by Mark Zuehlke
The hasty attack on Brouay by III Battalion was thrown back, but only thanks to the firepower provided by ‘F’ Battery of the 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment, which caught the German infantry by surprise. Several of Battershill’s men, however, were lost as prisoners when one section was overrun. The lieutenant reported by wireless to Meldram in the mid-afternoon that his “flank protection group remained intact” and in possession of Brouay, but was completely isolated from the rest of the battalion.19
At about the same time as Battershill was making his report, Hodge realized the rest of ‘A’ Company was surrounded and decided their only chance for survival was to break out towards Brouay by moving westwards inside the cover of the railway cutting. But just as ‘A’ Company fought through to the cutting, II Battalion’s No. 6 Company launched a counterthrust supported by several self-propelled guns and armoured half-tracks that collided head-on with Hodge’s men. Ammunition exhausted, hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, the major decided only one option remained. “Lay down your arms and come in here,” he shouted to his still desperately resisting soldiers. As most reluctantly moved to obey, Corporal Hank Grant of No. 9 Platoon “took off, along with a few others. I didn’t go there to surrender that easy.” Grant managed to dash through to ‘B’ Company’s position, and seeing things were collapsing there as well, kept going right back to battalion headquarters.20
‘C’ Company’s perimeter was also falling apart. Rifleman Smellie could hear No. 15 Platoon’s Lieutenant Lew McQueen trying to raise Major Jimmy Jones on the wireless without success. Finally, Mc-Queen sent a runner to try to get instructions. It took the man thirty minutes to return with news that the headquarters was abandoned. Jones and his men had apparently mounted the wireless in the company jeep and attempted to reach the forward platoons, but now there was no sign of them anywhere.
On No. 15 Platoon’s flank, No. 13 Platoon “appeared to be overrun and without radio communications, we could not call down either mortar or artillery fire to support us. Lew McQueen ordered us to pull back to the hedgerow behind the orchard, at which time, we were to throw out some smoke bombs and make our way out by ourselves if we could. I fired about six magazines with the Bren by which time the barrel was nearly red hot. We threw out the smoke bombs and ran for our lives.”21
Smellie reached the hedgerow, and along with a few others from the platoon crept eastwards. Reaching a point where the hedgerow butted up against a road, Smellie glanced out to see if they could dash across to the opposite hedgerow. He found himself “peering down the barrel of a heavy machine gun, which the Germans were just in the process of activating. We turned around and raced down the hedgerow till we came to the stone wall around a farmyard. It was obvious we would have to cross the road there if we wanted to get out of the orchard. McQueen told us to dash across in very small groups. The group I was with all made it. I never saw Lew McQueen again.”22 The popular twenty-four-year-old officer from Winnipeg was killed covering his men’s escape.
Once ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies were overrun, the Panzer Grenadiers directed their full fury against ‘B’ Company, which was dug into an orchard. Company Sergeant Major Charles Belton, Lieutenant Don James, and Lieutenant Andrew Beiber formed a circle “wondering what to do as we were outnumbered, and we knew if this was to continue, we were going to be pushed right back to the beach again.”23 Some men from ‘C’ Company filtered into the position, including Lieutenant Douglas “Duke” Glasgow, a good friend of James. The two lieutenants had just crouched in a slit trench together when a German half-track burst into the perimeter with its heavy machine gun shrieking.
Those who could fled, but James, Glasgow, and a number of other men were forced to surrender. The Panzer Grenadiers quickly separated the officers from the men and then sent the other rankers marching up the road towards le Mesnil-Patry, while a soldier armed with a Schmeisser put James and Glasgow under guard. From the orchard, James watched the men marching up the road as a German fighter plane roared overhead, then cut a sharp turn that brought it back on a converging line of flight, and strafed the men with its machine guns. Several men were wounded, including Rifleman Albert Cook, who had his leg so badly shattered by a bullet that it had to be amputated.
The injured were piled onto a half-track and driven off for treatment. Then the rest of the prisoners were marched up the road. James had a sense of foreboding as he watched the way the Germans were acting and feared “something peculiar was going to happen down the road… because… they assembled several of our men together and made them sit down.” His fears were confirmed when the young Nazis “proceeded to shoot them.”24
WHILE THIS ATROCITY was unfolding, Company Sergeant Major Belton made to escape by taking the controls of the company’s Bren carrier, a vehicle he had never before driven. When the half-track and other German troops broke into the orchard, he realized they were surrounded and also “that our Brigade HQ had no idea what was going on up forward because the Germans had infiltrated our lines and cut all our communications. I got the foolish idea I should jump in this carrier and see what I could do.”25
Unable to figure out how to work the gearshift, Belton drove off “amid a deadly hail of fire… in low gear, the engine screaming, [at] about four miles an hour.”26 Heading along a road leading towards an intersection with the Caen-Bayeux highway, Belton kept trying to get the clutch and shifter working in concert, while looking nervously at an approaching grade that climbed sharply to the intersection. Just in time to prevent the carrier from stalling out, he forced the shifter into high gear and the vehicle lurched forward at rapidly increasing speed. As he roared into the intersection, Belton saw “two German SPs (self-propelled guns) sitting with their guns traversed in the opposite direction… I went through there so fast, and because their guns were hand traversed and couldn’t swing back fast enough, I got through. They did get a couple of shots in that hit the dirt around me. I was going through a kind of cut bank and… this dirt [was] flying around and getting into the carrier, but I got away somehow.”27
Belton drove straight to 7 CIB headquarters at Secqueville-en-Bessin, where he briefed a major standing at the gate of brigade headquarters. The CSM pulled out his map and drew exact positions of the three companies that had been eliminated. Belton said he was certain that not only his ‘B’ Company had been overrun, but that ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies had also been wiped out. When the major ran out of questions, Belton fired up the carrier again and headed back towards where the Winnipeg Rifles still held part of Putot, despite having lost almost three-quarters of their strength.28 Major Lochie Fulton’s ‘D’ Company and the Support Company were essentially all that remained of the battalion in terms of a coherent fighting force. Repeatedly, the Germans attempted to infiltrate and overrun Fulton’s lines and were thrown back each time with heavy losses.
Then ‘B’ Company’s reserve platoon, which had fallen back when the rest of the unit was overrun, crept out of the grain next to battalion headquarters, with Lieutenant Andy Beiber leading, and added its strength to the little battle group. With no wireless link to brigade and no idea of the fate of most of his men, Meldram clung to the hope that Brigadier Harry Foster would realize how dire circumstances were and send reinforcements.
In a slit trench nearby, Corporal G.V. McQueen of the headquarters section was worrying about his brother Lieutenant Lew Mc-Queen, whose ‘C’ Company was no longer in wireless communication with battalion headquarters. It was Lew’s twenty-fourth birthday and he had not had the chance to extend any good wishes. Now he worried that his older brother might be dead out there somewhere. “Lots of lead seemed to be flying around,” he later wrote. “I decided that if it got to hand-to-hand fighting, I would need some movement. I decided to get rid of my small pack and webbing. I tied a bandolier of ammo around my waist, fixed my bayonet on the rifle, and started to crawl along the ditch. Who do I meet crawling toward me? My pal Tanner. We shook hands and I said: ‘Tanner, if anything happens to me, tell Norma
I didn’t know what hit me.’ He said: ‘G.V., you tell the girlfriend the same thing.’” The two men huddled in the ditch and anxiously watched their front, sides, and rear, because they had no idea where the Germans might be.
All around Putot, men were being taken prisoner or attempting to evade that fate. Some were rounded up, only to have an opportunity to make a break for it. Lieutenants James and Glasgow had been loaded into a half-track, but when it struck a land mine they used the explosion to take flight. Dashing to a slit trench, the two men jumped in to find Lieutenant Basil Brown lying at the bottom practically dead from a terrible wound in his back. Also in the slit trench was a Panzer Grenadier with a Schmeisser, who immediately covered them. Suddenly, a heavy concentration of artillery slammed down around them and the young German jumped up and fled in terror.
Seeing there was nothing they could do for Brown, the men moved on, but were soon fired on by another Schmeisser-toting German as they approached an orchard outside Putot. A slug punched into the right side of James’s jaw line and ripped out the other side. Blood was pumping from the wound as Glasgow dressed it as best he could with a field dressing. Then he stuck a finger into the wound to try stemming the bleeding and managed to find the point where an artery or vein had been punctured. Pressing down on it, Glasgow managed to prevent James bleeding to death and ignored his friend’s pleas to leave him to die.
The pair were lying in a two-foot-high stand of wheat. Glasgow kept assuring James they would be all right, that the Germans would never find them there. Eventually, a half-track rumbled up and put paid to this tale as the two men were again taken prisoner. There were three Panzer Grenadiers aboard—a driver, a gunner, and a radio operator. James thought the Germans would take them to the rear, but instead the half-track headed towards Putot only to blow up on a mine that killed the gunner and radio operator. Another half-track quickly appeared and picked up the two Canadians and the surviving German. This time, the vehicle drove into the German lines to a place called Château d’Audrieu—a fine estate tucked into a small forest south of the village of Audrieu. James and Glasgow were escorted to a medical aid post inside the château compound, where the medical officer was astonished that Glasgow had “managed to contact the right place with my finger and save [James’s] life.”29 Glasgow was marched off to join the uninjured prisoners, while James joined the wounded Germans in the aid post. Both men would spend the rest of the war in captivity.
AS HAD BEEN THE CASE with the 12th SS troops who had earlier overrun the North Nova Scotia Highlanders at Authie and Buron, some Panzer Grenadiers of II Battalion proved cold-blooded captors. During the action, the Winnipeg Rifles lost 256 men, of whom at least 175 were taken captive.30 The majority of the prisoners were from ‘A’ company. Treatment varied wildly, seemingly dependent on the whim of the SS officers who held their fate.
Most of the Canadians were gathered into a large group at Putot, numbering about one hundred and guarded by a section of Feldgendarmerie, or field police. They were then marched about four miles to the 26th Panzer Grenadier regimental headquarters at le Hautdu-Bosq, a cluster of houses on a rise of ground south of the village of Cheux. Another forty were initially crammed into a stable at Putot before being moved to II Battalion’s headquarters at le Mesnil-Patry and housed in the barn of a Norman farmer, George Moulin. Acting under direct orders from Siebken, the SS troops guarding these men provided water and first aid treatment to the wounded.31 Another party of twenty-four Canadians from ‘A’ Company and two 50th British Infantry Division soldiers was initially guarded by troops from the 26th Panzer Grenadier’s III Battalion, who marched their captives towards their headquarters near Cristot. When they encountered a 12th Reconnaissance Battalion patrol at a crossroads along the way, their custodians passed the prisoners into its hands. The patrol escorted the prisoners to that unit’s headquarters at the Château d’Audrieu.
Having arrived only about two hours ahead of the party escorting the Canadian prisoners, Major Gerhard Bremer had established his command post behind the large château, under the cooling shade of a huge sycamore tree. A fanatical Nazi who had joined the SS at age nineteen, Bremer was a highly decorated veteran of the invasions of Poland, France, and Russia.
Shortly after the Canadians entered the compound at about 1400 hours, Bremer summoned Major Hodge, Lance Corporal Austin Fuller, and Rifleman Frederick Smith for interrogation. Under the sycamore’s low-hanging branches, Bremer grilled the men for about fifteen minutes in flawless English without apparent success before angrily ordering the three men killed. Four SS troopers, including a lieutenant and a sergeant, escorted Hodge and the two other men into the woods and gunned them down. While this firing squad carried out its cruel work, Bremer more cursorily interrogated three more Canadians—riflemen David Gold, James McIntosh, and William Thomas. Frustrated at his inability to gain more than name, rank, and serial number, Bremer ordered the just returned firing squad detail to execute these men also. The three soldiers were ordered to lie on their stomachs with heads propped up on their arms and then were shot repeatedly in the back of the skull. Upon returning from this killing, the firing squad paused at the château kitchen for a quick snack washed down with apple cider.
Realizing he was unlikely to pry useful information from the Canadians, Bremer ordered the remaining prisoners placed under heavy guard in an orchard next to the château. At some point in the long, terrifying afternoon these prisoners endured, seven—including the two British soldiers—were marched into the woods and shot in the head, face, and chest at close range with small-calibre weapons. At 1603 hours, Bremer and several other officers strolled into the orchard and ordered the guards to bully the remaining thirteen men, all Royal Winnipeg Rifles, into a ragged line. Among the Canadians were two brothers, George and Frank Meakin. When the SS soldiers opened up on the helpless prisoners with rifles, machine pistols, and handguns, George Meakin stepped in front of his brother to shield the man’s body with his own. Consequently unwounded, Lance Corporal Frank Meakin along with Rifleman Steve Slywchuk feigned being dead, but were both shot in the skull at close range by an officer who meticulously checked each body for signs of life. Two French farmers, Leon Leseigneur and Eugese Buchart, who were walking past the orchard on a nearby road, witnessed the execution of these thirteen Canadians.32
While Bremer and his men slaughtered their prisoners, Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke was growing increasingly impatient with II Battalion commander Siebken’s insistence on sending prisoners to the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment’s headquarters. After about a hundred Canadians were escorted into the village, Mohnke demanded that no more be sent back. Stunned, Siebken interpreted this instruction as meaning that prisoners were to be shot upon capture. The officer announced with carefully phrased formality that he would send prisoners to the rear despite Mohnke’s instruction. At about 2100 hours, he accordingly dispatched the forty men gathered in the Moulin barn towards le Haut-du-Bosq under a mixed guard of about eight Feldgendarmerie and SS troops.
About a mile and a half before le Haut-du-Bosq, this party was intercepted by a staff car bearing a high-ranking SS officer, who was overheard by a German-speaking Canadian to demand that the prisoners be eliminated. Soon after his departure, the prisoners were ordered off the road into a field and “bunched together in several rows, with the stretcher cases in the middle” while a convoy of tanks and half-tracks passed. As the last half-track rolled by, it abruptly turned into the field. Several SS soldiers jumped out and handed submachine guns to the prison detail in exchange for their rifles. When everyone was fully armed with automatic weapons, the guards and troops from the half-track advanced on the Canadians sitting on the ground. Realizing the inevitability of what was about to happen, Lieutenant Reg Barker of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment said in a calm, clear voice, “Whoever is left after they fire the first round, go to the left.”
The Germans stomped to a halt thirty yards from the Canadians and one shouted in heavily accented Englis
h, “Now you die.” Renewing their advance, the SS soldiers fired a fusillade of bullets from the hip that ripped into the still seated men. Most were either wounded or killed as the Germans burned off their first magazine of ammunition. As the SS troops calmly reloaded and moved in among the dead and dying to finish off any survivors, several men in the back row, who had been either only lightly wounded or unscathed, made a break for it. Only five managed to escape into the gathering night, the others gunned down and murdered with the rest. Those who escaped were Corporal Hector McLean, riflemen Gordon Ferris, John MacDougall, and Arthur Desjarlais of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and Gunner Weldon Clark of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment. All were captured by other German units and imprisoned until war’s end.33
While the identity of the SS officer in the staff car was never confirmed, McLean later described him in a way that bore a remarkable likeness to Mohnke. And there was no doubt that the unstable commander was out looking for blood on the night of June 8–9. Upon learning that three more Canadians had been rounded up at Siebken’s headquarters, Mohnke demanded by phone that they be shot immediately. Siebken refused and a bitter argument ensued, during which Mohnke accused the II Battalion commander of insubordination. The moment Mohnke hung up, Siebken called 12th SS divisional headquarters and reported the matter to Major Hubert Meyer. The division’s chief-of-staff assured him there was no standing order to murder prisoners. In fact, he said, prisoners were valuable sources of information and as many as possible should be captured and treated in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention.