Holding Juno
Page 21
“During the crossing of the third field many casualties were suffered. Enemy LMG fire opened up from an orchard on our right flank (about 4 guns)—further fire came from our front (about 2 guns) and fire was experienced coming from our right rear (the row of trees and hedgerow dividing the second and third field).”21 Butters spotted a Panzer Grenadier in a tree blasting away at his men with a light machine gun, rushed the position, and shot the man, whose body plunged to the earth at his feet. But the rate of fire chopping at the platoon barely lessened. All his section leaders were down, either dead or wounded. Not that he needed them to help control the platoon, for only seven of the thirty-seven soldiers who had crossed the start line were still behind him.22
Tutte and his carrier were only about fifteen yards back of the company headquarters group as it moved out into the third field, when Bryden, Kilner, and signaller Private Sinclair “were instantly killed by a mortar bomb landing in their midst. Before I had passed them in the carrier another bomb dropped less than ten feet to my right. I got the dust on the side of my face and a terrific blast. My right ear was deaf for about three hours.”23
A sniper with a light machine gun firing from the hedge behind the battalion concentrated his attention on Tutte, but he hunkered down below the height of the carrier’s low armoured sides and these “turned the slugs away without any trouble. The sniper did manage to get one inside the carrier over my right shoulder, how it ever bounced around as it did inside the small space in the front without hitting me I’ll leave for others to wonder. From there on to the bridge [there was] a lot of noise, smoke and dust, also a terrible ringing in my right ear from the mortar blast. But eventually we reached the bridge. I was only a few feet behind the first few to get there. The road leading to the bridge was a built up road with a drop off on either side, several of the men had taken cover, (the first they’d had) on the right of the road behind a bank facing the railway, so I swung the carrier around sideways and backed it down over the bank to the left of the road. We had reached our objective, now all we had to do was hold it.”24
With MacEwan down and Bryden and Kilner dead, the company’s senior subaltern Lieutenant Peck took over. When the remnants of ‘D’ Company reached the railroad, he quickly got the men digging in. Having managed to reach the objective despite crippling casualties, the lieutenant was determined to meet any German counterattack with extreme violence. Private Campbell and the rest of the mortar platoon meanwhile “set up our mortar out in the open under machine-gun fire. We usually fire at no less than seven hundred yards, but we tore out all the secondary charges from the bombs and were firing at four hundred. We soon ran out of ammunition and were going back for more when Peck came up and told us to let them know there was only twenty-six men left out of the company. What was he to do?”25
FORTUNATELY FOR PECK, ‘D’ Company was not, as the young officer feared, alone. ‘A’ Company had crossed the start line just minutes behind it and was now coming up on the left flank. This company’s passage to Putot had been no less bloody. Stepping across the start line, the men were greeted by “a veritable wall of fire.” With explosions churning up the ground all around, Corporal Bob Mayfield of No. 8 Platoon turned back to his mates with a fierce grin on his face. “Boy, this is going to be one hell of a good scrap,” he shouted.
“That spirit was maintained throughout,” the company’s war diarist recorded soon afterward. “The casualties were naturally heavy, but never a wounded man whimpered, the opposite in fact was the case and time and again badly wounded men had to be ordered back. The air, red and black with flame, shot and shell, was also blue with the imprecations flung at the enemy by the wounded. Sergeant Bob Dickson, badly wounded in the knee, dragged his leg along almost two hundred yards until ordered back. Even then he had to be forcibly detained at the R.A.P. [Regimental Aid Post] after his wound had been dressed and, from then until evacuated, dug slits with other wounded for the most serious cases.”26
‘A’ Company’s platoon leaders suffered exceptionally high casualties during the advance, with Lieutenant Brian Carruthers wounded, along with sergeants Nettleton of No. 7 Platoon and Dickson of No. 8 Platoon. Nettleton’s loss was a particularly heavy blow to the company, as he had been leading No. 7 Platoon with exceptional skill since its commanding officer had been wounded on D-Day. ‘A’ Company’s commander, Major Arthur Plows, however, seemed to be everywhere at once during the assault—dashing back and forth from one platoon to the other to offer direction and chivvy the men onward.27
Private Jack Daubs hunched ever lower as he ran through the hornet storm of tracers buzzing past. Seeing a slit trench with a couple of soldiers in it, Daubs dived in. Noticing their Winnipeg Rifles shoulder patches, he said, “It’s pretty hot, isn’t it?” When neither man replied, the twenty-year-old from London, Ontario looked more closely and realized that both soldiers were dead. Dragging himself out of the trench, Daubs dashed onward to keep up with the rest of the company. Suddenly, he was staggered by something striking his helmet with terrific force and then giving his battle pack a hard yank. Crouching even lower, he paused to check his pack and discovered that a bullet had nicked the helmet and then penetrated the pack, where it had torn the pin off a two-inch mortar smoke bomb before punching a hole through his mess tin. Although the men were supposed to carry rounds for the platoon’s two-inch mortars in pouches on the front of their webbing, Daubs habitually opted to put the two assigned to him into the pack, figuring this was safer than having the explosives draped against his chest. Seeing the damaged smoke round shook him badly because right next to it was a matching high explosive-bomb. Had the bullet struck that, Daubs knew, he “wouldn’t be here anymore.”28
‘A’ Company advanced so fast along a line more directly behind ‘D’ Company than originally planned that its leading platoons overtook Mollison’s platoon and the men became intermixed. This led to Lieutenant Peck thinking his trail platoon had been lost and fearing ‘D’ Company’s situation was direr than was the case. Fortunately for the shaken young officer, Major Plows quickly realized ‘D’ Company’s disorganized state and rather than swinging ‘A’ Company immediately to its objective east of the bridge used his rightward platoon to bolster the other unit’s strength. He also told his second-in-command, Captain W.H.V. Matthews, to consolidate the other two platoons on the objective while he sorted out ‘D’ Company.
When Peck reported that MacEwan had been wounded, Bryden and CSM Kilner killed, and the company almost destroyed in the attack, Plows decided to amalgamate it with his own.29 While Plows tried to bring order to a chaotic situation, some men from the two companies, led by Lance Corporal Stan Kirchin and Corporal Hopkins, dashed across the bridge and established a toehold on the other side. Kirchin was killed moments later by German gunfire. The rest of the tiny force was immediately caught in a fierce firefight with a superior force of well-dug-in Panzer Grenadiers.
The moment Plows heard about this group’s foray across the bridge, he realized that any attempt to reinforce their tenuous toe-hold would only expose the men committed to being “cut off and annihilated.”30 He ordered them to beat a hasty retreat back to the north side of the railroad cutting. He was, however, confident that the cutting’s twenty-foot width made it an excellent front for a defensive position, because it effectively formed a “dry ‘moat’ and was a first-class antitank ditch at the same time.”31
Plows proceeded to walk the length of the two-company defensive line “with magnificent coolness under hellish enemy fire of all kinds… organizing” his positions. “Particularly commendable is the fact that, despite the natural confusion, he bore in mind… that ‘A’ Company would have to leave this place and organized the defence accordingly” so that responsibility for ‘D’ Company’s perimeter could be handed off smoothly once reinforcements were brought forward.32
Captain Matthews later stated that “Plows should have been given a VC [Victoria Cross] for his efforts. His coolness while organizing ‘D’ and
‘A’ companies at the bridge was an inspiration to all. With ‘D’ Company’s headquarters knocked out lieutenants Peck, Mollison and Butters worked strenuously and with complete disregard for their own safety. But it was Major Plows with his cool, calm direction who stabilized the situation.”33
Also showing a great deal of calm under fire was Lieutenant Peck, who mortarman Private Campbell thought “inspired the lesser beings… always walking around and talking to the boys no matter how heavy the fire. He was very English in his speech and the calm, cool way he strolled around and talked you’d have thought he was at a garden party.”34
Shortly after Matthews started organizing the two platoons of ‘A’ Company that he had taken to the unit’s objective, he was rendered senseless by a mortar blast and had to be guided back to the Regimental Aid Post. As there were now no officers other than Plows still functioning, Company Sergeant Major Grimmond took over the company.35
The ferocity of the battle was taking its toll even on the men and officers who were not killed or wounded. For the Canadian Scottish, D-Day had been a comparative walk in the park. Nothing had prepared them for the bloodletting they now endured. By the time he reached the railway bridge, Lieutenant Butters had been “terribly frightened. But I got myself together” and, drawing strength from the indefatigable Plows “who gathered that attack together,” set to getting the men dug into defensible positions.
COMING UP FAST behind the two leading companies at about this time was ‘C’ Company, which had also made a long dash through the gauntlet of German fire. Lieutenant Corry’s No. 15 Platoon had advanced with two sections forward, and the third and the small headquarters section in trail. Corry positioned himself directly between the two forward sections, so that everyone could see him. Soon after the advance was completed, he jotted down some impressions: “Fire beginning to get heavy. Bullets buzzing close. Okay, if you can hear them you’re not hit. How far left to go. 1,000 yards.” The company had reached a small orchard just to the north of Putot and dodged between the trees to gain the southern edge. Here lay another grain field whipped by machine-gun fire and exploding mortar rounds. The 1st Hussars tanks crashed up behind the infantry, shoving apple trees aside that blocked their progress, and started banging off shells towards the German positions, betrayed by their tracer rounds spitting out of their machine-gun barrels.
Convinced that the only way to keep the assault going was to never stop moving, Corry stepped out of the orchard into the field without pause. “Look around,” he wrote. “No platoon. Gone to ground because of the fire. Wish I could do the same. Wave pistol in the direction of the enemy and yell, ‘Come on guys, up the Scottish!’ That gets everyone moving again. Suddenly we’re passing the outskirts of Putot. Pass through an orchard and a hedge. See dead Germans, dead Scottish. See Scottish officer flattened into ground by tank.* Take up position to rear of ‘D’ Company. All hell is breaking loose. Tank, mg, mortar fire coming from everywhere. Can’t tell which side bullets are on. Everyone digs in. Fastest slit trenches made in Normandy.”36
At the bridge over the railway, the remnants of ‘D’ Company, supported by the ‘A’ Company platoon, were fighting desperately to gain control of the north side of the tracks. Private Tutte had been convinced to abandon his carrier when a sniper managed to get more bullets inside the driver’s compartment. “Ducking behind the carrier I could hear a lot of shooting from the other side of the road, so I dashed across… to see if I could do anything over there to help out. Over on the right of the road, behind the bank facing the railway I found about a dozen of our lads all in different stages of mental [distress]. They were heavily engaged with two machine guns, which were sweeping the top of our covering bank. I was able to sneak around the end of the bank and throw five or six shots back to the position of one of the MGs. Though it was quite dark from all the smoke and dust, we could make out their position from the tracer they were using. Evidently ‘Jerry’ likes bright lights, he does use a lot of tracer. I’m not sure that I hit anything or not, but the MG I fired at did cut off for a moment, so I like to think that I knocked off the gunner and made it necessary for someone else to take his place.
“From under the bridge some of the men captured a German and his MG intact and well supplied with ammo. This turned to our own advantage as our… supply of Bren mags was getting perilously short. Soon after this we had to vacate our position in a hurry. A 3-inch
* This was Captain Bryden, who according to some accounts had only been badly wounded until being killed when a 1st Hussars tank ground overtop of him and CSM Kilner.
mortar bomb dropped only a few feet behind us. It so happened that it dug [into the] ground and the ground absorbed the shrapnel.
“From this time on all our fighting was on the left of the bridge and here we put in some heavy exchange of fire till about 2330. During this time I was kept well occupied, walking out wounded, searching dead and wounded as much as 500 yards to the rear and all along our front for extra Bren mags. I made four trips of this kind, each time returning with a dozen or more mags and before going out again helping one or two of our own boys wounded out to the side road and putting them as much under comfort as possible in a shallow ditch behind a hedge.
“About 2330 hours things began to quiet down and we started to dig. Not like we used to do on schemes, what I mean is—We dug. Badgers had nothing on us.”
‘B’ Company and battalion headquarters had by now reached the outskirts of Putot and become entangled in a sharp fight with Panzer Grenadiers evacuating a string of ruined farm buildings. Major Wightman, the battalion’s second-in-command, thought the fight for Putot “was quite hectic. One reason, perhaps, [was that] it was our first major attack and, secondly, it certainly was our very, very first night attack, which always leads to some confusion until after many months of experience.”37
The Panzer Grenadiers finally broke just after midnight and fell back to the other side of the railway, digging in some thousand feet to the south. From here, they kept intermittently exchanging fire with the Canadians throughout the early morning hours of June 9. Strung out along the line of advance stretching from the wood south of la Bergerie Ferme to the bridge crossing the railway west of Putot were many dead and wounded Canadian Scottish, but nobody had time to tally the butcher’s bill. That could wait for morning. For now the urgent task was to reorganize so that the battalion could meet any counterattack thrown at it in the morning and evacuate the wounded from the battleground.
While the Canadian Scottish rifle companies readied their de-fences, the headquarters company and ‘D’ Company of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, which had been holding out on the eastern flank of Putot, withdrew to la Bergerie Ferme—becoming the brigade’s barely combat-capable reserve. In carrying out its hasty and costly counterattack against the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, the Canadian Scottish Regiment had rescued 7 CIB from potential disaster. Had Putot-en-Bessin remained in German hands, the Regina Rifles would have been open to attack from three sides and might have been overrun like the Winnipeg Rifles. That would have effectively eliminated the brigade’s combat effectiveness and exposed the western flank of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to being turned by the 12th SS Panzer Division.
But the brigade’s tenuous hold on the right flank of the division remained imperilled. Even as the gunfire around Putot dwindled to mere harassing fire, the sound of heavy fighting suddenly erupted from the direction of Norrey-en-Bessin and Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse. Here, the Regina Rifles had been struck yet again by a 12th SS onslaught. This time, however, the fanatical young Panzer Grenadiers were attacking alongside armoured monsters—the division’s Panther Mark V tanks.
[ 12 ]
Fight to the Death
GENERALFELDMARSCHALL Erwin Rommel had decided during the afternoon of June 8 that a massed attack by the three Panzer divisions across a solid front was strategically impracticable. Instead, he ordered Panzer Lehr commander Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein to abandon the advanc
e immediately west of the 12th SS Panzer Division and concentrate before Tilly-sur-Seulles in order to recapture Bayeux. The 12th SS would, meanwhile, seize the vital ground held by 3rd Canadian Infantry Division that prevented its 25th and 26th Panzer Grenadier regiments from linking up. Standartenführer Kurt Meyer’s 25th Regiment had troops in Franqueville and Authie while Wilhelm Mohnke’s 26th Regiment had no units east of St. Mauvieu. For the 12th SS to renew its drive north to Juno Beach, it must gain control of Norrey-en-Bessin, Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse, and Rots. Once these towns were returned to German control, the division could use the Caen-Bayeux railway as a starting point for punching through to Juno.
Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, 12th SS Panzer Division’s commander, arrived at the Abbaye d’Ardenne with personal instructions for Meyer. While Mohnke seized Norrey, Meyer was to strike from the east against the Canadians in Rots and Bretteville. By punching into the lines of the Regina Rifles from both flanks, Witt hoped to smash the Canadian battalion. Meyer’s regiment would be bolstered by the 12th Panzer Regiment’s I Battalion. In addition to these forty or so Panthers, Meyer would also have at his disposal the Wespe Battery’s 105-millimetre self-propelled guns. This would be a blitzkrieg night assault reminiscent of many such actions Meyer and Witt had successfully mounted on the Russian front. Meyer expected to take the Reginas by surprise at about 2200 hours and annihilate them.1
Shortly after this discussion, two SS troopers marched seven North Nova Scotia Highlanders into the compound and reported to Meyer that they had caught the men between Authie and Buron. Meyer turned angrily. “What should we do with these prisoners? They only eat up our rations.” After whispering some instructions to an officer standing nearby, Meyer loudly declared, “In the future no more prisoners are to be taken!”