by Mark Zuehlke
DIRECTLY IN THE PATH of the advancing Panzer Grenadiers were two 7 CIB battalions—the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and Regina Rifles. Since arriving at their D-Day objectives in the mid-morning of June 7, the Canadian riflemen had been setting up defensive positions on ground little suited for defence. Brigadier Harry Foster was dismayed, noting that the terrain consisted of “gently rolling agricultural land, 75 [per cent] of which has standing grain. Villages are numerous, and generally speaking, stand in the low ground. Good observation is difficult due to the fact that from the beaches we have been continually fighting ‘up hill’ with the enemy [positions] on the next bit of higher ground. This very open ground tends to favour the defender as he can get long fields of fire with [antitank] guns, and good observation from the higher ground.”11
Although reverting from the offensive to the defensive, the Germans would retain long fields of fire while 7 CIB’s remained restricted. The four-to-five-foot-high wheat that stood unharvested in the fields only aggravated the problem.
Trusting his battalion commanders could make the best of a bad situation, Foster left the details of their defensive schemes up to them and concentrated on securing as many supporting arms as possible. Two platoons of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, several batteries of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, and two batteries of 17-pounder antitank guns from the 62nd British Anti-Tank Regiment soon moved into the brigade lines. Foster could not offer the infantry close tank support, however, because the remnants of the 1st Hussars were still reorganizing alongside the brigade’s Canadian Scottish Regiment at Secquevilleen-Bessin after being mauled on D-Day.
Out on the brigade’s left flank, Regina Rifles Lieutenant Colonel Foster Matheson established his headquarters in a large courtyard across from Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse’s towering thirteenth-century church, and decided to centre the battalion’s defence on this village. He then pondered the problem posed by a two-mile-wide gap between his men and those of 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade to the east. If he kept the battalion tightly knitted around Bretteville, the Germans could easily turn his left flank to get behind the brigade’s front lines. The only solution Matheson saw was to position his companies in four separate isolated locations “vital to the defence” in order to form a semi-circular defensive line arcing south from Rots to Norrey-en-Bessin through la Villeneuve.12
Responding to Matheson’s orders, Major C.S.T. “Stu” Tubb’s ‘C’ Company moved a mile south of Bretteville to occupy Norrey-en-Bessin. Matheson considered this village vitally important because it was situated on a low hill that provided a view of all possible approaches that could be used by the Germans. A towering Gothic church, considered one of the finest examples of such architecture in Normandy, dominated the place. ‘B’ Company occupied Rots a mile and a half east of Bretteville, while ‘D’ Company moved into la Villeneuve to cover the road and rail bridge crossings over the River Mue. Serving as the battalion reserve, ‘A’ Company remained in Bretteville with the Headquarters unit.13
A little to the west, Winnipeg Rifles Lieutenant Colonel John Meldram faced a different problem than Matheson. Putot-en-Bessin was less a village than a tight cluster of small farm plots, with houses, outbuildings, pocket orchards, pastures, vegetable gardens, and wheatfields all intermingled. Following Norman custom, most farms featured a rectangular or square courtyard surrounded by a stout six-to seven-foot-high limestone wall, the farmhouse, a barn, and other outbuildings. Establishing positions in this environment where platoons, let alone one company to another, were able to overlap their fields of fire proved impossible. But with the Caen-Bayeux highway at its back and the railway immediately ahead, holding the village was essential to preventing these lines of communication being used by the Germans. Meldram decided the only thing the Royal Winnipeg Rifles could do was to spread out in a scraggly line through the village as close to the railroad as possible. Where the tracks passed Putot-en-Bessin, they descended into a deep cutting that would be virtually impossible for tanks advancing from the south to cross.
Immediately west of the village, a north-south running road marked the assigned boundary line between 3rd Canadian and the 50th British divisions. This road crossed the railroad cutting via an overhead bridge. Meldram positioned two of Major Fred Hodge’s ‘A’ Company platoons in front of the bridge and sent Lieutenant Frank Battershill’s platoon three-quarters of a mile farther west to the hamlet of Brouay to establish a link with the British 7th Green Howards.14 When Battershill got to Brouay, he discovered that the Green Howards were not to be seen nor were any other 69th British Infantry Brigade battalions coming up to anchor the Canadians’ right flank.
Until the British infantry turned up, Meldram knew he had to strengthen his flank position to avoid having it turned. He therefore detailed ‘F’ Troop from the British 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment to join Battershill’s platoon in order to cover the open ground west of him with its four towed 17-pounders.15
‘C’ Company, under Major Jimmy Jones, meanwhile established itself to the left of Hodge’s company directly in front of Putot, with Major Lochie Fulton’s ‘D’ Company extending the line a little to the east of the village. ‘B’ Company, commanded by Captain Phil Gower, stood in reserve in a position between ‘C’ Company’s left flank and the battalion headquarters, which was situated in a stone-walled farmyard on the village’s northern edge.16 Stretching his meagre resources even thinner to link up with the Reginas, Meldram moved the Bren carrier platoon a thousand yards left of Fulton’s position to la Ferme de Cardonville.17
Lieutenant Donald James had come onto Juno Beach at about 2300 hours on D-Day as a Winnipeg Rifles replacement officer, taking command of a ‘B’ Company platoon the next morning. This company had been shredded, losing most of its men and all platoon commanders and other officers except for Captain Gower. James recognized that he and his men “were pretty green troops” and wondered how they would do.18 He was not the only one worried. Brigadier Foster had anxiously noted that because “one assault company had been practically wiped out on the beach… the gaps in its ranks had to be replaced by reinforcements of all sorts, some not even infantry.”19 A good number of these men were inadequately trained. Foster was particularly concerned that many were “not even familiar or well trained in our own grenades” or able to maintain, load, and fire the two-inch mortars.20 Although in reserve, ‘B’ Company faced an open front merely set back somewhat more from the railway than the other companies. The men carved out their slit trenches on the edge of an orchard facing a wide grain field that lay between their position and the railway.
“The front at Putot was so fluid at the time,” James later recalled. “There were people all over the place—Canadians, Germans and French. The French were in front of us going along the road on bicycles. And the wheat in the field in front of us was so high you couldn’t see over it.”21
‘C’ Company was in another orchard to the left of a farmyard enclosed by a high limestone wall and the farmhouse. No. 15 Platoon dug in alongside the wall, with No. 14 Platoon slightly behind and to the right, while No. 13 was also to the right, but out to the front in line with No. 15 Platoon, so that the company perimeter was roughly triangular-shaped. As No. 15 Platoon Rifleman Robert G. Smellie hacked out a slit trench that conformed to regulation dimensions of two feet by six feet with a three-foot depth, he was struck by what a “pleasant sight” the farm presented, with its old apple trees and the nearby wall. He spotted the farmer looking out a window “with dismay as we dug our slit trenches among his beloved trees.” The men had been “instructed to have no communication that wasn’t necessary with the French people. My buddy John Thompson and I collected the water bottles from the whole platoon and went into the farmyard to fill them. The farmer watched us filling the bottles at his well without comment and we did not speak to him. We were destroying his orchard, and our presence there would inevitably bring more conflict.
“That night we were treated to more fireworks. But we suf
fered less fear… because we were surrounded by the rest of our battalion.”22
THE CRACKLING OF GUNFIRE, thump of explosions, and glare of flares lighting up the sky with blinding intensity to the east of Smellie’s position erupted when I Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadiers slammed into the front lines of the Regina Rifles at 0330 hours. Without conducting any reconnaissance, Sturmbannführer Bernhard Krause threw his men into a pincer attack against Norrey, with two companies striking from the right and another the left. There was no attempt to achieve surprise as the troops moved forward noisily, their half-tracks grinding along in support. As they closed on Norrey, the Germans deployed mortars and began pounding the village.
Inside Norrey, Major Stu Tubb raced to where No. 13 Platoon on the right flank of the village was being hit. Hunkering down beside Lieutenant Ray Smith, Tubb saw what looked like a company-sized force coming up the open slope towards the village. Both sides were putting up flares that silhouetted the Germans in a white glare. Tubb, a tall, scholarly sort, who was noted for being soft-spoken and calm no matter the crisis, behaved true to form this night. Earlier, he and the artillery Forward Observation Officer from the 13th Field Regiment had pre-plotted defensive fire targets that precisely intersected the areas through which the Germans now advanced. Tubb called for artillery, and the 105-millimetre Priests of ‘C’ Company in its gun positions near Bray loosed off a deadly barrage of shells fused to explode over the heads of the Panzer Grenadiers.23
At the same time, Smith’s platoon ripped into the advancing Germans with small-arms fire, while the Reginas at la Villeneuve and Rots hit the second Hitler Youth pincer that was approaching Norrey from the left with flanking fire. Tubb watched with satisfaction as the artillery shells thundered in, exploded “virtually over our heads [and] sprayed shrapnel forward into the intruders.”24
When the first artillery concentration failed to stop the attack and the Germans kept pressing in on No. 13 Platoon, Tubb considered calling up his reserve platoon to thicken the line. Just as he moved to do so, “the Germans decided to call it quits for the time being. Later we recovered a couple dozen bodies we stacked like cordwood along a garden wall behind 13 Platoon. Several days elapsed before burial could be made in a small cemetery between Norrey and Bretteville. By that time the odour was pretty offensive.”25
Tubb’s No. 13 Platoon and the supporting artillery fire had caught I Battalion’s No. 3 Company in the open, forcing it “to stop halfway up the slope in front of Norrey.” When No. 1 Company attempted to come up on the right flank of No. 3 Company, it too was pinned down by the artillery concentrations. Meanwhile, No. 2 Company had one platoon trapped in a clover pasture, while the other two platoons had managed to secure a position among some houses by the railroad tracks. Realizing that his men were incapable of pressing home the attack without being slaughtered, Krause ordered them to break off. No. 3 Company moved back a short way and dug into “a knee-high grain field.” The other two companies took up positions nearby. Krause reported having lost five men killed and twenty wounded.26 However, as the situation was so confused and the Reginas and I Battalion continued trading bullets throughout the night and into the morning, a reliable casualty count was almost impossible.
Neither Tubb nor the Regina war diarist fully appreciated the strength of the attack thrown against them. Tubb remained convinced he had faced down no more than a single company, while the war diarist blandly noted that a minor counterattack “was repulsed by our troops.”27 A poorly executed attack carried out hastily and without artillery or tank support had resulted in the Reginas stopping a full battalion of about 1,000 Germans cold with only about 250 men. The outcome of the short firefight served as a testimony to the power of well-directed artillery.
At dawn, Lieutenant Colonel Matheson tightened his battalion’s lines, withdrawing ‘B’ Company from Rots and ordering it to dig in astride the Caen-Bayeux highway immediately east of Bretteville, while ‘D’ Company moved across the battalion’s front from la Villeneuve to relieve the Winnipeg carrier company at la Ferme de Cardonville. News of the disaster that had befallen 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade also prompted his superior, Brigadier Harry Foster, to commit part of 7 CIB’s reserve by moving the Canadian Scottish out on his flanks. He sent ‘B’ Company east of Bray to protect the 13th Field Regiment’s gun position from possible attack and a ‘D’ Company platoon to the northwest of Bretteville to fortify la Bergerie Ferme.28 The 13th Field’s gunners had spent a long night providing near constant support to the Reginas, while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye out “for small parties of enemy snipers.”29
Seeing that 7 CIB’s forward position protruded like a butcher’s blade into the German front, the 12th SS were determined to force Foster’s battalions to withdraw. Until another major attack could be mounted, teams of snipers were filtered onto the brigade’s flanks to harry the rear areas. By morning, so many snipers harassed the Canadian Scottish at Secqueville-en-Bessin and the gunners near Bray that the infantry found it impossible “to ferret them out.” Finally, Canadian Scottish commander Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu asked Foster for tank support. The brigadier passed this request to 1st Hussars Lieutenant Colonel Ray Colwell, who dispatched Lieutenant W.A.P. Smith in a reconnaissance squadron Stuart. Unable to spot likely sniper positions with his turret hatch closed, Smith shoved it open and stood up with half his body exposed in order to see better. Instantly, a sniper round struck him in the arm, followed a second later by a bullet that “went through the side of his helmet and came out the top without causing any injury to his head.”30 Smith’s crew rushed the wounded officer back to regimental headquarters at Secqueville, where he refused treatment until he passed on the location of several snipers he had located just before being shot.31 For this and several earlier acts of bravery during the inland advance, Smith was awarded a Military Cross.
Two more Stuarts dashed to where Smith had been wounded, and succeeded in helping the Canadian Scottish carry out a determined sweep of the wheatfields the Germans were using as a route to sneak up on Secqueville. More than thirty snipers were either killed or captured, and thereafter incidents of sniping in the brigade rear areas significantly declined.32
To address the snipers pestering the ‘D’ Company platoon at la Bergerie Ferme, Cabeldu arranged some heavy support. The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa sent No. 5 Platoon with its Vickers machine guns and No. 13 Platoon with its heavy mortars, while the 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery provided ‘E’ Battery and the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery contributed a troop from the 94th Battery. When Captain Harold Gonder of No. 5 Platoon reported to Canadian Scottish commander Cabeldu for instructions, he was told to “build up as strong a redoubt there as you can. Make it impregnable and ready for any attacks during the night or the morning.”33
Born in China to missionary parents, Gonder had lived overseas until his parents returned to Ontario when he was sixteen. He had entered the army during the Depression and worked his way up from the ranks. Prior to the invasion, he completed a stint as Major General Rod Keller’s aide-de-camp. Normally, following such a posting an officer was appointed to headquarters staff, but Gonder had asked instead to return to the Camerons because he felt more at home in the ranks of a combat unit. The machine-gunner set to the task of fortifying the farm in close coordination with Lieutenant Gerry Blanchard of the 62nd’s ‘E’ Battery, whose 17-pounders provided the greatest weight of firepower. Gonder found Blanchard to be “a very easy going, friendly, debonair, Errol Flynn type of fellow. We managed to emplace our guns, so we were well concealed but had an unobstructed field of fire and view ahead of us.” Digging their antitank guns and the Vickers machine guns into firing positions on the edge of a wood immediately west of the farm, the two men agreed that “if enemy tanks should appear [Blanchard] should give first order to fire. This was only logical because machine guns couldn’t do much damage to tanks, whereas an antitank crew—properly trained and with the advantages we en
joyed—could create a great deal of havoc.”34 The guns were positioned so that they had a clear field of fire along an arc swinging from the west to the south in order to cover all potential routes of approach likely to be used by the enemy.
FOSTER, MEANWHILE, was increasingly worried about the Regina Rifles. Tubb’s ‘C’ Company was dangerously isolated in its forward position at Norrey. He urged Matheson to pull it back across the highway into a position to the front of Bretteville. The Regina Rifles commander “protested that he would just have to retake the position later.” Reluctant to override the officer, Foster cautioned him to keep a close watch on the situation and to have an extraction plan in place should it be necessary.35
That Norrey was going to be hit hard was obvious to everyone. Early in the morning, Tubb evacuated its residents to a refugee camp established at Reviers. “Two families pleaded to remain,” Tubb later wrote, “one an elderly couple living in a small, one-room cottage near Company HQ, the other a mother of about 30, with 2 or 3 children in a two-storey brick and stucco house close by. We gave way to both and put together a shelter of sorts to shield them somewhat in case of shelling.”36
As ‘D’ Company marched through Bretteville en route to la Ferme de Cardonville, it picked up a new commander. Major Jack Love had died on D-Day and the company second-in-command, Captain “Hec” Jones, had been wounded in the leg the following day. To fill the senior officer post, Matheson had called Captain Gordon Brown, who for the past year had served as the battalion’s transport officer. Brown was nervous about the change in duty, trying to remember those long-ago training lessons about the ins and outs of running a rifle company. Although most of his men had only two days’ combat experience under their belts, Brown knew they had undoubtedly learned much in those hectic days while he was still “green as grass.” Matheson warned Brown and his colleague, Major Eric Syme, who was taking the helm of ‘B’ Company (Major F.L. Peters having been killed by a mortar round late on June 6), “that the enemy was getting ready to launch an all-out attack to drive us back into the sea.” He said they should expect to be attacked by armour sometime in the evening, but were to “just ignore the tanks. ‘Your job is to stop the infantry that comes with them.’”37