Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  Tilly, about a thousand yards distant, consisted of eight stone farmhouses complete with gardens, orchards, farm buildings, and stone-wall enclosures. After reinforcing the cellars of each building and carving out firing slits at ground level, the 1st SS Panzer Division had dynamited the overhead structure to create thick stone-rubble blankets that rendered the bastion underneath impregnable to artillery. Tanks hid in the woods on the village’s southern and eastern flanks.37

  The Calgary officers looked all this over from the reservoir and remained “quite optimistic about the outcome of the battle.”38 Their plan was simple. From Bourguébus, 4th Division’s Lincoln and Welland Regiment would launch a small diversionary attack at 0100 hours. Then, at 0230, the Calgaries would advance behind a heavy barrage moving at a rate of one hundred yards every five minutes.39 Major Bill McQueen’s ‘B’ Company would lead on the right and Captain Del Harrison’s ‘D’ Company the left. ‘C’ Company, under Major Wynn Lasher, would trail ‘B’ Company, and ‘A’ Company, having just come under command of Major John Bright, would be behind Harrison’s men.40 The troops started the four-mile march to the reservoir at 2315 hours.

  At 0100 hours, the diversion began with one platoon under Lieutenant R.F. Dickie advancing from Bourguébus. A thousand feet out, the Lincs were driven to ground by volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire.41

  At 0230 hours, the Calgaries attacked and “all hell let loose,” their war diarist recorded. The “noise was terrific and the Hun improved the din and clamour by laying down a terrific mortar barrage and shelled apparent [defensive fire] tasks.”42

  ‘B’ Company’s wireless went off the air, but the other three companies reported passing an a ssigned checkpoint at 0246 hours. Then the lead companies reported being under friendly artillery fire. A steady stream of wounded carried the same story. Lieutenant Colonel MacLauchlan knew the Germans were dropping fire behind the creeping barrage, but just in case, he ordered the artillery stopped. No let-up in the fire hammering the advancing Calgaries resulted. The shells raised so much dust that visibility was cut to ten or fifteen yards. Then rising ground fog further obscured things.

  At 0315 hours, ‘D’ Company reported crossing the rail line west of Tilly’s outskirts. Suddenly, the attack stalled, the two leading companies forced to ground while those following piled into them and everyone became “mixed up and scattered.”

  MacLauchlan urged Major Lasher to get ‘C’ Company into Tilly.43 Lasher managed to lead a few men in, only to be fired upon by multiple machine guns and at least three tanks. Lieutenant Arthur Rice-Jones suffered a debilitating leg wound. In his first fight, Sergeant Ken Crockett and ten men vaulted over a wall and faced five tanks. Everyone ran back the way they had come. “There was one guy in front of me that went down and one guy beside me that went down. We got to the other side and tried to give covering fire. What can you do with a tank?” Crockett later said.

  That was it. The Calgaries retreated to the railway and dug in. Rice-Jones and nine others were left behind and taken prisoner. Major Bright was among those killed.

  At 0700 hours, ‘B’ and ‘D’ Companies tried again with support from three tanks of the British Royal Scots Greys. They were immediately engaged by a superior force of German tanks that sallied from La Hogue to the east. Although ‘B’ Company PIAT teams knocked out two Mark IVs, 88-millimetre anti-tank guns picked off two of the British tanks, and the third fled. The infantry had no choice but to follow. A third attempt at 1400 hours, supported by Fort Garry Horse tanks, collapsed on the start line. Tilly remained in German hands, and the Calgaries counted thirty-six men dead and another ninety-nine wounded.44

  MAJOR JACQUES DEXTRAZE had spent three relaxing days in Caen at Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal’s ‘B’ Echelon unit. It was through these units that each battalion’s supplies and reinforcements flowed to the front lines, to which casualties were evacuated, and where officers and men were sometimes rotated for a rest period. He was planning to have dinner in Bayeux at the home of a French family that had befriended him. Time to kill, Dextraze attended an Orders Group at 6th Brigade headquarters.45 Brigadier Hugh Young reported flying that morning over Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay church and the mine shafts and concluding that the former could be taken “by a company of determined troops with ample covering fire.”46

  Finding the planning too simplistic, Dextraze offered a number of refinements. “As usually happens with people who say how a thing should be done, I was finally given the job.” At 1930 hours, Dextraze arrived in Saint-Martin. Lieutenant Colonel Guy Gauvreau told him to capture the church, churchyard, and adjacent cemetery. Joining ‘D’ Company at 2200 hours, Dextraze found it dug in alongside the Saint-Martin–Verrières road with Germans on the other side. A wall bordered the road on the Canadian side.

  Gauvreau assured him that the Germans had no more than twenty men in the church, churchyard, and surrounding hedges. The fighting component of Dextraze’s company numbered seventy-two. Losses at Troteval Farm left him with only two officers, one sergeant, a corporal, and a lance-corporal to lead the platoons and sections. After studying the church from several angles, Dextraze felt “that we could never take and hold the place.” He was still examining an aerial photograph when night fell. Although he would have liked more time with the photograph, Dextraze knew not to risk a flashlight. That would draw sniper fire from the Germans lurking in the nearby orchards.

  Because there were so few non-commissioned officers, Dextraze personally briefed each man. He emphasized the need for surprise or the attack was doomed. Rather than shell the church, one field regiment would fire a twenty-minute barrage against the high ground east of it.

  No. 16 Platoon would provide fire support from a three-storey house overlooking the churchyard. Dextraze had the platoon position eight Bren guns in the top storey. Two would rake a hedge left of the churchyard. The other six would drench the opposite orchard, the church, and cemetery. The main attack would be made by No. 18 Platoon. No. 17 Platoon was broken up for a variety of tasks. One section was to eliminate a machine gun in the churchyard’s northeast corner. The other two sections would follow No. 18 Platoon into the churchyard and then clear the cemetery and church. Dextraze set the assault for 0530 hours.

  Every man carried “entrenching tools and a pick or shovel tied to their back.” They wore skeleton webbing with fifty rifle rounds, two grenades, one tin of bully beef, a package of hardtack, and a twenty-four-hour emergency ration. Most of this was stuffed into the Bren magazine pouches on their web kits, while the magazines were simply buttoned up inside their uniform tunics.

  An hour before the attack, the two assault platoons slipped into the three-storey building’s courtyard. The men moved “noiselessly … flat on their bellies with the noses of the leading men almost on the road.” The men would have to climb the wall, cross the road, and then pass through existing holes in the churchyard wall.

  When the artillery opened fire, one gun dropped its rounds just twenty yards in front of the courtyard wall. It took fifteen minutes for Dextraze to get the gun silenced and all through this time his men had to stay “flat on the ground and absolutely silent in the tiny courtyard.” While Dextraze was addressing this issue, No. 17 Platoon had attacked the machine gun in the churchyard corner on schedule. They struck fast, killing the gun crew with grenades.

  The moment the rest of the company followed, No. 18 Platoon’s commander fell with a bullet through his leg. Dextraze yelled for Corporal Joseph Albert Germain Lambert to take over. “He carried through the job very coolly as if nothing had happened,” Dextraze said later. “Having been briefed thoroughly, he found no difficulty in carrying out his orders.”47

  Despite machine-gun fire from the left flank, Lambert led the platoon into the churchyard. Standing in the middle of the yard, bullets snapping around him, Lambert calmly assigned a position to each section. When a machine gun opened up from beside a back wall, Lambert led several men in silencing it. His actions earned him a Distinguished C
onduct Medal.48

  One Bren gunner and a rifleman burst into the church. The Bren gunner sprayed the interior with several magazines. This awoke the only occupants, three panzer grenadiers who had slept through the churchyard fight. There were three unmanned machine guns mounted on window ledges and sited on the three-storey house.

  Saint-Martin church—the source of so much trouble for the Canadians—was finally in hand. Men started working with picks and shovels to improve the depth of slit trenches running all through the churchyard. Dextraze counted thirty Germans killed or wounded. The panzer grenadiers counterattacked within thirty minutes, but the move was half-hearted and easily beaten off. Same result for a second attempt fifteen minutes later. After that the Germans resorted to mortaring ‘D’ Company non-stop for the next thirty-six hours.

  Asked what lessons he learned from the attack, Dextraze said, “In the actual attack … yell like hell. This keeps everyone cool and in good temper, in fact men start to laugh. Have a simple plan.”49

  PART THREE

  TOTALIZE

  [ 17 ]

  Sheer Slaughter

  DAILY LOSSES DURING the “static battle” that ended July 31 still numbered about a hundred men. “If we were to sit without further offensive action for [twenty] days our casualties would amount to more than would normally be sustained by the corps in a stiff battle,” Lieutenant General Guy Simonds warned. Simonds “was determined that our existing situation, however irksome or discouraging, must be exploited, no matter how tired the troops might be. When possible, they were to be rested, but on that he would make no promises. He fully realized how much reorganization was necessary to place the fighting units and formations on a sound footing again, especially in view of the coming offensive, but he made it plain that in the circumstances, the second best must be accepted, and that though wearied by incessant fighting, the troops must be pushed, if need be, to the bitter end.”1

  On the morning of August 1, General Montgomery re-emphasized that the Canadians must “put on further prods to continue to pin” the Germans to their front. Lieutenant General Harry Crerar, II Canadian Corps having come under his command the previous day, instructed Simonds to assault Tilly-la-Campagne. Simonds ordered 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s Lincoln and Welland Regiment to strike that very night.2

  During 3rd Infantry Division’s hand-off to 4th Division, Major General Rod Keller had told Major General George Kitching to “leave it alone—try somewhere else.” But Simonds was insistent, so his division’s first battle would be at Tilly.3

  Lieutenant Colonel J.G. McQueen received his marching orders from 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Jim Jefferson at 1800 hours. Two field regiments and one medium regiment would provide fire support.4 The South Alberta Regiment’s ‘A’ Squadron’s tanks would form on high ground northwest of Bourguébus in order to join the infantry inside Tilly at dawn. If, however, the attack bogged down, the tanks would “shoot the Lincs into their objective.”5 The attack was set for 2345 hours. McQueen held an O Group at 2000 hours. Twenty-five minutes before the attack, he said, the artillery would hammer Tilly. During this time, ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies would advance two thousand feet from Bourguébus to a road running east from Tilly to La Hogue. The two companies would establish a PIAT gun killing line to stop tanks from reinforcing Tilly, as they had during the Calgary Highlander attack. ‘D’ Company, meanwhile, would advance about a thousand feet along the road from Bourguébus to Point 63. This was mid-way between the two villages and also where a narrow farm track intersected the road. ‘C’ Company would then pass through and gain a foothold in Tilly itself. It took two hours to work out the timings for this complex night operation. At 2200 hours, company commanders hurriedly briefed their men and started moving towards the start line in front of Bourguébus.6

  As these briefings were under way, 15th Field Regiment’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant W.K. Thomson, learned of the attack at a divisional meeting. “The plan was simple and of the silent type,” Thomson recorded that evening. Everyone, he boasted, was “set to hear that the 4 Div had done what both 3 Div and 2 Div had failed to do. It was a chance for the [Lincs] to get their feet wet.”7

  There had been no time to reconnoitre routes to be used or the lay of ground that must be crossed. But the Lincs were confident. Their inexperience was evident in the loads carried. Regulation small packs, gas respirators, utility pouches, mess tins, water bottles, and copious amounts of ammunition. ‘B’ Company took along twenty shovels and fifteen picks. The two companies tasked with blocking tanks out of La Hogue carried extra PIATs and bombs. Quiet or quick movement while so overloaded was impossible.

  Major Forbes Bell Fisher advanced ‘B’ Company single file into the wheat field and headed for the roadblock position. Private Ronald Barton was close to the front, the second man in No. 17 Platoon’s lead Bren gun team. The three-quarter moon having not yet risen, the night was inky black. Halfway to the objective, someone broke the stillness by shouting, “Let’s go, ‘B’ Company!” Men started running, stumbling under the weightof their gear.

  A flare sliced the sky. Machine-gun tracers ripped the wheat. ‘B’ Company hit the dirt. Private Eugene Joseph Blake landed next to Barton and called for help getting the PIAT strapped across his back off. As Barton started working at the straps, he saw tracers cutting “through the stubble and just drumming into him.” Blake died while Barton lay entirely untouched.8

  ‘A’ Company’s Lieutenant Ernest Phair’s No. 7 Platoon had advanced well ahead of the rest of the company and was cut off. Despite the mortar, machine-gun, and small-arms fire whipping at them, the Lincs “were hesitant about returning the fire … for fear of shooting one another.” When Lieutenant John Martin’s No. 8 Platoon tried to reach Phair’s men, it was driven back. As several men were killed or wounded, those behind mistakenly thought they were only waiting for orders. These men paused, while others kept crawling forward. The platoon broke into scattered sections, “which lost direction or were too weak to cope with the more experienced enemy.”9 Thirty Lincs, including Private Barton, were taken prisoner.10

  ‘B’ Company lost all cohesion. Major Fisher was killed, and the company reeled back into the midst of an equally disorganized ‘A’ Company. Major A.U. “Andy” Gilles led both back to Bourguébus to reorganize. Although this left the main force’s left flank unprotected from La Hogue, Brigadier Jefferson interceded at 0030 hours with a direct order for ‘C’ Company to pass through ‘D’ Company at Point 63 and attack Tilly.11 Major R.F. Willson and his men got to within two hundred yards of Tilly before being caught in a carefully laid trap. Medium machine guns opened up from three directions, and mortars saturated the kill zone in which the men were trapped. It was just “a blaze of tracer across there,” one of those who managed to escape said.12

  At 0200 hours, ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies set out again from Bourguébus to establish the roadblock. ‘B’ Company was now commanded by Lieutenant J.S.W. Burnett. Only two ‘A’ Company platoons and the headquarters section actually gained any ground, the rest of the force hitting the dirt just past the start line. Major Gilles and the men with him were stopped in the middle of the field by “a wall of machine-gun fire.” Gilles crawled to Lieutenant Martin. “Well, we’ve got to get up that hill,” Gilles said. “You be my guest,” Martin replied. “There is nothing we can do.” Just before dawn, Martin told Gilles he was taking No. 8 Platoon back no matter what Gilles thought. Leaving its dead, including Lieutenant Phair, the force fell back to Bourguébus.

  At 0545 hours, McQueen told Jefferson the Lincs were finished. In less than five hours the battalion suffered sixty-four casualties, fifteen fatal. ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies were hardest hit, reduced equally by 30 per cent.13 On August 3, Jefferson gave the battalion a dressing down. “His principal criticism was that insufficient determination had been shown in attacking what should have been a two-company objective.”14 None of the Lincs bought this. They admitted inexperience had led to
many mistakes, but Tilly was clearly so heavily defended, no single battalion could win it.

  Belatedly acknowledging this, Simonds had Tilly heavily bombed and then shelled by artillery at 1800 hours on August 2 . The Calgary Highlanders’ war diarist observed: “Typhoons arrived and Tilly went up and then down in a mess of smoking rubble … Shortly afterwards our arty played terrifically heavy fire into the rubble and many air bursts were fired directly over Tilly as well. It is a seemingly impossible thing for anyone to live under such fire.” When the fire eased, the diarist ruefully noted: “Snipers continue to be very active and the seemingly impossible has happened because we are once again receiving MG fire from the slits at Tilly. The Hun is like a rat and comes up for more no matter how hard we pound him.”15

  WHILE THE CANADIANS and Germans stalemated on the Caen front, the breakout on the American front continued to gain momentum. On August 1, not only was First Canadian Army fully operational, but the Americans completed deployment of Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s Third Army. With two American armies in Normandy, General Omar Bradley turned over First Army’s reins to Lieutenant General Courtenay Hodges and was elevated to command of Twelfth U.S. Army Group.

  Taking over the Allied extreme right flank, Patton’s mission was to seize the ports of Saint-Malo and Brest in Brittany. In Patton’s trademark style, Third Army had two divisions driving forward by the afternoon. Expectation had been that the new army would face a slow, deliberate fight, with bocage and stubborn German defences conspiring to prevent rapid movement.

  By dawn on August 2, events were developing differently. Struggling more with getting his divisions through the bottleneck by Avranches at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, Patton realized he had been handed the opportunity “to slash forward and exploit not only the mobility and striking power of his armored divisions but also the German disorganization … There seemed little point in slowly reducing Brittany by carefully planned and thoroughly supervised operations unraveled in successive phases.”