though the US Coast Guard had swept the zone -- they did not pre-detonate such mines. Ultimately the 9125st lost hundreds of men as their ship went down in shallow water -- never really quite sinking below the waves -- even as the tide came up. This enemy attack delayed A-1 until D+3. Fortunately, the Krauts just didn't have all that many of these very expensive mines. But they did seed Cherbourg harbor -- aplenty. These trick mines were the reason that Cherbourg could not open for business on schedule. The US Coast Guard found that they had to wait until the batteries died -- which made the mines inert. Until that happened, it was too risky to pull the wreckage out of Cherbourg's harbor. Naturally, everything posted here was pushed Top Secret/ Classified as the Allies did not want Jerry to know that his stuff worked. Cherbourg was critical because PLUTO was pre-engineered to land there. Even PLUTO was delayed because of these mines. This just proves how right the Admiral was ! PLUTO was pushed about two-months behind schedule. (!) Lastly, the 9125st weird number is the result of it being, essentially, a 9th USAAF ground unit attached to 1st US Army. Hence the '91' [ 9th AF; 1st USA ] Because of the above details, the Official History has left the 9125st out of D-Day. After all, it was only a support unit dedicated to saving lives. Its troops were un-armed.

[@dimitrhsrap65]

Ive done that old school WW2 mine sweeping it's some serious back breaking work no joke 3-5 days no sleep either and if you did sleep it would be right there on the spot not on your rack. And the motto of the minesweeper is everyone gets to be a minesweeper atleast once XD

[@phaedracollins6051]

Amazing boats crewed by amazingly brave men.

[@billsmith305]

Well done once again Canadians,from a Brit'

[@aaronwrecks3324]

All of these soldiers have massive balls

[@outcast668]

Unsung heroes of D-Day...

[@SunnyIlha]

That was hard work, man. Body-bustin blue collar working. To be a working sailor on a mine sweeper. 2:25 The CANADIANS.

[@4486xxdawson]

Once again canadians go unnoticed for our part in the war but its ok your welcome .

[@craigwall9536]

You're hardly un-noticed. It's just that the people that appreciate good soldiering and sailoring don't post comments on social media.

[@mikearmstrong8483]

Knowing it previously, it has always amazed me that minsweeping then involved getting close enough to an explosive thing, that could sink a battleship or blow a destroyer in half, so they could shoot at it with rifles.

[@markkover8040]

To this day, minesweeping and minehunting are considered low end positions in navies around the world, but at the same time, it is extremely important. The U.S. Navy has once again let its counter sea mine warfare capability fall behind and slowly dissolve away. Counter mine warfare isn't as sexy as anti-surface or anti-air warfare, thus it suffers from under funding too.

[@gitfoad8032]

Wow, a YT suggested vid that hits the mark. My Godfather was on a Bangor class at Omaha beach. J34 HMS Tenby, tho' he said Dieppe was the scariest. Said he once saw Hipper (iirc), in the North Sea; "What did you do Uncle?" "Turned & ran." Great to see J38 in colour. Said he'd done a secret job at Le Havre.

[@canadianvalour]

Thanks for sharing!

[@jerrymccrae7202]

What about the other beacheads??

[@billsmith305]

well done Canadians

[@Tourist1967]

Late of MCM10. Ton Class minesweepers, then Hunt Class - the 'Tupperware Navy'.

[@Darthbelal]

Watching this on D-Day anniversary 2018........

[@clayz1]

Is there a navigable waterway from Alberta to the coast?

[@artdeco18]

the Peace River and north Saskatchewan

[@lapplandsjagare]

Hello from Sweden 🇸🇪 2021

[@mikhailmushroomavich5372]

Amazing

[@southerneruk]

castle name corvettes was used to do that job

[@danwhitesell2056]

Canada was forgotten when the Netherlands were free of Germans. The British and Americans took credit.

[@raghavendrakota1210]

Good job

[@joshdove4562]

I wonder how many mines are still in the water...

[@craigwall9536]

A lot of mines were recovered and made into donation receptacles to support retired Seaman and others charities connected with Veterans. I believe you can see them in Liverpool and probably in Nova Scotia as well.

[@harrywilde2178]

@@craigwall9536 Sanbanks beach near Bournemouth had one about sixty years ago, it was painted bright red.

[@joem1413]

I still don't get how the minesweeper didn't hit a mine right in front of it.

[@macnutz4206]

Sometimes they did. But mostly, those wooden hulled shallow draft sweepers did not trigger magnetic mines and the mines were suspended deep enough to get larger vessels that sat lower in the water.

[@alastairpreston3237]

@@macnutz4206 My father served on a British minesweeper early in the war; he said he saw more than one hit a mine and commented that there was usually not much left but matchsticks.

[@macnutz4206]

@@alastairpreston3237 Hitting a mine is one thing, triggering the magnetic mine is something different. However, I can imagine the engine and other equipment on the sweep could possibly trigger a magnetic mine in shallow water or if those who laid the mines set the trigger mechanism to be super sensitive. I would imagine that hitting mines was a real risk for the sweepers, but as a general rule, they did not trigger magnetic mines.

[@alastairpreston3237]

@@macnutz4206 I've read that many of the magnetic mines laid by the Germans early on did have too-sensitive triggers - so much so that they started reducing the sensitivity so they would only be activated by larger vessels. Dad's experience on the sweepers would have been in late 1939 and in 1940 - he spent most of 1941 on HMS Prince of Wales, and the rest of the war on a hospital ship.

[@macnutz4206]

@@alastairpreston3237 I vaguely remember reading the same thing in an article about the efforts to defeat the magnetic mines. They created quite a stir as they were very effective.

[@jonathanisernhagen6515]

"Bangor" class.

[@craigwall9536]

I thought it was Bangalore, as in Bangalore Torpedo...guess I'll have to "circle back" and check that...

[@MikeD-lo9yb]

How do the mine sweeper ships themselves not hit a mine while sweeping? Just luck?

[@GrumblingGrognard]

If you watch the video closely you can see it has pontoons, etc that it has rigged over the sides to keep the mines away from the sides of the ship. Not all luck but it is a hazardous, little remembered job that had to be done.

[@alastairpreston3237]

@Howard Pearcey Many of the minesweepers had wooden hulls. Some did run out of luck, though; my father's group lost several boats to mines - the pontoons and sweep cables didn't do much good if the boat hit a mine head on.

[@craigwall9536]

1) They sent small boats ahead to try to detect them. When they identified a possible clear path, the following minesweepers would 2) deploy Paravanes, a sort of underwater kite that was towed by a cable and went down far out and deep on both sides, thus "sweeping" a path MUCH wider than the ship. 3) When a Paravane cable hit a mine mooring cable, the mine cable would slide along until the Paravane got to the chain on the mine and those blades they showed on the Paravanes would cut the mine cable. The mine would then 4) pop to the surface and be set off with rifle fire. They knew when the had snagged a mine because the Paravane cable would jerk around. Sometimes the minesweepers would go it alone- they had a shallow draft and were usually made of wood to avoid setting off magnetic mines. But yes- they needed luck, too. It wasn't a job that allowed much relaxation.

[@silkeotd7194]

Wires extended outward to cut the tethers of any mines, allowing them to float to the surface.

[@alexmacias1234]

I wanna join the navy or the coast guard Edit: Im going to.

[@WACATX767882]

Join the Coast Guard and guard Lake Tahoe from invasion

[@jonnda]

Anyone else concerned that a drifting mine is more dangerous than a moored one?

[@craigwall9536]

Drifting mines are floating on the surface in plain sight and can be avoided. Moored mines are submerged OUT of sight and are FAR more dangerous unless you have X-ray vision. Get it? I don't know _how_ you couldn't figure that out...

[@jonnda]

@@craigwall9536 I’m not sure how you couldn’t figure out that moored mines stay put, their location recorded, and avoided, while a drifting mine does not stay put, and as such can be harder to avoid because of wakes, currents, waves, etc. Furthermore, drifting mines do not always float right at the surface. This isn’t like avoiding a pothole, and boats generally can’t maneuver like a car swerving out of the way of an obstacle. If ships could maneuver like you think they can, the “Battle” of May Island would have never happened. During Operation Royal Marine, the British released 2300 time delay contact mines into the Rhine River that would activate after drifting into German territory. They indiscriminately damaged/destroyed floating bridges and german shipping vessels. River traffic was severely impacted. I guess there just wasn’t enough fearless people in Germany like you back then to simply just avoid all the drifting mines in the Rhine.

[@simonpotter7534]

What the Americans did not do it! I thought they did everything on D Day and beyond

[@chrisramm1]

nope they just made the films

[@TheTeufelhunden68]

If it wasn't for OUR production capabilities and OUR lend lease program, you'd all have been FUCKED. How did you buck toothed fuckers like flying OUR P-40s and OUR P-51s. Face it, without OUR participation, Europe would reek of saurbratten instead of frogs. Just kidding guys, we did appreciate your assistance. Oh and the movies? Why would we write stories about other countries? Does not go down well at the box office.

[@TheTeufelhunden68]

Oh, yeah... How's the Canadian Navy doing these days?

[@freakyflow]

@@TheTeufelhunden68 It could be better However we dont get too many planes crashing into buildings to have a need for a navy

[@ashleyteece4237]

@@TheTeufelhunden68 The war would have been lost of at the very least much longer without any one of the US, UK or the Russians. All played important roles, as did other smaller nations. It's wasn't just you Americans who saved the day with your factories. Many of you sure do like to think it was just you.

[@wookie-zh7go]

"when a ship hit a mine, it would either sink or seriously damage a vessel" Wow careful guys this is getting a bit technical.

[@tms372]

They had Canadians do it because the U.S would have bungled it.

[@daffygames8704]

Fuck you u.s rocks canada wants to be as cool as the u.s

[@piecartbox]

Soory bout the mines eh

[@tyllxrej]

Hi

[@brandynblackett9652]

Tyler Huff hello

[@scottcarson1973]

That was smart just let the current take them away unto ship hits one

[@kennyfenny4754]

And they still wash up on UK and French beaches to this day. Those dam Germans? Always causing trouble?

[@coyote5735]

Yes, they do, but they are old now rust is getting through the casing and the explosives gets washed out. One was washed up not so long ago on the south coast of the UK it still looked like a mine but rusted like an old car full of holes no explosive left.

[@simonm1528]

How dumb was it to just let them drift away. I mean come on.....

[@buchan2]

dumb yes but is war not dumb anyways, gotta do what you gotta do to win

[@clevernamegotban1752]

Leonid Sokolov holy shit

[@WaterlooExpat]

The fact of the matter is that the strategy worked.

[@dambuster6387]

@John Doe Its a bit like a account running a manufacturing plant , loss and profit.

[@rogerolsson7303]

Yes, we had them drifting all the way up to Sweden and people actually died from them. And after the war the allied decided to sink half the German warfleet just outside the swedish westcoast. Those boats contained chemicals for warfare and that stuff has now started to leak out and poison water and fish. At least they could have removed the chemicals before they sunk the boats.

[@webertoncastro5105]

LULALIVRE

[@ethics3]

You did your job. Stop acting as if you are hero's

[@ethics3]

@Terry McConville Says the keyboard coward that has never been overseas to pay tribute to the fallen . You know so little about the veterans you loser. They don't desire "glory". Only to be remembered for the job they did. You would know that if any of your family had actually taken part in the conflicts to defend our culture and livelihoods. Hell... I bet you even voted for Justin Trudeau....hew pot smoking groper that says Canada has no culture. Go back to displaying your plastic poppy one day a year you virtue signalling poser.

[@godlovespuppies-yb5kl]

@@ethics3 Uhm I am a vet idiot! I have been overseas, and I still take the time to thank the old boys for their service.

[@ethics3]

@@godlovespuppies-yb5kl Where do you " thank them Mr Virtue signaler ?

[@craigwall9536]

I don't think it was the minesweepers that made the video. So you're accusing them of something they didn't do, making _you_ a particularly stinky turd.

[@ethics3]

@@craigwall9536 It was a general statement dumbass

[@toniicurtissmithII]

Great Job Royal Canadians