Then-Commander Walsh served on the command staff of US Naval Forces Europe, where he helped draw up plans to seize the strategic port of Cherbourg on the northern edge of Normandy's Cotentin Peninsula during the planning for Operation Overlord. Walsh's plan called for the formation of a specially trained naval reconnaissance unit to determine the condition of the port after its capture. He volunteered to lead the special mission, which after some training arrived off Utah Beach on 9 June 1944, only three days after D-Day.[6]
Walsh's 53-man unit landed and contacted elements of the US Army's 79th Infantry Division, which was engaging the Germans in fierce house-to-house fighting. Allied forces quickly captured the eastern part of the port, while most of the Germans retreated to the western section of the city. Knowing the port was essentially unusable with pockets of resistance remaining, Walsh personally led a 16-member unit of his special task force on a raid to an arsenal area and adjacent waterfront on the western side of the port city. Armed with bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, and submachine guns, he and his party overcame sniper fire and blew open steel doors of underground bunkers, capturing 400 Germans.[7]Walsh and one other officer then approached the German command post at Fort Du Homet under a flag of truce and bluffed its commander into surrendering, capturing a further 350 Germans and liberating 52 American paratroopers being held as prisoners of war. Only then did Walsh begin restoring vital port operations as Port Director. For his actions at Cherbourg, he received the Navy Cross.[citation needed]
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
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