5th June, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Military

D-Day, the closely guarded secret that secured victory

By Victoria Panton Bacon

‘Good God!’ I thought after being shown a map with a small area on it that we had taken back, ‘We’ve just taken part in D-Day!’  

Flight Lieutenant Noble Frankland (DFC CB CBE) is one of those for whom 6th June 1944 might have been just another ‘ordinary day’ in the operational course of duty to bring about the end of the war. A Lancaster navigator, Frankland’s D-Day began at the unearthly hour of 2.30 am; he and his crew (of seven) received instructions to bomb a radar station near St Pierre du Mont in Calvados, northern France. Their orders were to hit this target precisely, at a precise time, and return as soon as possible. They succeeded and returned to base, RAF Skellingthorpe in Lincolnshire, later that morning – following which they took a well-earned rest. During the previous weeks they had been attacking railways stations and tracks, and bridges and roads, which they understood was in preparation for a much bigger operation; but they knew very little of the detail. So this flight, one of the first of hundreds of Allied aircraft to fly over northern France on 6th June 1944, to Frankland was just another routine sortie – he did not realise until later that morning D-Day had actually begun. It was only when, at a later briefing, they were told that during future operations over France they would need to take special care not to hit ‘their own troops’ that reality struck. Frankland recalled:

‘So much of the day was most unusual. I thought that when D-Day finally came it would be a ‘battle royal.’ But on the day itself I didn’t see a single German aircraft: the Luftwaffe simply did not intervene. It was extraordinary, I couldn’t understand it. They did arrive, of course, but thankfully too late. In the days that followed we flew in defence of the army, who were engaged in fierce battles on the ground, whilst we were caught up fighting in the air. But the Germans were doomed; and we need to give credit especially to the Americans, they did so much. After we took Cherbourg on 27th June, there was a constant flow of US soldiers and equipment.’  

D-Day itself had been meticulously planned, in strictest secrecy, for many years; a vital factor in the success that it was, beginning the liberation of France which was completed with the Allies entering Paris on 25th August. It was this secrecy that kept the Germans away, at the beginning, enabling the Allies to make their intense and enormous advance that paved the way to success – ultimately bringing about the end of the war. Frankland had the utmost respect and admiration that military leaders, particularly Prime Minister Churchill and General Dwight Eisenhower had been able to achieve this, remembering how he was mystified by some unusual occurrences; but his role was not to ask questions, it was to follow orders. Indeed, about their early morning D-Day flight, Frankland recollected:  

‘Usually, our crew were a disciplined, quiet, conscientious bunch – but on this flight the boys were particularly chatty, which I found quite irritating because, as navigator, I was having to do some quite complex calculations; so I told them off. But they continued to be more excitable than usual, pointing out to me they could see quite a lot of ships in the Channel, some with barrage balloons flying from them.   

Anyway, we kept going to our target – the radar station – dropped our bombs and turned to fly home. Then we saw soldiers going ashore, and even more ships with balloons. But we still didn’t know what was going on, I thought it was a Commando raid!‘ 

Frankland also recalled another unusual occurrence; on around 2nd June a large fleet of gliders, flown by the Red Berets in the army, arrived at their squadron base (50 Squadron) in Skellingthorpe, only to leave – very suddenly – late in the day on 5th June. At no point previously in the war had gliders ever shared their base. Frankland remembered them well, also recalling a deeply tragic D-Day accident that befell the gliders. He said:  

‘Certainly, I do remember some very nasty things, including the falling to the ground of two Halifax aircraft, each towing a glider. Each glider had a crew of around 25 men – all four aircraft went down, caught in flak. Seeking to avoid the bullets both Halifax’s turned inwards, crossing each other’s cables, and they all went down. I learnt later they were on their way to Pegasus bridge, the reclamation of which was crucial because it was an important enemy byway to the landing beaches in Normandy.’ 

It was later, during the ten-week campaign to liberate France that Frankland, and his crew, had their own very narrow escape. On 7th July, they were instructed to fly to Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, in the north of France. It was to be a complex operation – Frankland had been given the duty of target finding; which involved calculating the aiming point for other aircraft, which meant circling around the target area more than once. After completing the task they headed for the coast; it was then they were attacked by a German night fighter. The words ‘set starboard petrol tank on fire’ are inscribed into Frankland’s logbook. He recalled how frightening it was, saying:  

‘The starboard wing was hit with incendiary fire. That ignited the petrol tank in the farthest engine, and the fire quickly began to advance along the wing. I saw the flames racing along, and just thought ‘we’ll be dead in a matter of seconds’, but the seconds passed and we weren’t!     

The normal procedure would be to bail out, but both the pilot and I had a fear of heights. We told the rest of the crew they should go if they wanted to, but no-one did – despite knowing our chance of survival was very slim indeed. So, we stuck together; we kept going, and in ten minutes later we landed, at Ford in Sussex.  

Those were probably the longest ten minutes in my life … it felt like 150 years … during that time the wing continued to warp. The second starboard engine also burnt to a frazzle. The pilot dived for about 10,000 feet at one point, trying to blow out the flames, but it only increased their intensity and made things worse because we were so low and couldn’t climb back up. As we arrived towards Ford, instructions were being shouted at us to bail, but none of us would, and we were too low anyway for our parachutes to open. Instead we just told control we would have to make an emergency landing; but as we approached to land we saw the runway was blocked by another aircraft, and all we could do was bump painfully along the grass next to it, and after stopping run for our lives, expecting our aircraft to explode at any moment.’ 

Frankland told me how well they slept that night, and the next day visited the site of their defeated Lancaster – inspecting the starboard wing which he said was ‘burnt to a crisp, thinner than a sheet of tin foil.’ Later that day they were flown back to Skellingthorpe, by a comrade from 50 Squadron. It was the only time during the war that Frankland was a passenger.   

In the years that followed the Second World War, Dr Noble Frankland went on to become an eminent historian of the War, writing books, working in the Air Ministry, and was a director of the Imperial War Museum. He has been honoured by the French, too, receiving the Légion d’honneur for his role in the Normandy landings. He said he felt compelled to undertake this work because:  

‘As far as possible, generations after the war need, at the very least, to have some idea about the actual madness of war, only that can act as a warning to others to be very wary of entering into it. If I (through my writing and my work) can bring out anything like the truth, I hope it will have been a useful thing to have done.’   

I think, given the state of the world today, true stories of courage and strength in war, such as Noble Frankland’s, are more vital than ever. His work is, therefore, in his words, a very ‘useful thing.’   

Dr Noble Frankland’s (DFC CB CBE), true war-time recollection is published in Victoria Panton Bacon’s book Remarkable Journeys of the Second World War. He died in November 2019, aged 97, this is his obituary in The Times.