NORMANDY 75|AUSTRALIA AND THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY AUSTRALIA AND THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY|NORMANDY 75
Scattered
Individuals
The experiences of Australians in
Normandy are not widely known –
even 'down under'. This is surprising
given the fact that military history
takes a central place within Australia’s
national history. One challenge in
recovering Australian stories of this
time is that most of the Australians
involved in the Normandy campaign
did not serve in Australian units but
as individuals scattered throughout
British forces.During the course of the war, the
Empire Air Training Scheme (or
Commonwealth Air Training Plan)
saw some 16,000 Royal Australian
Air Force (RAAF) trained pilots and
aircrew posted to RAF squadrons.
A further 11,541 joined RAAF
squadrons formed in Britain to
serve under RAF command. On
D-Day, approximately 1,000 flew
operations with RAAF squadrons
and 1,800 with the RAF. A further
10,000 were training or waiting in
reserve, preparing to join operational
units, which they did once casualties
mounted.
Additionally, some 500 members
of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)
were serving on attachment with the
Royal Navy on D-Day. Spread across
hundreds of ships, the experiences
of these sailors were diverse. A small
number of Australian naval officers
were in command of destroyers,
corvettes, minesweepers, landing craft
and torpedo boats. Others served in
ships crews, including commandingindividual gun turrets aboard heavy
cruisers.
One of the most notable was
Lieutenant Kenneth Hudspeth, Royal
Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve
(RANVR), from Hobart, Tasmania.
He commanded the X-class midget
submarine X20, which along with X23,
was the first Allied craft to cross the
Channel for the invasion. Hudspeth
had previously commanded X10
during the famous raid on the German
battleship Tirpitz in September 1943,
for which he had been awarded a DSC.
In January 1944 he also commanded
X20 in Operation Postage Able, a
daring reconnaissance mission to
survey and collect samples from
the Normandy landing beach later
codenamed Omaha. For this mission he
had been awarded a bar to his DSC.
For D-Day, X20 returned to
Normandy in Operation Gambit,
where it was to lay submerged,
anchored in position off the landing
beaches. It would surface at 4.30am to
mark the east and west limits of SwordABOVE &
ABOVE RIGHT
Lt-Cmdr George
Dixon DSC and
his medal set.
He commanded
an LST on June
6, 1944 and had
landed at Gallipoli
on April 25, 1915.
Post-war, Dixon
commanded an LST
on two Antarctic
expeditions.
(ALL IMAGES COURTESY
OF THE AUSTRALIAN
WAR MEMORIAL)
RIGHT
A Lancaster crew
of 467 Sqn, RAAF,
prior to a mission
to support the
impending invasion,
May 1944.