This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Shaun Thomas (Underdog), OSC
to remember
Ives, Norman Seaton, CAPT.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Galesburg
Last Address 30 Georges Terrace, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Casualty Date Aug 02, 1944
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Location France
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
I was one of approximately 60 U.S. Navy men in a reconnaissance party under the command of Capt. Norman S. Ives. We left Cherbourg, France, on Aug. 1, 1944, and spent the night in Granville. We were en route to St. Malo, a port reportedly captured from the Germans by U.S. armed forces.
Leaving Granville on the morning of Aug. 2, we were soon passing elements of Gen. Patton’s armored units. Later in the morning we encountered German units near the small town of Dol-en-Bretagne. In the course of a two-hour firefight, before the army came to rescue us, we lost about 20 killed and wounded, including Capt. Ives. Among the army rescuers was a Sherman tank named “Dingbat II.” Never were we so happy to see the army!
All our dozen or so vehicles were lost to the Germans for several days before the army recaptured them and returned them to us in Cherbourg. We then learned we had been 17 miles in front of the army!
I would be interested in hearing from any members of this navy group. My address is 1508 Hinman Ave, #6D, Evanston, IL 60201, and my e-mail is Walcat@core.com.
Evanston, Ill.
Walter N. Dreyfus
Comments/Citation:
Circumstances Killed when the car in which he was traveling was ambushed by Germans.
Remarks Norman was born in Galesburg, Illinois. He was formerly the Commander of Submarine Squadron Fifty in Scotland.
World War II/European-African-Middle Eastern Theater
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
September / 1945
Description The European-Mediterranean-Middle East Theater was a major theater of operations during the Second World War (between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946). The vast size of Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War.
The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of the headquarters that controlled the initial fighting: Middle East Command) while the Americans called the theatre of operations the Mediterranean Theatre of War. The German official history of the fighting is dubbed 'The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1942'. Regardless of the size of the theatre, the various campaigns were not seen as neatly separated areas of operations but part of one vast theatre of war.
Fascist Italy aimed to carve out a new Roman Empire, while British forces aimed initially to retain the status quo. Italy launched various attacks around the Mediterranean, which were largely unsuccessful. With the introduction of German forces, Yugoslavia and Greece were overrun. Allied and Axis forces engaged in back and forth fighting across North Africa, with Axis interference in the Middle East causing fighting to spread there. With confidence high from early gains, German forces planned elaborate attacks to be launched to capture the Middle East and then to possibly attack the southern border of the Soviet Union. However, following three years of fighting, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and their interference in the Middle East was halted. Allied forces then commenced an invasion of Southern Europe, resulting in the Italians switching sides and deposing Mussolini. A prolonged battle for Italy took place, and as the strategic situation changed in southeast Europe, British troops returned to Greece.
The theatre of war, the longest during the Second World War, resulted in the destruction of the Italian Empire and altered the strategic position of Germany resulting in numerous German divisions being deployed to Africa and Italy and total losses (including those captured upon final surrender) being over half a million. Italian losses, in the theatre, amount to around to 177,000 men with a further several hundred thousand captured during the process of the various campaigns. British losses amount to over 300,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, and total American losses in the region amounted to 130,000.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
September / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories The name "Battle of the Atlantic", coined by Winston Churchill in 1941, covers a campaign that began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involved thousands of ships and stretched over hundreds of miles of the vast ocean and seas in a succession of more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters. Tactical advantage switched back and forth over the six years as new weapons, tactics and counter-measures were developed by both sides. The British and their allies gradually gained the upper hand, driving the German surface raiders from the ocean by the end of 1942 and decisively defeating the U-boats in a series of convoy battles between March and May 1943. New German submarines arrived in 1945, but they were too late to affect the course of the war.
