Operational Welfare

A great deal of effort was devoted to providing operational welfare support to the invasion force, including the provision of a postal service, deliveries of newspapers and entertainment in the field.

Postal

The first Postal personnel to arrive in Normandy were those of 6th Airborne Division, who landed by parachute or glider during the early hours of 6 June. The seaborne assault formations brought their own Postal units, and these were ready by D+1 to receive the first planned delivery of mail to the assault units. In the event, shipping delays meant that the first letters safely arrived in Normandy on 8 June, D+2. The system was administered so effectively that reinforcements would arrive to find their post already in France awaiting them. By 20 June, a major Post Office had been established at the village of Crepon, and on 6 July an airmail system became operational, bringing in the first day 9,700 lbs of mail from the UK and taking back some 7,000 lbs of letters. In the event, the worst delays suffered by the postal service were caused by V-1 damage to sorting offices in London rather than problems on the beaches.

An RAF Regiment gunner takes the opportunity to wash his feet

Mobile Bath and Laundry Units

The first MLBUs landed in France on D+12. The bath sections could provide one bath per man per week for frontline troops, while the laundry sections initially concentrated on supporting the field hospitals with clean linen until additional laundry facilities had been established.

Newspapers

Initially, the dissemination of news was handled by the Education Service, producing a daily broadsheet summarising the BBC news for the day. 3rd Division had the first such sheets with its men by D+3. An Army printing unit was deployed to Vaux-sur-Seulles on 2 July, and the first edition of "Second Army Troops News" was run-off on 6 July.

British national newspapers were also available, the Newspaper Association providing one paper per ten men. The first batch of 56,000 was actually dispatched on D-Day itself, and reached the front-line units on D+2.

NAAFI/EFI

For the first month of the Normandy campaign, the Navy, Army, Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) provided special welfare packs to be shipped across. Each provided enough cigarettes, matches, stationery, razors and soap for thirty men to last 21 days. In addition, 17.5 million cigarettes and 3,140 lbs of tobacco were distributed free, 1 million cigarettes being donated each week by the Overseas League.

The first Expeditionary Forces Institute personnel landed on D+17, 23 June, opening a tented Base Canteen Depot at Sully. Two mobile canteens were operational by 13 July. A week later, another eighteen such mobile canteens were on the road.

Sports and entertainment

Special sports packs were assembled for distribution to units in France, including football and rugby match packs which included complete sets of boots and strips for both teams.

Six Entertainers National Service Association (ENSA) mobile concert parties were landed on D+5, and they were joined by five "Stars-in-Battledress" parties three days later. The latter performed within one mile of the front-line, touring on a 3-ton truck which doubled up as a stage when the sides were lowered. Five Army Kinema Service units, each with ten cinema projectors, arrived in Normandy from 15 June and provided eight hours of film shows to off-duty personnel each day.

Last Updated: 22 Jun 04