I did a search on this Navy Officer. He is a very interesting man. He was both a surface ship and submarine commander. One of the articles I read about him stated he was one of the most popular navy officers during WW2 along with being a great leader. He served his King and Country for 35 years. Made popular in book and movie "The Longest Day". Played by actor Kenneth More. This is the only photo I can find of him. Has anyone got anymore of Commodore Maud? Any more interesting facts or stories? I have done a search here and a few members have made some comments. Let's get some discussion going on him. Can someone find a newspaper article on him. Regards, Ttyman Gene
One of the memorable scenes in The Longest Day. Shame Connery tried (unsuccessfully) to play an Irishman. I would be interested to learn more about Maud, especially where he trained as a Beachmaster and what the training involved.
Here are few more facts that may make our search easier. Beachmaster for Sword beach ended up being Teddy Gueritz. The Daily Telegraph did an article on him on 7 Jan 2009. That may have some information on his training. Although he was third in command, till his superiors were wounded. Beachmaster for Gold (I believe) was B.T. Whinney At this site Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Normandy 1944 there is an audio of him stating he received No Training before preforming his task. Found several article on the beachmaster "United We Land" -Beachmaster Own the Beach. I will go to the library and see if they can obtain a copy for me. Found a dead link to a Canadian site R.A.F. Beach Units of the Second World War. Here is some of that info To control and facilitate the landing, assembly and onward dispatch of personnel, stores and equipment across the invasion beaches, the British and Canadian sectors were organised into three Beach Sub Areas. 101 Beach Sub Area covered the SWORD assault area, 102 Beach Sub Area covered the JUNO area and 104 Beach Sub Area covered the GOLD area. These Beach Sub Area organisations were responsible for setting up Beach Maintenance Areas in which there were dumps to hold the petrol, ammunition, rations etc. that were being landed, and assembly areas for the arriving personnel and their vehicles. Also to be organised was traffic in the opposite direction, i.e. the removal to the U.K. of casualties, prisoners of war and salvaged equipment. To achieve all this, a large organisation was required composed of specialists from all three of the armed services. The units selected for this work, apart from their own technical training, all received Combined Operations training and practised alongside each other in the months preceding the invasion. Each Beach Sub Area organisation was composed of Royal Navy Beach Commando units, Army Beach Groups, an R.A.F. Beach Squadron and an R.A.F. Beach Balloon Squadron. These units were under the overall command of an Army Colonel supported by a Beach Sub Area Headquarters. The Royal Navy Beach Commandos controlled the arrival and departure of vessels that were landing their cargoes on the beaches. In each R.N. Beach Commando was a Principal Beachmaster (P.B.M.), an Assistant Principal Beachmaster and two or three beach parties each consisting of a Beachmaster, two Assistant Beachmasters and about 20 seamen"" I will continue on another post.
I can only find one book dealing with units that supported the Beachmasters. That is David Lee's "Beachhead Assault". The story of the Royal Navy Commando. I doubt it would have any info on the beachmasters training but perhaps some stories of the sailors who worked with Colin Maud on D-day. Do I have anyone out there who has a copy and can tell us a little about it? If so I would appreciate it. All for now Regards, Ttyman Gene
Good find TTman. The 'Combined Operations' website has some good info on Beachmasters, beach parties and beach 'bricks'. The primary task of WW2 Combined Operations was to plan for the invasion of mainland Europe following the evacuation at Dunkirk. It's synonymous with Commando raids and landings, landing craft design, training of personnel from the 3 services in amph Put Beachmaster into the search function and some interesting stuff turns up, no mention of Maud though.
Please excuse the (very poor) way in which I've done this but I don't have my scanner to hand so I've photographed the relevant pages. I trust this will suffice until I can get to a scanner. I'll be honest, the Lee book is not a particularly good one, but there are a lot of testimonies from the actual RN Commandos themselves so is worth buying just for that. The book just doesn't flow well and Lee doesn't introduce the veterans very much before throwing a big quote in there. There is also another character called Edward Gueritz RN who commanded F Commando and had a similarly larger-than-life type of existence. He's worth looking in to.
Haven't got any more info for you about Colin Maud but I can tell you about the time I tangled with a Beach Master in Italy. On the 3rd of September 1943 our guns supported Operation Baytown, the invasion of Italy. On the 20th of September we landed in Italy, via the short crossing over the Messina Straits. The actual transport over the water was a tank landing craft just big enough for two vehicles. I drove our wireless truck onto the tank landing craft without any problem and was therefore surprised when on reaching the Italian beachhead it failed to start up. The Beach Commander gave me half a minute to try again and then to my acute embarrassment and the annoyance of the Major Mouland, whose vehicle shared the TLC, we were ignominiously pulled off the craft by a recovery tank. Once on dry land it was soon established that it was only a battery lead that had jumped off on impact as I had dropped on to the TLC's deck, and we were quickly on our way. These Beach Masters were a law unto themselves and they have my utter respect for the job they did, usually under severe enemy fire. Ron
Perhaps: -Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC, MC. Royal Engineers. -- North Africa, Sicily and Italian campaigns. Beach landing officer for British troops Anzio.
Wills Many thanks .........Never knew that about Healey ! Now you've got me racking my memory to think what that Beach Commander looked like Ron
Denis Healey joined the British Army on the outbreak of war and served as an officer with the Royal Engineers in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. This included being Military Landing Officer (or beach-master) for the British assault brigade at Anzio, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He left the Service with the rank of Major after the war – he declined an offer to remain as a Lieutenant-Colonel – and joined the Labour Party. Still in uniform, I enjoyed my five years in the wartime army. It was a life very different from anything I had known, or expected. Long periods of boredom were broken by short bursts of excitement. For the first time I had to learn to do nothing but wait – for me the most difficult lesson of all. To my great relief, I found I did not get frightened in action – not that I enjoyed being shelled or dive-bombed any more than the next man; but fear never paralysed me or even pushed me off my stroke. On the other hand I was never called on to show the sort of active courage which wins men the VC.
Hi, About 40 - 45 pages of the book “Time and Tide: The Life of a Thames Waterman” has some details of the training for the Beach Commandos and as an Assistant Beachmaster in J Commando. Coverage of his time with the RN Commandos and Normandy is good and I thought the rest of the book was a good read as well. Danny Time and Tide: The Life of a Thames Waterman: Amazon.co.uk: Jack Gaster: Books BBC - WW2 People's War - Time and Tide, Lehamel BBC - WW2 People's War - The Millionaire Mob
All these posts are Great. Thanks for all the information. Super story Ron. Anyone got anymore on Beachmasters. How about some photos of the beach teams and their equipment. I'll keep searching for anything new. Regards, Ttyman Gene
This thread is quite old and so I'm not sure if anyone is still interested, but Colin Maud was my step grandfather. He was married to my grandmother Valerie. He died on holiday in France when I was around 7 (the late 70's...though I could have been younger) from a heart attack. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about him, apart from my rather quirky observations....he had a white beard by the time I came along and an austere presence. They lived in Bembridge on the Isle of White. When I was young he got gangrene and had his leg amputated, spending his recuperation in Osbourne House. I was told as a child that this was because he insisted on taking cold showers, which of course was nonsense. He also ate muesli for breakfast and homemade yoghurt, which seemed rather exotic! Last week I was up in the loft and came across his military issue (I think) suitacase with his name and rank on it. When I am next up there I will take a picture and post it. Now that I have seen this thread, I will see if other family members have any more info. Oh yes, as a child I had a photo of him with a pet monkey! I thought that was pretty exciting. On the photos originally posted of him, I don't recognise him at all, but then memory can play tricks and he was substantially older when he was in my life.
I am one of those fortunate people who have been given the opportunity to reviisit the scene of one of their crimes Go have a look here: http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/17197-return-to-sicily-after-66-years/ Ron
Hi @teletypeman, We have some photos of granddad Maud somewhere - I'll endeavor to put them up on the wikipedia site when we find them. - Sholto
Yeah, it's curious that there is no mention of Colin on the Wikipedia entry for Juno beach. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Beach yet the entry for Colin says he was the beach master: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Maud If word of mouth is legit, Colin's son Ruan recounted that he was in fact the beach master.
