by Mark Zuehlke
Vennes dashed madly with his men into the trench system and, while the others became locked in a melee with the infantry, the corporal knocked out the 88-millimetre by killing its crew with several hand grenades. He then rejoined the section in clearing the trench before running back to where Moisan lay badly wounded to provide rudimentary first aid until stretcher-bearers could evacuate the lieutenant to the Regimental Aid Post. For their respective parts in this brief action, Moisan was awarded the Military Cross and Vennes the Military Medal.32
Silencing this gun broke the German resistance in the immediate area. The long snaking line of Canadians again started moving up the road towards Bény-sur-Mer, with the Shermans of the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘A’ Squadron out front, closely followed by the Chaudières with ‘B’ Squadron and the Queen’s Own Rifles in trail. Just short of the town, the tanks bounced some snipers and small groups of dugin infantry that opened up with machine guns. Major George Sévigny’s ‘C’ Company quickly moved out in a screen ahead of the tanks and was soon engaged in a hot fight that brought the slowly advancing column to another standstill. Well back in his regimental headquarters troop, the Fort Garry commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Morton, was much vexed by the delay. If the tankers and infantry were to get to the 8 CIB objective of the Anguerny ridgeline so that 9 CIB and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers could pass through and dash on to Carpiquet airport before dark, the pace had to be quickened. Morton thought the Chaudières were being far too “slow clearing such opposition” as was being offered.
The tank commander noted that the Queen’s Own Rifles, waiting impatiently in the rear for Bény-sur-Mer to be cleared so they could break off to the left of the Chaudières at Basly and drive through to Anguerny ridge on their own line of advance, were also “complaining of this.”33 Finally, at about 1430 hours, ‘C’ Company broke into the town and quickly swept out the last German resistance. This opened the way for Major J.F. Lespérance’s badly depleted ‘B’ Company to set out on its primary task—capturing the German artillery battery near Moulineaux. The heavy 100-millimetre guns of this battery were persistently harassing the beach stretching from Bernières clear over to Graye-sur-Mer.
While ‘B’ company numbered barely forty men, it had available some heavy assistance in the form of HMCSAlgonquin, already teed up to deliver a barrage on the battery as soon as Captain Michael Kroyer, a British Forward Officer Bombardment (FOB) was able to direct the destroyer’s fire.34 So while the rest of the French-Canadian battalion passed through Bény-sur-Mer on a line of advance up the road towards Basly, ‘B’ Company moved cross-country towards the gun battery, accompanied by Kroyer and his radio signaller. Soon the British captain had the battery in sight and established radio contact with Captain Desmond Piers, Algonquin’s skipper.35
“In order to make our shooting more accurate,” Piers later wrote, “I moved the ship close inshore and anchored. This seemingly dangerous action was necessary because of the strong tide and the tremendous concentration of shipping in the vicinity. As we could not see our target, the firing had to be done from maps. The fall of shot was observed by the… officer ashore, and he told us by wireless where the shells were landing.”36
It was an exacting process reliant on relatively primitive technology. Kroyer’s target information was given to another Royal Artillery officer on Algonquin’s bridge, Captain G. Blunt, the destroyer’s Bombardment Liaison Officer (BLO). Blunt checked Kroyer’s range and bearing calculations to the target on a standard grid map of the invasion area. He then passed this target information over to the Gunnery Officer, Lieutenant Corky Knight, who in turn punched the figures into a gunnery control clock. This primitive computer transmitted ranges to the fire-control system that set the pointers in each of the turrets housing the 4.2-inch guns. Once the gun crew drew a bead on the pointer, a ready-to-fire report was given and the gunnery officer released the guns to fire. Kroyer called the first salvo two hundred yards short and three hundred yards to the right. The second salvo was closer and with another minor adjustment he declared the third a hit and ordered a saturation.37
“We then fired for effect, four 4-gun salvoes, every one of which was reported as a hit. This was good shooting! A second and then a third group of four 4-gun salvoes were fired and again every single one found the target with direct hits. That was 13 salvoes out of 13. After that the… officer told us to cease fire, as the battery had been demolished. He added in his brief code: ‘Very accurate.’ I only wish,” Piers lamented, “we could have observed the results ourselves. The Germans must have been very shaken, not being able to see where the shells were coming from.”38 Kroyer was equally delighted, so much so that he later had HMCSAlgonquin painted across the front of his jeep in honour of the moment.39
Things proved not quite as easy as Piers and Kroyer believed, for even though the German guns had been destroyed by Algonquin’s barrage, the infantry positioned to defend the battery shook off the effects of the shelling and fiercely resisted ‘B’ Company securing the position. Fighting from trenches surrounded by thick entanglements of barbed wire, the Germans were impervious to the weak rifle and Bren gun fire that forty scattered soldiers could mount. The battle seemed hopelessly deadlocked until Lieutenant J. Bureau found a gap in the wire and led his No. 12 Platoon in, with Lieutenant A.P. Ladas’s platoon hot behind.40 A fierce fight with bayonets and grenades ensued before the superior German force surrendered en masse. Seconds later, ‘B’ Company was disarming fifty-four prisoners. Lespérance’s company suffered no casualties in this short action while demonstrating great courage under fire.41
[ 18 ]
A Fairly Rugged Day
THE 3RD CANADIAN INFANTRY DIVISION’S original invasion plan had assumed that once Bény-sur-Mer was secured 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s three battalions would use this as a base for forming a solid foundation halfway between Juno Beach and the Caen-Bayeux Road based on Colomby-sur-Thaon and Anguerny. From this base, 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade would strike out to seize Carpiquet airport just to the south of the road objective. However, the slowness of 8 CIB’s advance and the traffic snarl created by all of 9 CIB coming ashore at Bernières-sur-Mer had thrown the scheduled timing of the entire operation out the window. Further jeopardizing the plan’s successful completion was the fact that the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, held up initially by the St. Aubin strongpoint, had subsequently marched into another protracted firefight—this time for control of the village of Tailleville. According to the plan, the North Shores were to have established a blocking position in front of La Délivrande and Douvres-laDélivrande to prevent any counterattacks from this direction threatening either Juno Beach or the left flank of 9 CIB’s advance. At first light on June 7, the North Shores were then to overrun these villages, with a major objective being a heavily fortified Luftwaffe radio station just west of Douvres.1
Further complicating 8 CIB’s situation was that ever since the initial landing by the North Shores at St. Aubin, all direct radio communication from this battalion to Brigadier Ken Blackader’s headquarters had been lost.2 The only word from Lieutenant Colonel Donald Buell was derived second-hand by way of reports on the fire missions the navy Forward Officer Bombardment (FOB) called in shortly after noon, which consisted of requests for two destroyers to fire their 4.2-inch guns on the château at Tailleville.3 Whether Buell was instinctively softening up the next objective or was aware of strong resistance there remained unclear, leaving Blackader in the dark about the situation on his left flank except for the troubling fact that the North Shores had yet to push out of St. Aubin. The only course open to the brigadier was to chivvy the two battalions leading the main column to make haste in the face of resistance that was proving decidedly more determined than he had been led to expect by divisional intelligence and hope the New Brunswick regiment soon caught up.
As the North Shores formed up by the St. Aubin church on the town’s southern edge, the men could clearly see the village that was their next objecti
ve by looking up the narrow road running through a wide expanse of grain fields interspersed by small orchards and cow paddies. In the typical Norman manner, hedgerows fenced in most of these fields. Surrounding the town itself was a twelve-foot-high, three-foot-thick stone wall that hid all but the rooftops and upper stories of the buildings inside. The hulking structure of the château, however, overlooked the wall and offered an excellent view of St. Aubin to any German observation officer in its upper levels, which Buell suspected explained why the beach was still subject to accurate shelling and mortaring. Until Tailleville was cleared, the engineers and other beach party teams on Nan Red would continue to have their work disrupted by the deadly fire that was still killing and wounding men on the beach. With ‘C’ Company only now moving towards Tailleville, all Buell could do to help ease the pressure on the beach was to tell his FOB to continue having the destroyers harass the village with heavy shelling.
At about 1230 hours, Buell instructed ‘C’ Company commander Major Ralph Daughney to begin the advance on Tailleville. Having just returned from a brief reconnaissance up the road aboard a purloined bicycle, the major had discovered no immediate enemy forces and was hoping to get through to Tailleville without a fight. Just in case, however, he had convinced Buell to secure a troop of Fort Garry Horse tanks to support the infantry advance. Following behind ‘C’ Company was Major Archie MacNaughton’s ‘A’ Company, while the Bren carrier platoon commanded by Captain J.A. Currie moved on its tracked vehicles across an open field on the west side of the road to cover the right flank. Lieutenant William Little’s No. 5 Troop provided the tank support.
‘C’ Company set off with one platoon to the right of the road, one on the road itself, and one to the left. The two companies on either side of the road spread out in a line across the fields. Little’s tanks started out in a file on the road behind the infantry platoon there. Captain Hector LeBlanc, ‘C’ Company’s second-in-command, was on the road and bringing up the rear. With him was Sergeant Albanie Drapeau’s three-inch mortar team aboard a Bren carrier.
It quickly became evident that the Germans had opted to lie low and not fire on Major Daughney during his earlier bicycle gambol up the road, as the advancing force started being harassed by sniper fire the moment it moved towards Tailleville. Then mortars and artillery began to dog the advance, which probably would have ground to a halt had it not been for the support provided by Little’s tank troop. The tankers hammered identified German positions with their 75-millimetre gun and machine guns, often grinding out into the fields ahead of the infantry to overwhelm the opposition. Daughney later complimented Little, saying “that without his excellent and energetic support [my] company would not have been able to advance at all.”4
Radio signaller Private Joe Ryan was sticking to Daughney like glue, even though the battery in his radio was dead and the spare battery he should have been carrying was somewhere out at sea aboard the LSI from which they had disembarked, what seemed like ages before. His absentmindedness was embarrassing, but there was little time to think on the mistake, as it took all his concentration to run, dodge, and fall in rhythm to the screaming descent of the mortar and artillery shells that ripped great gouges out of the earth when they exploded. Ryan thought the noise of the explosions was like a cry of agony raised by the earth itself “protesting being raped. The smell of cordite and earth spewed up made me almost sick to my stomach.”5
Just before the village itself, dense hedgerows surrounded a few small orchards. As ‘C’ Company closed on these, several machine guns hidden in the hedges started raking the men. Caught in the open, the North Shores faltered and looked for cover. Daughney, up with the leading platoons as he had been throughout the advance, realized something had to happen quickly to keep the attack going forward. He sent a runner back to LeBlanc with instructions for Sergeant Drapeau’s mortar team to immediately engage the German positions. The sergeant later wrote that LeBlanc “showed me the exact clump of trees he wanted fire brought down on. Luckily I made a quick correction in degrees and the first ranging rounds fell exactly where he wanted them. In a few minutes the mortars had quieted the German machine guns. Luck was with me that day for each time I was able to score direct hits.”6
Captain Eloi Robichaud of the North Shore Headquarters Company would have begged to disagree. While still a lieutenant, he had commanded the company of which Drapeau’s mortar platoon was a part. What Drapeau called “luck,” Robichaud countered “was skill. I knew [Sergeant] Drapeau well, and… he was an exceedingly capable mortar sergeant who had a complete knowledge of the weapon and it was not unusual for him to score direct hits even with ranging rounds.”7 It was the kind of skilled handling of weapons, honed by years of training, that was repeatedly proving itself in 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s first day of combat—as brutal a baptism of fire as any Canadian division in World War II may have seen.
Although Drapeau’s precise fire had silenced most of the machine guns, one position remained active and was so sited that it was impossible to knock out from any of the covered positions the company had managed to crawl into. Realizing the advance would remain stalled as long as this gun was able to fire directly across the fields ‘C’ Company had to cross, Private Herbert Butland stood up and charged the machine-gunners while firing his Bren gun from the hip. The MG42 machine gun shrieked a long burst of fire at the running Canadian that clipped the suspenders holding up his web belt right off his shoulders, but miraculously not a slug scratched the soldier’s flesh. Butland closed on the gun and killed its crew with a lethal burst. The private’s bravery was rewarded with a Military Medal.8
While ‘C’ Company rooted out the last German defenders in the fields and orchards north of Tailleville, Fort Garry Horse ‘C’ Squadron commander Major Roy Bray instructed his second-in-command, Captain Alexander Christian, to reinforce Little’s tank troop with three more tanks. Having served a brief stint as an officer on loan to the British 17/21st Lancers during the African campaign in 1943, Christian was one of the few officers in 3 CID with any previous battle experience. He was also in some pain, having had the tip of a finger shot away by a sniper’s bullet shortly after landing on the beach. Christian raced to Tailleville and found the North Shores laying siege to the village.
Daughney and Little were pressed up against the massive wall surrounding the village for cover while they discussed how to break into Tailleville. The infantry major was completely perplexed by the bizarre situation, which resembled something from the days when knights and archers might have attempted to pillage the medieval château, only to be confounded by an insurmountable wall. Daughney could find no way for his infantry to get through or over it. With his company all hunkered against the wall, the Germans were unable to fire directly at the Canadians. Since neither side could see the other, both had resorted to chucking occasional grenades over the wall whenever they heard voices or other sounds that might betray the position of an enemy. The fight had reached a standoff.9
Rumbling up in his tank at about 1400 hours, Christian jumped down from the turret and joined the other two officers. Christian and Little quickly conferred and agreed that all the tankers could do to help the situation was to hook around the town with their tanks and shoot over the wall with the hope of somehow dampening the German enthusiasm for the fight. Daughney told them to go to it. As the meeting was breaking up, a German grenade arced over the wall and landed directly between the two tankers. The blast knocked both men flat and left them dazed. Although Christian was unharmed, Little suffered multiple lacerations and had to be hastily spirited to St. Aubin by stretcher-bearers for treatment at the Regimental Aid Post.10
Quickly regaining the protection of his tank turret, Christian led his six-tank force around the village, “carrying out speculative shooting over the high wall.” The Germans responded with small-arms fire that ricocheted deafeningly off the tanks. To better direct the fire, Christian had his turret hatch open and was hunkered down in the cupola peerin
g out while trying to expose himself as little as possible. “Suddenly,” he later wrote, “an impact like a sledge hammer hit the back of my head and I slumped on the floor, but regained consciousness and felt better after a drink of water. A bullet had pierced my helmet, grazed the back of my head and had gone out the other side of the helmet.” After his wireless operator bandaged the wound, Christian went back to harassing the Germans.11
During their foray around the town, the tankers discovered a 75-millimetre gun, several other artillery pieces, and an ammunition dump dug into positions outside the village. They quickly destroyed these, but their fire into Tailleville appeared ineffective. Finally, Christian returned to Daughney, and the two men—whose exploits this day would result in each winning the Military Cross—decided the only solution was to find a viable entry into the village through which tanks and infantry might pass together. Casting about, Christian and Daughney discovered a “group of French inhabitants… huddled below a large solid, wooden gate which was the entrance of the château’s courtyard. I ordered my driver to advance and we battered open the gate and entered.”12
Lieutenant Hector Robert MacQuarrie’s platoon dashed through the breach and took up a fire position in the courtyard. Then Lieutenant George Malcolm Fawcett’s platoon slipped through and leapfrogged under the protective cover of MacQuarrie’s men from the château’s grounds into the western part of the village. The tankers set up in the courtyard and blasted targets at close range, while the company’s mortars fired over the wall at targets reported by the two lieutenants. It was quickly discovered that Tailleville was far more than a minor fortified position. In fact, it was the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion, 736th Grenadier Regiment. It had been cleverly constructed so that almost all of its facilities were in underground bunkers beneath the village itself. First aid posts, garages, stables, barracks, munitions dumps, and mess kitchens were all situated in a subterranean complex linked by tunnels. Other tunnels locked in with a series of defensive gun pits and firing trenches scattered throughout Tailleville. Virtually every approach from one street to another was covered by at least one gun pit, and snipers ranged freely through the village’s buildings, using hidden accesses inside that led into the tunnel system.13 The North Shores no sooner entered the village than they were caught in a vicious battle where each platoon’s rear was always exposed to the appearance of Germans using the trenches and tunnels to reoccupy positions just taken.