AT THE time of the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 the focus of Australia’s Navy was the Pacific. There were, however, a good number of RAN officers and sailors among the thousands of vessels that made up the D Day armada, many of whom were (RANVR).
One was Lieutenant K R Hudspeth, DSC, of Hobart, whose involvement in preparations for D-Day began in January 1944. He landed small Combined Operations pilotage parties on Normandy beaches to conduct reconnaissance vital to the success of the landings, from his command midget submarine X20 (an X20 is pictured).
For his outstanding courage and devotion to duty he was awarded a bar to his previously earned Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).
On 4-6 June, Hudspeth, again in X20 and in company with HM midget submarine X23 was prepositioned off Normandy in readiness for the invasion.
There they remained for 48 hours, within three miles of the enemy coast, observing and reporting enemy movements and waiting to illuminate beacons that would serve as navigation markers for the approaching amphibious forces before dawn on invasion day.
Admiral Ramsay C in C was later to commend their great skill and endurance adding that: their reports of proceedings, which were a masterpiece of understatement. “They read like the deck log of a surface ship in peace time, and not of a very small and vulnerable submarine carrying out a very hazardous operation in time of war.”
Lieutenant Commander F M Osborne, DSC, RANVR, was in command of the escort-destroyer HMS Vanquisher, performing important work escorting small convoys from ports located in the south of England to the Normandy beachhead.
Several RANVR officers also commanded Fairmile motor launches, motor torpedo boats and harbour defence motor launches, some of which were engaged in brisk actions with their German counterparts known as E boats.
