Juno Beach
Page 24
Bettridge didn’t have time to pass on Martin’s instructions before Shepherd bellowed: “You tell him to go fuck himself. He’s making more money than we are.”15
Knowing that Shepherd was the kind of man who would argue a detail to the end no matter what the circumstances, Martin set about doing the job himself and opened a hole just wide enough to crawl through. About fifteen men followed him through the little hole into a meadow of grass that had been allowed to grow up to almost three feet of height and so provided excellent cover. The Germans knew the Canadians were in the grass but, unable to see them crawling towards the buildings, could only search for them with random bursts of fire.
Martin was almost through to the buildings when the grassy meadow gave way to an open stretch of ground marked by minefield signs. Forming the men up on the minefield’s edge, Martin signalled them forward. Advancing at a steady walking pace, scanning the ground as they did so, the men tried to ignore the German fire coming their way. Ten paces into the minefield, Martin heard a telltale click just as his foot met some resistance. The CSM realized he had depressed the detonating trigger of a Schützenmine. The moment his foot came free of the trigger, a canister loaded with 350 ball bearings would bounce three feet into the air ahead of him to rip his guts open. Knowing that as long as his foot remained on the trigger the mine would not be released, Martin froze in place while the rest of the platoon exited the minefield by clambering over a fence and entering the back gardens of the first row of houses.
Martin was calm, for he had been trained to escape this kind of mine’s kill radius by simply dropping to the ground right beside it so that the ball bearings would spray out harmlessly overhead. But just as he made his move, a bullet struck his helmet, pierced right through the steel, and began spinning round and round inside the liner before exiting with such force that it tore the helmet clear off his head. Fortunately, the force of the bullet striking his head had also knocked him flat and the mine had exploded harmlessly overhead just as Martin had planned. Not bothering to retrieve his helmet, Martin fled the minefield and joined his small band in the gardens. Then he led them warily into the streets of Bernières-sur-Mer.
They met surprisingly little resistance. It seemed the Germans defending Bernières-sur-Mer had put all their defences in the shop window directly on the beach. So while Martin could hear a lot of gunfire and explosions still coming from the waterfront, an eerie calm hung over the streets of the town. ‘A’ Company’s objective was to secure a road running through the southwest part of Bernières, so Martin headed that way while telling Bettridge and Shepherd to lead the advance by moving alternately up two streets on either side of a block of houses.16 Reaching the end of the block, Bettridge carefully poked his head out to see into the cross street, only to have a bullet chip masonry off the wall right above his helmet. Peering around the opposite corner was Shepherd, rifle shouldered and smoking. “I never did think you were much of a bloody shot,” Bettridge yelled at his fellow sniper.17 Martin’s team reached the objective at 0845 without encountering any resistance. There was nobody else around. The CSM had no idea whether the rest of ‘A’ Company had been wiped out on the beach or would soon be coming up through the town. He figured the best thing to do was to dig in on the objective and sit tight, for ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies should be landing about now and would surely get through.18
THE TWO RESERVE COMPANIES started landing at 0830 hours. More than half the LCAs were crippled just off the beach by mines. In ‘C’ Company, No. 15 Platoon’s LCA had its ramp mangled and the craft started settling heavily to one side as water poured onto its deck. Sergeant Dave Kingston turned to the tallest man in the section at the rear of the boat and said, “Leap overboard and see how deep it is.” Despite the fact that nobody could tell in the rough sea whether the water depth was four feet or twelve feet, the man went over the side without hesitation. He sank up to his chest and then found bottom. “Let’s go,” Kingston yelled and all but one of the men instantly clambered over the side. “I can’t swim,” the lingering soldier told Kingston. “I can’t either,” the twenty-two-year-old sergeant from Toronto said. The two men went over the side together.
Kingston waded onto a beach littered with the dead and dying of the initial assault wave. A long line of wounded were lying or sitting in front of the seawall. The beach was being heavily bombarded by mortar and artillery rounds and a few German machine guns still chattered. Most of the fire seemed concentrated to the left of where No. 15 Platoon had landed on the right edge of the town.19
No. 1 Troop of the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘B’ Squadron touched down about the same time as ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies, formed a line at the water’s edge, then growled up to the seawall to take up positions that enabled them to fire over it into Bernières. Lacking a way over the six-foot-high wall, the Shermans were stuck on the beach until the engineers could open up a vehicle exit. As more of the tanks waded ashore, the Shermans offered whatever fire support they could to the beleaguered Queen’s Own ‘A’ Company. Sergeant Bill McLean’s No. 5 Troop headed towards a house on the shoreline that concealed a machine-gun position, while No. 1 and No. 2 troops fired smoke rounds at the building to screen the attack. McLean rumbled his tank right up to the house and pumped several high-explosive rounds through a window, which put an end to the German resistance there.20
‘D’ Company of the Queen’s Own, meanwhile, set down right in front of the town, using the half-timbered house as its guiding point. Rifleman Jim McCullough, one of the company’s runners, saw all the shells exploding in the water around his little LCA and thought, “Holy Christ, I’m not even going to get to the beach!” There was a loud bang and the engine died. The soldiers in front started trying to force the ramp down, anxious to get off. “Stick with it, stick with it,” the coxswain shouted as he used the rudder to keep the LCA directed towards the beach. They coasted in on the tide until the coxswain thought the water shallow enough to unload his passengers. McCullough waded through chest-deep water past the floating bodies of other Canadian soldiers and figured he would be lucky to live another thirty seconds. But he made the beach and sprinted for the protection of the wall.21
Rifleman Jack Martin was on an LCT carrying two Fort Garry Horse tanks and the two Bren carriers of his mortar section. The sergeant in command of the section said that the beach was still too hot for them to all go off aboard the carriers, so only two of the men on each mortar crew would stay with the vehicle. The other three men from each crew would go in on foot and temporarily attach themselves to ‘C’ Company. Martin had been so sick during the crossing from Britain that he had spent the night lying on the gunwale throwing up overboard, but now he felt fine despite the still pitching sea. He and the other two men from his section relegated to foot-sloggers got up right behind the ramp.
A second later, the LCT gently ground on the sand and the ramp dropped. The first thing Martin saw was Major Charles Dalton with blood running down his face from a head wound. “Oh, my God, what the hell have we got into now?” Martin wondered. Dalton shouted, “Get up to the wall.” Jumping over bodies and equipment, the twenty-year-old soldier made a beeline to the wall, thinking as he did so that nobody had really needed to risk his life to encourage him to do the obvious.22
All of the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘B’ Squadron was now ashore and being joined by some of the non–Duplex Drive Shermans of ‘A’ Squadron. There were also numerous armoured bulldozers, flail tanks, AVREs, and other engineering equipment coming off LCTs, as well as the Priests of the 14th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery. The beach was suddenly a very crowded place.
But the Queen’s Own Rifles were moving quickly now, pushing inland and wiping out the last resistance facing the beach. A Royal Engineers’ Churchill tank broke up a section of the wall with its massive petard and Lieutenant Jack Arber led No. 15 Platoon in a scramble up to the railroad track. The rest of ‘C’ Company followed hot on the platoon’s heels and headed across a grassy knoll to
wards an orchard on the town’s western flank.23
With the tanks and Priests ashore, the last resistance by the Germans defending the shoreline crumbled and the Queen’s Own moved in strength into the town. They still lacked tank support, as the Shermans were left milling on the beach while the engineers began cutting the ramps necessary to get over the seawall. Major McGregor Young, the 14th Field Regiment’s acting commander on the beach, managed to find a narrow route off the beach ahead of the engineers and led two Priests into the town. Coolly preceding the self-propelled guns on foot, the major pointed out potential German strongpoints that the gunners shot to pieces with their 105-millimetre guns by firing over open sights. Young cleared a route through Bernières to the southern outskirts that could be used by the rest of the motorized vehicles starting to finally escape the beach. His action earned the officer a Distinguished Service Order, the first such award to be won by a Canadian gunner during the invasion.24
By the time Young finished cutting a swath through the town, most of the Germans had quit Bernières. And the moment a street was freed from the heel of the German boot, the townspeople there started to emerge. One of the most amazing sights to greet the Canadians was a bar just off the beach that by 0900 had thrown open its doors and was selling wine and cognac to civilians and soldiers alike.25 As the Queen’s Own moved along streets, still warily hugging the walls because isolated snipers remained active, young children and beautiful laughing women thronged around them offering embraces, or trying to press wine, calvados brandy, and roses into their hands. They called on the men to join them in a victory party, but the soldiers pushed on through the throngs with their officers urging them to haste. Their job was to get inland, and already the clearing of Bernières had taken longer than planned. Ahead of them were more Germans and they would be better prepared to meet the Canadian advance if time was lost fraternizing with the townspeople. As well, the troops had been cautioned in pre-invasion briefings to accept no wine or food from French civilians. These were a people who had been living under the German occupation for four years, people who may have come to terms with that and might prove hostile to the Allies. It was the Canadians, after all, who had just landed in the wake of a naval bombardment that had demolished whole sections of the town and undoubtedly killed at least some residents. There was a fear of poisoned wine and cheese, of flowers and ribbons being fastened to officers’ tunics to mark them for German snipers. So the rifle companies of the Queen’s Own tromped through Bernières and out the other side, leaving it to the reserve and support units to determine whether the citizenry should be considered friend or foe.
Despite the orders and pre-invasion briefings, however, the men of the rifle companies were young and trusting in a typically Canadian way. So more than one ignored the proscriptions against fraternization and stuck the proffered bottle of calvados into his pack or munched a chunk of cheese. Accepting a kiss on one cheek and then another was even easier and did something to ease the hard lump of fear that had gathered in a stomach during the fierce battle for the beach.
‘D’ Company’s Sergeant Dave Fletcher was passing a little school in the midst of the town when a small girl of about eight years old approached. Having been studiously studying a French-English dictionary for several months to hone his language skills, Fletcher said with careful enunciation and flagrant disobedience of the fraternization order, “Avez-vous les oeufs?” The girl looked at him for a thoughtful moment and then answered in perfect English, “Come back at 6:00 and we’ll have some fresh eggs for you.” As soon as he was out of sight of the girl, Fletcher threw away the French-English dictionary. “Christ,” he muttered, “if everyone can speak English like that, I don’t need it.”26
Rifleman Jim McCullough’s platoon from ‘D’ Company was moving slowly, cautiously up the main street running south through the town. Hearing what sounded like breaking glass in a courtyard, McCullough opened a gate, and with his gun at the ready, peered in. The courtyard was empty save for two old women sweeping up the glass of windows that had been broken by the concussion of the naval bombardment.27 Much of the town was a shambles, having been pounded by heavy shelling and aerial bombardment.
Although the Germans had given up Bernières, they were still aggressively trying to prevent the Canadians breaking out into the country beyond. No. 15 Platoon no sooner entered the orchard than it was heavily shelled. An explosion tore Lieutenant Arber’s right leg and part of his chin off. Lying on the ground with his leg beside him, the lieutenant looked up at Sergeant Dave Kingston and said, “Get a fighting patrol together and get out front to see who we’re facing.” Kingston was amazed at the man’s calm demeanour and determination to continue commanding his platoon despite the terrible injury he had suffered.
Gathering the platoon’s corporals together, Kingston explained how the patrol was to be conducted. He was just finishing up when a German half-track bore down on the group with two MG42 s blazing. All six corporals were immediately killed or wounded, but not a round hit Kingston. The platoon responded with a torrent of rifle and Bren gun fire, wiping out the half-track crew. Up until then, No. 15 Platoon had seemed fortunate, for only one man had been lost on the beach. Now, except for Kingston, it was leaderless. The sergeant assigned a man from each section as its leader and then led the patrol out to try locating the German positions ahead of them.28
PART THREE
BREAKOUT
[ 15 ]
Nothing for Shame
EVEN AS THE GREAT barrage had lifted and the first glimmer of light filtered through the thick cloud cover above the Normandy beaches, 6th British Airborne Division’s fight for control of its objectives between the River Orne and River Dives had continued unabated. Although small numbers of paratroops had managed to reach their rendezvous points by dawn and begin their assigned tasks, many more were still widely scattered across the countryside. Some wandered lost, others were pinned down in firefights with German reaction forces, and many were dead, wounded, or prisoners; but a surprising number were still on the move and heading with clear purpose towards assigned objectives or rendezvous points. Despite having been scattered chaotically far beyond the designated drop zones, the airborne troops took the disaster in stride.
This was as true for 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion as any of the British battalions comprising the division. The men in Lieutenant Philippe Rousseau’s stick from ‘C’ Company had suffered as great misfortune as those in Lieutenant John Madden’s, which had ended up practically in front of Sword Beach well west of the River Orne. In Rousseau’s case, the stick had been dumped out of its plane on the eastern bank of the River Dives. By dawn, only eight men in this stick had managed to stay together. Rousseau, the last man out of the plane, had never been located. When Private Mel Oxtoby insisted on looking for the lieutenant, he simply disappeared into the darkness, never to re-emerge.*
Soon after first light, the small band encountered thirteen British paratroopers and the two groups joined forces. Then they picked up Corporal Boyd Anderson and Private Jim MacPherson, who had also been in Rousseau’s stick. The party was working its way around a large hedge-bound field when a much larger German unit attacked it. Private Gordon Conneghan was killed and the rest of the men pinned down. Privates Morris Ellefson, James Broadfoot, Kenneth Pledger, and George Robertson had been out ahead on the western flank of the paratroops and now lay down covering fire to enable the larger group to extract itself from the enemy fire. As the main group made good its escape, the Germans turned their attention on these four Canadians. Robertson was just moving through a gap in the hedge when enemy fire ripped into the other three men. Pledger and Broad-foot fell mortally wounded, while Ellefson whirled around with his Bren gun and returned fire until he was shot dead. Robertson managed to dash away, suffering only a bullet crease on his right arm.
There ensued a hot pursuit that ended with five of the surviving Canadians, including Robertson, and most of the British paratroops being surrounded and for
ced to surrender. Only Corporal Boyd Anderson managed to elude the Germans, hiding behind CIDer barrels in a small shack. He would remain on the lam for several days before finally being captured.1
Also captured soon after dawn was Medical Officer Colin Brebner, who had been rendered helpless by a broken pelvis after free-falling out of a tree. Surprisingly, Brebner’s left wrist, broken and badly deformed in the fall, had proven to be more painful than the injury to his pelvis during the night. By dawn, however, this situation was beginning to reverse itself. A keen birdwatcher since he was a child, Brebner attempted to distract himself from the increasing pain by
* Both men were subsequently discovered to have been killed, but the circumstances behind their deaths remain unknown.
identifying the various birds in nearby trees that were welcoming the day with song. When it became too agonizing to turn his head in search of the birds, the doctor tried instead memorizing the songs for future identification.
Eventually, Brebner was found by another paratrooper, who put him on an old garden trellis and then dragged the doctor to an aid post that some British medics from one of the other 6th Division units had established. The place was full of wounded and injured paratroops all being treated by one British medical officer. After being injected with morphine, Brebner fell asleep only to be wakened some time later by the sounds of falling bombs and the following explosions as Allied planes pounded a nearby target.
At 0730 hours, a German patrol swooped down on the aid station and took the mobile wounded off as prisoners, but left the more seriously injured paratroopers to die where they were. To save Brebner from this fate, two of the medics put him back on the old trellis again and dragged him along behind the party of walking wounded.2 With some of the more badly wounded men, Brebner was transported to a civilian hospital in Caen and then transferred in July to a spa south of the city, where he was liberated in August.3