The Ships of the D-Day Landings – Naval Battles from June to December 1944

The tourist or museum visitor who discovers the history of the Normandy Landings sometimes encounters, during their visits, the remains of ships or weapons recovered from the seabed. Rarely documented and often left to one side on a lawn or in a corner of an exhibition, these relics — anchors, propellers or guns — remain silent and contribute little to an understanding of the Battle of Normandy. Whether warships or merchantmen, the vessels lost during this major event of the Second World War are only very rarely mentioned in the many available publications or in museum displays. Yet this maritime history is rich, fascinating and inseparable from any understanding of the battles and land operations surrounding the German retreat. Deadly and devastating, the naval battles of the summer of 1944 produced a great many wrecks in the English Channel and still more in the Bay of the Seine. They also claimed a great many victims. Some remain forever entombed in their steel coffins — the submarines — while others, the majority, vanished into the depths and survive only as names engraved in the garden of the missing. Today, a few coastal monuments pay tribute to the merchant navy that contributed so much to victory. It is also possible to tell this story by drawing on accessible military sources and by engaging with the local diving community that regularly explores the wrecks along the Normandy coast. From this body of data now available, it is possible to understand, to put into perspective and, above all, to share the account of these cruel and extraordinary maritime adventures. May the tourist or visitor make good use of it — for the sea, though it readily offers itself to the gaze, does not so easily surrender its secrets.