D-Day vessel to re-enact landing of liberators
A D-DAY vessel is set to recreate the liberation of Guernsey on the 75th anniversary in May.
HMS Medusa is part of the National Historic Fleet and now a floating museum and veteran of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
On 9 May this year it is being drafted in to land a re-enactment of the troops of Operation Omelette – the codename given to the advance landing of troops of Taskforce 135, who landed in Guernsey on 9 May 1945 to liberate the island.
Kitted out in authentic Second World War military uniforms with correct badges and insignia, the Guernsey Military History Company, many of whom are service or ex-service personnel, will replicate the 26-strong troop of the landing taskforce.
The plan is that at 8.30am on Liberation Day, Medusa will arrive in the inner harbour and land Operation Omelette troops on the slipway opposite the Town Church. The troops will form up and march along the Quay to raise a flag above the Guernsey Information Centre.
In the afternoon the troop, in period dress, will march ahead of the cavalcade into St Peter Port.
Education, Sport & Culture president Matt Fallaize said: ‘The day will start, as it did 75 years ago, with a re-enactment of an advance troop of 26 British soldiers landing in Guernsey to free the island from German occupying forces. It is a fitting start to a memorable day in our island’s unique history.’
HMS Medusa was built in 1943 in Poole as a harbour defence motor launch and is the last ship of its type still in ocean-going condition.
During D-Day it helped mark the approach channels through minefields to Omaha Beach.
As the war ended the vessel took a party of senior officers up the North Sea Canal to Amsterdam as part of the surrender process and was the first Allied vessel to enter the city. After the war it was refitted and redesignated as a fast despatch boat. It became a training ship at Cardiff University Naval Division in 1946.
In 1952 it became a hydrographic survey vessel and in 1961 was named HMS Medusa and given the pennant number A353. It was paid off for disposal at Devonport in 1965. Sold by the navy in 1968, it then moved to Portland and was used as a private motor yacht.
A major restoration started in 1972 and in 1985 it was handed over to Gosport Borough Council to become part of the Coastal Forces Museum and moved to Portsmouth, where it had various moorings round the harbour. It later became the responsibility of the Medusa Trust, which used a £1m. grant to carry out a major refit.
The fuel for Medusa’s Guernsey trip is being sponsored by Rubis.
