Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

At 1000 hours, when Anderson reported the situation, a 4th Brigade staff officer ordered him to “get on at all costs.” He directed ‘B’ Company to advance, but Law failed to comply. Anderson then told Major E.J.H. Ryall to pass ‘D’ Company through Law’s position. It was a fruitless effort, the company immediately driven back by fierce fire. Ryall was among the wounded. Reporting the situation “very sticky,” Anderson had ‘D’ Company dig in to the left of ‘B’ Company. Despite repeated orders from 4th Brigade headquarters, the Royals refused to budge. Adding to their woes, a Typhoon accidentally rocketed the two forward companies and Law was wounded.24

  Verrières stood out, as one observer put it, “like a sore thumb.” Within the village, the Rileys were digging in. To their left, the Royals were in place. Everyone knew the Germans were not going to let them stay without a fight.25

  MEANWHILE, WEST OF Verrières village, Major Philip Griffin had spent much of the early morning hours waiting for scouts to report back on the situation at May-sur-Orne. Hurrying, the scout platoon’s Lieutenant L.R. Duffield, Sergeant B.F.A. Benson, and another man had gone straight down the middle of the road from Saint-Martin into May without seeing any sign of life. As they passed the church, an MG42 dug in at the corner of a house opened fire. Deciding they were too few to tangle with the machine gun, Duffield decided they should withdraw. Even if the only German presence in the village consisted of the machine-gun crew, they could rip into the Black Watch’s right flank during the attack and cause serious harm. It was 0845 hours, just forty-five minutes from the new attack time, when Duffield reported to Griffin. The major ordered Sergeant Benson and six scouts to neutralize the machine gun.26

  As Duffield’s party had been probing May, a troop of ‘B’ Squadron Shermans had gained the village’s outskirts. They encountered ‘C’ Company of the Calgaries hunkered in a hollow. The company’s wireless sets were knocked out, and they were “badly cut up and in need of stretcher bearers [and] ammunition,” Major Harris reported. When the troop entered the village, an anti-tank gun knocked out one tank. The troop withdrew and Harris ordered it to support any Calgary attempt to clear the village.

  This left ten tanks to accompany the Black Watch. Harris led this group along a series of narrow, sunken roads towards the mine. His intention was to move into the gap between May and the forward slope of Verrières Ridge to screen the Black Watch’s right flank, although this was directly contrary to the original plan whereby the tanks would screen their left flank. Harris realized this but felt the Germans in May posed the greater threat. He also understood that tanks from the 7th British Armoured Division should about this time be advancing towards Garcelles-Secqueville and Rocquancourt. If they were, the left flank should be secured by their presence.27

  About the time Harris and ‘B’ Squadron started moving, Brigadier Megill arrived at Saint-Martin. Standing on the verandah of a house looking towards May, Griffin calmly explained his plan.28 Instead of moving to the start line at May, he had established a new line by the mine. The Black Watch would advance on a compass bearing aimed directly at Fontenay-le-Marmion. Megill looked at the open ground Griffin proposed crossing. Wheat fields and patches of rough ground devoid of cover stretched up a long slope that rose some hundred feet over a thousand-yard distance to the crest. No doubt at all that the 272nd Infantry Division waited on the ridge line.29 A “dicey proposition,” Megill thought, and suggested that Griffin secure May first. Griffin said he had patrols in May and the village did not appear to be held on “a continuous basis.” When the Black Watch advanced, he felt, the pressure on the Calgaries would be relieved and they could “fill in behind, on into May-sur-Orne.”30 Megill knew one thing. Simonds and Foulkes were impatient. “An attack had to be made and it was made,” he wrote later. “Once started, everyone was determined that there would be no drawing back.”31

  Megill left, and Griffin led the Black Watch towards the forming-up position, a cabbage field next to the mine. The battalion was dogged during the move by heavy artillery and mortar fire. In the resulting confusion, Captain Powis, the 5th Field Regiment’s FOO, lost contact with Griffin. Attempts to raise Griffin on the wireless proved fruitless. Griffin had in fact lost all wireless communication when the jeep carrying his set had been knocked out by shellfire.32

  The Black Watch attacked in box formation, with ‘A’ Company on the left and ‘C’ Company the right. ‘D’ Company was behind ‘C’ Company and ‘B’ Company behind ‘A’ Company. Griffin’s battalion headquarters was in the centre behind the two reserve companies. Captain John Taylor commanded ‘C’ Company. There is no record of who led ‘A’ Company, which had been Griffin’s command. Officers were so short that Sergeant Victor Leonard Foam had ‘B’ Company. Captain John Kemp headed ‘D’ Company.33 About three hundred men started up the long slope at 0930 hours.34

  Private A.R. Williams was in ‘D’ Company’s No. 16 Platoon. The men “walked forward across the open field ‘spread out’ in ‘battle formation.’” Williams “knew … a frontal attack of this sort across open ground was unsound tactics, but the unit had been ordered to push on and was determined to do so.”35

  Sergeant Benson, having been unable to reach the machine gun in May, watched helplessly from a ditch outside the village. “As they started up [towards] the crest of the hill,” he observed, “German mortar fire came down on them and they were under heavy fire for an hour. Jerry had Panther and Tiger tanks dug in on the crest of the hill … Our battalion was pinned down by this fire until our Shermans came forward and diverted the attention of the tanks from our infantry.”36

  “Dug-in tanks, 88-millimetre guns, mortars, rocket projectors, machine guns, and other small arms opened up on the advancing companies,” one army report stated. “The enemy’s strength in this area, hitherto in great part concealed, was now fully unmasked. His weapons were skillfully sited and well dug in.”37

  Harris and the tanks had arrived five minutes after the Black Watch advanced. He saw the infantry already far ahead. Whether the British tanks were out on the left flank was unclear. The Hussars advanced into the open, but Shermans started being knocked out “as soon as they exposed themselves to anti-tank fire directed from the ridge and the east corner of May.”38

  Such a storm of shellfire rained on the infantry that none could say afterwards whether the planned artillery support occurred. In fact, the gunners were firing extra concentrations—dropping shells as close to the Black Watch as they could without hitting them. A smokescreen was also fired onto the left flank to blind the Germans there.39

  As the Black Watch closed on the crest, Griffin appeared at their front. “Forward, men! We’ve got to keep going!” he shouted.40 Private M. Montreuil heard Captain Kemp shout “that it was murderous to continue.” Griffin replied that “the orders were to attack and … the battalion would therefore carry on.”41

  Private Williams found it “difficult to maintain direction, on account of the heavy fire which made men tend to ‘dodge’ and therefore change direction.”

  So many officers and non-commissioned officers were killed or wounded that Williams thought nobody was in control. Men were just going forward. Although twice wounded, Williams was one of these.42 Only about sixty reached the crest. Those watching the attack from the bottom of the slope saw this tiny, scattered force cross over the crest of the ridge and disappear.43

  It was about 1020 hours. Six of ‘B’ Squadron’s ten tanks had been knocked out. A sniper had wounded Major Harris. He handed command to Captain J.W. “Jake” Powell. There was no possibility that the surviving tanks could reach the Black Watch or offer any further fire support.44

  It hardly mattered. Those who passed over the crest of Verrières Ridge stood little chance. Private Williams saw 88-millimetre guns firing side on at them. There were machine guns firing from concrete blockhouses and enemy positions camouflaged in haystacks on all sides.45

  Private T. Murphy saw six Tiger tanks hidden in haystacks as he dodged over the crest. His gro
up of men were “overwhelmed very shortly afterwards.”

  To Private E.T. McCann there was no question of withdrawal. “We had the feeling that the enemy was behind us as well as to the front and two sides. The fire that was coming from the rear may have come from a mine shaft that we had passed earlier.”46

  Captain John Taylor was wounded short of the crest. Sergeant Foam was dead. Griffin sent a wounded officer back with the simple message, “Don’t send reinforcements—we have too many men trapped here now.”47 At about 1400 hours, a scout appeared at the battalion’s rear headquarters saying he had been sent by Griffin. It had taken the scout an hour to descend the shell-torn slope. He reported that Griffin “had decided it would be necessary to withdraw … and had organized a covering party to do so.”48 Disengaging proved impossible. Finally, Griffin—wounded himself—ordered “every man to make his way back as best he could.”49

  Everyone was wounded. Men headed back over the crest and down the slope in any way possible. Griffin was killed—not at the head of his men, charging towards the enemy, as would eventually be enshrined in the myths that emerged in the months and years following the battalion’s destruction. The most credible account determined he was “killed by a mine while walking back after being wounded.”

  Private Williams hid in the wheat, watching Germans overrun the area. When it was dark, he crawled towards the Canadian lines but eventually happened into a German position and was captured.50 Captain Kemp was also taken prisoner. No more than fifteen men escaped.

  On July 25, the Black Watch lost 307 men. Five officers and 118 other ranks died, 101 were wounded, and 83 were captured. Of the last, 21 had been wounded.51 Only six officers and 326 other ranks remained. That night, the battalion withdrew to Fleury-sur-Orne to begin rebuilding.52 Excepting the battalions involved in the Dieppe raid, no single regiment in the war suffered such heavy casualties in a single day.53

  THE GERMANS, MEANWHILE, took the offensive with 9th SS Panzer Division ordered to regain Verrières village and restore the integrity of the main line of resistance along the ridge.54 At 1700 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Rocky Rockingham watched tanks roll into his positions with infantry close on their heels. The mixed force of Panthers and Tigers rolled over the trenches. From a slit trench in ‘B’ Company’s sector, Rockingham saw a “huge tank was right on top of me.” Rockingham ordered a PIAT man to fire a bomb “ right up through its belly. The bomb punched a very small hole in the armour.” The crew bailed and was taken prisoner.55

  At least tanks remained inside the village, and Major Hugh Arrell was “scared to death.” At this propitious eight other moment, a British tank squadron commander made a surreal appearance. “He wore a soft hat, corduroy trousers and suede shoes; he carried a cane of brass and burnished wood; a well-worn pair of binoculars hung from his neck and he seemed quite oblivious to the shelling … We didn’t know whether we should getout of our slits to greet him or not.” After being guided to an observation point on the roof of a building under German fire, he calmly surveyed the scene. “It’s a bit sticky, isn’t it?” he said.

  The 1st Royal Tank Regiment squadron plunged into the thick of the village fight with crew commanders all exposed from the waist up in their turret hatches. “What do you want us to shoot at, matey?” one yelled to Sergeant Gordie Booker. Rileys pointed out targets all around them, and the tankers blazed away so accurately with main guns and machine guns that the counterattack quickly collapsed.56 At 1750 hours, as the battle had been raging in Verrières, the 9th SS commander leading the counterattack had warned, “Whoever crosses this ridge is a dead man!”57

  The Rileys stood firm inside Verrières. During the long fight, the battalion suffered fifty men killed and 126 wounded.58 “Not one of our men is in enemy hands and none are known to be missing,” the regiment’s war diarist recorded.59 It was, the army’s historian recorded later, “a proud declaration … confirmed by post-war study.” The Rileys, he added, “may well remember Verrières.”60

  STILL DETERMINED TO keep Operation Spring rolling, Simonds pressured Foulkes to secure May-sur-Orne no matter the cost. Clearly, the Calgaries were in no shape to finish the job, and Foulkes was down to one battalion still capable of fighting. In the late afternoon he visited the headquarters of both Brigadier Megill and Brigadier Hugh Young. Both cautioned that operations in the Saint-André and Saint-Martin area were going poorly. Despite this, Foulkes ordered Le Régiment de Maisonneuve “to restore the situation and capture May-sur-Orne.”61 Dutifully, the French Canadians went forward at 1900 hours.62

  As the forward companies crossed the start line at Saint-André, they came under heavy fire. “They were fired on from the rear, as the enemy, evidently jumping up like rabbits from the air shafts leading to the underground tunnels, hammered them from all directions. Not only were the Germans difficult to spot, but out in the fields between the villages the Canadians could be seen and fired on from the left, from the front, even on the right from across the Orne River.” Accepting that the attack was doomed, Megill ordered the Maisies back to Saint-André.63 Twelve men were dead and another forty wounded.64

  Foulkes, meanwhile, had convened a meeting of brigadiers at his headquarters in Fleury-sur-Orne. During the evening, he said, Brigadier Young’s 6th Brigade would resume the offensive on 5th Brigade’s front by attacking May. At his headquarters, Young studied his maps. The more he looked at the plan, “the more he felt that it would be unlikely to achieve success with the intensity of mortars and artillery which the enemy could bring down on the area of the objective.” At 2000 hours, Young informed Foulkes that the operation was ill advised and he was prepared to tell Simonds this. Offering no argument, Foulkes went to see Simonds alone.65

  Having already learned that 2nd Division was not launching the night attack, Simonds was in a rage. Foulkes recalled telling him, “I had no intention to continue the battle as I had nothing left to fight with.”66 With 3rd Division’s 9th Brigade already in revolt, Simonds could only suspend Operation Spring.67

  With the exception again of Dieppe, July 25 was the most costly single day of the war for Canada. Painstaking research later placed the total casualties at about 1,500, of which approximately 450 were fatal. And, as the army’s official historian put it, II Canadian Corps “had struck a stone wall.”68

  [ 16 ]

  Simple Plans

  EXCEPT FOR 4TH Infantry Brigade at Verrières, by dawn on July 26 the Germans had re-established their main line of resistance along Verrières Ridge. The night before, 9th SS Panzer Division regained control of the church at Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay. In tenacious fighting, Le Régiment de Maisonneuve clung to most of the village, while the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders successfully defended Saint-André-sur-Orne.1 An intelligence report summarized the facing opposition. “Some of the best equipped and most efficient of his SS Panzer Units now dominate the battlefield from the high ground on our front.” The report closed with the wry observation: “The events of the past forty-eight hours may perhaps mitigate any concern as to the whereabouts of the ‘flower of the German Army in the west.’”2

  Operation Spring had been a bloody defeat. Yet Lieutenant General Guy Simonds accepted neither responsibility himself nor explanation from others. May-sur-Orne, Verrières, and Tilly-la-Campagne “could and should have been taken and held without heavy casualties.” That May and Tilly were not won “and that we suffered what were, in my opinion, excessive casualties was due to a series of mistakes and errors of judgement in minor tactics,” he wrote. “It seems that nothing but the actual experience of battle will forcibly imprint on men’s minds the great importance of certain tactical measures, no matter how often they have been reiterated in training.” Start lines had not been secured, troops had failed to closely follow barrages, and ground had not been thoroughly searched and mopped up.

  Simonds conceded that German strength had rendered breaking through to Cintheaux impossible. He claimed to have recognized this by the forenoon and “made th
e decision not to launch the two British armoured divisions” but to “reinforce the success” of the Rileys with 7th Armoured Division tanks.

  Simonds concluded his analysis by declining to examine the Black Watch attack, as this was “a most distasteful task [requiring] criticism of some, who, whatever mistakes they made, made them in good faith and paid the supreme sacrifice.”3 This disingenuous stance deflected criticism away from himself and his insistence that the Black Watch carry out the doomed attack and that he was still demanding more until Major General Charles Foulkes openly disobeyed him by declaring 2nd Division incapable of further fighting.

  Simonds was not prepared to sack Foulkes for this defiance, but 3rd Division’s 9th Brigade was subjected to a court of enquiry convened on July 29. Brigadier Ben Cunningham and his intelligence officer, Captain G.E. Franklin, testified. Curiously, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders’ Lieutenant Colonel G.H. Christiansen was appointed a member of the court. Two days later, Christiansen explained to his battalion’s officers “his policy in regard to his reporting to higher authority of the efficiency and battle worthiness of the battalion. [He] is emphatic he would not tolerate a court of enquiry [into] this unit not being able to take its objective, [which was due to the] failure of higher command to appreciate the battle worthiness of [the] unit. If [the] unit is not fit to fight, he will definitely tell them so,” Lieutenant Reg Dixon summarized.4

  Following the proceedings, Simonds relieved Lieutenant Colonel Charles Petch of his command of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. “The Commanding Officer left the Battalion this evening,” wrote its war diarist, “a loss which will be greatly felt throughout the whole unit.”5 Two days later, Brigadier Ben Cunningham was dismissed and sent to Kingston to run a staff course.6 On August 4, Christiansen also “announced that he had been relieved of command. The news spread quickly throughout the unit and all ranks from all companies assembled around the C.O. of their own volition and audibly expressed their regret at his leaving the regiment. The C.O. expressed his reluctance to part company from men whom he held in such high regard, and then left with a warm send-off.”7