Chapter 4
As German forces suffered the awesome might of the strategic bombers, some of the British forces waiting poised to attack enjoyed a brief respite.
MOVING OUT
Not in their densely packed holding areas, nor as they squeezed along the paths through the minefields, did the leading vehicles of 11th Armoured Division resemble a combat formation. Even on the far side of the minefields, the vehicles of the regimental group still had to squeeze into their tightly packed Forming Up Place: a shallow rectangle of open ground, two thousand yards wide and three hundred deep. Here the 3rd Royal Tanks regimental group awaited the moment to lead the offensive.
The dense park of vehicles seemed to offer a tempting target, but with the dawn came the aerial bombardment. The suppressive effect of the bombing was total. Not an enemy shell fell on the FUP. More serious as it turned out was the effect of the close proximity of so many armoured vehicles on the performance of the radios. It was asking rather a lot of the sensitive equipment of 1944 with its delicate components to expect it to operate at all within an armoured box, alongside throbbing engines, and subjected to violent shocks transmitted through metal tracks and hard suspension. Operators took care to ‘net’ (or fine tune) their sets to squadron frequencies at the last possible moment before going into action, and tank commanders dreaded receiving a ‘netting call’ from the CO’s wireless operator whilst engaged in combat. Today the netting proved particularly difficult, and some consequent communications problems were experienced as the morning progressed. Meanwhile, other crew members took the opportunity of a grandstand view of the bombing while enjoying a last cigarette. (Officially smoking was banned within the tanks; some units or individual commanders turned a blind eye to this while in action.) The day was going to be warm. Even surrounded by a growing cloud of exhaust fumes, the ‘open air’ was preferable to the atmosphere inside a tank.
Some tank crewmen finished a smoke as they watched the effects of the air attack.
H Hour approached and crews slid into their vehicles. At 07.45 hours, the artillery commenced a rolling barrage directly ahead. Eight field regiments (192 guns) began to beat a two thousand yard width ahead of the Start Line. Many of the field guns had been in action for weeks, firing many thousands of rounds. Before major actions, large quantities of shells were typically dumped at gun positions, and despite attempts to ‘segregate’ production batches, ammunition from different sources was inevitably mixed up. What is more, as the official British artillery historian recognized, ‘Even if the ammunition was all the same, guns were apt to develop considerable differences in wear during periods of prolonged activity.’1 By July, the rifling of some of the 25 pounder field guns was already so worn that shells fitted loosely into the breech. Barrels wobbled loosely in their mounts due to worn trunnions. One 13th RHA officer recalls seeing a single gun’s shells fall 80 yards apart on the same laying. In the absence of spare parts and the time for calibration of muzzle velocities of individual guns, the net result was variation in accuracy. Some shells fell short. And some tank crewmen, finishing a cigarette or lingering to watch the view, were too slow getting behind armour. 3rd RTR’s A Squadron lost Lieutenant Philip Pells, commander of 3 Troop. Major Close quickly ordered Sergeant Freddie Dale to assume command of the troop, with command of Pells’ Sherman assumed by its corporal wireless operator. On the right of the squadron, Lieutenant Osbaldeston too was killed and had to be replaced as troop commander. Further back the C Squadron commander Major Peter Burr, a desert veteran awaiting promotion to Brigade Major, had his head blown off. There was time only for hasty command reassignments, and considerable disruption was caused. By the time the tanks and accompanying carriers were off and moving, the artillery barrage had already moved on some distance. It was an inauspicious start.
BATTLE FORMATION
Hitherto, the division’s tank fighting in Normandy had largely taken place in very close country. In a landscape where impenetrable hedgerows lined small fields, where stone walls enclosed dense orchards
The dense Normandy countryside restricted mobility.
of low-hanging trees, interspersed with sturdy stone buildings, the desert veterans of the Royal Tanks found themselves having to learn new tactics as quickly as the inexperienced tank crews of the Yeomanry and the Hussars. As German tankers in Normandy had already realised, the ground rarely permitted the effective deployment of tanks in groups of more than two or three: Troop (or ‘Zug’) strength. Only briefly, on the rolling, open country between Hills 112 and 113, had there been much opportunity for the British tanks to deploy in whole squadrons. And even there, Montgomery had made the decision to withdraw the tank regiments of 11th Armoured from the open battleground before the armoured assault of II. SS-Panzer Korps had fully developed.
This was all unexpected. 11th Armoured Division’s pre-invasion training ‘courtesy of Roberts, its new GOC, embraced tactics that corresponded to best practice in North Africa.’2 After his division’s (most commendable) first battle, Pip Roberts became somewhat depressed about the outlook for the armour in this new theatre, commenting to a colleague ‘I fear that the outlook for armoured divisions doesn’t look too good.’3 As the German tank forces had also begun to discover, the dense terrain simply did not lend itself to manoeuvres of large tank formations. But perhaps GOODWOOD might signal a return from the bocage fighting to what had been foreseen. Having negotiated the tortuous route around the beachhead and across the waterways, the armour was looking forward to open country ahead. For 3rd RTR open country meant ‘good tank country’, where the veterans of the regiment hoped to enjoy the benefits of room to manoeuvre.
TROOP ATTACK FORMATION
Now clear of the minefield lanes, the regiment ‘shook out’ into troops and squadrons, and its battle formation began at last to take shape. The plan for the attack was reminiscent of the open desert. The regimental group would form an armoured ‘box’, with tanks on its outer faces and other units within. The tanks led. The first wave comprised A Squadron on the right and B to their left. The two nineteen-tank squadrons moved each with two troops ‘up’ and two following. Each troop adopted an arrowhead of three Sherman Vs about thirty yards apart and the troop Firefly tucked in a similar distance behind. In the centre of each four-troop square was the squadron headquarters with its three tanks, the squadron commander attempting to regulate the speed and maintain the formation of his unit.
As close as possible behind followed the second wave of the regimental group. Colonel Silvertop’s Headquarters Squadron was accompanied by the infantry and artillery commanders: Major Noel Bell of G Company, 8th RB; and Major Bill Smyth-Osborne of H Battery, 13th RHA. Both maintained position alongside the colonel’s tank, while Silvertop himself concentrated on keeping in contact with the two tank squadrons ahead. Also with this wave advanced the flails, the AVREs, the carrier platoon of 8th RB, and the regimental reconnaissance and antiaircraft troops.
SQUADRON ATTACK FORMATION (not to scale)
The third wave comprised the remainder of the task force. Leading the self-propelled artillery and the half-tracks of the motor infantry were the tanks of C Squadron. As soon as they were clear of the minefields the tanks sprinted forward, two troops to each side of the box, to screen the flanks of the mobile formation. Altogether, the reinforced regimental group comprised upwards of 140 assorted vehicles, most of them armoured, moving on a front which quickly narrowed from two thousand metres to barely a kilometre.
Further back, eight more armoured regiments waited their turn, each accompanied by similar numbers of vehicles, edging forward in a traffic jam which reached back far to the west of the Orne bridges. And these were not the only traffic jostling for places in the advance. Intermingled with the armoured regiments and their accompanying artillery and motor infantry were great numbers of specialist vehicles: the brigade headquarters, the divisional ‘Tac’ headquarters, divisional assets including sappers, signallers, and of course medical personnel. Each division had its armoured car regiment, with troops of cars anxious to struggle through the tight mass of traffic towards the front, there to probe for gaps through which to penetrate and fan out behind enemy lines. And of course, each of the three armoured divisions had also its entire brigade of lorried infantry and a (towed) Field Regiment, RA. Though these were not involved in the initial planned breakthrough, each divisional commander was understandably keen to bring them up as soon as practical to enable his division to function as a whole unit.
3rd RTR REGIMENTAL GROUP ATTACK FORMATION
INTO THE CORRIDOR
After hasty attempts to sort out the confusion caused by short artillery rounds, the leading tanks rolled forward, hoping to catch up with the barrage which had already begun to move south. Bill Close later confessed, ‘We had orders to try and remain one hundred yards behind [the barrage] but we set off in some disorder.’ If the symmetry of the planned ‘regimental box’ was not achieved, there were few to witness the fact. The earlier bombing had raised a murky pall over the entire landscape into which the tanks were plunging, and the advancing artillery barrage raised a curtain of smoke and dust in the immediate vicinity. It was all the two squadron commanders could do to make out the tanks closest to their own. ‘We roared on through boiling clouds of dirt and fumes, thirty eight Shermans doing their best to keep up with the rolling curtain of fire. I could see tanks either side of me slowly picking their way through the ever increasing number of bigger and bigger bomb craters. I only hoped that B Squadron on my left was keeping up… I kept willing us on.’ Though the bombing here had avoided ‘cratering’, the loose earth turned by the later fragmentation bombs and the immediately preceding artillery barrage were trial enough. On a clear day, these obstacles would have been easily surmounted. But with a brown fog limiting visibility and fumes from the shells lingering in the hollows, it required constant vigilance to avoid hitting an unseen hole at the wrong angle and toppling the tank. Drivers changed down through the gears to retain control as tracks thrashed dry, powdery soil.
Taken just before 12.15 hours, this photograph of the armoured corridor shows the traffic jams forming around the railway as German fire begins from the east.
The view west from Lirose towards Cuverville: the armoured corridor barely a kilometre across.
The tank killer silenced: an abandoned Pak 40.
German casualties: slit trenches became graves.
It is normal in any battle for order to descend into confusion. This time confusion had arrived somewhat earlier than expected. Fortunately for tank commanders now preoccupied with uneven terrain and low visibility, their difficulties were a small price to pay for the near-total suppression of nearby enemies. For the time being, there was no serious opposition to deal with. A thousand yards beyond the Start Line, there were few defenders still active in the path of the advance. The guns positioned to cover this ground were in Cuverville (now substantially rubbled) and Touffréville (spared by the bombing, but so screened by shellfire that any guns still manned lacked a line of sight into the smoke). The battery of mobile antitank guns sited in the area, open topped and lightly armoured, was neutralized, either in their emplacements or as they attempted hurriedly to displace southwards. Of towed antitank guns, the tanks encountered only a handful in this first stage of the battle, three of which were later confirmed to have been destroyed by tank shells rather than bombs. But the bombardment had worked. Most of the guns were uncrewed, the gunners shocked into insensibility and taking refuge in shelters.
Tank crews in combat are not well placed to take infantry prisoners. The few Germans appearing out of the mist in front of the tanks were in no mood for resistance, and were briskly waved to the rear by tank commanders in their turrets. Some Germans were observed to be incapable even of walking in a straight line; more than half of these prisoners remained stone deaf for the rest of the day. Less fortunate were the many, unable or unwilling to leave their trenches, who were despatched by grenades dropped from the passing vehicles. Their slit trenches became their graves, filled-in by the following British infantry. Lieutenant Robin Lemon, then 2ic in 3rd RTR’s Reconnaissance Troop, shot down an enemy soldier who misguidedly approached his Stuart tank clutching a grenade. So, the confusion caused to the advancing force was outweighed by the distress inflicted on the defenders. Much later and with the benefit of hindsight, tank crews interviewed by Operations Research were unanimous in their approval of the overall effect of the bombing in this first stage of the tank run.
The artillery barrage continued relentlessly, advancing at a steady five miles per hour, drawing still further away from the tanks. Consequently, the tanks found their visibility somewhat improved as some of the dust had time to settle. Struggling to keep up the pace, the squadron commanders were able to tidy their formations. Each squadron now reduced its frontage to about six hundred yards as the corridor narrowed between Démouville and Sannerville. As A Squadron skirted the woods north west of Démouville, a few of the right-flank tanks could discern enemy movement and even some firing. Without stopping, commanders turned their turrets and the tank gunners ‘brassed up’ the treeline with their co-axial 0.30 calibre Browning machine guns.
THE FIRST RAILWAY
Pressing on still further south, the leading elements reached the first major landmark: a single track railway between Caen and Troarn. Even this early in the battle, precise timings begin to present problems. Still, it seems that the leading elements of 3rd RTR reached the railway some time after 08.30 hours and soon after, as the rest of the regiment arrived, the first tanks began to cross. An advance of two miles from the Start Line had already taken the best part of an hour.
From this point, the 3rd RTR war diary becomes decidedly unreliable. Following an anomalous and inaccurate 08.00 hours entry ‘LE MESNIL FREMENTEL reported clear’ (by whom, one wonders, since no Allied forces were yet anywhere near the place), five further entries take us to 10.00 after which we find a four hour gap before entries resume at 14.00. Given the important events occurring during this precise period, it is likely (and pardonable) that the 18 July diary (at least up to 14.00 hours) is based on vague memories rather than precisely noted times. Fortunately, it is known that the first stage of the artillery barrage was due to end 300 yards beyond (i.e., south of) the railway line not before 08.15 hours (and possibly later, due to time allowed for optional pauses on predetermined lines). Since the 3rd RTR advance had fallen well behind the barrage, the war diary’s claim that the railway was reached at 08.05 and the barrage lifted at 08.10 can confidently be set aside. Roscoe Harvey’s 29th Brigade Tac HQ was following close behind the 3rd RTR group, and may not have known exactly when the first tanks reached the railway. Nevertheless the 29th Brigade war diary has the more reasonable claim that by 08.37 some elements of 3rd RTR had reached the railway and were beginning to cross. The vital point is that the bulk of the regimental group took an hour to get this far forward.
The Caen-Troarn single-track railway. The level crossing at Lirose was just south-east of spot height ‘21’. The present-day photograph on page 74 was taken from spot 21, facing west, on 18 July 2005.
The first railway was assumed in the GOODWOOD plan to be no more than a waypoint. 11th Armoured Division’s APIS (Aerial Photographic Interpretation Section) had declared the single-track line to be an insignificant obstacle to vehicles. It was not.4 The rail line that lay squarely across the line of advance ran along an embankment raised between one and two metres above the surrounding fields, with occasional drainage ditches alongside. A level crossing lay just east of the tanks’ path, taking a dirt road across the rails to join the main Caen to Troarn highway running parallel to (and south of) the railway. Another crossing was to be found a kilometre to the west. Most of the Sherman tanks could clamber across the embankment, though even some of these broke their tracks when they hit the rails awkwardly. For the carriers and the half-tracks, the embankment was a serious hindrance. For wheeled vehicles it would be impassable, likewise for the Sherman flails with their cumbersome apparatus. The whole advance was delayed while the accompanying 8th Rifle Brigade carriers and half-tracks queued around the few crossing places. Matters were only made worse as wheeled vehicles came up and milled around seeking level crossings. Squadron commanders passed the word back for the AVREs to come up. These were Churchill tanks with six-man Royal Engineer crews. As well as carrying a variety of demolition charges (to be emplaced outside the tank by sixth crew member, the Demolitions NCO, who when in the tank sat on an ammunition box behind the driver), their main armament was a petard mortar hurling a massive ‘Flying Dustbin’ bomb containing twenty three pounds of plastic explosive. Designed to breach concrete obstacles, these set about blasting passages through the railway embankment. Congestion was eased somewhat, until later-arriving teams of sappers could bulldoze a half-dozen earth ramps over the metal tracks and create special crossings for wheeled vehicles between the existing level crossings.
The level crossing at Lirose: today no longer defended.
Adding to the congestion on the north side of the railway line was Roscoe Harvey’s 29th Brigade TAC HQ, following close on the heels of the 3rd RTR group. His brigade war diary reflected his upbeat mood, claiming that 08.00 hours found ‘3 R Tks keeping up as close to the barrage as possible. The adv went according to plan.’ Even the railway, reached at 08.37 hours, ‘proves not to be a great obstacle and several crossings are quickly found’. Nevertheless, even the irrepressible brigadier had to admit that the plan was not quite being followed. At 08.45, following a pause extended by the divisional CRA, with the barrage recommenced and now angling off to the south west, the diary confides, ‘Barrage moves fwd again on next phase. 3 R Tks not all able to keep up with it, but try and catch it up.’
ROYAL TANKS PAST LE MESNIL
The hope of 3rd RTR catching up the barrage was premature. Although the map appeared to indicate open country, just five hundred metres beyond the railway line the advancing tanks encountered a significant terrain feature. A 1,500 metre length of unbroken, dense hedgerow lay across their path. With no realistic route around the new obstacle, the tanks had to select points at which the earth banks and foliage were low and thin enough for a passage to be attempted. A half-dozen such gaps were forced, including one opening which, after a few tanks had passed through, was beaten down sufficiently for half-tracks and wheeled vehicles to follow.
South of the first railway: the hedgerow at la Haye de Saules.
Taken about 11.50 hours, over 190 British vehicles are identifiable in this image including over 75 tanks.
Tanks shelter briefly behind the second line of hedges before making their run around the west side of Mesnil Frémentel. Taken about 12.05 hours, this photograph includes Pip Roberts’ Tac HQ of three command tanks and the four Shermans of the protection troop.
The Autoroute de Normandie today replaces the hedgerow behind which British tanks sheltered.
Nowadays, la Haie de Saules is one of the few areas of the GOODWOOD battlefield whose original terrain has largely vanished. The reason is the A13 ‘Autoroute de Normandie’. Nearly all the east-west stretch of bocage has been submerged under a four-lane highway. One small consolation is the bridge now carrying the D226 out of Démouville over the Autoroute, whose elevation offers a vista from Manneville and le Prieuré in the distant east around to le Mesnil Frémentel to the south. Between the bridge and the complex of le Mesnil can be seen the outline of further 1944 hedgerows. And in particular there survives almost intact a six hundred metre length of bocage just north of le Mesnil which provided 3rd RTR with solid cover until they were within very close range of its defenders.
At 09.20 hours, the barrage that had so far blazed a trail for the tanks’ advance came to its end, some distance ahead of the leading tank squadrons. For the time being, 3rd RTR would have to depend for fire support on their attached battery of eight self-propelled guns. As yet, the opposition remained slight. For 3rd RTR, arriving at the second hedgerow about 09.30 hours, this further obstacle seemed an unwelcome hindrance. Unbeknown to them, it was to prove a blessing. Confronting the stout hedgerow, its branches interwoven with centuries of growth and its roots sunk deep into the high earth bank, the first tanks probed for a possible way through. Commanders in their high turrets gaining a line of sight through the foliage were able to make out the walled priory complex of le Mesnil Frémentel with its surrounding orchards, a mere five hundred yards ahead. The place was evidently enemy-held, as was confirmed when various weapons opened up on the advancing tanks. The A Squadron commander recalled,
I stopped and looked through my glasses as we got closer to the village. I could see considerable activity among the walls and the houses, and it was pretty obvious that the village was strongly occupied. I wanted to stop and use my squadron properly and put down a shoot but I was being told by my CO in no uncertain terms to get on, get moving, and go to the west of the village.5
Hitherto in Normandy, many a British offensive had ground to a halt as leading units paused to deal with a thin German defensive screen. Colonel Silvertop and his brigadier were both conscious of the need to press ahead, bypassing pockets of resistance which the follow-up infantry could deal with. Harvey was becoming dissatisfied with the pace of his armoured brigade’s initial advance, but at least the regiments had kept moving. The plan assumed that resistance would have been crushed by the preparatory bombardment. Sure enough, there had so far been little or no serious opposition from the natural strongpoints the tanks had bypassed. A racing man, Harvey was still determined that his tanks’ role in GOODWOOD should be a gallop through the enemy lines. At the sharp end, two miles ahead of Harvey’s Tac HQ, Major Close realised that the opposition was stiffening. And this was not the way he had been trained to deal with defended villages.
I was somewhat reluctant to present the flanks of my tanks to an obviously well-defended village, but gave orders to my troops to fire on the move as we passed to the west.6
The combination of these orders and the fire emanating from the walls and orchards of le Mesnil caused the tanks to edge westward along the thick hedgerow. Charging in ones and twos through thinner parts of the obstacle, the tanks forced two major breeches, which were progressively widened and flattened as three squadrons of tanks took their turn. There were casualties. One A Squadron Sherman to Close’s left rolled to a halt and began belching dark smoke. Next, two tanks of B Squadron were hit. Dark shapes could be seen rolling out of their crippled mounts, tanks and crewmen alike setting the uncut grain on fire. The tanks fired as they moved across the face of their tormentors. Now, true to their role, some of the regimental reconnaissance troop had pushed their way forward to join the leading squadrons. Two of these lightly armoured Stuart tanks were promptly hit and knocked out.
The Shermans charged on, now due south, ever closer to the wall of le Mesnil. They presented their vulnerable flanks; barely an inch and a half of armour stood between the enemy and their fuel tanks and ammunition racks; turrets turned to nine o’clock spraying bullets and firing High Explosive rounds in the direction of gunflashes amongst the buildings and trees. Even at this range, fire from the moving tanks could hardly be accurate.7 But even inaccurate fire at close range was enough to suppress most German gunners and put others off their aim. And even a tank as tall as a Sherman was a difficult target when racing obliquely across the front of a gun at 200 metres range or less. More important, most of the defenders of le Mesnil Frémentel were ill-equipped to meet this threat. As close as any of the garrison to the advancing enemy was Leutnant Gerhardt Bandomir, in his command dugout on the outside north-west corner of the priory wall. His experiences on the Russian front had conditioned him to emerge from cover as soon as possible after an attacking barrage lifted, in order to repel the waves of infantry which invariably followed. Today, however, he emerged to find at first… nothing. Only some time after the barrage, as defenders found time to congratulate themselves on their survival, did a mass of tanks appear in the north, directly to the front of the company position. ‘To our great surprise, they were not accompanied by infantry. We were helpless with just our rifles and our machine guns.’
Whether the defenders of le Mesnil Frémentel had any surviving antitank guns at this moment is not known. The infantry of course had their Panzerfäuste, though it would have taken a brave man to emerge into the open to engage enemy tanks moving at speed with such a close-range weapon. And as far as Bandomir could tell, there were no survivors of his unit in the fields in front of his company position. The main antitank defence around le Mesnil was mobile, and by the time the main body of the 3rd RTR group erupted onto the scene, passing between 09.30 and 10.00 hours, the surviving self propelled guns had already moved out.8 As will be seen, the fourth battery of Major Becker’s mobile battalion had left its carefully camouflaged positions on the eastern flank of le Mesnil, initially falling back towards alternative positions to the east. From that direction, it is most likely that this battery accounted for the 3rd RTR tanks lost on the approach to le Mesnil. It was the good fortune of the leading 3rd RTR tanks that they had first edged westward before crossing the hedgerow, then charged rapidly across the north-western face of the priory complex. By so doing, they minimized the time they would be exposed to fire from a kilometre to the east. Once past le Mesnil, the south-westbound tanks descended a slope and crossed a hedge which effectively put them into dead ground, out of sight from le Mesnil or Cagny. Even so, standing in his turret in the comparative calm, Bill Close noted spent shells still coming from that direction.
As I crossed over that fairly open country, there was some AP shot, 88 millimetre, coming from the areas of Cagny and le Prieuré, and it was quite extraordinary: they were ‘overs’ and had no effect on my tanks; and as they came across the top of the corn you could actually see them coming as they left a wake rather like the wake of a torpedo...9
In the relative quiet, at the forefront of the 3rd RTR advance, Bill Close had moments to take stock. His own squadron’s losses had so far been slight: since leaving the Start Line, only one tank lost. Descending a gentle slope from le Mesnil Frémentel south west towards the main Caen to Paris highway and parallel rail line, his squadron found itself in a wasteland of splintered trees and dead cows, the aftermath of the American fragmentation bombing. On the move, with occasional hold-ups, for two hours, his squadron had now pushed forward four miles, with nothing on the open flanks of the advance save enemy-held villages and farms, in various stages of suppression. According to the briefing, this should have taken them clean through the German lines. On the contrary, Close realised, the German defences were deeper than predicted. And they were waking up. As the armoured formation roared on south, over the main road and the second railway towards the next objective of Grentheville, enemy movement could be seen in the treelines ahead. The fight was far from over.
The route of the Fifes A and B Squadrons.
FORWARD THE FIFE AND FORFAR
Having set 3rd RTR again on the move from the first railway crossing, Harvey then turned his attention to the second regimental group coming down the corridor: the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry. So far, the Fife and Forfar were having an uncomfortable day. Having crossed the waterways after 3rd RTR, they had arrived in their final concentration area only at 04.00 hours. There was little chance to rest before reveille. Then came the din of the aerial bombardment, and soon after the call to move out. The regiment had more difficulty than the Royal Tanks negotiating the paths through the minefields, as did every successive tank regiment that day with competition for the available road space increasing. Only four paths were allowed them. Also inconveniencing the regiment was an unfortunate accident with their water supply. Something putrid had unaccountably got into the regimental water bowser, and in spite of the customary heavy treatment with chloride of lime, most of the tank men were suffering varying degrees of dysentery. 10
The Fifes’ formation was similar to that of the RTR. Along with their accompanying I Battery, 13th RHA, and F Company, 8th Rifle Brigade, they formed a multi-arm regimental task force arranged in three groups with two sabre squadrons in the lead.
Once over the railway, the advance would be free of the constraints of the initial, narrow corridor and able to open out onto a wider front. Though determined to push 3rd RTR forward as quickly as possible, Harvey was hopeful that if the Fifes could be got quickly over the railway they might catch up and the two leading regiments sweep forward more or less in line abreast. In the half hour it took 3rd RTR to advance from the railway crossing, through the first hedgerow, and past le Mesnil Frémentel, a distance of about two miles, the two lead squadrons of the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry did indeed manage to struggle across the railway and jostle past the tail of the 3rd RTR regimental group, still negotiating the Haie de Saules hedgerow breeches. From here the two regiments’ paths diverged. As 3rd RTR ran westward around the north and west of le Mesnil Frémentel, the Fifes were to angle left and sweep down past the eastern flank of the farm and its small orchards.
Having left behind the single track railway and hurdled the Haie de Saules hedgerows, the Fifes’ leading two squadrons continued to make good time. As early as 09.12 hours, as Harvey saw the leading elements of the Fifes rolling southwards, 29th Brigade confidently reported to 11th Armoured HQ the welcome news: ‘2FF Yeo 800 yds from CAGNY’.11 From this point, a mile of completely open ground beckoned. The Fifes’ two leading squadrons opened out, A to the right and B to the left, a total frontage of 700 yards. The tanks thundered unopposed across the grain fields, with the second wave of regimental Headquarters, the Recce Troop, and the carriers of F Company, 8th RB racing close behind. Abandoned enemy equipment was observed, and many prisoners attempting to surrender were simply ignored in the headlong rush.
By 09.20 hours, as the artillery barrage reached its conclusion, 29th Brigade reported to division, ‘3 R Tks and 2 FF Yeo cross main rd CAEN – VIMONT.’ In the case of 3rd RTR this was a trifle optimistic, but it is likely that the Fifes had indeed caught up. Certainly, by 09.35 hours brigade HQ reported that the leading Fifes had reached the main, dual track Caen – Paris railway, and by 09.46 they were across. Lieutenant William Steel Brownlie, commanding 4 Troop, A Squadron was exhilarated.
We had never before driven in formation for more than a couple of hundred yards, except on exercises. Was it all over bar the shouting?12
It was not.
References
1
‘The Development of Artillery Tactics and Equipment’, A L Pemberton, 1951, p 197. (Unpublished ‘official history’ of the Royal Artillery in the Second World War.)
2
‘Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944’, Timothy Harrison Place, 2000, ISBN 0-7146-8091-5, p 171
3
Roberts, p 167
4
Roberts later called this ‘the only mistake they made in the campaign.’ (Roberts, 173) For their part, the interpreters pointed out, with some justification, that it was sometimes hard to tell the GOC what he did not want to hear.
5
Close, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979.
6
Close, p 119
7
The gyrostabilizers provided in some American tanks, designed to facilitate firing on the move, had so far proved unreliable and were not favoured by the British authorities nor by the tank crews.
8
Gerhardt Bandomir diary. Bandomir claims to have witnessed one of Becker’s self propelled 10.5cm howitzers which had been knocked out and half-buried by a direct hit. This might have been in the vicinity of le Mesnil Frémentel, but it is equally possible that he made the sighting further north, as Bandomir was led into captivity with the survivors of his garrison.
9
Close, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979. It is correct that these rounds were almost certainly ‘overs’ directed at British units further back. The term ‘eighty-eights’ was commonly applied by the British to any antitank fire; in this case it is equally possible that the shells were 7.5cm, or else from 8.8cm guns at greater distance, since true ‘eighty-eights’ would not have become so innocuous after a mere 1,500 metres.
10
‘A Soldier’s Tale’, personal diary of Trooper John Thorpe. The effects of dysentery on fighting men encased in armour throughout a hot summer’s day are not to be dwelt upon. Supplies of toilet paper were strictly rationed and wholly inadequate for such eventualities. Suffice to say that as the day progressed some of the men took every opportunity to leave their tank to clean up. And as a consequence most of them were to suffer dehydration far beyond the ‘dry throat’ which commonly accompanied battle. The previous day, a surprise issue from the ration truck of one bottle of Whitbread beer and one tuppeny bar of Cadbury’s chocolate per man plus a white loaf to each crew (‘only one side mildewed!’) had been welcomed by some. The War Diary cheerfully records that ‘morale was improved by the arrival of the N.A.A.F.I. and the first rations of beer.’ Cynics reflected wistfully: ‘Coo! What have they got lined up for us?’; and ‘I wonder what happened to our rum. I have only ever had one rum ration since we landed.’ The cynicism was sadly justified.
11
An interesting example of how confused signals can intensify the fog of war. 11th Armoured recorded at 09.15 (their signals log rounded minutes to 5s and 10s), ‘3rd R Tks half way between CUVERVILLE and DEMOUVILLE. Leading Tps 800 yds NORTH of CAGNY.’ Any officer taking time to interpret this information might have thought it strange for 3rd RTR to be back north of the railway when the bulk of the regiment was over a mile to the south of Démouville and advancing still further south. Clearly, someone’s wireless procedure had been imperfect and ‘le Mesnil Frémentel’ had been mis-recorded as ‘Démouville’.
12
Steel Brownlie diary