In south-west England, the US Army opened its own version of Inveraray – the Assault Training Centre (ATC) – at Woolacombe on the north Devon coast, with training beginning there in September 1943. Ten fully equipped infantry men dashed into the loch and vanished for ever Thinking it was the beach, he ordered: ‘Down Ramp!’ Some 10 fully equipped infantrymen dashed into the loch – and vanished for ever.”
One of them, we were told, had been too enthusiastic, and steering his assault craft across the loch in semi-darkness, hit a buoy. “We practised getting in and out of the landing craft, which were manned by enthusiastic marines. Major Francis Goode, who would land in the area codenamed ‘Gold’ with D Company, 2nd Glosters, took his men through an Inveraray course in March 1944. For all, there were endless beach assaults on the many islands and inlets in the vicinity, under simulated and live fire, from machine guns, mortars, artillery and aircraft, with equal emphasis on day and night operations. Gunners were trained to fire their weapons from craft afloat at sea drivers were shown how to waterproof their vehicles, manoeuvre them onto wet decks and drive them ashore through several feet of water medical staff rehearsed lowering stretcher cases into and out of boats.
Troops visiting the Inveraray CTC – including every D-Day assault formation – were pushed through on two-week courses, catering to the specific needs of infantry, armour, artillery, engineer, signals, ordnance, medical and commando units, at regiment, brigade, battalion and company levels.
These courses were usually a soldier’s first introduction to seaborne operations. They studied how to make beach assaults – eventually under live fire, to acclimatise soldiers to the feeling of a real battle. At both, units practised disembarking from landing ships into smaller craft, which were carried on the larger vessels instead of lifeboats. From the autumn of 1943, all the assault troops due to land in the first few days were given amphibious training at the Combined Training Centres in Inveraray and Castle Toward (the latter rhyming counterintuitively with ‘coward’) in western Scotland.
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