Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  But the situation at Carpiquet was troubling. Surely the Canadian purpose was to establish a base for a drive on Caen from the west. To prevent the Canadians strengthening and expanding on their gains, an immediate attack was ordered for the early morning hours of July 5.4 Because of the 12th SS Division’s depleted state, a 1st SS Panzer-Grenadier Regiment battalion from 1st SS Panzer Division, Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler (LAH), would carry out the attack with support from several Panther tanks.5

  With the Germans holding the ground on three sides of Carpiquet, the Canadians knew they were certain to be attacked at any time. Despite having all three 8th Brigade battalions in the village, their total manpower was low because of the severe losses suffered the day before. Most companies were at half strength or less. ‘A’ and ‘B’ Squadrons of the Fort Garry Horse added their weight to Carpiquet’s defences, but the latter squadron had been reduced to just nine tanks.6 There were also three troops from the 3rd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment. Two 105th Battery troops were equipped with 6-pound anti-tank guns, while its ‘L’ Troop fielded M-10 self-propelled guns.7 Also deployed in Carpiquet were two platoons from the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (MG). ‘B’ Company’s No. 6 Platoon had set its heavy machine guns in the village’s southeast corner, while No. 7 Platoon deployed in the northeast corner. ‘D’ Company’s No. 14 Platoon settled into “what was left” of an orchard on the west flank. Equipped with 4.2-inch mortars, this Cameron unit could range from here to anywhere along Carpiquet’s perimeter.8 Under cover of darkness, the defenders strung barbed wire and sowed mines in front of their positions.

  Throughout their preparations the Canadians were harried by intense artillery and mortar fire. Nebelwerfers—the multi-barrelled rocket projectors nicknamed “Moaning Minnies” because their 50-millimetre rounds shrieked during flight—fired incessantly. Rocket strikes collapsed building after building with a mighty roar. The North Shore’s Sergeant Fulton Noye emerged shaken but physically unscathed when three buildings were destroyed around him.9

  Just before nightfall on July 4, 22nd Canadian Field Ambulance’s Medical Officer Douglas Oatway replaced the wounded doctor who had been serving Le Régiment de la Chaudière. The battalion’s RAP was in a small courtyard next to the bunker where Lieutenant Colonel Paul Mathieu was headquartered. Oatway had just met his French-Canadian medical staff when the shelling increased. At midnight, the battalion’s ambulance jeep evacuated its first load of wounded and never returned. Oatway and Mathieu concluded the crew had found running the gauntlet of German shelling on the road from Carpiquet to Marcelet too dangerous. This left Oatway with no choice but to “leave our seriously wounded on stretchers in the courtyard for the rest of the night.” 10

  AT 0130 HOURS, the German counterattack was signalled by a sudden increase in the already intense rate of shelling, followed by a flight of 50-kilogram rockets filled with flammable fuel, which set Carpiquet alight. Flames providing illumination, the 1st SS battalion descended from the heights towards the village. The 1st SS were crack soldiers and fanatical Nazis, who adhered to a collective ethos that “glorified fighting for fighting’s sake.”11

  With ten tanks in support, the SS t roops lunged towards Carpiquet only to see the lead company savaged by an artillery concentration that might have been friendly German fire or a scheduled Canadian defensive fire task. Whatever its source, the concentration inflicted so many casualties that another company had to advance to the head of the attack.

  As the battalion gained the raised railway, the Cameron Highlanders No. 7 Platoon let loose with its machine guns, and No. 14 Platoon’s mortars weighed in. Earlier, the North Shore’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Buell, had ordered the other forces in Carpiquet to hold fire until the Germans were right on top of their defences. As the fires in the village died away, the Germans’ “only reference points were the enemy muzzle flashes,” one SS veteran later wrote. “We had to move forward precisely into that!”12 Their numbers decreasing rapidly, the troops descended from the railway into low fields overlooked by the village. It was about 0330 hours.13

  Lieutenant Paul McCann thought Buell’s plan was working wonders. As “Jerry advanced over the hill and across the valley we waited and … sucked wave after wave … into the hollow where the withering cross-fire of the Camerons cut off any hope of escape. There was only one way to go once in the valley and with all respect to Jerry he never faltered. By the time our signal was given they were right on our doorstep, so out went our grenades followed by a withering small arms fire that saw barrels of Bren guns get white hot before the show was over. There were no casualties among my men but Jerry took a murderous beating and very few of their attacking force got back to their line.”14

  At 0530 hours, the Germans tried again, sending tanks and infantry towards the village from the quarries to the east. This attack was quickly broken when artillery knocked out two tanks and caused the rest to veer away into “hull down positions.” Renewed efforts at 0610 and 0650 were equally shattered by artillery.15

  At 0725 hours, the Germans attempted a thrust against the point where Le Régiment de la Chaudière’s ‘A’ Company held the edge of the village close to the airport administration buildings. With at least six Panthers leading, the Germans overran one platoon and the company’s anti-tank section. While some Germans paused to round up prisoners, most descended on the North Shore’s ‘C’ Company and the Cameron’s No. 6 Platoon.16

  ‘C’ Company was the battalion’s weakest, fielding only forty-one men and two officers, Major Ralph Daughney and Lieutenant Chester MacRae. Dodging through enemy fire, MacRae urged his men to keep pouring out a stream of fire, until an exploding tank round knocked him unconscious.17 On ‘C’ Company’s flank, No. 6 Platoon could no longer rake its entire front with machine-gun fire for fear of hitting the Chauds, who had been taken prisoner.18

  At this critical moment, two M-10s came to the rescue. One dealt a killing blow to a Panther with a single round, while the other slammed a second tank with six rapidly delivered shots. This largesse of ammunition use was chided by 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment’s historian. “One round would have done,” he wrote, “because, when the tank was later examined, all six hits were found to be within the circumference of a dinner plate.” With the loss of these tanks, this last German attack crumbled.19

  As the Germans pulled back, a tank herding some Chauds in front of it passed No. 6 Platoon’s position. The tank commander shouted at the Camerons to surrender. The platoon’s commander had other plans. Earlier he had sent some of his men to take over a nearby abandoned Chaud 6-pound anti-tank gun. The lieutenant now signalled the men to open fire. When the first shell hit the turret, one section of machine guns started hammering the tank. The other section began raking German infantry trying to crawl to safety through the cover of a wheat field. “At the same time Corporal R.A. Henderson crawled forward with the PIAT [ Projector Infantry Anti-Tank launcher] and succeeded in putting a bomb into the tank and the crew of five bailed out and came forward with their hands up.” The infantry fled, leaving the vehicles abandoned.20

  This ended 1st SS Panzer Division’s efforts to regain Carpiquet. The Germans withdrew to the area of the quarries.21 But there was no safety there. Minutes later, Typhoon fighter bombers struck and left fifteen tanks burning. The infantry battalion had 115 men killed, wounded, or missing. Already desperately short of armour, the 1st SS suffered the heavy loss of twenty tanks. For its part, the 12th SS reported 155 of its men either dead, wounded, or missing after the fight for Carpiquet.22

  When Eberbach advised Rommel of the failed effort, the latter said, “One ought to try getting out of the bridgehead [Caen and its defensive perimeter] without being fleeced too much.” He expected British and Canadian divisions to assault the city at any moment. Rommel knew it was time to withdraw his forces west of the Orne before they became inextricably entangled in a battle for Caen that would achieve nothing.23

  UNABLE TO RETAKE Carpiquet, the Germans returned to s
lathering it with artillery. The Chaud’s regimental historian declared the village “a literal hell. The fire of the mortars, the rockets, and the enemy artillery never ceased for an instant.”24

  Private Alex Greer, a stretcher-bearer in the Queen’s Own Rifles, thought Carpiquet “was a terrible battle. Everyone possible was below ground in a trench.” Whenever the stretcher-bearers heard someone cry out in pain, they had to go out and find the man. “We were losing so many [stretcher-bearers] … It could be quite nerve-racking. I was with a fellow at Carpiquet who was to be my partner. When night fell, everyone went below ground. He and I were in a slit trench, and he went bananas. I was wrestling with him, yelling, when the shelling eased and we took him away. He was able to come back after a period at rest camp. The people suffering from battle fatigue were not cowards, I assure you … After a while, the casualties all looked the same … arms and legs off. I found the people who were wounded the least, made the most fuss.”

  Greer never forgot the image of “a tank captain who had both legs blown off and when I found him, he was sitting beside his tank, quietly smoking a cigarette.” A corporal and sergeant working in the RAP were both evacuated with battle fatigue because of the horrors they witnessed as dozens of casualties were brought in for triage. The medical officer asked Greer to take over their duties. Seeing a chance to escape the front lines, Greer said, “If you let me … work … with you from here on in, I’ll come.” The doctor agreed. Greer remained in the RAP for the rest of the war.25

  When Lieutenant MacRae had regained consciousness after the last German counterattack, he was disheartened to learn that the premonitions of his two friends that they would die in Carpiquet had been prescient. Company Sergeant Major Joe Murray had died during the assault on the village. Lieutenant Hector McQuarrie died in the subsequent siege, as did Lance Corporal Wes McDavid, the third man in the trench the night of their fateful conversation. MacRae was the only survivor.26

  Any open movement in Carpiquet drew fire. North Shore’s Major G.E. Lockwood was standing with Captain Willard Parker at the town’s main intersection l ate on the afternoon of July 5 when medium artillery plastered the area. “[Parker] and I took off on a dead run through the back gardens of a row of houses, with the shells carefully following behind us with what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to make us increase our speed. Of course it was just a general shelling of the town. Finally we could run no more and dropped into a shallow ditch where we lay looking at each other. A shell dropped further up the ditch and he received hits in both legs while I was untouched. That was my third near miss.”27

  Dug into their strongholds on the airfield, the Germans were practically on Carpiquet’s doorstep. Captain H.S. MacDonald’s platoon was just three hundred yards from a group of 12th SS. “The town is a mass of rubble and animals are decaying in nearby fields,” he wrote in a letter home. “There is a permanent stench everywhere you go. The morning was fairly quiet, just shelling. Only one hit on our house, though a rocket shell got four men in one trench.” In the afternoon, MacDonald checked the company perimeter and was nearly crushed when a wall tumbled down after being hit by a shell. He and his runner then dodged through machine-gun fire across an open farmyard. When MacDonald joined one platoon, he helped free a man who had been entirely buried by erupting dirt and concrete that had blanketed his slit trench. Three men went “windy” and one entirely nuts. “Got two of them pacified, using strenuous methods. Was caught by shells in one trench, and two men were praying fervently while shells hit the wall and exploded just behind us.” Days “seemed years long and all the time the ear-cracking bedlam of shells, mortars, machine guns and bombs. There were flies and more flies. We couldn’t take our clothes off and only shaved once in three days.”28

  On July 6, 8th Brigade’s Brigadier Ken Blackader told the Queen’s Own Rifles that their attack on the airfield was cancelled. Instead, they were “to hang on in … present positions for two more nights and one day. Then there will be a big attack on our left flank by 3 [British Division] and 7 [and] 9 [Canadian Infantry Brigades.]”29 This news buoyed the spirits of those in Carpiquet. They also found solace in thinking that holding Carpiquet must have contributed to making this advance on Caen possible. Operation Windsor had failed to achieve its original intentions, but some good had come of it.

  ON JULY 5, hoping to capitalize on the capture of Carpiquet village, I British Corps’s commander, Lieutenant General John Crocker, set in motion a new operation, code-named Charnwood.30 Its purpose was to capture the old medieval heart of Caen, which lay to the northwest of the Orne, and secure crossings just west of where the Canal de Caen merged into the Orne River. Across the river from the city centre was the large suburb of Vaucelles—distinguishable from Caen only by the fact that its architecture was more modern. A small, narrow, and heavily industrialized island separated river and canal northward to the sea. East of the island lay the factory town of Colombelles with a sprawling steelworks on the southern outskirts. Crocker intended to close in a semicircle on Caen with three infantry divisions. The 3rd Canadian Division (lacking its 8th Brigade still in Carpiquet) would be on the right, the just-arrived 59th (Stafford-shire) Division in the centre, and the 3rd British Division on the left. The two British divisions would descend in a tight grouping from the north, while the Canadians—advancing on a broader front—struck from the northwest.31

  Operation Charnwood would entail four phases yielding a four-thousand-yard advance. In the first phase, the British would capture the villages of Galmanche, La Bijude, and Lébisey Wood. The Canadians would then carry Buron, Gruchy, Château de Saint-Louet, and Authie, with 59th Division on the left flank taking Saint Contest and Epron. In phase three, the Canadians would push through Cussy-les-Forges to the Abbaye d’Ardenne.32 Finally, all three divisions would advance to a “line running through the villages of Franqueville and Ardenne and onward north of Caen to a point about a mile north” of city centre. These final objectives were designated “objectives for exploitation,” because Crocker knew they were likely unattainable.33

  The villages set as objectives all stood on the only remaining high ground before Caen. Their loss would force the Germans to pull back to their next defensive line—a series of ridges south of the city. If not for Hitler’s intransigence, Rommel would have already done this.34 Instead, the 16th Luftwaffe Field Divisions upported by twenty tanks of a 21st Panzer Division battalion would face the British onslaught, while the 12th SS met the Canadians and the portion of 59th Division attacking La Bijude and Galmanche.35

  Transferred from the Netherlands to Normandy, the Luftwaffe division had relieved 21st Panzer Division on July 5 . Formerly a garrison unit, it had never seen combat. Its troops were well equipped with supporting artillery, anti-tank guns, and 7.62-centimetre antiaircraft guns usable in a ground support role.36 Eberbach considered it “numerically strong,” possessed of a good commander, and better trained than most such Luftwaffe formations.37

  Despite their losses, the four 12th SS battalions poised to meet the advance could be counted on to offer their typical fanatical resistance.38 The Germans had established as trong defensive line of “mutually supporting positions based on what were by now virtually tank-proof villages.”39

  To shatter this defensive crust, the British and Canadian divisions would be lavishly supported by artillery. Each division’s inherent field regiments were supplemented by the heavy guns of 3rd and 4th Army Groups, Royal Artillery, and the field regiments of the Guards Armoured and 51st divisions—altogether 656 guns. The battleship Rodney, monitor Roberts, and the two cruisers, Belfast and Emerald, would be on hand.40

  Charnwood would also mark the first Allied attempt to support a ground attack with heavy bombers. The decision to assign R AF’s Bomber Command and the U.S. 9th Air Force to support the offensive came at the insistence of General Bernard Montgomery. Bombers, he wrote, could “destroy enemy defensive positions and artillery, and … cut off the enemy’s forward troops from thei
r lines of supply in the rear.”41

  Allied Expeditionary Air Force staff, recognizing the potential hazard of bombing friendly forces, established a six-thousand-yard buffer zone. The area targeted encompassed the northern part of Caen and surrounding open countryside. This four-thousand-yard by fifteen-hundred-yard rectangle was nicely captured within four topographical map squares. Lying outside the bomb area, however, were all the fortified villages. These were too close to the Allied lines. In fact, the designated area was largely devoid of German forces, because they were crowded up close to the front in expectation of the forthcoming offensive.42 Although it was recognized that the bombing would fail to harm the German forward defences, it was believed that “the supply routes through the medieval streets of Caen could be blocked, the soldiers manning the outer defences deprived of food, their vehicles of petrol, and their guns of ammunition, and they would lack direction in battle from their command through the disruption of their communications.”43

  Timing of the bombing operation was badly flawed. Instead of occurring shortly before the attack, which might have dazed and disorganized the Germans, the bombers were inexplicably scheduled to attack between 2150 hours and 2230 hours on July 7. Charnwood was not to begin until 0420 hours the next morning. This left the Germans six hours to recover from what arguably would be a new horror they had never before experienced. As one commentator later observed, “there was little point in RAF Bomber Command delivering such a heavy blow—and then giving the enemy time to get over it.”44

  Bomb loads were also problematic. Ideally, delayed-action fuses, allowing the bombs to bury themselves deeply before exploding, would be used because this amplified the destructive force. But such bombs created large craters that would hamper the Allied forward advance. Most of the bombs were consequently fitted with instantaneous fuses that detonated on contact—meaning smaller craters but also less “destructive effect upon the enemy’s defence works.”45