Quote:
Originally Posted by RudiS
Accoring to this website, the ship was sunk in the Channel off Le Havre, so not in the harbour itself. |
Thanks Rudi, but wikipedia is not a reference. Basically all losses are given "off [location]" even when the primary source says "at part in [location]". I am slowly working on it (for a given month, there was a dozen ships either duplicated (at two dates) or with the wrong month/year (for example, I am working on March 1940 and the above ship is listed in an Internet list as being sunk on 20th March)).
By the way I have found on Google Books confirmation that this ship was sunk in port (with the precise quay name) by a direct bomb hit at 2350 hrs on the 19th, with 12 killed and 7 heavily wounded. The French WWII casualties database show 13 named dead for this ship, all on 20th May (only wrong by ten minutes, and possibly including a 13th crew who died of wounds).
The book, "Le Havre, 1940-1944" by Jean-Claude Dubosq, says that the first raid on Le Havre during the war starts at 2200 hrs on the 19th and ended at 0200 hrs on the 20th. During the first two hours some incendiary bombs were dropped, the main bombing took place between 23h50 and 0h30, hitting the port and the town. Between 20 and 30 aircraft were estimated to have attacked Le Havre (French estimate so could be far from the real number).
Edited: by the way, I have just updated the wikipedia entry for Augustin Normand.