3rd SS Shock Div Marshalling Area,
Tardinghen , Northern France
Dawn was just minutes away as Second-Lieutenant Berndt Schmidt and the crew of Panther-321 of the 3rd SS ‘Totenkopf’ Division waited inside their vehicle for the signal to ‘go’, their brand new P-40A itself sitting on the flatbed cargo area of a Typ-2 Schnellmarinefährprahme, something the Wehrmacht called a ‘fast naval landing barge’ and the officers of Hindsight might’ve classed as an assault ACV or hovercraft. The landing craft was almost 27 metres long and fourteen wide, and could carry as much as 70 tonnes of payload. The sound of their engines was deafening: each Typ-2 was powered by no less than eight huge BMW808 radial engines of the same type that powered the S-2D and several other Luftwaffe aircraft, of which four were used solely to produce lift and the other four to turn the huge ducted fans mounted at the rear corners of the vessels to provide propulsion.
That huge payload could comprise a main battle tank and light tank; two infantry fighting vehicles; four Wiesel light tanks; half a dozen trucks; or up to 180 fully-armed troops. It could carry that multitude of payloads at close to 90km/hr, out to ranges of almost 500km, and as an ACV it could also operate equally well over land or water — something that made it particularly well-suited to the Channel assault they were about to commence. The 3rd SS consisted of almost five thousand men and five hundred combat vehicles, and had been training heavily for weeks for exactly that moment. The Kent coast at that point was forty-five kilometres away across The Channel, and in their exercises, they’d perfected a crossing of that distance in less than sixty minutes. The 100 Typ-2 ACVs waiting there that morning had been loaded with their first payloads during the night, and could transport the entire division to the beaches of Kent in just over six hours.
Everything was on a tight schedule that had been rehearsed dozens of times over the last eight weeks, and at the head of the formation on that French beach, ten Typ-4 fast assault barges also warmed up, the craft built up from the same basic hull as the Typ-2 SMFP but armed with a variety of heavy weapons in multiple turrets. They’d be escorting the landing craft and providing covering fire as the 3rd SS deployed and secured a beachhead. They’d also be accompanied by air support from helicopter gunships of SHG2, flying from a forward ‘airbase’ in open fields a few kilometres away, and would also be supported by units of SS Fliegertruppen that remained in reserve, ready to deploy into forward areas as required.
Schmidt glanced nervously at his watch. The sun would rise over the eastern horizon within moments, and they were part of the first wave of landing craft. From his commander’s position, head and torso protruding out of the turret hatch of Panther-321, he couldn’t quite see directly over the high sides or the forward loading ramp of the Typ-2, but the slope of the beach as it stretched down to the water meant he could still see some of the Channel and western horizon in the distance, faint as it was in the lightening, pre-dawn sky. A gathering layer of low-level cloud was threatening to fill the entire sky — the forecasts had all carried warnings of light showers over the next few days — and the water ahead seemed hazy and indistinct. Schmidt grimaced… good weather or not, their part of the assault would begin in a few moments and they’d surge out onto the waters of The Channel as a pre-planned bombardment softened up the English beaches that were their ultimate goal.
Nine kilometres to the north-east, Battery 672(E) had been prepared and on alert for several hours. South of the weapons’ projected firing paths, a single NH-3D utility helicopter hovered above the surface of The Channel, careful to remain well out of range of British anti-aircraft fire. The chopper was attached to the battery’s plotting team, and was ready to report each fall of shot and advise on any required adjustments if necessary. At a pre-determined time, carefully synchronised to the invasion timetable, Gustav fired its first shot for the day at the English coastline.
The five-tonne high-explosive shell detonated a few hundred metres inland, just half a kilometre or so south of the beachside town of St Mary’s Bay and not far short of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway line. There was a huge blast, a gigantic cloud of smoke and dust rolling into the air in a mushroom-shaped cloud, however there was no crater. The specifically-designed shells were fitted with proximity fuses that had been set to go off when the shell was still several metres above the ground, and the blast effect of the subsequent ‘air burst’ was significantly magnified as a result. Aboard the NH-3D, the artillery forward observer noted the fall of shot on his map and radioed through the appropriate corrections to traverse and elevation. Dora fired the moment those adjustments to aim had been made, followed by Gustav’s second shot three minutes later.
The wide, sandy beaches in that area were lined with layers of anti-invasion defences that included concrete dragons teeth, tank traps made up of clusters of welded angle iron, and row after row of coiled razor wire. Further up the beach, there were also minefields intended to take care of anything that managed to make it through the obstacles and other defences, and they too were ringed with barbed wire, this time as a warning for the local populace. That section of coastline approached the water at quite a shallow gradient, and as such it had been identified as an area of great strategic value for any landing force… the War Department had done its best to ensure that section of Kent coastline was completely inaccessible to the enemy.
That particular strip of broad, sandy beach running three thousand metres south from St Mary’s to Littlestone-on-Sea was suddenly shattered by blast after blast as the huge, 80cm shells began to fall from the sky and detonate in a slow but inevitable rolling barrage. Powerful blast waves radiated outward from each massive explosion as visible ripples of compressed air that shattered the concrete and iron obstacles and shredded the coils of barbed wire. The shockwaves were enough to shake the very earth, and many of the mines buried nearby were also set off by the resulting tremors, adding their own destruction to the maelstrom.
Smoke, sand and debris rose high into the air, mingling with the low cloud cover and hanging like a pall over the entire area as large sections of the defences were obliterated under the onslaught. Further inland, the British defenders watching from trenches and prepared defences could only look on in awe, and steel themselves for the attack they knew was sure to follow. Shells continued to fall as the pair of guns shifted their fire methodically from north to south, their helicopter-borne observer ensuring no visible section of beach was spared.
The word to go was given just a few minutes after the bombardment commenced, the havoc wrought by the giant guns faintly visible as a thin line of black smoke on the western horizon. Schmidt and Wisch hung on for dear life, but refused to leave the vantage points of their respective turret hatches as the first wave of hovercraft rose on cushions of air, accelerated quickly down the French beach, and roared away across The English Channel in a mass of deafening noise and spray of salty water. They were in the first line of twenty ACVs, howling across the choppy, grey waves in a tight, even formation at better than seventy kilometres per hour, a heavily-armed Typ-4 assault craft ‘riding shotgun’ at either end of the group. A second, then a third line of twenty craft followed them out across The Channel from the marshalling area at intervals of three minutes, the process continuing until the entire hundred were heading for the enemy coast at full throttle, each wave escorted at either end by similar Typ-4s.