RAF "FDP/GCI" units

[vimhawk]

Hello there, hoping someone can provide some information on this. My father was a member of 15053 FDP and landed on Sword Beach on D-Day. He would not talk about his experiences nor did he give any details about his unit. With the 75th anniversary upcoming I wanted to see what I could uncover. From what I believe, the RAF provided an FDP (Fighter Director Post) on every beach on D-Day. There is some information about the unit that landed on Omaha because unsurprisingly they took a number of casualties and there is now a memorial there to them.

I would be very interested to know such things as their mission and composition, and indeed pretty much anything else there is. Or perhaps you can advise me where to look. I do have 15053's operational record, including all their intercepts and where they were at the time, but that is all. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Harleyman]

Hi,
My Dad was also a member of15053 FDP, he was a cipher operator and landed in Normandy on D+1. The unit ended up in Kiel, but he was casevaced back to the U.K. after injuring his knee playing football! He used to talk about it quite openly, but the passage of time dimmed the memory. I took him to Normandy a few years ago to try and pinpoint where he landed but failed to find exactly where it was. We went to Kew to look at the unit record book which was fascinating, and there were incidents in it that he remembered, but it didn't detail where they landed. I've attached a map that Dad had and it shows their journey from D Day to the end of the war. I hope you are able to find out more information.

[vimhawk]

Hi there, sorry for delayed reply. I have that exact map/drawing in my father's diary. I also have the operational record if you would be interested (I might just post it anyway). It shows where they were on each day and all the intercepts they made. There is also an interesting book by the OC of 15054 FDP which is the "sister unit" that gives interesting background as a lot of the detail will be the same (although '54 did not land until a few days after D-Day). I will have to go to Kew one day to see the records, what sort of things do they hold?

[Mil-tech Bard]

These web links should give you some leads:

http://www.therafatomahabeach.com/?page_id=91

http://www.therafatomahabeach.com/?page_id=2697

Horace R. (Red) Macaulay, Chapter XI GROUND CONTROLLED INTERCEPTION RADARS IN OPERATION NEPTUNE/OVERLORD, “THE ALLIED INVASION OF FRANCE” JUNE, 1944. The story of the Fighter Direction Tenders used during the “D-Day” Assault and The Mobile Radar Convoys that Landed on the Beaches. RCAF Radar History at the “The Canadian Radar History Project” web site.
www.rquirk.com/cdnradar/cor/chapter11.pdf