Yeomen of England

by Ken Tout

  Jock was evacuated by air to Gloucester and spent three weeks in a burns unit. He learned later that a Panther tank had hidden in the hedges while the Shermans went by. Four NY tanks were burned out but Trooper Harry Graham knocked out two Panthers, the first such success for 1NY, although the area of La Taille farm remained a no-man’s-land. Later, Captain Bill Fox went out to check on the lost tanks. He knew that Stan Hicken’s friend Bill Rawlins had been killed and asked if Stan would like to drive the jeep. To their surprise, near Jock Troup’s tank the Germans had buried the NY dead with military honours, a cross at the head of each grave. One of the Germans had scrawled in charcoal on Bill Rawlins’ tank a German phrase meaning simply ‘You didn’t have a chance’.

  The Yeomanry lads were still only learning the full horror of fighting in the Sherman tank, to which the Germans had given the name of the ‘Tommy Cooker’ because of its tendency to explode into fire, especially if hit in the engine with its 150 gallons of high-octane fuel. The crew might be lucky to have as much as the seven seconds that Jock Troup had heard mentioned. A tank could burn for hours, melting the armoured steel and glowing a golden orange like a monstrous incandescent electric bulb. Trooper Les ‘Spud’ Taylor never forgot the day when, merely inquisitive, he had first peered inside a knocked-out tank near the beaches:

  The AP shot had penetrated the left side of the turret. I climbed up to have a look in the turret. The stench was indescribable. I saw the loader-operator, his hands frozen in the act of feeding a belt of ammo into his machine-gun, his head resting sideways on his arm. The appalling thing was, the body was as black as coal from an advanced state of decay. The gunner was just a shapeless mass of decomposition on the turret floor. But the most horrific sight of all was the crew commander. The projectile on entry had decapitated the poor man. His body lay on the floor but the head, as if on display, rested upside down on a ledge, the lower jaw shot away. I was overcome by nausea.

  The 2NY’s travail around Cheux was not at an end and the Yeomen were to learn salutary lessons. On the instructions of 4th Armoured Brigade of 11th Armoured Division, two squadrons were sent forward in the late evening and night of 29/30 June to support infantry thought to have been isolated in the Bocage. They had no night sights or experience of night fighting. They managed to penetrate the general area of tiny fields indicated and on the way they were shot at more than once by British units on their flanks as their Cromwell tanks were not yet familiar to other units. In the confusion they were virtually surrounded and attacked by heavier German tanks as well as infantry. Requests to brigade for permission to retire were refused. By the roll call next morning more than half a squadron was ‘missing’ and that meant fifty personnel, including the squadron leader, Major Bobby Peel, second-in-command Captain Haig Edgar and three lieutenants. A German prisoner taken in the confusion stated that the enemy were able to sight their guns on the exhaust backfires and gun flashes of the Cromwell guns, whereas the lesser flashes of the German guns gave the Yeomen few targets to aim at with their virtually blind gun telescopes. It was not the last time that the troopers might have regretted being the recce unit of the ‘Charging Bull’ division.2

  By Normandy standards the NY losses were minor incidents, while another Yeomanry regiment, 4th County of London (4CLY), suffered a much more severe blow. It advanced into the path of the German army’s elite Tiger tank company commanded by leading ‘tank ace’ Major Michael Wittmann, veteran of Russia and the Balkans. The 4CLY were now to bear the brunt of the British Army’s learning experience and planning failures. Perhaps the pivotal town on the British front next in importance to Caen was Villers-Bocage, and the 7th Armoured Division had driven well ahead in an attempt to capture this objective. Almost as though on an exercise, the leading armour of the division had reached their point on the map and halted ready for future dispositions. Just then Wittmann in his tank, reconnoitring ahead as was his wont, came round a bend in the road and, with practised precision ran his single Tiger past the waiting British tanks, his great 88mm gun knocking out more than twenty vehicles; his massive front plating impervious to any 4CLY guns, even had there been opportunity for the gunners to respond. Wittmann then drove into Villers-Bocage and a battle ensued. Wittmann’s own tank was temporarily knocked out, but he survived for another Yeomanry regiment to exact vengeance later on. The drive to take Villers-Bocage withered away for the time being, and 4CLY were later amalgamated with 3CLY to continue fighting in Normandy. Meanwhile, as General Montomery’s first-day intentions lengthened into a month, Caen still remained an impediment to the British advance.

  By D-Day +30 1NY had endured weeks of ‘fire brigade’ activity, moving from one counterattack position to another to reinforce the infantry. Now the Northants troopers, advancing with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and the Royal Ulster Rifles through Lebissey Woods, became spectators at a unique air display. Over their head thundered wave after wave of heavy bombers, not just dozens but hundreds in strict formation. A curtain of anti-aircraft fire rose up around Caen 2 miles away. As bombs began to drop the curtain diminished, sagged and disappeared. Bombs continued to drop. Tanks shuddered and bounced on their springs from the effects of the blasts; deafened Yeomen and infantrymen watched, waved, cheered. Surely nobody could survive such an onslaught? (Sadly thousands of French civilians failed to survive. Most of the German troops had quietly retreated.)

  Arriving on the heights overlooking the Orne River outside Caen, a strange thing happened. C Squadron was ordered to shoot at a distant factory at Colombelles, so nineteen tanks lined up and fired at high chimneys, suspected of being observation points. Gunner Ron West obeyed when his commander ordered ‘Cease fire!’, but knowing that there was no problem with his gun, Ron queried the order. The sergeant replied, ‘I don’t believe in this war business. I am declaring peace!’ and promptly fainted. The perplexed trooper squeezed out of the turret past the limp commander. At that moment RSM Jelley and Captain Fox with two lorries were coming along the line of tanks, throwing replacement ammunition up to loaders. They immediately called the medical half-track and the sergeant was whisked away down the evacuation route to be attended by psychiatrists. The attitude towards genuine cases of battle shock was much more enlightened than in the ‘shot at dawn’ days of earlier wars.

  With their ears still ringing from the bomber raid and the intense barrage fired at the factory, 3 Baker, Stan Hicken’s tank commanded by former school teacher Corporal Ken Snowdon, was ordered to lead 3 Troop down the main road into Caen as night fell, on an exploratory mission. As Stan followed the main road from the coast into Caen the tarmac disappeared at the point where the streets should have started. Instead there was a vast moonscape of mountainous rubble and vast gorges in the earth – the visiting card of the RAF. Stan began to drive carefully over what might have been a tank-proving ground at Bovington camp:

  There were two of our reconnaissance tanks in flames on the left that had tried to travel that way before us. We plodded on and suddenly descended into a huge bomb crater or series of craters. The steep angle that we went down caused a Sten gun to slip off the top of the wireless and hit the operator, Tommy Tucker, on the head. Ken Snowdon managed to climb up the crater side to see what was happening and liaise with [Lieutenant] Bobby McColl and the Ulsters’ officer. Our gunner, Ken Tout, stood on the tank turret but he couldn’t see over the edge of the crater. The order came ‘Pull back’. As we had come down on a fairly straight line I decided to rev up as much as I could and reverse straight out, not veering to left or right or we would have rolled over. Next morning Hank Bevan came along to us and said, ‘Congratulations, you got the first tank into Caen! You will be able to tell your grandchildren that.’ 20 year old Tommy replied ‘I haven’t got any grandchildren, sir.’ To which the Major responded ‘You carry on the way you do and you’ll have 500’. Full marks to Hank.

  NY Recce Sergeant Kenny Jack MM had managed to climb, scramble and stumble over the rubble, partly on foot and partly on
knees, and reported back confirming 3 Baker’s verdict that there was no passage for vehicles, not even for bulldozers, into the centre of Caen. This would have fatal consequences on 2NY, 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, 4CLY and many others. Unable to progress through Caen, British armour would now have to swing north and east about, and then turn west across the wide level Caen plain under the shadow of the next obstacle on the road to Paris, the long gentle Bourguebus Ridge, perhaps the most deceiving feature in Normandy when compared to steep, sharp hills like Mont Pincon. The straight main road to Falaise rose gradually up the low ridge with no ominous sign of impending disaster. But from any point on the ridge the defender could look down on all that moved below. Lethal German 88mm and improved 75mm guns dominated the scene across which massed, inadequately armoured British and Canadian forces must move.

  In 18 July Montgomery launched those forces in Operation Goodwood, later named ‘the Death Ride of the armoured divisions’. The Scottish Yeomen of the F&F, with the 23rd Hussars and 2RTR formed the spearhead and suffered huge casualties. The high commanders had failed to provide sufficient infantry ‘up front’ to assist the tanks in locations where only infantry could make progress. The 2NY with adequate infantry of the Herefords and Monmouths cleared two villages with minimal casualties, but the infantry could not keep up with the tanks. The 2NY also entered the death ride, as did the Guards and the 7th Armoured Division (Desert Rats), yet more tanks beneath the muzzles of the enemy guns. It was the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ on a much vaster scale. Typical of the front units, 2NY lost forty-seven out of sixty-two tanks but remarkably, within two days, had been brought back up to strength by replacement tanks and reinforcement crews. Trooper W.R. ‘Bill’ Moseley saw what had happened to the first attacks as 2NY, moving on from its first successful Goodwood action in Cuverville and Demouville, caught up with the spearhead:

  What a sight met our eyes: our periscopes revealed that the whole area was strewn with the smoke-blackened carcases of the 29th Brigade’s Sherman tanks … some with their turrets blown off; others still ‘brewing’ with gouts of orange flame shooting skywards from hatches as ammunition exploded; dead bodies hanging from escape hatches at grotesque angles: dismounted crews trying to rescue wounded comrades; others attempting to mend broken tracks; all amid the swirling black smoke from burning fuel. As the flashes of mortar bombs raining down lit up the smoke it was a scene from Dante’s INFERNO bought to life.3

  Moseley’s spectator amazement did not last long before his own squadron was engulfed in anti-tank fire. The flat area was dominated by a high railway embankment, on one side of which tanks were relatively safe but hampered as to advance. The other side was the killing ground. Moseley’s commander, Dougie, ordered the tank to follow others through a railway arch:

  No sooner had we emerged than we were under heavy fire from an orchard. These were ANGRY MEN and they were firing at US. Dougie ordered me to plaster the orchard with HE. But the tank SHUDDERED to a stop. Engine dead. Dougie yelled ‘Bale out!’ I took a flying leap out and landed among the others who were flat on their faces. Our turret belched fire. We made a dash for Sgt Tite’s tank. I perched on the track guard. Next thing I knew – a frightening THUD and a shower of sparks engulfed my feet. An AP shot had ploughed through the armour plate, shattering the idler wheel, missing the co-driver and my feet by inches. We were both burned by the heat as the shot sheared through metal. Another thud and the cry ‘Bale out!’ And like ‘bats out of hell’ we were running for cover as MG bullets zipped around us, kicking up the dust. We were sniped and mortared all the way.

  Amid it all there was a moment of black humour. As they trudged back beyond the embankment a commander from a non-Yeomanry unit saw their badges and shouted, ‘What up, mates? Lost your effing horses?’ Driver Albert drew his pistol, aimed it at the commander, shouting, ‘Cheeky bastard, I’ll effing do you!’, before Dougie and Bill wrestled Albert’s pistol from him. Fitter Sergeant Sid Jones, following the tanks in his half-track, later assumed that the German commander had coolly watched fourteen tanks of the squadron pass through the railway arch and then, seeing Sid’s half-track at the tail, calculated that it was a complete unit and opened fire to eliminate most of the tanks. Sid had watched the first tank pass through the arch:

  It halted, waited a while. There were no shots at us or by us. The remainder of B squadron then moved through, near Soliers on the Bray road. My carrier had moved 50 yards out of the arch when all hell broke loose. I then gave my driver orders to turn round and make for the safe side of the embankment. We fitters then dismounted and went to see to the wounded. One had facial injuries, his top lip was gone and he was bleeding profusely, his clothing and hair soaked with blood. We did not know what to do to stop it. We put masses of shell dressing over his face but the floor of the half-track was covered with blood. We took a load of wounded back to the field ambulances. Later we found it was the major with his face bleeding, so blooded that we did not recognise him or see his rank badges. Going back we found one tank apparently serviceable. There was a body lying on the engine cover. It had been decapitated. We identified it as Trooper Niblock. We put the headless body in a blanket and buried him in the soft earth of the embankment.

  Approximately half of the tanks involved in Operation Goodwood were knocked out. Bill Moseley described some of those as ‘burning an orange colour through the night’. Some of the tanks could be recovered, but the enemy still sat up along most of the slopes of the Bourguebus Ridge in spite of Montgomery’s premature claim that a complete breakthrough towards Falaise had been achieved. A Yeomanry troop of 4CLY, led by Lieutenant John Cloudsley-Thompson, achieved the farthest thrust forward across the main Caen-Falaise road. However, a Canadian artillery barrage was due to fall on them and so they were withdrawn. As they did so, fellow tank soldiers were amazed to see Firefly gunner Bob Moore hit and destroy an enemy tank at the incredible range for a tank gun of 2,300 yards, the Firefly gun proving better than the feared Tiger’s 88mm. On 20 July a massive storm and subsequent floods brought Operation Goodwood to an end.

  The problem of the Bourguebus Ridge was handed to a Canadian, Lieutenant General Guy Simonds. The British 51st Highland Division and the 33rd Armoured Brigade were put under the orders of his Canadian corps, which had suffered heavy losses in the earlier fighting. Having studied the failures of Goodwood, Simonds made some original decisions: he would attack by night, he would drive straight through the German defences with armoured columns and he would put infantry well up with the armour by producing armoured infantry carriers. The lead divisional commander of Goodwood, Major General Roberts, had wanted to do something similar but higher authority vetoed the idea. And there were no carriers available in early August 1944, although the tank founders had been experimenting with armoured carriers in 1917. Simonds simply borrowed seventy-six self-propelled guns from the Americans and, within five days, had the guns taken out, the gaps filled in and thus produced carriers able to carry a section of infantry in each. The carriers soon obtained the name of Kangaroos. The entire operation was to be called ‘Totalize’.

  What that meant to Ray Ager and his mates on Captain Tom Boardman’s tank of A Squadron, 1NY, was that they were told to make themselves scarce, go to the NAAFI canteen which had appeared near them and not come back until sent for. Strange signallers took over the tank. On return Ray and the others found all kinds of new gadgets fitted into the tank, in order to help Tom Boardman navigate in the dark across open country. There would be seven armoured columns, the tanks lined up in rows of four, the lead infantry Kangaroos a few rows back behind the tanks and minesweeping ‘Crabs’. The three British tank colonels were allowed to form their columns as they considered fit: Lieutenant Colonel Doug Forster placed Tom Boardman ahead as a lead navigator with Captain Ken Todd as second navigator; in 144 RAC the colonel chose to lead with three light ‘Honey’ tanks; while the four Canadian columns also had slightly different formations.

  At 11 p.m. on 7 August anot
her massed RAF raid took place, aiming to seal off the flanks of the Night March. Although their targets were only 800 yards from the left files of 1NY, not a bomb fell on the tanks in a magnificent display of air navigation and bomb aiming. At 11.30 p.m. the amour rolled away with orders not to stop but ‘bash on’. Drivers followed the red tail lights of the tanks in front of them. Coloured shells were fired overhead in the general direction of the objective 5 miles away. There was inevitably some chaos and confusion in a style of attack for which training in the UK had not been provided, and the planned rehearsals required by Simonds had been cut short by an impatient Montgomery. Lieutenant A.R. Burn, commanding a Lothian and Border Yeomanry ‘Crab’, was astonished to see the four vehicles ahead of him in thick mist ‘divide themselves conveniently driving to the four winds, N.S.E. and W., and were never seen again’, leaving Burn with the problem of finding another red tail light to follow. Just behind Boardman and Todd, Trooper Derek Roberts heard some of the problems in his earphones:

  Suddenly radio silence was shattered. It was a voice of some authority trying to contact the two front tanks. He failed to make contact and turned his attention to us, 4 Charlie. Our [sergeant] Dick Moralee answered immediately ‘No, sir, we haven’t seen their lights for some time’. There was so much mist, smoke and dust. There was a moment’s silence. Then the voice said ‘Send up a flair’. I sorted the pistol and cartridge and Dick fired it off. After a time came the now very irate voice, ‘Come on, man. Put a move on. Fire that flare’. Dick replied ‘I sent one up, sir’. The voice somewhat mollified, ‘Then send up another. Send up a white’ – there being green and red all over the sky. I found a white and Dick fired. The voice obviously had his mike switched on for we heard ‘What’s the bloody man doing … no, can’t see it … where? Oh, yes, over THERE!’ At which point Capt Boardman’s voice cut in. He himself had fired off all his Very lights and had walked back to Capt Todd’s tank to get another supply. All in the night blinded by a million flashes, somewhere in a Normandy potato field.