Royal Engineers canoe 1944

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At the D Day museum at Arromanches, France there is a fine display of the artificial harbor set up to facilitate the Normandy invasion in June of 1944. Background information refered to the Royal Engineers charting the sea bed off shore to facilitate the design of the concrete components for the break water and loading docks. The military designation for the harbor was Mulberry A.

Construction started on the harbor components at Poole, England in December 1943 so the charting would have been done before or perhaps during construction

There is a drawing of a canoe carried to the coast by a midget submarine for the purpose of this sea bed survey. The canoe shown has full decks and the 2man crew is using double paddles.

Does anyone have any information or know where to find information on these canoes and the midget submarines. Likely a Royal Engineer museum whole be a source but I have not been able to find anything.

Thanks for any help.

R.C.Cross

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I'm not sure if this will help, but I remember and old movie called "Cockleshell Heroes". It was based on a true story of a group of Royal Marines that used those boats in an attempt to enter Bordeaux harbor and sink German ships with limpet mines. There are extensive scenes of training in the boats and in the actual mission. The movie was made in England in 1955 so I would guess they used the actual boats.

Richard
 
Royal Engineer canoe 1944

Richard,

Thanks for the information about the Royal Marine movie. That is a good start.
R.C.
 
I've done a bit of checking around and found that the mini subs were known as X-Craft. The one used at Normandy was X-20. The only remaining sub is X-24 on display at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum. As I remember the canoe were a collapsible wood form covered with canvas. This way they could be carried aboard a full size sub. I believe they were primarily intended for comando type use. To go back to the movies, there was "Above Us The Waves" which was based on an X-Craft attack on the battleship Tirpitz.

Richard
 
I have a little bit more if you haven't found it yet. The surveying was called Combined Operations Pilotage Parties, and the canoes were called Cockle Mark II, and had plywood bottoms and decks joined with rubberized canvas.
 
Royal Engineers canoes 1944

Thanks again Richard,

Your latest information is a great addition to my search. On the web I found a description of the boats and I think I have located the film "Cockleshell Heroes." I hope to find a first hand narrative of the actual operation.

R.C.
 
royal engineer canoes

The R.E. canoes, if not used in the movie 'cockleshell Heroes' may very well have been used as cockleshells in WWII, then constructed in wood/canvas by 'Folbot kayaks'.
I have a 1960s w/c Folbot and the history of the company came with it.

nevrdun
 
Thompson Bros. Boat Mfg. Co. at Peshtigo, Wisconsin made canoes for the military during World War II. They made 120 specially Thompson designed canoes for the Army. They were 20 foot in length and called Hudson Bay freight canoes. The canoe could only weigh 200 pounds but had to handle 2,900 pounds of load inlcuding canoe operators. They were canvas covered. I only have an newspaper article about this from that time period. NO pictures.

Andreas
 
Thanks Andre,

I did find the website you enclosed. It contains the most information so far. I have not been able to find a reference to Roger Gomm cited as having built replica canoes for the documentary. Was he a boat builder, BBC documentary producer or director? The BBC is a little opaque but maybe I will be able to a way to the source.

R.C.
 
Hi Dan, thanks for the referal to this site. I will get a copy of the film. It was based on the book of the same name: "Cockleshell Heroes" by C.E. Lucas-Philips.

Sorry I missed the Fall Meet of the Northwest Chapter and your report of your last trip retracing the voyageurs route of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company. Are you going to write a book when you have completed the whole route?

Regards, R.C.Cross
 
R.C.
Glad to help.Been away from town a few days so sorry about the delay of this reply.
I too was looking forward to seeing you at the Fall meet , maybe take that wideboard for another spin,and to see what you have been up too also.
Had a good summer on the retrace trip- made near 500 miles in a w/c..Larry Bowers and I each travelled in our own canoes.Even though Im full of" "it" I do not think I have enough words for a book
I may have a looksee at that film myself
Dan'l
 
Hi R. C., I built the two replica MK2 canoes (Cockles), used in the 2004 BBC documentary "Frankton's Shadows", produced by Tom Keene of Longbow Productions. I got a set of Mk2 Cockle drawings via the Royal Marines Museum, at Eastney, who let me take their copies to a print shop in Portsmouth. I also got a set of Mk1** Cockle drawings, the same way. Today, I only have a GA of the MK2, enough to make another replica.

After filming, Tom kept one of the replicas and the other went to a private museum, in France. I built them as an amateur, just for the satisfaction of helping to commemorate an act of extraordinary war-time courage.

The MK2 canoe, with its plywood decks and floor, was loaded into a T class submarine via its torpedo loading hatch. I guess the same applies to the Mk1**. A midget submarine is so small, I don't know how you could deploy a MK2 Cockle from it. A Mk1**, which completely collapses, could be carried in a midget submarine but erecting it on deck, quickly, at night, seems impossible. In the Cockleshell Heroes film, they used Mk1** canoes, although, in the actual Bordeaux raid, MK2 boats were used.

Roger
 
Look forward to learning more about these canoes. I have a Klepper I used in a military race down the coast of Maine, one team have a Folbot, another had a Nautiraid. I have also read of a team of Commandoes who paddled from I think Singapore toward Australia after a raid during WWII. Amazing stuff.
 
Thanks for revisiting this thread.
In 2024, I purchase this two-person, plywood framed, decked "commando canoe" that was apparently built (according to the son in law of the person who built it) using plans published in the magazine "Popular Science". '

The movie "Cockleshell Heroes" (1955) depicts "Operation Frankton", in which British commandos were deployed from a submarine in canoes to paddle up the Gironde estuary to Bordeaux to assault Kriegsmarine ships in Bordeaux. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049083/

I couldn't find a free source of the actual movie, though I recall it being well worth watching.

There are several decent (not AI slop) YouTube reviews of Operation Frankton and/or the film "Cockleshell Heroes" that show a similar pointed, two-person cockpit skin on frame shape;

The History Chap;

1983 Thames News retrospective interview of Bill Sparks, veteran Commando who participated in Operation Frankton
 

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From Wiki:

The Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, Essex houses the only surviving original Cockle Mark II kayak used by the Royal Marine Raiders on Operation Frankton, commonly known as the Cockleshell Heroes. The canoe is believed to be ‘Cachalot’ damaged during the launching of the canoes from the submarine, and returned to the Saro Works boat yard on the Isle of Wight for repair. However, production of the kayak had moved to Parkstone Joinery in Dorset, and so the canoe was never repaired. The kayak was restored by the museum, using original plans and sketches made by the designer Goatley, and the raid commander Halser. Copies of some of this paperwork can be viewed alongside the canoe.[1]

Cockle Mark II kayak
 
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