Forced ashore, they 'lie low' until after the landings have taken place on 22 January (📸 IWM NA 11387) and then make their way south, aiming to get through the frontline.

They're just yards from success when captured by German troops in early February 1944. 2/2

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Between Campbell's visits, Willmott and his men are frantically gathering more suitable equipment to Hayling Island.

Willmott envisages 3 months of training – but within weeks the first two teams are being rushed to the Med for recce of Sicily (🗺️ via McMaster University). /🧵

But his latest version is no use for covert ops: it lets out a loud 'bang' when firing a rod into the beach surface to see how far it penetrates (though it's later used by scientists investigating UK beaches comparable with the Normandy landing beaches). (📸 D-Day Story/NMRN)

Over coming months his enthusiasm becomes somewhat tiresome for COPP as they fend off ideas that have limited practical use. His 'beach tester' is developed from devices that he'd used to check the firmness of American salt flats (📸 Adobe Stock) before his land speed record.

At today's meeting is land and water speed-record holder Sir Malcolm Campbell (📸National Portrait Gallery, London). He's attached to COHQ developing 'Bond style' gear, including treated seaweed attached to concrete 'sinkers' that might be used to mark beaches on infrared photos.

But until James Cook is ready for them, they'll be based temporarily in southern England.

In the end the move north never happens (James Cook is pushed for space) and they remain based on Hayling Island near Portsmouth.

The plan is that COPP will be based at HMS James Cook, the newly opened Combined Operations navigation school in Scotland (📸 IWM A 29904). There they will be able to take their pick of the best naval officers who are going through James Cook's training courses.

Nigel Willmott is put in charge. He's already done beach reconnaissance in Rhodes (April 1941) and led a 'prototype' COPP unit dubbed Party Koodoo–Inhuman during the recent Operation Torch landings. (📸 via Special Forces Roll of Honour website)

After their arrival, ongoing tensions between the British and local communists result in them being briefly detained by Partisan forces. (🗺️ via McMaster University) 2/2

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The next two X-craft earmarked for COPP use – X-21 and X-23 – are already being built by the same companies.

Later COPP’s needs will be scaled back, and both X-21 (📸 own collection) and X-22 will be released from COPP use. /🧵

The subs – built by Broadbent's in Huddersfield and Markham's in Chesterfield respectively – have modifications for COPP use including bollards to allow an anchor to be used, a gyrocompass repeater on the casing and buoyancy chambers either side (📸 from 📖 'Steady As She Goes')

COPP 1 hasn't been idle in the meantime: today they start their first sea trial in an X-craft mini sub (📂 IWM Documents.7062). They're at Loch Striven, Scotland, finding out how to operate from subs X-20 and X-22, which launched recently at nearby Faslane.

Bernal had recommended that "any possible reconnaissance parties be fully briefed, supplied with simple instruments for testing the quality of the ground, and practise their use on similar terrain in this country". (🗺️ Shotton Archive/Lapworth Museum of Geology)

Two weeks ago Combined Ops scientist J.D. Bernal (📸 Birkbeck, University of London/JSTOR) wrote to 21 Army Group to flag the possible presence of peat under the sand. If correct, this might result in heavy vehicles and equipment becoming bogged down on the beaches.

The COPP men arrived four days ago, presumably to do a non-covert recce to find landing places and help get the Paras ashore quickly. (📸 IWM A 26491) 2/2

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Nor do landings elsewhere escape issues, with tricky or non-existent beach exits and poor beach conditions delaying advance inland.

Once back in the UK, Willmott is soon given the go-ahead to form COPP (📸 IWM MH 22716). /🧵

More about Party Inhuman: ▶️ buff.ly/bx14pSu

Offshore obstacles, soft sand and difficult beach exits – the sort of thing that Willmott's men had been hoping to discover if they'd been given the chance – force closure of Beer Green and all but 200 metres of Beer White (📸 IWM A 12719), causing serious congestion.

As a result of these mishaps, landing American forces end up being scattered along no less than 15 miles (24 km) of coast.

Things in Beer sector don’t get much better after the first waves have beached, either.