by Mark Zuehlke
Able Seaman W. Bushfield, the pom-pom gun loader, was badly wounded by shrapnel. Despite being in intense pain, he kept on loading ammunition into the continuously firing gun, an act that earned him a Distinguished Service Medal. Aboard MTB 466, another gunner, Able Seaman J. Wright, displayed the same courageous spirit. “When wounded in the back by Oerlikon splinters he nevertheless kept up rapid and continuous fire until action had broken off,” read his subsequent DSM citation. Wright only stepped away from his gun when the boat’s first lieutenant ordered him to seek first aid treatment.20
Able Seaman T. Howarth was also wounded on MTB 466, and aboard MTB 460 Able Seaman P. Durnford suffered injuries. All four of the craft sustained superficial hull damage in the fierce running gun battle.21 Even though the German boats were more heavily gunned and numerous, they took the worst of the fight, with one bursting into flames and exploding. A fire that was quickly extinguished broke out aboard another.
Suddenly, mines started exploding all around the racing boats and Law realized that they had strayed into a “British minefield known as the Area Scollops a few miles off Le Havre. After our ten-minute engagement at close range, I was forced to disengage, making a smokescreen as we steamed northwards out of the dangerous minefield, which had doubtless frightened the wits out of the enemy as well as out of me.”22
Realizing where he and the R-boats were now situated, Law decided that the Germans had been attempting to break off the action and escape into the city’s heavily protected harbour. Le Havre was known to be a primary base for R-boats operating on this area of the European coast, with some fifty-five R-boats based in the city’s port. The ones Law had engaged were almost certainly part of this formation.23
Given the small size of the MTBs, only rudimentary first aid was available for the wounded men, as the crew had no room for specialized medical personnel. On MTB 459, the third officer could only wrap Bushfield’s wounds with field dressings, give him a shot of morphine, and then have him carefully moved down to the coxswain’s cramped cabin, where he was made as comfortable as possible.
Returning to their original patrol area, the boats closed in together so that the officers could discuss damages and casualties. Then Law had “McAulley, the wireless operator, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his tin hat pushed far back on his head, bang out a coded message… giving… a brief outline of our engagement with the six R-boats.”24
The MTBs resumed their patrol until relieved at 0500 hours just as a “cold dawn broke over a sea still capped with ruffled foam.” Only then could Law turn the boats and carry his wounded homeward.25
[ 4 ]
A Picnic
AS JUNE 7TH’S pre-dawn light brushed the farm fields, country villages, and sandy beaches of Normandy in a delicate golden wash, Allied and German soldiers readied weapons, gulped rations, and prepared for another long day’s fighting. The smoke of fires caused by shellfire and exploding bombs drifted up from ruined buildings, smouldering orchards, and the wreckage of military equipment. Several miles east of Juno Beach, a larger, darker cloud boiled out of bomb-battered Caen—grim testimony to the beginning of that city’s tragic destruction. Six miles inland from the beach, the breezes were light under clear skies. Stretched across an eight-mile-wide front, the men of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade moved forward, intent on finishing the business of reaching the objectives that were to have been in hand by the end of the previous day. Carpiquet airport, the Caen-Bayeux highway, and the parallelling railroad lay little more than three miles to the south, an easy morning’s march away.
To 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the left flank fell the task of seizing the airport. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders supported by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers would kick off from Villons-les-Buissons and lead the way with the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and the Highland Light Infantry in trail. Standing behind the so-called Highland Brigade would be two battalions from the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade—the Queen’s Own Rifles and Le Régiment de la Chaudière. On the division’s extreme left flank, 8 CIB’s other battalion, the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, was marching a mile east of its June 6 end position in Tailleville to capture the Luftwaffe radar station situated on a hill next to the village of Douvres-la-Délivrande. This would also enable the Canadian division to tie in with 3rd British Infantry Division advancing inland from Sword Beach. On the division’s right flank, meanwhile, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade would bull southwards to take up positions astride the Caen-Bayeux railway at Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse and Putot-en-Bessin.
Despite the heavy casualties suffered on D-Day, a mood of determined optimism prevailed. While the previous day’s fighting left no illusion that this day would be a stroll in the French countryside, the expectation was that the Allied juggernaut unleashed in Normandy would crush the opposing Germans in its maw. During the night, from his forward headquarters in an orchard outside Bernières-sur-Mer, Major General Rod Keller had issued orders for the advance, set schedules for its completion, and the brigadiers had in turn passed instructions to the battalions under their command.
At forty-three, Keller was the youngest Canadian major general—having attained divisional command on September 8, 1942. Five-foot-eleven and weighing about 170 pounds, Keller had ramrod-straight posture that created the impression of greater height. A stickler for military protocol, Keller was a spit and polish officer who expected his division to be as meticulously turned out as his own battle dress. Although most of the time strict and grim, Keller could as easily be charming and jovial—particularly when in company of women. Although married, he had spent much time in England away from divisional headquarters dallying at the estate of his upper-class mistress.
That had been fine by his General Staff Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Don Mingay, for he considered Keller a dunderhead qualified to be little more than the division’s figurehead, while he and the headquarters staff ran things. In a time and an army where hard drinking went hand in hand with hard-driving soldiering, Keller’s excessive boozing worried subordinates and superiors alike. But, despite a rumoured scotch-bottle-a-day habit, Keller was seldom seen to behave worse for it. On D-Day, however, the general had proved increasingly excitable from the moment he waded ashore in the late morning and his anxiousness seemed only to increase on June 7.1
If Keller seemed to be holding a relatively unsteady hand on the division’s reins, the same could not be said of his infantry brigadiers. Each was a solid, experienced commander, ready for the tough job ahead, despite the fact that the two officers who had attended Royal Military College had been less than exemplary students. The youngest, 9 CIB’s Douglas Gordon “Ben” Cunningham, had graduated in the class of 1929 with marks hovering on the line separating the middle and bottom thirds of his class. During his four years at RMC, he had demonstrated consistent indifference to academic studies. Cunningham had arrived at RMC in 1925, a lanky red-haired youth weighing just 135 pounds, but quickly adapted to the strict regimen of athletics and military drill, to be transformed on graduation as a six-foot-two “wiry athlete with imposing presence.” Hockey and soccer were his key sports. Although ending every semester with reports that scolded his academic failings, he inevitably garnered praise for his military bearing and motivation. RMC Commandant Archibald Cameron Macdonell, the strict World War I veteran who ran the school with a stern hand through the interwar years, described him upon graduation as showing “indications of developing considerable strength of character and leadership.”2
From RMC, Cunningham proceeded directly to a short-lived career in the financial industry on Toronto’s Bay Street that ended abruptly with the stock market crash. He then entered Osgoode Hall, following his father’s footsteps to a law degree attained in 1933. Returning to hometown Kingston, Cunningham opened a legal practice, but his first interest was the army. He joined the local Princess of Wales Own Regiment militia and soon became its adjutant. Shortly before the wa
r, when asked about his availability for full-time military service, he responded, “available at any time to serve anyplace.”3
With war, Cunningham answered the call to duty and by 1942 was the brigade major of 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the ill-fated day its troops hit the beach at Dieppe. Circling offshore in a LCT command ship, Cunningham handled the fire support provided by the naval ships. For eight hours, with the ship repeatedly raked by fire from the beach that wounded his brigadier and killed or wounded many others aboard, the major continued calmly performing his job and then was instrumental in ensuring the evacuation of many troops from the blood-soaked sand. For his bravery, Cunningham was awarded an immediate Distinguished Service Order and the next day promoted to lieutenant colonel in command of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. Following a short stint on the general staff of I Canadian Corps, he was promoted to brigadier of 9 CIB in November 1943.
Cunningham’s counterpart at the helm of 7 CIB was Brigadier Harry Foster, who had conducted himself even more poorly during less than three years at RMC even though his father, a retired Permanent Force officer, had used a personal friendship with Macdonell to gain the young man entrance. As Harry was enrolled in the first year of a science program at McGill University, Macdonell agreed to let him into RMC only if he achieved an 80 per cent average at the Montreal institution. But Foster managed only 67 per cent and failed one course entirely. Yet Macdonell relented and accepted him anyway in 1922.
Having entered the college via influence rather than competition, Foster continued to put in a lacklustre academic performance. Five months after enrolling, Macdonell declared his efforts “satisfactory, albeit uneven.” That the commandant was being surprisingly lenient towards Foster was evidenced by the fact that he had failed physics, chemistry, and English. More damning was the verdict that Foster “is a fine type but must cultivate cheerfulness.” Cadets at RMC were “expected to grin and bear the pressures of military life. Demeanour was the most obvious indication of character. It was considered an accurate reflection of a cadet’s potential to inspire and lead soldiers once he earned the King’s Commission. In a school where most of the military instructors had fought in the trenches of the Western Front, sad sacks were considered unsafe leaders; optimism remained the order of the day in the cadet wing.”4
By the end of the first semester of Foster’s second year, Macdonell’s frustration with the young man was evident. “Conduct, fair,”
he wrote. “This cadet does not begin to do himself justice, tho[ugh] I think he is trying now. Hope so. He had been slacking and drifting through life, not getting anywhere when I spoke to him. Grade ‘A’ in Riding, ‘C’ in P.T., ‘D’ in Drill and Musketry. He could easily be ‘A’ in each one.”5
Even his peers were disappointed in Foster. In the December 1923 yearbook, he was described as suffering “to some extent from taking things too easily. When he wants to he can play a good game.” Faced with a series of failing grades in his third year, Foster decided to pack it in and, with his father’s blessing, withdrew from RMC in July 1924 to receive the King’s Commission. Such a commission in the Permanent Force was available to all cadets after two full years at RMC.6An excellent horseman, he was posted to the Lord Strathcona’s Horse cavalry regiment.
No longer having to worry about academic studies, Foster flourished in the regular army. By war’s outbreak, he had risen in rank to captain and was pegged early for a fast-track career. In late 1939, he attended Staff College—a major rung up the ladder leading to brigade or divisional command—and in 1941 reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, with command of the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. The following year he was assigned as General Staff Officer 1 of 1st Canadian Infantry Division, an important posting that provided officers identified as having brigade potential with critical staff management experience. In late 1942, Foster took command of the Highland Light Infantry, a move that served to broaden this cavalry-cum-tanker’s expertise by giving him experience in infantry command. The following year, he was promoted to brigadier of 7 CIB. Within a few months of assuming this duty, Foster was seconded to temporary duty as the commanding officer of Canadian forces engaged in the Kiska Island invasion in the Aleutians. He returned from that assignment just weeks before D-Day. Forty-two years old in June 1944, Foster was now regarded as a tough, hard-charging career officer already earmarked by First Army commander Lieutenant General Harry Crerar for eventual divisional command.
At forty-six, 8 CIB’s Brigadier Kenneth Gault Blackader was a World War I veteran, who had distinguished himself in a long career. Having gone overseas in 1916 as a lieutenant in the 5th Regiment, Royal Canadian Highlanders, Blackader had been wounded on August 8, 1918 during the Battle of Amiens. His heroism in the course of that action garnered a Military Cross.7 After the Armistice, Blackader joined the Black Watch Regiment of Montreal and earned rapid promotion up the reserve unit’s command chain. At war’s outbreak in September 1939, he was a full colonel and the regiment’s commander. He immediately set to raising 1st Battalion Black Watch for active duty and, in order to take it overseas, reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In January 1942, Blackader left the regiment after being promoted to brigadier and command of 8 CIB.
Although it was unusual for someone his age to command a combat brigade, Blackader’s reputation was rock-solid. That he had not been promoted to even higher command likely resulted from the fact that he was a militia soldier rather than a Permanent Force officer, combined with a lack of divisional command openings. Within the Black Watch, Blackader held almost legendary standing because of his long service with the regiment during the interwar years and his combat service during the Great War. But in many regards, Blackader retained the mannerisms and temperament of the upper-class World War I officer, so that he often seemed deliberately aloof and formal in his dealings with subordinates and superiors alike. He was not a man to suffer fools quietly or to hesitate in strongly stating his opinions about divisional operations.8
AT 0130 HOURS, Brigadier Harry Foster convened an Orders Group for 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade at his headquarters in a farmhouse on the edge of Colombiers-sur-Seulles. Here, the commanders of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Regina Rifles, and Canadian Scottish Regiment gathered around a large table in the crude kitchen. By the yellow glare of a kerosene lamp, Foster gave the tired men their marching orders.9
Knowing he was blessed with excellent battalion commanders, Foster did not waste time covering every detail of what they were to accomplish in the morning. Beginning at 0600 hours, the Winnipeg Rifles would advance on the right and the Regina Rifles on the left to sever the Caen-Bayeux highway and the parallelling railroad a short distance beyond. The Canadian Scottish would remain in reserve, providing a firm base to the advance in case the Germans countered this attack in strength with one of their own before the lead battalions reached the iron rails.10 Backing up the brigade would be a machine gun and mortar platoon of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, three troops of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, and two batteries of 17-pounder antitank guns drawn from the 62nd British Anti-Tank Regiment.
Intrinsic to the division’s operational plans in the aftermath of the landings was the assumption that the Germans would respond according to their standard doctrine, with an immediate counterattack. Foster hoped his brigade could reach the railroad before the German onslaught. With its sunken bed, the line would serve well as an antitank barrier. Briefing over, the battalion commanders raced to ready their battalions for the morning.11 They had less than four hours to not only set out their plan of advance, but also determine how to meet the likely German counterattack. Nobody expected any sleep this night.
Immediately on returning to his headquarters in the village of Pierrepont, Canadian Scottish commander Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu summoned his company commanders to a briefing. His battalion had ended June 6 well forward of the other two 7 CIB battalions, but with the companies widely dispersed. The thirty-seven-year-
old former real estate agent from Victoria still regretted that Foster had insisted his companies dig in for the night short of their D-Day objective. Convinced nothing stood in his way but a few demoralized Germans, Cabeldu had begged permission to keep moving despite the onset of darkness until he reached the Caen-Bayeux highway. Foster, bowing to instructions from Keller’s headquarters, refused and ordered him to “freeze” in place for fear of the possibility of an “enemy tank counterattack.”12
Because his units were so spread out, the lieutenant colonel had yet to know for sure whether all his company commanders had survived the day unscathed. When ‘C’ Company’s Major Desmond Crofton arrived, Cabeldu happily shook his hand. Crofton wrote later “how glad the C.O. was to see one of his company commanders coming in, and then another, and all of them arriving, as he never thought that he would see all his old group intact.”13
The scene unfolding at Cabeldu’s headquarters mirrored that played out at other battalion headquarters, although his had been the only D-Day assault unit fortunate to have had no company commanders killed or wounded. Elsewhere, the assault battalions scrambled during the early morning hours to bring up major drafts of reinforcements to replenish the ranks, while replacement company officers attempted to acquaint themselves with new commands.
Regina Rifles Lieutenant Colonel Foster Matheson noted a good number of ‘B’ Company survivors—first cut apart during the landing and then heavily engaged in fighting within Courseulles-sur-Mer—straggle into the battalion lines during the night. The majority of these men had barely survived drowning when the landing craft dumped them into deep water well out from the beach. In the struggle to get ashore, many had abandoned weapons and ammunition in order to swim to shallower water. They had then spent the afternoon and night wandering country lanes in an attempt to reconnect with the Reginas. Lacking replacement weaponry for those without arms, Matheson ordered them “supplied with enemy equipment.” The Reginas also welcomed into their ranks about one hundred reinforcements. Having withdrawn the terribly mauled ‘A’ Company from the front lines back to battalion headquarters at Reviers, Matheson used these men to restore it to combat strength.14