Breakout from Juno Page 13

  That evening, the German doctor treating his injuries reported that Rommel had suffered a fractured skull, severe brain concussion, and an injured eye. He estimated that recovery would require three months of close medical attendance and another three months of convalescence. In the interim, Commander in Chief, West General-feldmarschall Günther von Kluge took over Rommel’s position as Army Group B commander while retaining his other post. Kluge’s dual role would be confirmed by Hitler on July 19.20 (Rommel, being implicated in the July 20 failed assassination attempt on Hitler, opted to commit suicide by taking poison on October 14, rather than be arrested and face likely public execution.)

  AT 0100 HOURS on July 18, 3rd Division’s 8th Brigade finished crossing London Bridge. As it moved off, 11th British Armoured Division took its place. The Canadians walked to the south of Ranville and faced Colombelles.

  It was a warm night, a moonless sky brilliant with stars. Over Britain the weather was similarly fine, and the great bomber armada took off on schedule.21 Shortly before 0500 hours, 4th Field Regiment’s Captain George Blackburn heard the faint drone of aircraft approaching. The sound grew in intensity until he was “enveloped in the throbbing roar of a huge flock of bombers lumbering in from the coast.” Then these “great four-engined machines, flying in from the northwest at a moderate height, [were] plainly visible in all detail to the troops on the ground.”22

  A total of 1,023 Lancaster and Halifax bombers, guided by Pathfinders dropping red flares over the targets, rolled in “seemingly endless succession across a brilliant sky” to drop more than five thousand tons of explosives. Much of this ordnance slammed down on Colombelles, the steelworks, and Vaucelles.23 At first, German anti-aircraft fire rose to greet the bombers. This was soon mostly quelled when hundreds of Canadian and British guns unleashed a pre-planned thirty-seven-minute “Apple Pie” fire program against the anti-aircraft guns.24

  There were so many bombs exploding with such force that the ground Blackburn stood upon, fully five miles from the target, shook jarringly. Clouds of smoke and dust rolled hundreds of feet into the air over Colombelles and Vaucelles. Just before all view of the smokestacks and remaining church steeples was obscured, Blackburn saw one spire topple. He also saw one Liberator go down in flames and another trailing smoke as it turned homeward.25 Only six bombers were lost.

  As soon as Bomber Command’s squadrons were clear, more than three hundred American medium bombers scattered thousands of fragmentation bombs from the start line for the three armoured divisions to Cagny. As these planes departed, another six hundred Liberators arrived to bomb targets to the south and east of the battleground.

  The Germans were given no pause to recover. As soon as the last bombers left, more than eight hundred guns from fifteen field, thirteen medium, three heavy, and two heavy anti-aircraft artillery regiments unleashed a ninety-minute bombardment that led up to the 0745 start of Goodwood and Atlantic. The HMS Roberts and two cruisers, HMS Enterprise and HMS Mauritius, also joined in.26

  Eberbach was astonished by the “hailstorm” of shells and bombs. That hail, he quickly concluded, “had simply swept away not only the remaining half of [16 Luftwaffe Field Division], but also the elements of [21st Panzer Division] which had been assigned to the second position in its rear. The local reserves had been annihilated or shattered, the guns smashed before they even fired a shot.

  “In addition the telephone communication lines had been cut. The radio stations of the intermediate command staffs insofar as they had not been damaged, had been put out of commission by dust and concussion. The observation posts, even insofar as they were not situated in the sector under attack, saw for hours nothing but a screen of smoke, dirt and flames. Thus the batteries which were left intact did not know where to fire. And if they fired all the same, then enemy fighter bombers immediately dived … and silenced them with machine-gun fire and bombs.”27 Eberbach estimated that the Allied bombardment had created a six-kilometre-square swath of annihilation.

  He could only hope that sufficient German forces survived to stall the advance. Believing a breakthrough all but unavoidable, Eberbach launched his two armoured wedges towards a converging point at Hubert-Folie. Here there was a strong position of 88-millimetre guns that could help break the enemy advance. The two wedges would go forward at noon.28

  Eberbach’s conclusion—matched by British Second Army assumptions—that “nothing could live under the bombardment” proved false. While the destruction was tremendous, the number of Germans who survived in the forward positions was almost unimaginable. The 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion’s No. 3 Company, for example, had only four Tigers destroyed—one of the fifty-seven-ton behemoths was actually flipped upside down. But the others survived, though buried in dirt. This had to be cleared before they could move. Although hurt, the company was soon ready to fight. All but one of the armoured-assault-gun batteries escaped unscathed. In Colombelles, a panzer-grenadier battalion stood ready to meet 8th Brigade.29

  [ 9 ]

  Expensive Victories

  AT 0745 HOURS, 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade advanced on Colombelles. Le Régiment de la Chaudière was immediately right of the Orne, the Queen’s Own Rifles to its left, and the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment close in reserve. Each lead battalion was trailed by a squadron of 1st Hussars—‘C’ Squadron with the Chauds, ‘B’ Squadron with the Queen’s Own. At 0842 hours, they crossed the start line behind a two-thousand-yard-wide barrage.

  At first they met only “stunned and shaken troops” from [16th Field Division] eager to surrender. Then the Chauds came under fire from a large, walled château.1 Although this sprawling two-storey, seventeenth-century building had been badly damaged, it still provided a strong defensive position.

  Major F. L’Espérance’s ‘B’ Company, just fifty men strong, ground to a halt facing the château, while Captain J.G.A. Beaudry’s ‘C’ Company entered a maze of shattered factory complexes to the left, only to become enmeshed in such a fierce firefight that battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Paul Mathieu ordered it reinforced by ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies. This left L’Espérance’s men to take the château. Colombelles was a chaotic ruin. Many tall foundry chimneys, surrounded by huge rubble piles, stabbed the sky. Eighty per cent of the town had been destroyed. By 1040 hours, the Chauds were stalemated.2

  The Queen’s Own, meanwhile, had been swarmed by 16th Division troops surrendering from shattered factories on the eastern outskirts. Captain Dick Medland’s ‘A’ Company and ‘B’ Company under Captain Jack Mills became so engaged in disarming prisoners that they lost the barrage meant to screen them to Giberville. Several ‘A’ Company men were hit by sniper fire from the heart of Colombelles. Medland was planning to clear this opposition when he realized that Mills had already led his company towards Giberville. The two men were best friends. Their families lived a block apart in Toronto, and Medland’s older brother had married Mills’s sister. He was not going to leave Mills out there alone.

  Sending the prisoners back unescorted, Medland rallied his platoons, and ‘A’ Company headed for Giberville. As they started forward, Medland pointed at Lieutenant Gerry Rayner’s map case and said, “For God’s sake get rid of that.” He had meant to warn the other two lieutenants as well. Carrying a map case identified them to snipers as officers. Although Medland had seen combat before, this was his debut in company command. He was determined to get it right. Moving quickly through slag heaps, Medland’s men paused only to strip weapons off surrendering Germans.

  Just in front of an open field eight hundred yards from the village, Medland caught up to Mills. Right of the field was a raised railway, to the left a road linking Giberville to Colombelles. ‘B’ Company waited next to the road with some tanks idling behind. The plan called for this group to provide fire support while ‘A’ Company dashed into the village. Once Medland’s men were in the village, the two companies in reserve would come up along the other side of the road and make for a rail station to the south.<
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  Medland had to get moving, but the raised railway was worrisome. He considered whether to send No. 9 Platoon across the railway to cover his left flank.3 ‘A’ Company, about fifty strong, could ill spare the men. Still, he sent one section over the embankment.

  GIBERVILLE WAS NOTHING special—smashed-up outbuildings and farmhouses grouped around a small village square with farms spread from this hub like wheel spokes. Most of the fields were covered in tall grain, heads almost formed and ready for harvest. Hay and turnips grew in other fields.4

  Medland started forward. It was ominously quiet.5 As the leading troops reached the village, “the air became alive with the rat-a-tat of machine guns and the crash of mortars.” Men fell. All three lieutenants, Gerry Rayner, Jim McNeeley, and Ken MacLeod, died. Rayner and MacLeod had both enlisted as riflemen and earned battlefield commissions.6 Across the road, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies were heading for the rail station seven hundred yards past the village. ‘C’ Company’s Bren carrier clattered along the road loaded with spare ammunition, the No. 18 wireless set, and an artillery FOO with his wireless gear. Suddenly, a mine went off under the driver. Flung forty feet into the air, Rifleman Charles Pettit slammed hard onto the road next to the carrier.

  “Stay still, don’t move till we get you out,” Major Allen Nickson told Pettit.

  “No, I’m dead,” he gasped, and died. Nickson was stunned. Pettit had been the company’s driver forever.

  With the road mined, the supporting Hussars refused to keep going, particularly when a hidden 88-millimetre gun started firing. The FOO said he was unable to angle artillery onto the suspected gun position.

  Nickson and ‘D’ Company’s Major R.A. Cottrill decided to switch over to ‘A’ Company’s line of advance. The men dodged across the road and ran for the village. German dead and wounded lay scattered in ‘A’ Company’s wake. Nickson saw one German with a grenade. When the soldier pulled the pin, Nickson froze, waiting to see where he threw it. The German hugged the grenade to his chest and blew himself up.

  From the railway embankment, meanwhile, Company Sergeant Major Charlie Martin of ‘A’ Company shouted that Germans were coming up on the other side. Medland and an artillery FOO dashed over. Dozens of men in field grey uniforms were running forward in short bounds, dropping, and then repeating the manoeuvre. Medland figured they numbered three hundred.

  The FOO registered the range with a single round and called for his regiment’s guns to all fire five rounds each. Two minutes later, Medland heard the whistle of shells. Explosions sent clots of earth and body parts flying. After another volley, several white flags appeared through the smoke and the only movement Medland saw was that of Germans fleeing.

  Martin, meanwhile, had run forward to lead two ‘A’ Company platoons through the village to the rail station.7 As this group came out of the south side of the village, they faced another raised rail bed and came under fire from machine guns dug in behind its cover. Martin could see more infantry massing behind the railway embankment. To give Medland and the FOO room to engage this opposition, Martin ordered his men back to a line parallel with the village. Thirty-nine-year-old Rifleman Harry Henry Hawkins and three men volunteered to cover the withdrawal. Only when their ammunition was gone did the four start back. Hawkins was struck by a machine-gun burst and killed. Although artillery quickly broke the German attack, Hawkins’s death served to remind the regiment’s other D-Day veterans that their numbers were dwindling. Three out of four had been either killed or wounded and evacuated.8

  While ‘A’ Company had fought off these counterattacks, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies had entered the village to give it a methodical clearing. Men chucked grenades through doors and windows and then raced in with rifles, Sten and Bren guns blazing.9 Nickson’s men were soon almost out of ammunition. They used captured Schmeisser submachine guns and punched holes in walls with Panzerfaust shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets. As they came out of the village and headed for the rail station, ‘C’ Company came face to face with “hundreds of Germans … just dropping their arms at their feet.” Their officers lined them up in three orderly parade-ground-style rows.10

  Lieutenant J.A.C. Auld, commanding ‘C’ Company’s No. 13 Platoon, was dumbstruck that these Germans were surrendering without a fight. The Queen’s Own were few and, almost out of ammunition, conducting “a colossal bluff. The whole of ‘C’ Company could have been wiped out but their persistence convinced the enemy that the situation was hopeless.” In contrast to the Canadians, the Germans were “well-equipped with masses of weapons and ammunition.” And yet one officer told Auld, “I surrender, sir, because I have no ammunition.” Auld looked at the bounty of German guns and munitions and decided against skewering the man’s pride by pointing to it.11

  Back in Giberville, Medland and the other company commanders determined that, in addition to the three lieutenants from ‘A’ Company, thirteen other ranks had died. Sixty-eight other ranks had been wounded. But the Queen’s Own estimated two hundred Germans killed and six hundred captured.12 Medland felt he had passed the test of company command, making the right decisions. Had he not, more men would have died.13

  IN COLOMBELLES, THE Chaudière had remained deadlocked through the morning, delaying the planned North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment pass through to the large steelworks to the south. The North Shores bumped into the rear elements of the Chauds, and “a scene of indescribable congestion followed.”14 Brigadier Ken Blackader tried to get 8th Brigade back on track by ordering the North Shores to pass to the east of the Chauds. Lieutenant Colonel Donald Buell was in the midst of extracting his battalion from the jam behind the château when 9th Brigade’s Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders—expecting to go forward to Vaucelles—arrived to add even further confusion.15

  At noon, Major General Rod Keller, nagged by Lieutenant General Simonds to keep on schedule or risk dangerously exposing the British armour’s right flank, arranged a fighter-bomber attack on the château. The bombs, however, struck the sun-hardened ground with such force they bounced high into the air and pinwheeled right over the building.16

  Exasperated by this sight, Buell went back to brigade in the North Shore’s headquarters carrier. Blackader and Buell agreed that the North Shores should move well to the east of where the Chauds were mired and go directly for the steelworks. The Glens from 9th Brigade would push past the Chauds when opportunity presented and carry the rest of the town.17

  At 1300 hours, 8th Brigade’s slowdown had sufficiently frustrated Simonds that he simply bypassed Keller and ordered 7th Brigade’s Brigadier Harry Foster to test the enemy strength in Vaucelles.18 Guided by Raymond Chatelain from the French Resistance, the Regina Rifle’s scout platoon crossed the Orne by picking their way over two wrecked bridges. One man was killed by machine guns covering the crossing point. This fire also prevented the platoon from transferring a 24-pound No. 46 wireless set with enough range to report directly to corps headquarters on the west bank. Instead, Lieutenant Lorenzo Bergeron passed messages to Chatelain, who then ran back to the river and crossed perilously through the machine-gun fire to deliver it to the signallers. They then sent the message through to Simonds.19 Bergeron soon reported Vaucelles lightly held. Simonds instructed Foster to advance all the Reginas across the river at 1630 hours.20

  In Colombelles, the Chauds had thrown everything they had at the château, while the Glens would clear the area to the east. The division’s artillery rained hundreds of shells onto the building at 1440 hours.21 When the barrage appeared over, Captain Barney Fowler of the Glens stepped through a gap in a brick wall and said over his shoulder, “Okay guys, let’s go.” A shell slammed down and Fowler was killed.22 Signaller Lance Corporal Francis R. McDonald was struck by shrapnel. Lieutenant James William Hartley’s head was torn off; Company Sergeant Major Frederick Linsey’s head remained barely attached. Smoke curled around McDonald as he calmly stripped off his equipment and exposed a body that was riddled with holes gushing blood. The
se images were seared into Private Mervyn Williams’s memory. When someone brought a stretcher, Williams helped carry McDonald to a waiting jeep ambulance; then he ran back to his company.23

  Eleven men had suffered savage injuries from the medium artillery’s terrific blasts and big chunks of shrapnel. The Glens’ RAP was soon awash with blood. McDonald died on the stretcher surrounded by a pool of his own blood.24 In addition to the wounded, four men, including Fowler and Hartley, died on the spot. “These [were] casualties from our own shells,” Lieutenant Reg Dixon recorded in the Glens’ daily diary.25

  The barrage set the château ablaze. As soon as the shelling ceased at 1518 hours, the Chauds started clearing those parts not engulfed in flames. Fighting around the château raged until midnight, the Chauds being engaged there for a total of eleven hours. When the final shots were fired, they counted one hundred casualties, twenty-five fatal.26

  Still reeling from their friendly artillery losses, the Glens came to a field separating them from Colombelles. From the cover of a wall, they repeatedly tried to go forward, only to be driven back by heavy machine-gun fire. Other Germans crept up close to throw potato-mashers. These made a lot of noise but otherwise caused no harm. The Glens stalled here for almost two hours before Brigadier Ben Cunningham insisted they push the attack home regardless of losses. Private Williams’s platoon headed along a road that led through the open field. Williams saw several men fall fatally wounded, but by 1700 hours the Glens had gained the eastern edge of Colombelles.27 Progress was slow, one pocket of resistance after another needing to be eliminated. Christiansen repeatedly appealed to brigade for tanks but was rebuffed.