Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  DESPITE STRATEGIC BOMBERS and extensive artillery, Charnwood’s success depended on the infantry and tankers. Jockeying their divisions to adapt to what promised to be a rapidly changing battlefield would require highly competent commanders. Yet at this crucial juncture, both Crocker and his superior, Second Army’s Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, had lost faith in 3rd Canadian Division’s Major General Rod Keller. Dempsey thought the Royal Winnipeg attack on Carpiquet airfield had not been “well handled.”46 Carpiquet, Dempsey told Montgomery on July 7, “proved … quite conclusively that [Keller] is not fit to command a Division … Had it been a British Division I would recommend strongly that he be removed from command at once.” Crocker more than agreed. On July 5, while the battle was still unfolding, he wrote Dempsey that the “limited success of this operation” resulted from “a lack of control and leadership from the top.”47

  The two British generals conceded that 3rd Division had done well on D-Day but had since become “jumpy and excitable.” Crocker argued that this “was a reflection of the state of its commander [who was not] standing up to the strain and showed signs of fatigue and nervousness (one might almost say fright) which were patent for all to see.” The division no longer showed “anything approaching its original offensive enthusiasm.” Dempsey concurred. “It will never be a good division so long as Major-General Keller commands.”

  In his note to Dempsey, Crocker allowed that Keller “has the appearance of having lived pretty well.”48 This referred to Keller’s reputed heavy drinking. At forty-three, Keller’s round face was perpetually ruby red. Rumour had it he drank a bottle of whisky a day. Yet Keller never seemed to be drunk. Before promoting Keller to command of 3rd Division on September 8, 1942, Lieutenant General Harry Crerar had confronted him about the rumoured drinking. Keller had assured him it was never overindulgent. Crerar took him at his word.

  Until recently, Crerar had considered the tall man with a ramrod-straight bearing one of Canada’s most promising officers. He had even confided to Montgomery that Keller would be the next Canadian up for a corps command, probably that of I Canadian Corps in Italy. On July 7, Montgomery repeated this assertion to the Chief of Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, with the admonition that the “idea is quite absurd.” Montgomery added that he was “not too happy about the Canadians. Keller has proven himself to be quite unfit to command a division; he is unable to get the best out of his soldiers—who are grand chaps.”49

  For his part, Crerar was now also anxious about Keller and thought his removal might prove necessary. But he was wary of the British tendency to unfairly criticize Canadian commanders. It was difficult to know whether Operation Windsor’s difficulties arose from lack of divisional leadership or not. At no time had Brigadier Blackader sought additional support. When he had requested a fourth battalion to attack on the southern part of the airfield, Keller had immediately provided one. With the division maintaining a large swath of front line and already preparing for Operation Charn-wood, Keller had been left with no real reserves. So, Crerar thought, it was hard to see how Keller could be directly responsible for Windsor’s shortcomings. These were likely due more to stiff German resistance than to lack of Canadian skill or vigour.

  [ 3 ]

  Hopeless Situation

  EXCEPT FOR THE senior commanders, the Canadians were unaware of the controversy swirling around 3rd Division’s recent performance. On the evening of July 7, their attention was riveted on 467 heavy bombers unleashing a rain of destruction upon Caen. Bomber Command committed 283 Lancasters, 164 Halifaxes, and 20 Mosquito pathfinders from Nos. 1, 4, 6, and 8 Bomber Groups. Within forty minutes, 6,000 bombs totalling 2,276 tons of explosives were dropped.1

  “As far as you could see forward and far as you could see back,” Canadian Scottish Regiment’s Captain Harvey Bailey recalled, “you could see big Lancaster airplanes. When they finished the bombing … the dust from the city was just something. It was a terrible bombing.”2

  Fellow Can Scot Lieutenant J. Duncan Lorimer saw the bomb-bay doors open and sticks of bombs fall. “The whole sky was red. The planes were silhouetted in red.” The ferocity of the explosions seemed unimaginable.3

  When 3rd Division solicited an opinion on the effectiveness of the bombing, a battalion officer in Carpiquet signalled: “Everything to our front seems to be in flames.” The Highland Light Infantry’s intelligence officer gushed: “This stuff going over now has really had an effect upon the lads on the ground. It has improved their morale five hundred per cent.”4

  The Allies unanimously declared the bombing a great success at little cost. Bomber Command reported only one Lancaster from No. 166 Squadron shot down over enemy lines. Two other Lancasters and a Mosquito crashed inside Allied territory.5

  In Caen, the bombing continued a nightmare of destruction begun on June 6, when the city had been subjected to heavy air bombardment and naval fire to disrupt German movement towards the invasion beaches. Although air-dropped leaflets had warned of the attack, only a few hundred of its sixty thousand residents had fled before the bombers arrived. For the next forty-eight hours, the bombing and shelling had been relentless. Eight hundred civilians died; thousands were injured. Much of Caen dated back to the eleventh century. William the Conqueror had bestowed two abbeys here and, as one Canadian Army report put it, “this treasure house of the Romanesque had survived through a congenial academic, administrative, and commercial existence as the chief town of the Calvados … But it was also a hub from which many spokes of road, rail and waterway ran out in every direction.”6

  After the June 6 –7 bombings, about fifteen thousand people found refuge in the underground medieval stone quarries south of the city. They were still hiding there when the bombers returned on July 7. Another fifteen thousand were scattered throughout the ruined city. Three thousand sheltered in the Abbaye aux Hommes, the Bon Sauveur convent and hospital, and Saint-Étienne church. Conditions everywhere were terrible.

  The July 7 raid razed the city’s university, and at least two smaller civilian shelters were destroyed. About 350 people died. The civilian death toll due to Allied bombing and shelling from D-Day to its liberation would ultimately number 1,150.7

  With the city reduced, in General der Panzertruppen Hans Eberbach’s words, to “a pile of debris … it could only be passed through with difficulties.”8 Neither the 16th Luftwaffe or 12th SS troops received either rations or fresh ammunition during the morning of July 8.9 Still, the overall effect was considered negligible. The 12th SS reported only two Mark IV tanks destroyed and several others “turned over and covered with rubble and dirt. They could be righted and made ready for action again.”10 Personnel losses were estimated to number less than twenty men.11 Visiting his front-line troops, Standartenführer Kurt Meyer was surprised how little their morale had suffered. “The troops hated the fighter-bomber attacks far more than the mass bombardment of those cumbersome juggernauts.”12

  Clearly the bombing presaged an attack, so Meyer braced his men to meet it. Headquartered in Abbaye d’Ardenne, the 25th Panzer-Grenadier Regiment held a two-mile-wide front from La Bijude to Franqueville. The 2nd Battalion of 26th Regiment concentrated at Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, a village on Caen’s western outskirts next to the Caen-Bayeux highway running between Carpiquet and Franqueville. Their role was to block any Canadian breakthrough towards the city. Inside Caen, 26th Regiment’s 3rd Battalion hunkered in the northwest corner. After Carpiquet, this regiment’s 1st Battalion had been withdrawn to a rest area south of Caen. The division’s reconnaissance battalion and one battalion of artillery were also in this reserve area. Holding Meyer’s left flank was the attached 1st SS Panzer-Grenadier Regiment from 1st SS Panzer Division. It held a three-mile front from Franqueville, past Carpiquet and the airfield, to Éterville.

  With thirty-two Mark IVs and twenty-eight Panthers, the 12th SS were strong in armour. Nine Mark IVs lay in ambush around Buron and Gruchy. Five others held the eastern edge of Carpiquet
airfield. Eleven Panthers were stationed between Bretteville-sur-Odon and Éterville. The remaining seventeen Panthers and eighteen Mark IVs were in reserve near the Abbaye d’Ardenne or in Caen’s western outskirts. Clustered about were various artillery and anti-tank guns, including an 88-millimetre gun battery in Cussy.13

  Meyer still felt “anxious misgivings.” The forthcoming battle could not be won; the situation was “hopeless.” His troops could only fight until wiped out or allowed to withdraw. Meyer hoped he would be allowed to quit while some of his men still lived.14

  THE BRITISH DIVISIONS on the left were to begin Charnwood with the Canadians joining the second phase, scheduled to start July 8 at 0730 hours with 9th Brigade advancing about a mile from Vieux Cairon to Gruchy and Buron. From here the brigade’s North Nova Scotia Highlanders would push on to Authie and Franqueville, a mile southward. In Charnwood’s third phase, 7th Brigade would capture Cussy to the southwest and the ancient Abbaye d’Ardenne. The division would then be halfway to Caen and ready for a full-court push by all three brigades to shove the Germans out of the city and away from the Orne’s western bank.15

  In support of the infantry would be 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and the division’s field artillery. A good number of Flails, Crocodiles, and Petards from 79th British Armoured Division were also available.

  If Keller suffered from nerves, he displayed no signs of this on July 7. In the late afternoon, he discussed the map dispositions of 9th Brigade’s Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders (Glens) with Lieutenant Colonel G.H. Christiansen at the regiment’s Vieux Cairon headquarters. Then he went forward to where both Companies ‘A’ and ‘B’ were on their start lines in order to look “over the ground ahead.” Many a divisional commander would never go this far forward, particularly as the area was being intermittently shelled.16

  The Germans hoped to disrupt the Allied preparations with harassing fire, but it was largely ineffective. By this time, 3rd Division was well seasoned. Everyone knew what had to be done. “Each [infantryman] carried at least sixty rounds of ammunition; spare Bren-gun magazines were filled and distributed, No. 36 grenades cleaned and primed, the 3-inch mortar bombs stacked, wireless sets checked, maps issued, and other preparations made as the officers briefed their NCOs and men on the plan of attack.” Tankers spent the evening loading the “ninety shell racks inside their tanks with armour-piercing and high-explosive shells.”17 Gunners sweated in the July heat to unload ammunition from trucks and stack it near the guns. For the first twenty-four hours of Charnwood, each field artillery regiment’s gun crew shifted 27,000 pounds of shells.18

  At 2300 hours, the 656 guns fired heavy concentrations at all fifteen villages within the German outer defensive ring and identified enemy gun positions.19 The 12th Field Regiment threw out a feverish rate of fire throughout the night. Like all 3rd Division’s field regiments, shortly before the invasion, the 12th had exchanged its 25-pounders for 105-millimetre self-propelled M-7s. Nicknamed “Priests,” these guns provided the Canadians with greater mobility than the towed 25-pounders. One drawback was that every shell in a gun’s 27,000-pound allotment “had to be lifted from the ground up some seven feet.” It was backbreaking work.20 During the night leading up to the barrage that would support the attack, 12th Field fired several missions directed by an air observation officer circling the battlefield. They also ranged in on six “Uncle” targets (all divisional artillery firing as one), and one “Victor” concentration (all corps artillery firing).21 At 0420 hours, all guns assigned to support Charnwood opened up and “fired continuously during the day.”22

  ON THE RECEIVING end, Kurt Meyer thought the artillery “of unimaginable intensity.” His headquarters in a cellar under the ancient Abbaye aux Dames, northeast of Caen, was shaken by explosions. Plaster and dust showered on the candle-illuminated map table. Over the din, Meyer heard the drone of countless fighter-bombers attacking. Wireless traffic indicated 12th SS units being heavily engaged by 59th Infantry Division’s assault towards Galmanche and La Bijude.23

  The 16th Luftwaffe was terrifically hurt. For two hours, 250 medium bombers of the U.S. 9th Air Force had blanketed its positions with pattern bombs. Losses were so heavy that 3rd British Division swept through to Lébisey almost unopposed. In the centre of the British attack, the 59th Division faced tougher going.

  At 0730 hours, Lieutenant General John Crocker signalled 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to head for Buron and Gruchy.24 For weeks the Canadians had monitored the German preparations. Highland Light Infantry (HLI) observers had carefully mapped the anti-tank ditch that the 12th SS engineers had dug on an east-to-west line for eight hundred yards across the front of Buron. This ditch was connected to an extensive network of trenches and covered bunkers, behind which were thick minefields. A scattered system of dugout fighting positions encircled the village. In the cover of an orchard south of Buron were numerous dugouts sheltering artillery and machine guns. Hidden from view in the village were known to be some tanks.25

  The battalion advanced with Captain Vincent E. Stark’s ‘B’ Company aimed at the left side of Buron and Major Harry Anderson’s ‘D’ Company aimed at the orchard. En route they would clear the anti-tank ditch. ‘C’ Company would then go head-on into the village with ‘A’ Company passing through to the south. This company’s job was to establish the start line for the North Nova Scotia Highlanders’ assault on Authie.26 Lieutenant Colonel Franklin McCallum Griffiths tucked his command group behind ‘A’ Company.

  ‘A’ Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, under command of Major Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters, was in support. Because of earlier casualties, his squadron fielded only three troops of four tanks instead of four troops. He had the regular complement of three Shermans in the headquarters troop and a troop of five British Flails under command.27 No. 1 Troop would accompany ‘D’ Company and No. 2 Troop ‘B’ Company, while No. 4 Troop and the headquarters troop formed a reserve.28

  The moment the creeping barrage had begun, the Germans retaliated by shelling and mortaring the start line. There was no cover. The Canadians advanced through an open, level grain field that stretched about three-quarters of a mile to the anti-tank ditch. Corporal Frank Weitzel in ‘D’ Company’s No. 18 Platoon was hit in the leg as they set out. But Weitzel’s section was leading the company through to the orchard, and the big twenty-three-year-old farmer from Tavistock, Ontario, refused to leave his men.29

  Lieutenant Douglas Barrie of ‘D’ Company’s No. 16 Platoon was stunned by the cacophony. The explosions were deafening. There was the stench of cordite and of richly fertilized soil being thrown high into the air. Smoke and drifting dirt obscured the sun. He advanced into a false night, vision reduced so only one or two men nearby were visible. The whereabouts of the rest of his platoon was a mystery.30

  No. 1 Troop’s tanks mired in a minefield that ripped the tracks off three of the Shermans. An 88-millimetre gun firing from 7,500 yards to the southwest quickly knocked out the disabled tanks. Flails churned into the field to beat a pathway so that the fourth tank could escape. It hooked up with the headquarters troop, but ‘D’ Company had now lost its tank support. Radley-Walters ordered No. 4 Troop to fill the void.31

  A German came out of the grain in a rush at Sergeant James Peter Kelly of ‘B’ Company’s No. 12 Platoon, but started to run away when he saw a raised Lee-Enfield. Kelly calmly shot the German in the back of the head at twenty yards. Mindful of the 12th SS murders of Canadians, Kelly was “pretty mad.” There would not be many prisoners this day. Later, Kelly returned to the corpse and took a Luger pistol and Iron Cross that the soldier, only eighteen years old, had won on the Russian front.32

  Major Ray Hodgins of ‘C’ Company thought the advance was like something out of the Great War. He and his men plodded across open ground. The artillery crashed down. They paused to wait for the forward companies to root out some enemy and then trudged forward again as the advance resumed. He tried to keep the men spread out in order to lessen casu
alties from a single bomb or shell. A lot of men were still falling. Shell bursts cratered the field, “and earth and shrapnel flew in every direction. The smell of battle for the first time is terrible with the smell of burned cordite … Cattle were roaming around, sometimes hit by shells. Vehicles were burning and the smell gave you a very funny feeling the first time. After that, it became commonplace. There were also people in the burned out tanks.”33

  Private Michael B. Borodaiko of ‘ B’ Company’s No. 10 Platoon was a tough case, given to independent action. Closing on the antitank ditch, the company was fired on by one machine gun after another. As each of the guns opened up, Borodaiko charged with Bren gun firing from the hip and killed the enemy gun crew. “We were very bitter,” he said after. “Some of us had seen the North Novas being taken POW into some bushes [on June 7]—then gunfire.

  “Then [Captain] Vince Stark was shot in the back by a German hiding in [the ditch]. So there was no mercy after that. In battle, it’s kill or be killed.” Past the ditch, the platoon found cover in a sunken road leading into the village. Borodaiko’s loader announced he could see Buron clearly through some bushes, so the Bren gunner took his place. Emptying the magazine, Borodaiko called for another. When no magazine was passed forward, he turned to discover the other man had taken “a bullet through the head, lying in my old position.”

  Single-handedly, Borodaiko had cleared six machine-gun positions despite fire that was “so thick … other members of his section were pinned down,” read his Military Medal citation. “Yet he continued on and cleared the way for them, miraculously escaping injury himself.”34