WW2 D Day

WW2 D-Day 

Two of the rare examples of WW2 D-Day landing craft loading ramps can be found at Brixham and Torquay, in S.Devon.

Sixty-eight ramps, or hards, were built along the south coast for loading the Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs) that were to be used for the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944.

The ramps at Torquay and Brixham were four-berth hards. Across these ramps troops embarked into Landing Craft for the pre D-Day excercises ( like Exercise Tiger) and over which the US 4th Infantry Division embarked on 5th June 1944 on their way to UTAH BEACH, as part of Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings.

Annoyingly; neither Brixham nor Torquay town museums have anything about the GIs in Torbay during WW2. The best place for information is at Brixham Battery.

The LCT ramps at Brixham have faired better, and now form part of the marina. The Torbay inshore lifeboat still launches from these ramps. There is a small plaque to the part the ramps played during WW2 at the entrance to the breakwater itself.

English Heritage have now listed the US Army built 1943 Brixham Outer Harbour LST Hard and Slipway, stating that "....it was one of the best examples of its kind left in the UK".

That's all the technical information taken care of and below you'll find a image taken in 1944 of the American troops loading the troopships in readiness to D-Day  and the image below that one at I took last night my plan was to overlay the two images that this is the closest position I could get, my new conclusion being that the 1944 image was taken from the platform which no longer exists.

Anyway I was stood there with my camera tripod lining up the image of the best my memory and it suddenly occurred to me how many troops have actually left this slip away and never actually returned and what surprised me even more was this wave of emotion that came over me at that precise moment, I think it was a realisation 70 years ago this last weekend how many thousands of troops actually left.