Earlier this year I got my grandfather's (Edward Palmer) logs from his flights piloting Halifaxes and other planes in the 138 Special Ops squadron at RAF Tempsford. On D-Day he flew a diversion mission dropping dummies east of Juno and Sword beaches.
I've put his photo and scans of his actual log entries here for everyone to check out.
Here is a summary of Operation Titanic from the D-Day Revisited website:
Quote:
Meanwhile, another diversion tactic was taking place further west along the coast of France, closer to the Normandy beaches. Operation Titanic was designed to to persuade the Germans that the invasion was spread over a vast area and thus entice troops away from the actual invasion zone. In the early hours of the 6th of June, a force of 40 Hudsons, Halifaxes and Stirlings from the Royal Air Force dropped a total of 500 dummies in four separate locations. These dummies, known affectionately as "Ruperts", were dropped as far apart as Yerville in the Seine-Maritime region and Marigny in the Manche. The dummies were by no means sophisticated and were mostly fabricated by stuffing straw and sand into sack cloth which had been stitched together in a cross shape to represent a human figure. They were equipped with an explosive charge that burned away the cloth after landing to prevent the enemy discovering their true
nature too quickly.
Twelve men from the Special Air Service were tasked to accompany the dummies and engage the Germans on landing, but to ensure some of them escaped to spread the word that hundreds of parachutists were landing in the area. They also carried recordings and amplifiers and played sound of rifle and mortar fire together with shouted commands, which they played for thirty minutes before withdrawing from the fake landing zone.
Sadly two Stirling aircraft and their crews were lost during the operation in the Calvados region and eight of the twelve SAS were killed in action or taken prisoner. However, by 02:00 on 6th June the Germans had reported parachute landings east of Caen and as far west as Saint-Lô. The 7th Army was placed on full invasion alert. Generalfeldmarshall von Rundstedt ordered over half of the 12th SS Panzer Division to deal with an an enemy parachute landing near Lisieux, but it wasn't armed invaders they discovered, just piles of sand, straw and cloth. The level of alert was decreased.
The SAS who landed around Marigny and Saint-Lô managed to divert the only reserve element of the german 352nd Infantry Divison away from Omaha beach, Gold beach and the 101st airborne drop zones. This distracted regiment spent the morning of 6th June scouring the woods for parachutists, instead of offering much needed support to their comrades at the coast. Overall Operation Titanic achieved its objective, confusing and distracting the german defence forces on the morning of the allied invasion.
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