by Mark Zuehlke
It was a dirty night with intermittent rain squalls and thickening low cloud hampering the radar search. Midnight came and went with no contact, but at 0100 on June 9, about twenty miles northwest of Île de Bas, as the ships turned towards their westwards sweep, an echo off Tartar’s port bow was detected at a range of ten miles. Huron and Haida chimed in a few minutes later, with echo reports at 19,000 and 20,000 yards respectively. At 0120 hours, Jones ordered the ships to cease zigzagging and increase speed to twenty-seven knots. There was no question that the echo was a ship bearing eastwards. In short order, radar confirmed four echoes steering a course of 085 degrees at twenty-six knots and six miles off.
Jones ordered a turn to starboard to spread his ships across the enemy’s bearing in a rough formation of line abreast. For 19th Destroyer Division, this put Tartar on one end of a long line with Ashanti off to port, then Huron, and finally Haida. The 20th Division was 20 degrees off the 19th’s starboard quarter, but inexplicably ignored Jones’s order and remained in the traditional British navy line ahead formation in which the ships advanced single file and those behind the leader were thus unable to bring fire to bear directly ahead of the column.17 Suddenly, the moon broke through the clouds to bathe the racing ships in a ghostly white light. Lookouts on both the German ships and those of 19th Division could clearly see the opposing destroyers closing on each other, while 20th Division, two miles to the north, remained undetected by either the enemy’s radar or lookouts.
Standard German destroyer doctrine when faced by attacking surface ships was to immediately fire torpedoes, and then break away to beat a hasty escape while the Allied ships scrambled to avoid the deadly charges. True to form, the Narviks and ZH-1 each fired four torpedoes at 19th Division from a distance of four miles and turned hard to port. But, expecting precisely this move, Jones had ordered his ships into the line abreast pattern in order to allow maximum flexibility for dodging torpedoes without losing the momentum of the charge. The formation also allowed each ship to bring both forward-mounted 4.7-inch gun turrets to bear. Jones’s intention was to force the Germans to stand and fight in a “pell-mell battle” at close range.18
Having gained this opportunity, Jones ordered the four Tribals to open fire, while at the same time quickly shortening the range. Tartar scored four hits on the German flotilla leader’s Z-32 before she turned north and headed unknowingly straight towards 20th Division, at which point Jones shifted his attention to the other three destroyers. Instead of following the route taken by their leader, the other German ships turned 180 degrees to the west. Tartar and Ashanti both brought ZH-1 under fire, registering several hits, while Haida blasted away at Z-24 and Huron at T-24. All the German ships were spewing smoke to screen their movement, so that a thick oily pall hung over the water and the battle quickly degenerated into confusion, with ships blundering about half-blind.
Still advancing line ahead, 20th Division opened fire on Z-32, scoring several hits before Blyskawica veered to starboard instead of towards the German destroyer when it replied with a torpedo launch. With the Polish ship streaming a smokescreen in its wake, the rest of the division followed, losing all contact with the enemy. The 19th Division was left to fight alone—at one-to-one odds.
Z-32 wasted no time taking advantage of the new situation by doubling back in an attempt to regroup the German force and make for the English Channel, but at 0138 hours Tartar wheeled towards her. A brisk engagement ensued, with both ships scoring hits. Three 5.9-inch shells from Z-32 tore into Tartar. The first started a raging fire in front of the foremost funnel, the second sprayed the bridge with splinters, and the third sliced through the foremast, wrecking all the wireless and radar aerials. The bridge was transformed into a slaughterhouse, with four officers killed and thirteen men wounded.
As most of the ship’s crew turned to fighting the fire that threatened Tartar’s survival, Jones ordered the speed cut to six knots and turned the destroyer northwards to escape the wind fanning the blaze. The flotilla commander was out of the battle, forced to concentrate on saving his badly damaged vessel.
Before Z-32 doubled back, Tartar and Ashanti had jointly savaged ZH-1. Several shells punched through the engineering plant, cutting all power so she came to a complete halt. Groping through the dense pall caused by smokescreens and burning ships, Ashanti spotted the stricken vessel off to her port side. Swinging slightly starboard, the British destroyer fired four torpedoes at a range of 1,500 yards. Two struck home, one on the stern and the other the bow. A great explosion ripped the bow off, but still the vessel refused to sink. Circling ZH-1, Ashanti battered her with shells fired at point-blank range, until at 0230 hours the crew took to lifeboats. Below decks, ZH-1 was ablaze, and flames soon appeared on her superstructure. Ashanti ceased fire, and ten minutes later the ship “blew up with a terrific explosion… visible for miles.”19 After dawn, the British 14th Escort Group fished 120 survivors from the sea.
Despite ZH-1’s demise, the battle went on unabated. Haida and Huron gave chase to Z-24 and T-24, now both trying to break contact. Initially, DeWolf aboard Haida concentrated his guns on the faster destroyer. Several hits caused severe damage and many casualties. But when the destroyer’s covering smokescreen rendered accurate shooting impossible, DeWolf ordered the guns shifted to support Huron’s attack on T-24. Through deft manoeuvre, Huron gained an advantageous angle on the German ship and Rayner ordered three torpedoes fired. All missed. After successfully dodging the torpedoes, T-24 turned hard off its southwards line of travel and struck off to the east, plunging into the midst of a British minefield. Obviously a move of desperation, the ploy forced the Canadians to abandon their pursuit due to standing orders prohibiting any entry into Allied minefields. The two ships turned to starboard to clear the field, enabling T-24 to gain a significant lead. When the German ship emerged from the other side of the minefield, it sped at twenty-eight knots towards Brest, with Haida and Huron trying to get back into gun range at a speed of thirty-one knots. With a 19,000-yard lead, the German ship managed to shake radar contact. The two Canadian ships finally abandoned the pursuit at 0215 hours and steamed back towards the rest of the division, looking for the stricken Tartar because Jones had broadcast a signal calling for the flotilla to rally on his position.
At 0227 hours, a ship steaming on a northwesterly heading at slow speed was sighted. DeWolf and Rayner both thought this was Tartar, so Haida flashed an identification light signal. Suspicions raised by an unintelligible reply, DeWolf ordered guns brought to bear on the ship, while issuing a new signals challenge that met the same response. Up to this point, the ship had been converging with the Canadian destroyers, but suddenly it swung southwards while dropping a smoke float to create a covering screen. The chase was on, with all the ships plunging through rough seas at speeds exceeding thirty knots, their decks awash with saltwater.
At 0255 hours, the Canadians had narrowed the distance to 7,000 yards and opened fire with a star shell that illuminated Z-32 running before a thick white smokescreen. Caught in the glare of the illumination round, the German ship swerved eastwards before turning hard again to the south when Haida and Huron opened fire with their main armament. The German ship replied with illumination rounds and shells that kicked up waterspouts near the Canadian ships.20
On Haida, the gun crews responded with rapid salvoes until De-Wolf decided they were wildly inaccurate and ordered the rate of fire slowed to between five and six salvoes a minute. Although neither DeWolf nor Rayner could see whether their fire was accurate, Z-32 was being constantly straddled and taking numerous hits. At 0500 hours, three shells destroyed her forward turret and the port engine sputtered to a halt. Several more hits followed, until finally at 0513 hours, the starboard engine of the ship, now burning from end to end, also died. Her commander ordered the mortally damaged vessel run aground on the rocky shore of Île de Batz.21
Seeing the German ship reduced to a helpless wreck, Haida and Huron turned away to join the rest of the flotilla. T
he German destroyer flotilla no longer posed a threat to the invasion convoys. Z-24 would be weeks in repair yards at Brest, while T-24 was too small to operate alone. The admiralty soon signalled 10th Flotilla with a message of congratulations to the effect that its action against the German destroyers had resulted in “a potential menace to the main operation [being] removed.”
A veritable shower of awards poured down upon the officers and crew of the two Canadian ships. DeWolf, already having won the Distinguished Service Order in a previous engagement, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in the action, while Rayner added a bar to his DSC. Huron’s 1st Lieutenant B.C. Budge and Haida’s Radar and Director Control Officer, Lieutenant C.N. Mawer, received DSCs. Three other Haida officers were Mentioned in Despatches. Six Distinguished Service Medals were awarded to ratings aboard the two ships and a further ten were Mentioned in Despatches.22
Canadian war correspondents rushed to capitalize on the success achieved by Haida and Huron, lionizing the ships and crews in countless stories. It was a welcome turn for the Royal Canadian Navy, which had “spent most of the war toiling in relative obscurity on the harsh North Atlantic.”23
ONE ALLIED UNIT that never had to fear being out of the spotlight was the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron, the renowned Dam Busters. Early in the morning hours of June 8, this squadron had debuted the use of a new type of bomb known as the Tallboy. Weighing 12,000 pounds, the cigar-shaped Tallboy contained 5,600 pounds of Torpex (torpedo explosive). Specially angled fins produced a rapid spin that, combined with a twenty-thousand-foot minimum release altitude, ensured the bomb attained supersonic speed. A Tallboy could penetrate sixteen feet of concrete on impact or bury itself two hundred feet into the earth before its detonators were triggered. A hundred-foot-wide crater would result, with shockwaves rippling out to create a localized earthquake capable of collapsing buildings.
On the night of June 8–9, twenty-five Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron lumbered into the air heavily loaded with ordnance. Eighteen carried a single Tallboy, while the others were each loaded with eight standard 1,000-pound bombs. Their target was the Saumur Railway tunnel and a bridge crossing of the Loire River about 125 miles south of the Normandy battleground. Flying ahead of the bombers were ten Lancasters from 83 Squadron, RAF, equipped with marker flares to be dropped on the tunnel entrances. 617 Squadron had also added three Mosquitos, which were to precede the Lancasters with pinpoint bomb strikes on the tunnel mouths and to also mark these openings with flares. Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire was at the controls of one of these Mosquitos.
Piloting one of the Lancasters armed with a Tallboy was twenty-three-year-old Flying Officer Don Cheney of Ottawa. With more than twenty missions under their belt, Cheney and his crew were typical of the highly experienced Dam Busters, despite only having recently joined the squadron as part of a volunteer draft of veteran crews from other Bomber Command squadrons.
Cheney and the rest of the Dam Busters aloft had been thoroughly briefed on the critical importance of their mission. In the briefing hut, there had been the usual huge curtain-draped map from which the covering was removed only when everyone was settled and ready for the brief to begin. Cheney had noted that the ribbon fastened to the map with push-pins stretched from the base in England to a town in the Loire valley about forty miles west of Tours, and wondered what kind of target they would be attacking.
Cheshire quickly put the men in the picture. Intelligence sources had reported that a German Panzer battalion and other enemy forces, including the 13th SS Panzer Grenadiers Division, were moving by rail towards the Saumur tunnel. They were expected to begin passing through the tunnel on the morning of June 9, with other elements of both units moving by road over the bridge crossing. “We’re going to take those targets out tonight,” Cheshire said. “And if we can do that, we can delay their arrival at the front by weeks. Not just days, but by weeks.”
From the briefing room, the crews had gone to the mess for a traditional pre-operational dinner of bacon and eggs. Then they had waited until the order to board the planes was issued, not long before midnight. When the green flare signalled start engines, Cheney was struck as always during a large raid by the great racket that one hundred Merlin engines winding up at the same time emitted as they coughed, spat, and then roared into life.
On takeoff, one of the Mosquitos had to abort because of a problem with its port engine, but the other planes all got away without incident and the crews settled in for a flight of more than two hours to the target. The two remaining Mosquitos struck first, trying to pitch their bombs into the tunnel openings during a dive from about 3,000 feet to a release altitude of 500 feet. As he pulled away at 0208 hours, Cheshire radioed for the approaching Lancasters to carry out their attack. With the Lancasters strung out in a long line, the bombing continued for thirty-seven minutes. Cheney arrived over the tunnel at 0217. The bombardier reported seeing ten huge explosions close to the target area and two certain Tallboy strikes within fifty yards of the marking flares. Cheney’s Tallboy was released at an altitude of 10,500 feet, and the plane pulled away too rapidly for any of the crew to see whether it struck home.
One of the bombs the bombardier had noted landing virtually on target was the Tallboy dropped by Squadron Leader J.C. “Joe” McCarthy, a fellow Canadian, whose bomb pierced the roof of the tunnel, causing a major collapse. This explosion, combined with the earthquake effect of the other detonating Tallboys, caved in the entire roof, plugging the tunnel with thousands of tons of rock and soil. The bridge, too, was destroyed.24
The Dam Buster raid was only the most critical part of a major operation on the night of June 8–9 aimed against the railway system being used by German forces to move towards the Normandy beaches from southern France. More than 450 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitos from Bomber Command struck railway crossings and vital junctions at Alençon, Fougères, Mayenne, Pontabault, and Rennes with stunning accuracy and a loss of only four aircraft.
[ 14 ]
With Rage and Sorrow
BLOODY TOIL was the order of the day for both the Germans and Allies on June 9, with neither able to gain significant advantage or to wrest control of essential ground from the other. Late the previous day, General Bernard Montgomery had realized that continuing to attempt seizing Caen with frontal attacks was futile. Despite his dislike for altering offensive plans midcourse, there was no alternative. Having established a tactical headquarters for himself in Creully’s ancient castle, Montgomery pondered maps and considered the dispositions of units. “I have decided not to have a lot of casualties by butting up against the place,” he then announced. “So I have ordered Second Army to keep up a good pressure [in front of Caen] and to make its main effort toward Villers-Bocage and Evrecy, and thence southeast toward Falaise.”1
This shifted the impetus of operations from directly north of Caen, where 3rd British Infantry Division and 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had originally been tasked with battering their way head-on into the city, in favour of a flanking attack. Too cautious and shrewd a tactician to believe a single southeast hook could necessarily reach Caen, he decided to simultaneously pass the 51st Highland Division through 6th Airborne Division’s lines east of the River Orne to strike the city from that flank. These two pincers would encircle the city, and when their dagger-like leading edges met, any enemy within the city and environs would be trapped. To ensure that the Germans were prevented from taking flight before the pincers closed on the Falaise plain, Montgomery intended to drop the 1st British Airborne Division in the Odon valley at Noyers and Evrecy to block the obvious escape route.
Montgomery knew he was in a race with his nemesis Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel to develop an offensive plan and be first out of the gate, for surely the German commander was doing precisely the same thing. “If the Germans wish to be offensive and drive in our lodgement area between Caen and Bayeux, the best way to defeat them is to be offensive ourselves and the plan will checkmate
the enemy completely if we can pull it off,” he said.2
The biggest threat to success was the necessary delay before his operation could begin. Although the 7th Armoured Division—tasked with executing the right hook—had landed on D+1, the left-hook force of the 51st Highland Division and supporting 4th Armoured Brigade were still straggling ashore. Landings since D+1 had been severely hampered by the continually worsening maritime conditions created by a series of storm tracks. Montgomery complained that the “bad weather is a great nuisance as what we want now is to be able to take quick advantage of our good position by striking deep before the enemy can build up strength against us.”3 Despite these problems, he hoped to kick off the offensive on June 10.
No sooner was his plan formulated than Allied Expeditionary Air Force commander Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory scotched the airborne drop, scheduled for daylight to avoid the chaos that had plagued the D-Day landings. To adequately protect the planes carrying the airborne division, Leigh-Mallory would have to shift fighters away from the tight protective cap cast over the sea lanes and Normandy beaches to fend off incursions by the Luftwaffe. While the German air force seldom made more than fleeting appearances, Leigh-Mallory refused to take such a risk. It was also true that the air marshal had little stomach for the dangers inherent in dropping lightly armed troops deep in enemy territory, with nothing but the expectation of army generals that a fast-moving armoured division would arrive in time to rescue them from annihilation.
Montgomery considered Leigh-Mallory’s worries baseless, but he also faced opposition from a grave Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who did not like any idea of exposing his precious ships to possible Luftwaffe attack. The airborne troops would hardly be fighting alone, Montgomery insisted, for they would not be dropped until 7th Armoured Division was within reach of Villers-Bocage. Delaying the landings until that moment ensured that artillery regiments would be in range to support the airborne troops. Neither man was swayed by Montgomery’s assurances, and as each was his equal in the power structure of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), he had to reluctantly abandon the airborne feature. “Obviously [Leigh-Mallory] is a gutless bugger who refuses to take a chance and plays for safety on all occasions,” Montgomery fumed. “I have no use for him.”4