by Mark Zuehlke
A relieved Siebken left his headquarters for the still raging battlefront, fully expecting that Mohnke would be reined in by a promised instruction from Meyer. However, Meyer was unable to contact Mohnke directly because the regimental commander was already en route by staff car to Siebken’s headquarters.
Sometime in the early morning hours of June 9, Mohnke burst into II Battalion’s headquarters at le Mesnil-Patry and confronted Untersturmführer Dietrich Schnabel, Siebken’s special missions officer. Drawing his pistol, Mohnke ordered the junior officer to execute the three prisoners. Shaken and afraid to refuse a direct order, Schnabel drove to Moulin farm where the three Canadians were being held. Accompanied by three soldiers, two of whom were medical orderlies, Schnabel had the prisoners taken out into a garden behind the barn. The Canadians were Private Harold Angel of the Cameron Highlanders and riflemen Frederick Holness and Ernest Baskerville of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. Suffering a painful foot wound, Angel had to be supported by Holness, while Baskerville limped along behind because of a knee injury. Schnabel told the men to face away from the Germans, and then on his command the three accompanying soldiers fired a long burst of submachine-gun fire into their backs. To ensure the Canadians were dead, Schnabel then stepped forward and delivered a single pistol shot into the back of each man’s head.34
[ 11 ]
One Hell of a Good Scrap
WHILE THE ROYAL WINNIPEG RIFLES taken prisoner were helpless players in a random lottery that determined whether they lived or died, many of their comrades were loose in the night trying to escape the cauldron of Putot-en-Bessin. Among these was Rifleman Jim Parks of the battalion’s mortar platoon. Parks had considered himself lucky to have narrowly escaped drowning when his Bren carrier sank while disembarking from a LCT on June 6, but now thought surviving this terrible battle would be a sign that he was truly blessed. During the long, blood-soaked afternoon’s fighting in Putot, Parks had become separated from his unit while trying to eliminate a sniper harrying battalion headquarters. When he spotted a number of Bren carriers and transport trucks careening out of Putot and heading for Secqueville-en-Bessin and 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s rear, Parks decided the wiser part of valour was to follow suit. Creeping from one hedgerow to another, he followed a course that would hopefully lead him to the Canadian Scottish Regiment stronghold at la Bergerie Ferme.
Having expended all his Sten gun ammunition trying to silence the German sniper, Parks fervently hoped to avoid enemy contact. The young soldier was tired, hungry, thirsty, and dispirited at being alone in a hostile land. His spirits perked up momentarily, though, at the sound of voices to his left. But just as Parks thought to announce his presence, the shadowy images of five heavily camouflaged soldiers wearing distinctive coal-bucket German helmets emerged from the hedge. Faces covered with a mixture of black and sand camouflage paint, binder twine woven through web belts to break silhouettes, the men looked bizarrely like wraiths wrapped in badminton netting. Parks, who had enlisted in 1939 at the tender age of fifteen by outrageously representing himself as an eighteen-year-old, thought the Germans looked even younger than his now nineteen years. But they also looked hard-faced, and each soldier had a Schmeisser slung over a shoulder.
“My first thought was to get the hell out of there,” Parks later recalled. “Even had I had a magazine for the gun there was no way I was going to have it out with them there. So I kept going as fast as I could without making much noise.”1
A few minutes later, he looked across a field and saw the eight-foot-high wall surrounding la Bergerie Ferme on the opposite side. The field was being pounded by German artillery, each shell hurling large clots of dirt ten to twelve feet into the air. Glancing over his shoulder, Parks detected the Panzer Grenadiers flitting about in the hedge about fifty yards away and decided he either risked a run through the shellfire or “these guys” were going to catch him. Sucking down a deep breath, Parks bolted into the field, zigzagging through exploding shells until he banged up against the wall. A Canadian Scottish soldier glanced out at him through a loophole carved into the wall and then a length of thick rope dropped over the rim of the wall. Jumping to catch its trailing end, Parks quickly pulled himself hand over hand up the wall and dropped over the other side.
As he hit the ground, the man who had thrown the rope said, “I’ll switch my rifle for your Sten gun.”
“I don’t have any ammo for it,” Parks replied.
“Don’t worry about that. We’re going into the attack in ten minutes.” Parks nodded and exchanged the automatic weapon for a Lee Enfield. So much for regulations, he thought, knowing that he could be placed on a charge for failing to retain possession of the weapon signed out to his care. He could easily imagine the battalion quartermaster reaming him out in a few days, but also realized the other soldier needed the gun more than he did at the moment. The soldier said his section had seen Parks poke his head out of the hedgerow before starting the dash across the field. They had also spotted the five Panzer Grenadiers and fired at them to cover him. “Don’t think we hit any of them,” the man said, “but they buggered off.”
Parks was walked over to the farmhouse, where some tea stood in a can on the kitchen stove. A steel mug of the bitter brew was pressed into his hand. Stepping out of the kitchen, Parks crouched and leaned his back against the farmhouse wall. The courtyard was filled with Canadian Scottish all checking weapons or breaking extra ammunition and grenades out of boxes to fill every available web pouch or pocket with extra ordnance. It was about 2000 hours. Parks knew the Canadian Scottish were to try breaking through to Putot-en-Bessin to relieve the remnants of his battalion still holding out on the town’s eastern flank. He hoped that they got there in time and that not too many of these brave lads would die doing it.2
Brigadier Harry Foster had decided to throw the Canadian Scottish Regiment into a hasty counterattack on Putot-en-Bessin in the late afternoon after it became obvious the Royal Winnipeg Rifles had been all but wiped out. At 1830 hours, the commander of 7 CIB walked into Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu’s headquarters in Secqueville-en-Bessin and said he must attack in no more than two hours. The brigadier promised Cabeldu full support by the 12th and 13th Field Regiments, concentrated in firing positions at Bray, and the company of a 1st Hussars tank squadron. Foster then left the Canadian Scottish commander to work out the details of the attack.
“My plan,” Cabeldu wrote, “was a simple one. We were in possession of the la Bergerie Farm woods. This was to be our start line. The road Secqueville-en-Bessin–Putot-en-Bessin was the centre line of the attack, with ‘D’ [Company] right, ‘A’ [Company] left, ‘C’ [Company] reserve right. ‘B’ [Company] was to disengage from its action at Vieux Cairon, be at the start-line as soon as possible and follow ‘A’ [Company’s] axis. Tanks under [1st Hussars second-in-command] Major Frank White were to give right flank protection, our own Carriers left flank protection, and our 3-inch mortars were to fire from just [to the] rear of the start-line. The Camerons were to lay a smokescreen for us with their 4.2-inch mortars. We were on the extreme right of the division and British elements of the 50th [Division] were supposed to be holding the woods north of Brouay in small numbers. The artillery fire plan was difficult in view of the fact that enemy positions were not known, and, according to available information, the Winnipegs’ [battalion] HQ was still in Putot. A creeping barrage commencing 300 yards in advance of the start-line was decided upon with a lift sufficient for a three-mile-an-hour advance, then lifting to concentrations south of the railway crossing and certain known enemy positions beyond. [Defensive Fire] tasks were to be prepared in advance on all crossroads leading into Putot-en-Bessin anticipating a completely successful attack.”3 Following immediately behind the infantry would also be the four 17-pounder self-propelled antitank guns of 248 Battery’s ‘K’ Troop from the 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment to provide close-in support against any tanks or antitank guns the Germans might have deployed.4
Although he considered t
he plan simple enough, Cabeldu’s men were going to have to scramble to attack on schedule. Only ‘D’ Company was situated at la Bergerie Ferme; the other companies had to start marching almost immediately to have any chance of being in place in time for the advance. Realizing this, Cabeldu had placed ‘B’ Company—almost four miles away in the area of Vieux Cairon—at the back of the attack column. Major R.M. Lendrum would also have to extract his men from the area covertly “in order not to give the enemy any idea that the situation [there] had changed”—nor that the gunners of the field regiments packed into firing positions at Bray were no longer protected by infantry.5
Even as he hastily cobbled his plan of attack together, Cabeldu issued orders summoning the company commanders to an ‘O’ Group at his headquarters. During the short meeting, Cabeldu “impressed on [them] the imperative need for success and haste. The Canadian Scottish must capture and hold Putot. There was no other infantry battalion between the enemy in Putot and the beaches.”6 The creeping artillery barrage would begin at 2030 hours, Cabeldu said, and the leading companies must jump off from the start line then or lose the advantage provided.
So quickly was the attack organized that the 1st Hussars were unable to send an officer to Secqueville in time for the briefing, so the Canadian Scottish second-in-command, Major Cyril Wightman, raced by motorcycle to the tank regiment’s harbour area to personally brief the squadron commander. “I sort of said, ‘Follow me to [the Squadron Leader,]’” he confided to his diary later, turned the bike around, and started heading towards la Bergerie with the Hussars trailing behind in their Shermans.7
Lendrum, who arrived only for the end of the briefing, also rode a motorcycle back to where his men were hotly engaged in a long-range duel with German forces that were pounding Vieux Cairon with artillery, mortar, and heavy machine-gun fire. Pulling out of the area while under fire and without revealing the fact that the village was being left undefended proved no easy matter, but soon Lendrum had his men behind a low rise that screened their movement as they marched “from one battle… cross-country… to get into another.”8
Upon returning to ‘C’ Company, still in Secqueville, Major Desmond Crofton summoned the platoon commanders, while Company Sergeant Major W. Berry organized a distribution of extra ammunition and collected up antitank grenades and other supplies not needed in the attack. Being excluded from the briefing bothered Berry, because if the officers all ended up dead or wounded, responsibility for leading the company would fall on his shoulders and he would have little idea of the plan.9 Among the young officers being briefed by Crofton was twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Geoffrey D. Corry, who had only taken over No. 15 Platoon the day before as a reinforcement officer. Just getting to know his men, Corry had so far been impressed by their “great confidence and spirit” despite the losses suffered during the landings and advance inland. He listened with growing trepidation, however, to Crofton’s briefly delivered orders. “The Winnipegs have been overrun by the Panzer Grenadiers,” Crofton said sharply, “and it’s the battalion’s job to counterattack and retake Putot-en-Bessin. Our failure will allow the Germans to storm to the beach and jeopardize the whole invasion… There’s no time to lose.” Corry swallowed and thought, “Pretty heavy stuff.” Gathering his platoon section leaders together, Corry explained the situation “quickly but clearly.” Then it “was on with small packs, ammunition, and begin to move out.”10
While waiting for Major Tony MacEwan to return to la Bergerie Ferme from the ‘O’ Group at Secqueville, Lieutenant Thomas Lowell Butters watched increasing numbers of Winnipeg Rifles straggling in from Putot. “They hobbled back, shot up, scared. Each man said that all hell was breaking loose out there.” When MacEwan hustled into the farmyard and ordered ‘D’ Company to saddle up, Butters knew they were going into that hell. With the men marching behind, MacEwan led the way towards the wood south of the farm and “briefed his platoon commanders about what we were doing while on the move to the start line.”11
‘D’ Company arrived at the edge of the wood, and Butters saw Cabeldu already there, staring through binoculars at “streams of troops crossing and running northeast towards [nearby] farm buildings.” Fearing the soldiers might be Germans launching a pre-emptive strike, the lieutenant colonel dispatched the Bren carrier platoon to investigate. Its commander, Lieutenant Joseph James Andrews, quickly radioed back that Cabeldu was seeing Winnipeg Rifles on the run.
As MacEwan marched by at the head of his men, Cabeldu waved them forward and ‘D’ Company’s “advance went in with terrific impetus.”12 The battalion had three miles to go, initially following a narrow lane until it met the Secqueville-Putot main road, and then directly by road to a bridge crossing the railway west of Putot. For the entire distance, the ground was almost perfectly flat and bordered on either side by grain standing four to five feet high, with a few scattered orchards breaking up the open fields until the road intersected the Caen-Bayeux highway. After that, the road passed through three wide grain fields divided only by thin hedgerows.
The company advanced in extended line, with Butters and No. 17 Platoon on the right, Lieutenant A.C. Peck’s platoon to the left, and Lieutenant J.P.R. Mollison’s men astride the road. MacEwan’s company headquarters followed close behind Mollison’s platoon and about fifteen yards farther back, Private R.H. Tutte trundled up the road in the company’s Bren carrier. The carrier was heavily loaded with ammunition and medical supplies, so that it could serve as a mobile supply station. Riding shotgun beside Tutte was Private R.H. Rideout, a company stretcher-bearer. The battalion’s three-inch mortar platoon was also tight on ‘D’ Company’s heels. Given the speed of preparations, MacEwan considered the fact they crossed the start line on time “a miracle.”13
Once on the advance, the lead platoons “spread out on either side of the road in the grain fields” and walked into a murderous rain of steel that the Germans—knowing the creeping barrage screened an attack—cast down immediately behind the Canadian artillery fire.14 ‘D’ Company could only face this intense mortar and artillery fire, as the battalion “learned our first lesson” about German doctrine for meeting attacks. Cabeldu realized that the opening barrage supporting his attack equally betrayed the start line’s position. Now the Germans had it marked and brought fire to bear on each company as it emerged from the wood. But without the artillery, Cabeldu believed his men would be slaughtered when they went forward.15
Even with the artillery support and the cover offered by a thick smokescreen created by the rapid 4.2-inch mortar fire of the Cameron Highlanders, ‘D’ Company started to take casualties. MacEwan was initially confused, unable “to tell whether we were walking into our own artillery or if it was enemy fire.” From his position near the back of the company’s advance, the major could see his leading platoons moving forward, but found it almost impossible to keep in touch with them as the officers were too busy to send regular wireless reports. Sensing that No. 17 Platoon was beginning to veer too far right, possibly in response to the heavy frontal fire it was taking, MacEwan dashed up the road to get directly behind the leading platoons and better control their movement.16
Rattling along behind in his carrier, Private Tutte “could see the full extent of our line, also I could see almost every man that fell and though the enemy fire was so heavy, not one man could I see hanging back. I had never known until this time that we had so many men in our company.” When the first soldiers started falling, Private Rideout jumped off and raced to help the wounded.17 Private W.A.P. Campbell of the mortar platoon later wrote of ‘D’ Company’s advance that “it was really something to see, to watch the boys going across the fields. They just kept right on walking and getting shot down.”18
The smoke boiling over the battlefield thickened, plunging the men into an early twilight through which heavy amounts of tracer rounds being fired by the Panzer Grenadiers to guide their aim “showed up brighter and brighter. The [company] passed through grain fields and orchards, pushing thro
ugh each sparse hedgerow. Casualties were being suffered all along,” MacEwan later wrote. Wounded himself, the major remained at the head of his men. “We passed over part of the Winnipegs’ position with their arms and equipment left on the ground beside their slit trenches. Further on a German armoured car opened up from behind a hedgerow on the platoon on the left. After several heavy bursts of fire he moved off. Later it was hit and burned on the objective. Just before here I was hit for the second time and was out of action.”19 Lying where his wounds had rendered him helpless, MacEwan tried to draw the attention of second-in-command Captain Jack Bryden and Company Sergeant Major Kilner as the company headquarters section passed by, “but the smoke and flame and roar of exploding shells made this impossible.” MacEwan was later picked up by a stretcher-bearer party and evacuated to the rear for treatment.20
As ‘D’ Company crossed the Caen-Bayeux highway, it entered the even deadlier killing ground presented by the three grain fields that had to be crossed in turn to gain the railroad crossing objective. Immediately, Butters wrote afterward, “the enemy mortaring increased and was supplemented by two or three enemy LMGs [light machine guns] firing from the centre and right edge of the first hedgerow. Casualties crossing the field increased. Similar conditions of opposition were met in crossing the second field, although mortaring appeared to increase in intensity.
