Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  Inside the village, the Sasks found no Germans. Instead, the place was milling with confused Essex Scottish, who told them the Rileys had already come and gone.24 As Lieutenant Colonel Fred Clift assigned his men to defensive positions, he was struck in the back by shrapnel from a stray German artillery round. Figuring the Germans would counterattack in the morning, Clift refused evacuation.

  Because the RAF bombardment barely touched either May or Fontenay, it became quickly evident that both remained formidable bastions. The Fusiliers attacked May with only about forty men in every company. Just beyond the start line they came under heavy artillery fire. Half the men in ‘B’ Company went to ground, leaving Captain Georges Bregent with only about twenty by the time he reached May. Dividing this force into two groups, Bregent led one up the main street. Fifty yards past the first house a machine gun opened fire, and Bregent, his batman, and the Bren gunner were killed. “The remainder withdrew in disorder.” ‘B’ Company’s other section had taken cover in a shell hole twenty yards short of the first house. There it stayed until the lieutenant in command was wounded at 0530 hours and ordered a withdrawal.

  Lieutenant Colonel “Guy” Gauvreau decided to try again, using stealth. While ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies would draw German attention by advancing up the road, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies would sneak into the village from the left flank. ‘C’ Company led off with just thirty-five men. Creeping silently through the darkness, the men were caught in machine-gun fire from both flanks just outside of May. They were just about to charge when a German officer “was observed going around [and] putting his sleepy men on the alert.” With the Germans shouldering weapons, ‘C’ Company quickly withdrew. The battalion fell back to Saint-André, where it spent the morning of August 8 under heavy mortar and artillery fire.25

  As the Fusiliers had advanced on May, the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders had made for Fontenay-le-Marmion. The battalion advanced from west of Saint-André. Fontenay was three thousand yards distant. Between stood Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay and the large mine complex. Again the bombers had mostly missed the village. The Germans were well dug in and alert. The Camerons advanced in a T-formation, with ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies up front and ‘B’ Company trailing.26 Each company fielded between sixty and seventy men.27

  Ten minutes into the advance, several machine guns lashed the leading companies. Although blinded by smoke, dust, and ground mist, the Camerons were able to keep direction by following a poplar-lined road. But the road and its verges were sown with mines and had been registered by German mortar crews and artillery batteries. Casualties mounted, while other men elected to go to ground or became disoriented and lost. The battalion was still short of Fontenay when its new commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Runcie, was wounded.28

  Wireless communication back to 6th Brigade was spotty, which delayed this news from reaching Young. When he did hear, Young dispatched his brigade major, Major Clarence William Ferguson—a long-standing Cameron officer—to take over.29

  ‘B’ Company, meanwhile, was under constant fire from Germans bypassed by the leading companies. Halfway to Fontenay, Lieutenant N.J. Burnside’s platoon was suddenly confronted by Germans charging out of the darkness. The men met them with rifles, Stens, and Brens blazing. After several attempts to overrun the company, the Germans withdrew. Struggling on, ‘B’ Company came under a “huge amount of enemy resistance, at least [five] German machine-gun posts and a lot of infantry” anchored on a quarry pit. “It was a running battle for quite some time,” Burnside later reported, with a direct attack on the quarry required to quell this opposition.30

  When No. 11 Platoon’s commander was killed just short of Fontenay, Sergeant James Mahon took over. His men pinned down by the machine-gun and small-arms fire, Mahon crawled off alone and outflanked the German position. Chucking two grenades into the machine-gun position, he killed the crew and then led the platoon through to the village. For this action, Mahon was awarded a Military Medal.31

  Much reduced, ‘B’ Company pushed into the village, and newly promoted Major J.E.E. McManus was relieved to find remnants of ‘D’ and ‘C’ Companies also there.32 The three companies were so depleted, their commanders agreed they could only hang on to the north end of the village with a defence centred on the church.33

  Taking advantage of the semi-darkness, still lingering smoke, and mist, Major Ferguson—who had arrived at about 0500 hours—slipped the support company through to Fontenay. This gave the Camerons a full complement of anti-tank guns and 3-inch mortars, plus ten carriers. The carrier crews removed the Bren guns and spread out alongside the infantry. By first light, the Camerons had a strong toehold within Fontenay.34

  ALTHOUGH THE GERMANS had anticipated an attack east of the Orne River, they had not expected a night attack preceded by an aerial and artillery bombardment.35 As one German report concluded, Operation Totalize occurred so suddenly that 89th Infantry Division was “overrun. A few German bases still held, but the [division’s troops] stampeded and fled the majority of their bases.”

  The stampede isolated elements holding at places such as May-sur-Orne, Fontenay-le-Marmion, and Tilly-la-Campagne. (In Tilly, the British engaged in a bloody firefight that sucked in two battalions and an armoured regiment before the defenders were subdued on August 8.) Where the division stood firm, it fought well and inflicted heavy casualties.

  And the 12th SS “reacted immediately. It advanced, quickly occupied some hills and villages, and launched short counter attacks.”36 This was in large part due to Standartenführer Kurt Meyer reading the situation rapidly and correctly. The moment he heard bombs and shells exploding, Meyer had rushed from his headquarters and seen that the entire “front was on fire!”

  After recalling the 12th SS Kampfgruppe (battle group) from west of the Orne River, Meyer jumped into his Kubelwagen and raced forward. At Bretteville-sur-Laize he conferred with the 89th Division’s commander, General der Infanterie Konrad Heinrichs, who reported that the bombardment had cut all communication lines to the front. Meyer construed that the division “was as good as destroyed. Only a few individual strongpoints were still intact; they were like islands in the stream of battle, giving the attacking Canadians a hot reception time and again.”37

  Seeking a clearer picture, Meyer headed to a rise just north of Cintheaux and next to the Caen-Falaise highway. “I got out of my car and my knees were trembling, the sweat was pouring down my face, and my clothes were soaked with perspiration. It was not that I was particularly anxious for myself because my experiences of the last five years had inured me against fear of death, but I realized that if I failed now and if I did not deploy my division correctly, the Allies would be through to Falaise and the German armies in the west trapped. I knew how weak my division was and the task which confronted me gave me … the worst moments I ever had in my life.”

  Meyer saw groups of 89th Division fleeing down the road below. He ordered his driver to head north towards Caen, the vehicle pushing through the stream of panicked soldiers. Suddenly, artillery struck, killing many men on the road. As the smoke thinned, Meyer got out of his car and stood alone. On either side of the road, men fled southward. Meyer “calmly lit a cigarette, stood in the middle of the road and in a loud voice asked them if they were going to leave [him] alone to cope with the Allied attack.” Reorganizing some of this rabble, Meyer ordered Cintheaux held at all costs. He needed to buy time for his 12th Division to arrive.38

  Meyer next raced to Urville, south of Bretteville, to confer with Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who commanded 12th Division’s 26th Panzer-Grenadier Regiment. Mohnke said the Germans still held Garcelles-Secqueville, but British tanks were reportedly in Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil to the south of Garcelles. Who controlled Rocquancourt or May-sur-Orne was unclear.

  At Mohnke’s headquarters, Meyer, Heinrichs, and General der Panzertruppen Hans Eberbach, commander of 5th Panzer Army (formerly Panzer Group West), decided next moves. Restoring the line was not possibl
e. All Meyer could suggest was blocking the two routes logically leading to Falaise. One of these was directly down the Caen-Falaise highway; the other ran east through open country from Saint-Aignan to Falaise. Meyer proposed that his division block these routes as far to the north as possible.39 His SS troops would win time to allow the 85th Infantry Division and 9th SS Panzer Division’s Panther battalion to come forward and reinforce them.40 Agreeing, Eberbach ordered the plan put into action.

  MEYER’S BELIEF THAT the 89th Division had collapsed was ill founded. Although many troops “stampeded,” more stood their ground during the terrifying night. With the morning, those bypassed came to life—either firing from slit trenches and dugouts or counterattacking. Germans driven from positions during the night’s fighting attempted to regain lost ground. Little of the 89th’s artillery or mortar strength had been destroyed. With daylight, the gun crews could see targets and began firing at the Canadian and British forces at a terrific rate. Later estimates determined that about 50 per cent of the division regrouped into fighting units during the morning. The division’s fusiliers battalion also remained fully intact at Bretteville-sur-Laize. These units were supported by tanks and self-propelled guns, including some 12th SS armour that had arrived.41

  This sudden resistance by a division supposedly swept away by the massive bombardment presented 2nd Division’s Major General Charles Foulkes with no end of challenges. All his forward battalions were either being counterattacked or struggling to wrest final objectives from a defiant enemy.

  The early morning situation remained confused. Wireless communication was spotty, and commanders were having trouble getting a clear grasp on the situation. Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mel Gordon, wanted to form his tanks at Rocquancourt and punch down the highway to Falaise. He was convinced nothing stood in the way.42 Before Gordon could raise the idea with Brigadier Bob Wyman, however, the 2nd Armoured Brigade commander was shot in the arm by a sniper at 0615. Wyman retained command until Lieutenant Colonel John Bingham arrived at 0730 to take over.43 Gordon later asserted that he had asked Wyman’s permission to charge for Falaise. Wyman refused. Their orders, he said, were to establish a firm base through which 4th Canadian Armoured Division would advance for the second phase of Operation Totalize.

  Given the German forces in front of, behind, and on all flanks, Wyman’s decision was wise. Besides the fact that none of the tanks had sufficient fuel or ammunition for such a venture, a bold charge would have kicked open a hornet’s nest of opposition. Gordon could not even arrange Wyman’s evacuation until about 1300 hours because the route back was under such thick German fire.44

  Winning first-phase objectives remained Wyman’s primary concern until he was evacuated. With the Essex Scottish still separated from their supporting tanks, he ordered the 14th Canadian Hussars to cross the front from near Point 122 and seize Caillouet.45 The reconnaissance troops attempted to comply, but by 0845 hours reported still being a thousand yards northeast of Rocquancourt and reduced to 140 men. They were meeting steady resistance and were stalemated.46

  Major Burgess, meanwhile, had started the Essex Scottish towards the village. He had two anti-tank guns in support, a self-propelled M-10, and a towed 17-pounder. As the column closed on Caillouet, Burgess “saw four tanks on a crest in front of the objective” and called a halt. The anti-tank gun crews identified a Panther and refused to engage the tanks, “as such action might endanger their weapons.” A few minutes later, a 4th Brigade signal warned that eight enemy tanks were about five hundred yards south of his position. Although these tanks were quickly re-identified as British Churchills, the incident made Burgess wary. Even when the four German tanks withdrew, he kept the column in place for the rest of the morning, while brigade sent ever-conflicting reports. “It was variously reported that our own tanks were on the objective, the [14th Hussars] were on the objective, that none of our own troops were on the objective and that nothing was known about the objective,” the Essex war diarist wrote.47

  Finally, an exasperated Foulkes ordered the Essex Scottish to attack without dismounting and sent a squadron of Sherbrooke Fusiliers to support them. At 1300 hours, Burgess advanced. The half-tracks ground forward with the men hunkering behind the armoured sides to escape the heavy rifle and machine-gun fire from Germans hidden in slit trenches along the route. As the Essex Scots entered Caillouet, the Germans retreated out the other side. Burgess thought they had been “frightened off by our half-tracks.” By 1330 hours, the village was in their hands. Neither a living nor dead German was found.48 Despite the travails that had beset the Essex, its casualties were only three men killed and seventeen wounded.49

  While the Essex had been on the offensive, their sister battalions in 4th Brigade spent the morning of August 9 fending off counterattacks. Having stopped the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry a couple of hundred yards north of the quarry and Point 46, Lieutenant Colonel Graham Maclachlan had got his men well dug in before daybreak. Mustered around the Rileys were the Shermans of Major Sydney Radley-Walters’s ‘A’ Squadron and several 2nd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment anti-tank guns. When the ground mist lifted at about 0800 hours, the Germans struck with a force consisting of eight to ten tanks and self-propelled guns (SPGs) followed by infantry. A sharp tank fight ensued. Two enemy tanks and one SPG were quickly destroyed in exchange for a Sherman lost, one damaged, and an M-10 of the anti-tank regiment knocked out. The remaining German armour and infantry hurriedly withdrew.50

  From their vantage atop Point 122, the Royals had greeted the dawn by looking northward and being “disconcerted to realize the extent of the observation that had been enjoyed by the Germans. From the hazy spires of Caen on the horizon, through Verrières and Rocquancourt, a broad expanse of exposed terrain fell away to the north with all the detail of a sand table or an air photograph. Every move the Royals had made for the past month had been plainly visible to the enemy.”

  The battalion was counterattacked while still digging in at 0830 hours. Four enemy tanks charged up the highway towards Point 122, while another group approached from Cramesnil, about a half-mile to the east. One Panther broke through the perimeter defence and closed to within yards of battalion headquarters. A Toronto Scottish machine-gun platoon supporting the Royals had its carriers blown to pieces or set ablaze. The Royals’ mortar platoon also lost its carriers. Exploding ammunition and mortar bombs aboard the carriers added to the confusion. Only the timely intervention of some nearby Canadian tanks saved the situation. After the tanks reduced two Panthers and two Tigers to flaming wrecks, the Germans broke off the attack.51

  Thereafter, the Germans subjected the Canadian positions five miles behind their former main resistance line to sporadic artillery and mortar fire. Since the beginning of Totalize, the Royals had lost only three men killed and twenty-five wounded. The Rileys counted just one man dead and fourteen wounded.52

  As a 2nd Brigade report concluded, the use of mobilized columns had enabled the Allies to advance “more than five miles through strong enemy def[ences] … with the absolute minimum of [casualties].” But the author’s enthusiasm for this “novel use” of tanks and infantry in armoured carriers was tempered by the knowledge that operations of “this type can be of the fullest success, but could equally well have been a complete and utter failure either through loss of direction or enemy counter-action. Such a force has little offensive power in the dark and this method of employing [tanks] should be used only with the greatest circumspection.”53

  THE UNORTHODOX OPERATION unquestionably saved Canadian and British lives while breaking a previously impregnable line. Even though the tough SS troops that had defended it during Goodwood and Spring had been replaced by the weaker 89th Infantry Division, standard, infantry-based offensives here would likely have been defeated. The 6th Brigade and British battalions that had assaulted on foot suffered heavier casualties than any of the mobile column units. Only 6th Brigade’s Saskatchewan Rifle Regiment fared well, but they had ben
efited from following the same route as a preceding armoured column.

  The other two 6th Brigade battalions faced continuing stubborn resistance. Although the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders had a solid toehold inside Fontenay-le-Marmion, they spent the day surrounded by German tanks and under machine-gun fire from the southern part of the village. During an Orders Group at about 0900 hours, a shell landed in the farmyard, and Major Ferguson fell mortally wounded. The support company commander, battalion adjutant, and anti-tank platoon commander, as well as the artillery FOO supporting the battalion were all injured by shell splinters. With the wireless sets disabled, the Camerons lost all contact with brigade.54

  The FOO’s assistant, Bombardier Peter Lancelot Pearce, survived unscathed. Snatching up his still-intact wireless, Pearce ran to an adjacent building. From here he directed artillery fire that helped the Camerons stave off ensuing counterattacks. He was also able to establish a link for the Camerons to brigade by passing messages through 6th Field Regiment’s headquarters. Pearce alerted Brigadier Young to the fact that the Camerons were hanging on by a thread. Pearce’s steadiness would earn a Distinguished Conduct Medal.55

  As soon as Ferguson fell, Major J.E.E. McManus of ‘B’ Company took command before also being wounded by a sniper. So many officers were down that ‘B’ Company was led by Company Sergeant Major Abram Arbour. When the Germans threatened to overrun ‘B’ Company’s position, Arbour gathered the company headquarters section and No. 10 Platoon to carry out a counterthrust. Finding themselves under attack, the Germans panicked and were either killed or captured. Arbour led the company through the long day’s fighting. His skilled leadership was deemed “directly responsible for the battalion holding and consolidating the objective.” In a highly unusual gesture, Arbour was awarded a Military Cross—normally reserved for officers.56