Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  As Simonds began planning this operation, he ordered an immediate attack west of the Laize River. Over the past few days, the 12th Manitoba Dragoons—II Canadian Corps’s reconnaissance regiment—had been patrolling across the river from Bretteville-sur-Laize to test German defences and establish contact with British Second Army. On August 11, the Dragoons reported “large enemy withdrawals” under way.2

  Simonds decided to advance 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, supported by 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, south along the west side of the Laize to come astride a road that ran from Saint-Lô to Falaise. The division would not only deny the Germans use of this road but also dominate the ground to the south and west of Falaise and be well positioned to advance on the town itself.3

  Major General Charles Foulkes ordered 4th Infantry Brigade to lead the division “on a single thrust line.”4 The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry advanced from Bretteville along a road that led to Barbery. From here, the Rileys would hook to the southeast to Clair-Tison and cut the road. The Royal Regiment would then pass through to Ussy—just five miles west of Falaise.5 The ambitious plan called for a rapid advance across seven and a half miles, but it was understood that the Germans were running.

  As the Rileys marched forward on August 12, it seemed army intelligence staff had been correct for once. Snaking out of Bretteville, the brigade formed one continuous line. Each of its three battalions was accompanied by a squadron of tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. Certain the road would be mined, the Rileys pushed through chest-high wheat in the adjacent fields with the tanks behind. Twenty-two-year-old Major Joe Pigott’s ‘C’ Company was on point to the left. Tall and hard muscled, Pigott had proven “very cool, almost lackadaisical” in battle.

  ‘B’ Company under Major H.A. “Huck” Welch—a thirty-year-old former football player with the Hamilton Tigers—was to the right. Welch’s men were followed by Major Jack Halladay’s ‘A’ Company, while ‘D’ Company, under Major Dunc Kennedy, trailed Pigott.

  Barbery, a few houses at a crossroads, proved deserted. An eerie full-scale crucifix stood on the edge of the hamlet. “Quite a sight in the middle of a war,” Sergeant Arthur Kelly observed. “I hope the peace that Jesus thought he died for prevails today,” replied a man beside him.6

  Turning towards Clair-Tison, the Rileys moved through fields that “narrowed about a thousand yards beyond Barbery where woods closed in on each side of the road. The men were sodden with sweat and chaff and pollen clung to their trousers as they walked resolutely toward the wood. A breeze rustled the aspen and poplar, their whispers punctuated by the odd clink of equipment and the whine and slap of the Shermans,” wrote the regiment’s official historian.

  Suddenly, tracers streaked out of a copse left of Pigott’s ‘C’ Company, and the hellish shriek of MG42s began. Mortar rounds whistled in, explosions sending men flying. Every rifle company was under fire.7 Four Tigers hiding in the woods lashed at the Sher-brookes’ ‘A’ Squadron. Five Shermans were soon burning in exchange for one Tiger, and ‘A’ Squadron retreated.8

  “There was hand-to-hand fighting as these fellows came running out of their slits, firing rifles and grenades,” Pigott said later. “The opposition was so bitter that I determined … that we were going to have to limit our objective.” The Rileys fought fiercely. Scout platoon leader Lieutenant Hugh Hinton was killed while charging German positions.

  The Tigers raked the Rileys with machine guns while standing well out of PIAT range. Lieutenant Colin Gibson, a ‘B’ Company platoon commander, led his men in overrunning several German slit trenches.9

  “That’s when the stuff started flying” Gibson said. “I ducked part way under a carrier when an 88-millimetre shell from a German tank exploded near me. The blast broke my leg; I was in pretty bad shape. [Lieutenant] Gordie Holder got out of his trench even while we were under fire. He came over, stuck the shell dressing on me and gave me a jab of morphine. It was one of the bravest acts I can remember. While he was doing that he got hit in the shoulder and I gothit again, this time in my other leg and arm. Right after that I turned my platoon over to the senior NCO.”10

  The fight raged through the day. At 1800 hours, a mortar round struck the slit trench housing Lieutenant Colonel Graham Maclachlan’s tactical headquarters. Maclachlan and five others were wounded. Pigott took over until Major Hugh Arrell, the second-in-command, came forward. Towards twilight the Tigers ground in for the kill. Welch thought the “tank commanders had no nerves at all. They stood exposed in their turrets, looking for targets through their binoculars, their guns traversing all the time.” Wary of PIATs, they suddenly stopped. After a “last desultory sweep with their machineguns,” the Tigers “left the field of smoking hulks, the dead and wounded.” Twenty Rileys were dead and about a hundred wounded.11

  WITH THE RILEYS heavily engaged, Brigadier Eddy Ganong had ordered the Royal Regiment—waiting near Barbery—to turn the German flank by hooking to the west and regaining the road at Moulines.12 ‘A’ Company led on the right, ‘B’ Company the left, when the battalion moved at 1000 hours. They advanced on either side of a dirt track running through wheat fields. The Sherbrooke squadron followed in single file along the dusty track. Just four hundred yards out, machine guns in a barn and adjacent grove fired on ‘A’ Company. Captain John Ellis Strothers shouted for everyone to use fire and movement but to keep going.13

  Then an 88-millimetre gun opened up from the right flank, and the advance crumbled. Some men dived into old slit trenches next to the dirt track, while the rest lay down in the wheat field. The lead Sherman was struck and started burning, prompting the rest of the squadron to withdraw.

  At 1730 hours, Ganong ordered the Royals to try again. Surprised to meet no fire, they hurried into Moulines. August 12 cost the Royals ten dead and fifty-seven wounded.14

  Three thousand yards south of Moulines lay Point 184, towards which Ganong advanced the Essex Scottish as the brigade’s last task. The Essex had a new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter W. Bennett, who replaced the badly wounded Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jones.

  Advancing at 2000 hours from midway between Bretteville and Barbery, the Essex swung to the east through a gap between Moulines and the Laize River. Several hours of night marching brought them to the edge of a wood southeast of the village by dawn on August 13. As soon as ‘B’ Company stepped into the open, it came under heavy fire. Veering west, the company became separated from the battalion and ended up on the outskirts of Tournebu, a village on the opposite side of the Saint-Lô–Falaise road from Point 184. The company’s two officers were both wounded by machine-gun fire, and thirty of its ninety men were also either killed or wounded. Sergeant Stuart Kirkland placed “himself at the head of the remaining riflemen.” With the Bren gunners and 2-inch mortar crew providing covering fire, “he led a bayonet charge against at least two machine-gun posts in the hedge on the outskirts of the village.” Kirkland and his men took thirty prisoners. Another nine prisoners were netted inside Tournebu. Kirkland’s actions earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal.15

  While ‘B’ Company was so engaged, the rest of the battalion attacked Point 184 with five Sherbrooke tanks supporting. Two Shermans were knocked out by mines. When the Essex spotted five Tigers astride their line of advance, infantry and tanks slipped to one side without being detected. Then they came up against a field completely surrounded by a ditch filled with a dozen machine guns and five Germans armed with Panzerfausts. The carrier section charged the position with machine guns blazing, and seventy-five Germans surrendered.16

  In the late morning, Major General Charles Foulkes ordered 5th Brigade to take over the advance. Brigadier Bill Megill warned the Calgary Highlanders to prepare for a night march to Clair-Tison. Once the Calgaries seized the village, Le Régiment de Maisonneuve would pass through and capture Point 176 near Ussy. This would place 2nd Division overlooking Fontaine-le-Pin and Potigny alongside the Caen-Falaise highway.17

  The Calgaries left Bretteville-sur-Laize at 1400
hours and by nightfall gained their start line between Barbery and Moulines. As the road running from Moulines to Clair-Tison passed through open fields overlooked by wooded hills, Lieutenant Colonel Don MacLauchlan decided to instead follow a narrow dirt track that passed through a forest to the east. MacLauchlan realized that it was going to be “incredibly difficult at night” for the battalion to stay on course. And he was unsure whether the carriers would be able to navigate the track.

  The battalion set out at 0145 hours on August 13. MacLauchlan found the advance “nerve racking in the extreme.” The track proved to be “just that and no more. It was sunken through a large part of the route and throughout … continual checking was necessary as extra trails and tracks throughout the orchards and woods appeared” that were not marked on maps. “The move was made through darkness and in considerable mist.” Passing through “deserted woods and empty villages and past quiet orchards,” the Calgaries were “all the time uncertain as to where the enemy was and expecting and dreading at any moment a well-informed and sudden thrust … which would split the force into two parts. Progress was slow, but speed was not possible in a night move over such unknown country.”

  About one and a half miles short of Clair-Tison, the Calgaries came up alongside the road and were soon exchanging shots with snipers firing from all sides. MacLauchlan ordered the men to dig in. A squadron of tanks was to have met the Calgaries at the road, but it was nowhere to be seen. Not until 1400 hours did the Shermans appear, and the advance, in MacLauchlan’s words, began “with caution.” They pushed through orchards, one company leapfrogging another. The whole way, “men [were] being killed or injured, enemy killed or taken prisoner.” The closer they got to Clair-Tison, the hotter the fight. At Clair-Tison a bridge crossed the Laize River. From the opposite bank, 88-millimetre guns and machine guns fired from woods. Two Shermans were knocked out, but the rest stayed and provided vital gun support. Artillery pounded every target the Calgaries identified.

  Soon three companies were inside the battered buildings of Clair-Tison. Discovering the bridge still intact, the pioneer platoon crept out under fire to check for mines or wired explosives. They found nothing. The intensity of German fire from the other side kept increasing. By late afternoon the village was engulfed in flames, and any movement drew immediate response from 88-millimetres or machine guns. At 1732, MacLauchlan signalled Megill that the bridgehead at Clair-Tison was intact. He had ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies across the river and everyone dug in. The way was open for Le Régi-ment de Maisonneuve.18

  MacLauchlan’s leadership this day earned a Distinguished Service Order medal.19 Casualties proved extremely low—three killed and three wounded.20

  By this time the French-Canadian regiment’s dire manpower situation had reduced it to just 231 men.21 At 1900 hours, ‘A’ Company, under Major Alexandre Dugas, made to cross the bridge and establish a firm base through which ‘C’ Company would then advance on the heights. As ‘A’ Company closed on the bridge, the Germans opened with heavy artillery, 88-millimetre guns, and mortars that “sent all their hellish cargoes on our heads,” the battalion war diarist wrote. As Dugas tried to reorganize the panicking men, he was killed by a shell. The Maisies’ attack stopped in its tracks.22 Thirteen men were dead, another forty-one wounded.23

  THROUGH THE COURSE of August 13, Lieutenant General Simonds and his staff had finalized plans for Operation Tractable—the next major II Canadian Corps offensive. Tractable had earlier been focused on winning Falaise, but General Montgomery now gave this task to Second British Army because 2nd Division’s advance through Clair-Tison had paved the way for a British advance eastward. The Canadians would now gain the heights overlooking Falaise “in order that no enemy may escape by the roads which pass through, or near, it.” Once the heights and Falaise fell, II Canadian Corps would advance southeastward to Trun, five and a half miles from Falaise. This would effectively close a gap German forces might use to escape between the Americans advancing from Argentan and the Canadians from the north.24

  Simonds faced the same “gun screen” that had halted Totalize. As artillery bombardments “only warned [the] enemy of impending attack and [gave] him time to get down defensive fire and move reserves,” Simonds decided to use smoke screens to “blind enemy guns, tanks, and flanks.” Other than that, the operation was largely Totalize reborn. The 3rd Infantry Division with 2nd Armoured Brigade—less the Sherbrookes—would be on the right. Left would be 4th Armoured Division, bolstered in infantry by 3rd Division’s 8th Brigade. Tractable’s start line ran between Estrées-la-Campagne and Soignelles. The leading infantry would again use Kangaroos and half-tracks.

  The attack would start at noon on August 14 with the armoured brigades going “straight through to their final objectives.” Leading armoured infantry “would bail out” at the Laison River, “clear it and then push on to the high ground to the south.” The 7th and 10th Brigades of infantry would then advance to the heights overlooking Falaise.

  Simonds wanted the flanking smoke screens to “be impenetrable,” while the smoke ahead would simulate the “density of thick mist.” Although artillery would pound known German gun positions, Simonds again turned to the air force for extra punch.25RAF fighter-bombers would strike the Laison area fifteen minutes after the advance began. Medium bombers of No. 2 Group, 2nd Tactical Air Force (RAF) would attack the wooded Laison River valley through which both columns must pass to gain the heights beyond. Then, two hours into the operation, Bomber Command would unleash 811 Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers to smash the Germans with a total of 3,627 tons of ordnance.26

  Concerned about Simonds’s request, Bomber Command warned that attacking the specified targets “involved serious risk to our troops. This risk was accentuated by the fact that the time table laid down by the Army involved bombing of up-wind targets first, with the result that drifting smoke would obscure the later targets. In spite of the risk, it was agreed that the expected gains from the proposed bombing outweighed the disadvantages.”27

  Quesnay Wood, Fontaine-le-Pin, and Potigny were to be saturated. The intent was to either destroy the Germans blocking the Caen-Falaise highway or prevent them from moving eastward to block the Canadian advance.

  Considerable regrouping was required on August 13 to “pull this out without a hitch.” By first light on August 14, however, both divisions were ready. The 3rd Division column stretched across a wide front from Bretteville-le-Rabet through to a point north of Soignelles, with 4th Division alongside to the east.28

  DURING THE EVENING of August 13, Major Alec Blachi, second-in-command of 2nd Division’s 14th Canadian Hussars reconnaissance regiment, had inadvertently strayed into the German lines while returning from a divisional briefing. He was killed and his driver taken prisoner. Documents he carried provided a complete description of Operation Tractable.29 This intelligence, though late in coming, gave the German formations facing the Canadian front some warning. Extra anti-tank guns were moved to the high ground overlooking the Laison River.30

  However, the German situation was too chaotic for the intelligence to have far-reaching consequence. Standartenführer Kurt Meyer never saw it. But instinctively suspecting what was coming, he had by the morning of August 14 split most of 12th SS Panzer Division into “penny packets” across a front stretching from Quesnay Wood east to the Dives River.31

  The main German force facing the Canadians was the 85th Infantry Division supported by what was left of the 89th, 271st, and 272nd Divisions.32 Commanded by Generalleutnant Kurt Chill, the 85th was responsible for five miles of line running from Quesnay Wood west to Mazières. Chill had deployed two infantry regiments north of the Laison and supported them with numerous 88-millimetre guns provided by III Flak Corps. The division’s artillery, a number of anti-tank guns, and its Fusilier battalion stood south of the river.33 In the ground between the Caen-Falaise highway and Mazières, at least ninety 88-millimetre guns were deployed.34

  Born in 1895, Chill had served
through the Great War. With the German army’s disbandment after the armistice, he became a policeman before returning to military service in 1935. He had risen to divisional command in September 1942.35 In February 1944, Chill raised the 85th Division from a cadre of Eastern Front veterans. By August, the division was a cohesive unit. In the words of one analyst, it “was as good an infantry division as the Germans possessed at this stage of the war.”36

  The mustering German forces were looking anxiously over their shoulders. Meyer knew their position “had become untenable.”37 Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge advocated withdrawal of German forces west of the Orne and a retreat to the Seine. All the high commanders in Normandy recognized the danger faced. The Americans were closing on Argentan, the Canadians at any moment likely to come down on Falaise. As von Kluge explained to OKW on August 13, “the enemy is attempting to achieve an encirclement by all means.” He sought a “new directive.”

  Hitler responded with an opening diatribe about “the bungled initial attack against Avranches.” He demanded that General der Panzertruppen Hans Eberbach attack the Americans in the Alençon sector. Hitler envisioned Eberbach destroying “a large portion of XV U.S. Corps” with this attack.

  Eberbach received Hitler’s order early on the morning of August 14. He immediately sent his “last special missions staff officer” to von Kluge with a report. On paper his assigned force was impressive—1st SS Panzer, 2nd Panzer, 9th Panzer, and 116th Panzer Divisions. But each was in tatters, dangerously short of fuel and ammunition. Lack of fuel had caused 1st SS Division to “blow up a number of tanks” to prevent their capture. Eberbach urged “a quick withdrawal from encirclement of Seventh Army [as] imperative to avoid catastrophe.” Unless his panzers were resupplied with fuel or ammunition, they could not fight. Even with such supply, he could not strike the Americans at Alençon before August 16. “Success improbable,” Eberbach said in closing.38