MARSHALLING AREAS AND 'SAUSAGE' CAMPS IN SOUTHERN ENGLAND - SOUTHAMPTON ON D-DAY - 80 YEARS

For one reason or another over the years the role of Southampton on D-Day was air brushed from the narrative for Operation Overlord and the crossing of the English Channel in World War Two. In reality although Southwick Park north of Portsdown Hill was the focus of strategic planning and the decision to 'go' on D-Day, as Admiral Ramsay explains in his report published in 1947, "overall control would have to embrace control of loading of all types of shipping and craft, control of convoy sailing, control of tugs, and control of ship repairs. Without it time would inevitably be lost and the best use could not be made of the great resources given to the operation to establish our forces ashore and then to reinforce them as quickly as possible". Therefore, "from the outset of detailed planning it was clear that success would be largely dependent upon the ability to exercise close and continuous control of the thousands of ships and craft taking part" so that "the tempo of the initial assaults had to be maintained at the highest pitch". In the case of the US Army their headquarters called the 14th Major Port (Build Up and Control Organisation BUCO) was in the Southampton Art Gallery, in a wing of the Civic Centre and for the British and Commonwealth Armies, South Western Hotel also in Southampton which became the Combined Operations Military Movement Control Centre, codenamed HMS Shrapnel. Major General Sir Nigel Holmes attended the conferences at Casablanca, Washington D.C., Quebec City, Cairo, Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam and was Deputy Quartermaster General at the War Office between 1943 and 1946. In April 1945 he stated, 'Without Southampton we could not have done D-Day'.

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