by Mark Zuehlke
Leading the attack would be ‘D’ Company of the Queen’s Own Rifles piggybacking on tanks of the 1st Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron, closely followed by ‘C’ Squadron. Colwell’s regimental headquarters would tail ‘C’ Squadron, while ‘A’ Squadron brought up the rear. ‘A’ Company of the Queen’s Own would spread out by platoons on the tanks of ‘C’ and ‘A’ squadrons.2
Wyman intended to be right behind this potent force with a small tactical brigade headquarters aboard three Shermans, each mounting a wooden gun barrel instead of the 75-millimetre in order to provide room for additional wireless sets. Wyman would ride in the lead Sherman, his brigade major in the second, and his chief signals officer, Major F.R. Pratten, Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, in the third. Being close to the action, Wyman hoped, would allow him to exert strong command presence and assure the attack was carried out with determination.3 Trailing Wyman’s headquarters would be a second wave consisting of the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘B’ and ‘C’ squadrons with the remaining two companies of the Queen’s Own aboard, while the Sherbrooke Fusiliers formed a reserve back at Bray.
The start line for the attack was the Caen-Bayeux railroad about half a mile south of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse. From this point, the assault force would carry out a right hook through le Mesnil-Patry and then cross a wide stretch of about three miles of open country to gain the Cheux hill feature from the west.4 Clearing le Mesnil-Patry was considered vital to the operation’s success, in order to secure the flanks of the attacking force and the 50th British Infantry Division, which would attack to the west as part of Second Army’s major offensive towards Villers-Bocage. Responsibility for seizing the village lay with ‘B’ Squadron and ‘D’ Company, while ‘C’ Squadron would support this effort by clearing the ground on its right flank.
Once le Mesnil-Patry fell, the Queen’s Own would rush its mortar and antitank platoons forward to reinforce the Canadian hold there. ‘B’ Squadron would remain in the village with the infantry, while the remaining two tank squadrons along with ‘A’ Company dashed on to the final objective.5 By last light, 2 CAB should have established a strong armoured presence supported by the Queen’s Own Rifles south of the Caen-Bayeux highway that would shake off the stalemate threatening to freeze the front lines in place. Possessing a salient south of the railroad that extended deep into German lines and was hinged on the right by 50th Infantry Division would enable Keller to begin working his infantry brigades forward on the left flank, to gain Carpiquet airport.
One cautionary note clearly stated by Wyman during briefing sessions was that under no circumstances should the assault forces remain on the road when it passed through Norrey-en-Bessin. Although ‘C’ Company of the Regina Rifles held Norrey firmly in its grip, the narrow streets were a natural choke point for tanks and strewn with rubble from shell-blasted buildings. And an unknown number of 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment troops facing the village from the south could potentially block the advance.
What opposition the attackers would meet once across the railroad tracks was a mystery to the division’s intelligence officers. The divisional daily intelligence summary for June 9 had reported the presence of some self-propelled guns and up to “twenty-five [tanks]… in the area le Mesnil-Patry,” but whether these still lurked in the vicinity was uncertain.6 Wyman imparted the impression to Colwell and Spragge that opposition should be light, but provided no information source for his assessment.
Advancing the attack by a full day had another consequence that gravely worried Colwell and Spragge. Normally, this kind of attack would be heavily supported by artillery fire ranging in on pre-plotted targets to soften or eliminate enemy strongpoints. Plotted firing traces would be developed so that the guns could be summoned at any time to deliver accurate fire against enemy pockets of resistance, or to carry out counter-battery fire against German guns or mortars shooting at the assault force. Little of this preparatory work had been undertaken and there was insufficient time to complete it now before the attack began. In the absence of an artillery plan, the two forward observation officers from 12th Field Regiment, RCA—Captain Charles Rivaz and Lieutenant E.J. Hooper—could only provide firing missions to the artillery via on-the-spot radio calls.7Forty-year-old Rivaz—one of the regiment’s original wartime officers and a former lecturer at Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College—was a highly competent gunnery officer. He, Hooper, and two gunners serving as wireless operators worked out of an outmoded Canadian RAM tank fitted with radios. They would advance in concert with Colwell’s regimental headquarters.
When Rivaz arrived late in the morning at the 1st Hussars forming-up position near Bray, he found the tankers still loading ammunition and fuel into their Shermans. Tracking down ‘B’ Squadron’s Captain Harry Harrison, Rivaz conferred with the squadron commander’s loader/operator Trooper I.O. Dodds, who helped the artillery officer link his radio into the squadron net.
Aboard a Sherman that sank off Juno Beach on D-Day, Dodds had been in the reinforcement pool awaiting reassignment until becoming part of the draft sent to reconstitute ‘B’ Squadron. As the command tank’s wireless operator, it was his responsibility to establish the squadron’s communication net. Most of the loader/operators assigned to the squadron were green and found it difficult to properly adjust the delicate tuning mechanism of the No. 19 set.8 Dodds spent hours on June 10 at his radio “chanting into his microphone” while periodically pausing to check if everyone was netted in on him. Inevitably, one or more of the twenty-one tanks that were to be included in the net was absent and the process had to continue. By noon on June 11, the net was still barely operational.
Inordinately long netting efforts not only frustrated the squadron’s wireless control operator, but also posed a serious security risk. German radio intercept teams constantly cruised the wireless bandwidth, seeking frequencies used by Allied units. They were greatly aided by the capture of a copy of 2 CAB’s radio procedures and codes dug out of a wrecked Sherbrooke Fusilier tank near Authie on June 9.9 The 12th SS (Hitlerjugend) Panzer Division radio surveil-lance team hit paydirt on the morning of June 11 when it picked up the signals coming from the 1st Hussars, enabling the Germans to determine the location of the armoured regiment’s assembly area. Translators quickly determined an attack was going to develop out of 7 CIB’s front against le Mesnil-Patry.10
Facing 7 CIB’s front were Panzer Grenadiers of the 26th Regiment and the division’s Pioneer Battalion. Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke ordered these units to remain hidden while the Canadian tanks passed them by, and then to strike the infantry that would be following close behind. Once the Canadian foot soldiers were eliminated, the Shermans would prove easy prey for German tanks, anti-tank guns, and Panzer Grenadiers attacking with shoulder-launched Faustpatrones and magnetic mines. Mohnke put all available artillery and mortar units in range on immediate alert and ensured that artillery spotters were able to cover all routes of approach that could be used by an armoured force. As most of these routes had already been pre-plotted, fire could be brought to bear quickly whenever needed.11
IN THE 1ST HUSSARS assembly area, Captain Harry Harrison and the other squadron commanders gathered around Lieutenant Colonel Colwell at 1215 for a final briefing. Besides giving the order of march, there was little he could offer except the grim news that there would be no divisional artillery plan and that no reliable estimate was available of the German forces they might face. The squadron commanders grumbled that forty-five minutes was ridiculously short to properly brief their troop commanders, but were told there was nothing that could be done about it.12
By the time Harrison got back to ‘B’ Squadron, it was time for everyone to mount up and roll. The Queen’s Own Rifles had marched out of Neuf Mer at 1215 hours to join the Hussars and were tromping into the tank assembly area. Major Neil Gordon, commander of ‘D’ Company, climbed onto Harrison’s tank so the two officers could coordinate their actions. They had never met. As the riflemen spread themselves among the Sher
mans, it was obvious to both men that they could never make the railroad start line for a 1300 hours attack, only minutes away.
Gordon, who had rushed to enlist in the Queen’s Own as an Upper Canada College Cadet on the outbreak of the war, was a highly trained infantry officer and graduate of both the British and Canadian battle schools. While serving on loan to the British Eighth Army’s Loyal North Lancashire Regiment during the North African campaign, the officer had gained a great deal of combat experience. This was not true, however, for the men in his company. Landing behind the battalion’s assault companies on D-Day, his company had suffered few casualties and seen little action in subsequent fighting.
Like most everyone in the Queen’s Own, Gordon considered Spragge a topnotch battalion commander and had been shocked when the man could only set out the orders for the attack on a scruffy map, without time for any kind of visual reconnaissance to check its accuracy. Spragge had somehow come to the understanding that the attack was required to head off one the Germans were mounting on the division’s extreme right flank in order to get between the Canadians and 50th British Infantry Division. When the briefing ended, Spragge singled Gordon out “and said not to rush it, but he had no control over the action. He obviously felt as concerned as I did,” Gordon later said. “We had no idea of what we were going on, no recce and we just looked at a map. Crazy. This, after all we had been taught, and it was the one thing you shouldn’t do.”13 The major estimated that to tee up an attack such as this properly would have delayed its start to at least 1800 hours.14 Gordon considered himself lucky to at least be attacking with a full-strength company of 135 men who were virtually all pre-invasion Queen’s Own regulars, rather than inexperienced reinforcements sent to rebuild the assault companies that had been shredded on the beach.
Perched aboard one of the tanks, Rifleman Dave Arksey saw Lieutenant Colonel Spragge watching the company roll towards combat. A soldier shouted down to the battalion commander, “This’ll make you a brigadier, Jock.” Arksey uneasily noted that Spragge, normally an affable commander, never smiled.15 The rifleman was sitting next to new-found friend Rifleman Llewellyn Louis “Lew” Bridges, a replacement from Vancouver who was built like a heavyweight wrestler and had joined the regiment just a few days before. “They build them big in Vancouver,” the twenty-two-year-old from Ontario said when the man had passed over a Jersey Milk chocolate bar gripped in a massive paw by way of introduction.
“Look, I’ve never been in action before,” Bridges said. “Mind if I stick with you.” The two men had shared a slit trench since.16
For his part, 1st Hussars’ Captain Harrison did not share Gordon’s anxiety. A graduate of Royal Military College, the twenty-four-year-old Montrealer had a reputation for arrogance and had considered his skills underutilized as ‘C’ Squadron’s second-in-command. Now at the head of his own squadron, the captain was looking for a chance to prove himself and his theories. Chief among these was a belief that the regiment’s older officers, particularly his former squadron commander Major D’Arcy Marks, little understood the proper employment of armour. The militia-trained Marks, Harrison thought, was overly cautious.17 When the opportunity arose for a bold dash by armour, with or without infantry support, Harrison felt that Marks and the other squadron commanders inevitably failed to act. Today would be a chance to show what those who dared could achieve.
And what a day it was. On this Sunday, the June sun shone out of a perfectly blue sky. The overgrown fields of grain shimmered golden in the midday light. In blissful ignorance, many riflemen aboard ‘B’ Squadron’s Shermans lit cigarettes and pressed their backs up against the turrets, heads tipped back to enjoy the warm sun on their faces. They were in shirtsleeves and carrying a welcomely light equipment load—a weapon, ammunition, web gear, and small packs. So many rumours had circulated in the absence of any formal briefing that nobody in the rank and file had the foggiest idea what they were doing. Some thought they were headed to meet a counterattack. Others that they were to provide security for the tankers, assigned to carry out a shoot from the front lines against distant German targets. Dodds, the loader/operator in Harrison’s Sherman, believed they headed for “a quiet he [high-explosive] shoot with the artillery.” The exercise of netting artillery officer Captain Rivaz into the squadron wavelength had strengthened this understanding.18
In the squadron lead tank at the head of the attack column, Sergeant Léo Gariépy thought the emphasis on speed meant the operation was to be a “piece of cake. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm, with hardly any wind, the men in high spirits and planning on teaching the ‘rookies’ how to behave themselves in action.” The twenty-one-year-old Gariépy had been in some tough shootouts since coming ashore as one of the lead assault tanks on June 6 and had no qualms about being on point. Right behind him was No. 2 Troop’s new commander, Lieutenant Jimmy Martin, and then Trooper Jim Simpson.19 Martin was a replacement officer Simpson and Gariépy had never met before No. 2 Troop’s reconstitution. The hasty O Group Martin had held before the troop saddled up failed to give either of his subordinate crew commanders a clue as to what they were embarked upon.20
As ‘B’ Squadron rolled out of the Bray assembly area, ‘C’ Squadron’s Lieutenant Bill McCormick, whose No. 2 Troop was to lead this squadron’s advance, saw smoke coming out of the engine compartment. After dousing the small fire with extinguishers, McCormick discovered a fuel line leakage had caused the problem. Leaving his crew to get the tank repaired, the lieutenant ran over to Corporal Bill Talbot’s tank and took command of it.21 By the time this exchange was carried out, a large gap had opened between ‘B’ Squadron and the rest of the column. McCormick ordered his new tank driver, a replacement he remembered only as Trooper Smith, to try and catch up. Tracks squealing, the Sherman led ‘C’ Squadron in pursuit.
In Harrison’s tank, Trooper Dodds was increasingly irritated by the lack of wireless discipline clogging the squadron’s airwaves. Someone kept asking for Harrison to come up on the net, while even more persistently another tanker sought to be re-netted. “He had time to net a dozen sets by that time, so I finally told him to ‘lock up and shut up.’ He was okay at the time and so were the rest of the stations.”22
Gariépy was more disturbed by a tank officer who insisted on providing a step-by-step travelogue of their progress towards the start line. As the tanks edged past a knocked-out Panther v, the officer called that they were “nearing dead enemy bear (code for tank).” Then it was that they were going past a schoolhouse, then a wheatfield, until finally the sergeant snapped the wireless off to spare his ears from this chatter so he could concentrate.23 The 12th SS wireless intercept team happily continued to eavesdrop, able to use the officer’s folly to track the column’s progress on a minute-by-minute basis.24
As the lead tanks passed Bretteville and approached the point where they were to leave the Norrey-en-Bessin road rather than pass through the village, an urgent radio warning from the Regina Rifles caused Colwell to order an immediate change of plan. Never advised of the attack, the Reginas had sown a minefield that stretched across the open fields between Bretteville and Norrey-en-Bessin. Having been instructed to bypass Norrey, the 1st Hussars now had no choice but to remain on the road and navigate through the village to get past the minefield.25
A hurried Orders Group assembled as the tank commanders and Major Neil Gordon gathered around Colwell on the road. The lieutenant colonel gave them a new line of march to a start line on the southwestern edge of Norrey. Gordon just had time to get back to ‘D’ Company, “point out the axis of advance to [his] platoon commanders and get cracking” before the tanks started moving again.26
Norrey proved to be precisely the choke point Wyman and his staff had feared when they ordered it bypassed. The main street was so narrow the tanks were forced to move in single file, with sides almost scraping the buildings. A sharp, almost 90-degree right-hand turn at the church required each tank to go backward and then forward several times to naviga
te it. Between the late start departing the assembly area and the difficulty passing through Norrey, ‘B’ Squadron reached the new start line outside the village at 1420 hours.27 Harrison reported that the squadron was beginning the attack. Although the rest of the regiment was still far behind, Dodds heard the captain tell his crew commanders by wireless to “speed up the attack.”28 With ‘D’ Company clinging to the Shermans, ‘B’ Squadron ground out of Norrey and into a line of attack, while Gariépy’s No. 2 Troop remained on the road to le Mesnil-Patry, and the rest of the squadron swung to the left into the two- to three-foot-high wheat.29
It was only about 1,200 yards from Norrey to le Mesnil-Patry across fields of standing grain interspersed with apple orchards and occasional beet fields. The road Gariépy’s troop followed cut sharply to the right beyond the village to approach le Mesnil-Patry from the northeast, so the Canadians were advancing on an oblique angle directly into a pocket created by the 12th SS troops defending the area. To the right of the squadron were No. 5 and No. 6 companies of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment’s II Battalion. Immediately to its front, No. 7 Company formed a defensive ring around the Château du Mesnil-Patry, a two-storey stone mansion that served as the battalion’s headquarters. Two companies—Nos. 2 and 3—of the Pioneer Battalion were to the left of the château, and it was directly towards these Panzer Grenadiers that most of Harrison’s tanks were headed.30
‘B’ SQUADRON was well on its way when ‘C’ Squadron started through Norrey. As it did so, the Germans started blasting the village with artillery and mortar fire in an attempt to disrupt the developing attack. When Colwell’s regimental headquarters section ground up to the village’s northern edge and he saw how easily the main street could be blocked if the shelling smashed an adjacent building, the lieutenant colonel headed out on the flank hoping to find a way around Norrey. His tank struck a mine and was disabled after going no more than a few hundred feet off the road. Running into the village on foot, Colwell ignored the shells exploding all around him and directed the tanks passing so that they remained on the only viable route through.31
