Normandy '44

by James Holland

  South of Caen, meanwhile, TOTALIZE was moving into its final phase. Quite inadvertently, Meyer’s ordering of his men to counter-attack meant they had not been where the bombers struck; instead of being bombed to death, they were being shot to pieces by the British, Canadians and Poles on the ground, albeit not without taking some of their enemy with them, as had been proved at Saint-Aignan. In all, five of Wittmann’s seven Tigers had been destroyed, however, including the three in the action by the Northants Yeomanry and Sherbrooke Fusiliers. On the opposite side of the road, Meyer’s other counter-attack fared equally badly as his grenadiers were cut down and panzers knocked out, the remnants pulling back before the next armoured advance got under way. TOTALIZE had slowed down, not because of 12. SS’s counter-attacks, but because this multifaceted force of armour, infantry, artillery and heavy strategic bombers, drawn from the United States, Canada, Britain and Poland, had stuck rigidly to a battle plan that had looked perfectly reasonable the day before, but which had initially developed better than expected. Because there were so many different parts – and nationalities – to bring into the equation, it had been impossible to tinker with the timings. The third phase of TOTALIZE, the armoured thrust, had begun bang on time at 1.55 p.m., regardless of Meyer’s counter-attack; what the SS men saved by avoiding the bombers, they had lost in action during their counter-attacks. And Wittmann, the hero panzer ace of the Reich, was dead.

  To the south of Saint-Aignan, the Northants Yeomanry were still in position, consolidating, and seeing off several waves of grenadiers attempting to attack. They had mowed them down with their machine guns and with HE rounds, then the artillery started hurling over shells as well, at first a bit too short for comfort, but then with unerring accuracy. Calm returned, and at around 2.30 p.m. Snowdon’s crew were ordered into the gully. Some of the survivors had already been picked up, but they were missing others, including Corporal Stanley. They found the three Shermans at the edge of the trees, one to the left, another to the right and the third a little further ahead on the left. Two were still smoking. Snowdon clambered down and told Tout to jump down too.

  ‘Ken, have a look at those two Shermans out front,’ he said, ‘and I’ll go check the farthest one.17 Fast’s you can.’

  Tout could see Stanley sprawled in his turret on the nearest Sherman. The corporal was staring at him, watching him all the way. Climbing up on to the back, Tout leaned down and touched Stanley’s hand. It was already cold. There was no sign of any wound, but he couldn’t have been more dead. Tout jumped down and hurried on to the next tank – wandering around, exposed like this, was nerve-racking to put it mildly. He reached it, but the tank had not brewed up. Through the turret he could see someone in the driver’s compartment, so he moved around to the front of the turret and lifted the hatch. He wished he hadn’t. Trooper ‘173 Judge’, as he was always known, was sitting there, his hands on the levers, feet on the pedals, perfectly upright but minus his head. ‘The mess on the floor is black,’ noted Tout.18 ‘Flies have already found it.’ He then found Ernie Wellbelove, the third missing tank man, lying in the grass not far away, also dead. These were three men they had been talking to, laughing with, just hours earlier. Friends. Comrades-in-arms.

  Tout pushed on through the bushes, unable to resist his curiosity, and found the Mk IV he had hit and the machine responsible for knocking out 2 Troop. The tank commander was still in the turret – or his top half, at any rate. A shell – possibly Tout’s shell – had done for his lower half, removing it as neatly and brutally as the one that had removed 173 Judge’s head. Snowdon now waved to Tout and he ran back, sickened by what he had seen.

  Several hours later, the grenadiers attacked again and, this time, no sooner had the Shermans opened fire than rocket-firing Typhoons swooped in and finished the enemy off. Ken Tout watched them scatter and flee, and soon after they saw some prisoners coming towards them, keen to stress they were not SS. Tout and Rex Jackson, the co-driver, clambered out to wave them on their way to the rear. Gesturing with his pistol, Tout accidentally fired a shot, sending one of the men to the ground, pleading for mercy. Jackson pulled him up, stuffed a cigarette into his top pocket and told him to ‘skip it’ with a light push. ‘Your war’s over.19 Thank God for that,’ Jackson said. ‘Our ruddy picnic goes on.’

  TOTALIZE was running out of steam, however. The Poles, in their first action, had struggled to manoeuvre and had also suffered from the friendly fire of the bombers – as had the Canadian 4th Armoured; in all, there had been some 315 casualties from the bombing, which underlined just how difficult it was, in 1944, to use strategic heavy bombers in support of ground operations. Such tragedies exemplified the limitations of dropping a vast number of bombs from hundreds upon hundreds of large four-engine bombers over a short period and on a confined space. There were also communications issues between the Poles and the artillery, which contributed to the slow advance, as did the stoic efforts of the German artillery, Nebelwerfers and mortars. Forty Polish tanks were knocked out in short order; once again, well-positioned anti-tank guns, in open country, could wreak havoc. As both sides had repeatedly proved since D-Day, it was much easier defending than it was attacking. By dusk, the Poles had advanced only 2½ miles.

  The Northants Yeomanry were finally pulled back into leaguer at 11 p.m., and Ken Tout and his crew did not get a chance to sleep until after 1 a.m., by which time they had been on the go, non-stop, for over twenty-seven hours. They were exhausted, utterly spent. Twenty of the battalion’s tanks had been lost that day. Even at this stage of the war, when the Germans were emphatically losing, the fighting was still relentlessly brutal. And it would continue that way until the campaign was finally over.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Corridor of Death

  At the 101st British General Hospital, Lieutenant Mary Mulry had been as busy as ever. Facilities were improving with every passing week and social life was equally on the up as the front moved further south and the threat from enemy shelling and even the Luftwaffe melted away. There were RAF dances, naval officers’ dances, trips to Bayeux and lots of attention from dashing young officers. One day, Mary was taken on a drive around the battle-torn countryside by a Canadian friend and was shocked by the levels of devastation. ‘What an awful waste of life and property all this is and so much destruction,’ she noted, ‘and yet there is a feeling of constant chance and excitement.1 I should, I know, hate it all – and the human suffering is appalling – but I must admit to enjoying the excitement.’

  Meanwhile, the fighter planes of the enlarged Ninth Air Force and Second Tactical Air Force continued to wreak devastation. They had never been busier. Many of the squadrons were mounting as many as five missions a day, a heavy workload by any standards. Wednesday, 9 August, dawned with mist hanging over the airfield, but it promised to be a warm, clear day, and at B-7, now home to 609 Squadron, even before the liaison officers had stepped into the large, dark-green intelligence tent for the morning briefing, it was obvious to the assembled pilots that there would be plenty of flying that day.

  At least none of the pilots could ever complain about being kept in the dark. Daily briefings were held in the ‘inter ops’ tent for the two squadrons that shared the airfield and made up 123 Wing – 609 and 198 – providing each and every pilot with impressive amounts of information about the progress of the Allies. In attendance were liaison officers from the army and navy, as well as their own intelligence officers and the met officer. Such detail was essential: often very little ground separated their own side from the enemy and the role of the Second TAF was to help the army, not hit them by mistake. Flight Sergeant Ken Adam listened carefully to the briefing by the army liaison officer, then the met officer, until finally it was the wing commander’s turn. Around 10 a.m., once the mist had burned off, 609 would send up a flight on an armed reconnaissance mission over the Falaise area. If they saw any clear targets they were to hit the enemy hard.

  Adam’s friend Norman Merrett took part in that
first flight of the day. They spotted enemy tanks moving north-west 6 miles south-east of Falaise and attacked, knocking out two. Another armed recce took off at 1.45 p.m. and once again they found targets, opening fire on an enemy column on the Falaise–Argentan road and leaving a truck and a further tank in flames. Adam was then one of eight men in A Flight chosen to fly a third armed recce later that afternoon. Shortly after 4.30, he was walking briskly towards his Hawker Typhoon, large and imposing as it stood motionless alongside a number of others under the cover of some trees at the airfield perimeter. His ground crew were already there. Ammunition boxes were stacked nearby, as were piles of rockets. Adam took the parachute off his wing, put each fur-booted leg in turn through the straps, then brought the other two straps over his shoulders and clipped them all together into the buckle. A quick glance at the four rockets loaded under each wing, then he put his boot into the retracting footrest, heaved himself up on to the scuffed, paint-chipped wing-root and clambered into the cockpit.

  With its thick wings and huge, protruding radiator jutting from underneath the nose, the Typhoon certainly had none of the finesse and elegance of the Spitfire, but it was an extremely effective gun-platform as well as exceptionally quick. It could also carry a 1,000lb bomb, while Adam had discovered he was pretty good at firing its rockets: during training that spring he had regularly fired with an average error of 50–60 yards; with eight 60lb warheads exploding, that still created an enormous amount of damage.

  In the cockpit, Adam immediately put on his helmet and, as he always did before a mission, turned the ring on his finger three times. Having given the signal to his ground crew, he strapped the oxygen mask to his face and fired the starter cartridge, the huge 24-cylinder Napier Sabre engine bursting into life amid clouds of thick, acrid smoke. The noise was enormous and the airframe shook violently. Adam switched on the oxygen immediately to avoid breathing in the lethal carbon-monoxide fumes that swept into the cockpit. Closing the bubble-perspex canopy, he watched his ground crew take away the chocks, their faces covered with scarves, and wave him round towards the wire-mesh – PSP – runway amid clouds of dust whipped up by the propeller.

  The Typhoons took off in pairs and by the time it was Adam’s turn the dust was so thick he could barely see a thing. Such was the power of the Sabre engine that the torque from the propeller caused the aircraft to veer violently to the right unless the pilot heavily corrected the yaw by pressing down hard on the port rudder. He was well used to this foible by now, but even so, taking off, especially with such poor visibility, was a hazardous occupation and had to be done blind, using the gyro – the aircraft compass – to keep him straight.

  They immediately climbed steeply and turned northwards, out to sea. Normally Adam could see the silver barrage balloons shielding the Mulberry harbour glinting in the sun, but not that morning: Normandy was draped in soft, grey cloud. Merrett took them to 8,000 feet, then they turned and flew inland once more. Circling over their patrol area, they soon spotted a cluster of scattered enemy transport – trucks, lorries and smaller vehicles – so Merrett led them down, their engines screaming, plunging at nearly 600 m.p.h.

  As they hurtled over the enemy vehicles, Adam released half his rockets, two at time, and pressed his thumb down on the gun button. Their efforts were clearly striking home. Balls of flame and columns of thick, black smoke erupted into the sky. All eight Typhoons managed to escape the fray and climbed once more before attacking a wood they thought might be hiding more enemy equipment. Firing their remaining rockets, they left it in flames. Looking back, Adam saw smoke rising high into the sky. A little over ten minutes later, all eight aircraft were touching back down again at B-7.

  This pace would be kept up over the days that followed as a ridge of sustained high pressure settled over Normandy, bringing with it hot, dry weather. Three missions by the squadron on the 10th were followed by two on the 11th, one on the 12th and a further two on the 13th. The Hell Hawks and 354th Fighter Group were just as busy. This almost continual bombardment was hammering yet another nail into the coffin of the German campaign as it continued to unravel. Late on the 8th, Le Mans had fallen as Patton’s troops continued their rapid sweep eastwards. This was a huge blow to the Germans, because it was the main supply base for 7. Armee and well to the south-east of the Normandy battlefield. Hausser, now promoted to Oberstgruppenführer, had been one of the last to leave, sneaking out in an armoured car with only an orderly and his driver. By now, Patton had a dozen divisions south of Avranches and Bradley ordered him to swing one of his corps north towards Alençon as part of a massive encirclement to close in on the Germans in Normandy. ‘Our lead elements on the flankward sweep,’ noted Chet Hansen, ‘are now well beyond Le Mans, approximately 80 miles from Paris.2 General [Bradley] is amazed at failure of Germans to grasp seriousness of the situation and feels they are either dumb or thoroughly oblivious to our intentions.’

  The German command changes continued. Von Kluge now ordered Eberbach to hand over command of 5. Panzerarmee to Sepp Dietrich. Instead, Eberbach was to command Panzergruppe ‘Eberbach’, subordinated to 7. Armee, and launch a renewed attack towards Avranches. It was madness. With what? They wouldn’t have the giant Tiger IIs Leutnant Richard von Rosen was finally bringing from Mailly-le-Camp – they had been shot up by Jabos and badly damaged while on their railway wagons. Von Rosen, who had been in the turret of one at the time of the attack, had also been wounded by shrapnel. It was symptomatic, however, of the dire situation in which the Germans now found themselves. They could barely move at all, let alone attack. Eberbach was incensed by this shift of command none the less. ‘Dietrich’s totally unqualified for the job!’3 he complained despairingly, although a lack of command qualifications was the least of their problems. By now, the remains of those divisions that had begun LÜTTICH were almost back at their jump-off points, yet they were being expected to break through with even fewer troops and less equipment. ‘It was unaccountable that OKW could not see this,’ noted Eberbach, ‘after Stalingrad, Tunisia, Crimea, and Krementschug.’4

  Carl Rambo and the 70th Tank Battalion reached Mortain on 9 August and there they remained for three days. They pulled into a field just short of the town, put their tanks in a ring and got them camouflaged. Their task was to hold their position, because for the time being they did not have the strength to attack. ‘All we could do was sit there and let them shell for several days,’ said Rambo.5 ‘They blew that earth all to pieces, but never did scratch one of us.’ When they finally moved, it was only a few fields further on. Rambo saw a panzer and, as it was sideways to him, he told his gunner to hit it low. Three shells in quick succession whammed into the tank and it began to smoke. ‘We got him,’ Rambo told his crew, then ordered them to turn away, firing as they went.6 Soon after, his gun became so hot that a round got jammed. When they were clear, the gunner jumped out and, using the ramrod that was always left on the main side of the tank beneath the turret, he eventually managed to loosen it and get it clear.

  The Germans eventually, and finally, pulled back on the 11th – with the beleaguered 2nd Battalion of the US 120th Infantry still holding out on Hill 314; they were relieved the following morning, having lost 277 killed, wounded and missing. It had been a heroic stand that had done much to limit the German advance. ‘Enemy takes Alençon and Argentan,’ noted the war diary of the 17. SS-Pionier-Bataillon. ‘Fifth and Seventh Armee threatened to be encircled.’ Willi Müller and his comrades retreated 15 miles that night, then had to abandon their Schwimmwagen when the engine seized for lack of oil. They managed to get a ride in a different vehicle and were told to keep going. They passed through one town, then another, then a third, where all the Germans were clearing out. Then they reached Bellême, east of Alençon and well clear of Normandy, where Müller and his comrades were astonished to find the town already decked with British, French and American flags – he even saw one woman getting flags ready from her upstairs window. ‘She abandoned her plan,’ noted Müller, �
�when she noticed us.’7

  Eberhard Beck and the gunners of the 277. Infanterie-Division were also pulling back, although not yet out of Normandy. They had remained near Évrecy, but the British were pushing southwards in their part of the line too, between the BLUECOAT area around Aunay and Mont Pinçon and the Canadians south of Caen. On the morning of 9 August, the gunners had reached a former flak position. Although Beck wasn’t quite sure where they were, it was near a village and he managed to find a mattress from an old house, which he and one of his comrades put at the bottom of their foxhole as soon as they had dug it. Then enemy shells started screaming over again and by evening they were packing up once more. ‘We had to hurry,’ wrote Beck.8 ‘The enemy was on our tail.’ They had just 300 rounds left, which were placed behind the guns, but the horses were already saddled up and waiting, and they now realized they simply didn’t have time to load the ammunition up. Instead, they would fire the lot now in hopes of stalling the Tommies. Beck was on No. 2 gun. ‘Whole battery, fire!’9 came the orders.