Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  When Lieutenant Charles Donaldson Campbell, the battalion’s intelligence officer, reached the anti-tank ditch, it struck him that it looked “like a World War One trench with systems of bays and shelter areas. It was hard hand to hand fighting with the 12th SS Panzer-Grenadiers—bayonet, knife and bare fist. They were all young lads, big and strapping. In their wallets we later found that most of them had pictures of themselves in various uniforms from kids on up. They had been told that the Canadians would take no prisoners so they never seemed to quit. They were tough. One Nazi had an arm blown off by his own hand grenade tossed back at him. He reeled for a moment then picked up another grenade and threw it with his remaining hand.

  “We lost about half of the two assault rifle companies in the first two hours.” The anti-tank ditch measured fifteen feet wide by twelve feet deep and was lined with machine guns within and behind. The moment the HLI finished clearing the ditch, they were lashed by artillery and mortar fire that caused more casualties.35

  As Hodgins’s ‘C’ Company reached the spot where Vince Stark had been wounded, Hodgins saw that his friend was badly hurt. The two were so close they had been nicknamed “the Gold Dust Twins.” “I injected morphine, saw he was almost gone and put a tag on that he’d been given morphine. He knew me and called me by name … and I called a Stretcher Bearer because I knew he was so badly hurt. Then I had to go on.” The twenty-nine-year-old officer soon died.36

  WHEN THE HLI attacked Buron, the Glens had likewise advanced towards Gruchy. The Canadian artillery-support fire going out towards the Germans struck their war diarist as “unbelievable. Nothing like it has ever been heard. The dust raised now is so great as to obscure the sun.” ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies led with the other two in trail and the Sherbrooke’s ‘B’ Squadron in support.

  Initially spared German counter-battery fire, the leading companies were caught in the open by mortars and medium artillery at 0749 hours. They were swallowed inside a cloud of smoke.37

  It quickly became evident that Gruchy was not as strongly held as Buron. Despite heavy machine-gun fire and the shelling, the Glens were only finally “stopped by heavy machine-gun fire just outside the town.” At that decisive moment, however, the Glens were unexpectedly reinforced by Bren carriers of the 17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars. Because of lack of depth in the beachhead, only two of this regiment’s reconnaissance squadrons had so far been put ashore. For Charnwood, ‘B’ Squadron’s sixteen carriers had been tasked with “mopping up” German resistance pockets bypassed by the assaulting regiments. Seeing the Glens blocked in front of Gruchy, Lieutenant Don Ayer decided to act. “Without hesitation, he charged right through them, in real old cavalry style, right into the middle of an enemy Company position. With grenades and Bren guns … firing at point-blank range, they drove the enemy from his dug-outs, killing dozens, wounding others, and capturing 25 or 30 prisoners. This act of extreme gallantry on the part of all ranks allowed [the Glens] to advance into Gruchy.” Sergeant Bob McDougall and Trooper Doug Turner were killed, while Ayer and another man were only slightly wounded.38

  Ayer’s charge freed ‘B’ Squadron to eliminate machine-gun positions on the left-hand side of the village. Closing on Gruchy, ‘B’ Squadron tried to pass two troops around the southern outskirts, while No. 3 Troop pushed in head on. The two troops moving past Gruchy were immediately fired on from the Château de Saint-Louet farther to the south, and two tanks in No. 2 Troop were knocked out. The remaining two Shermans moved to the orchard on the southern edge of Buron to help ‘A’ Squadron, which was locked in a fight there. Despite losing one tank to 88-millimetre fire from a concealed position, No. 1 Troop remained on the southern edge of Gruchy. Here it attacked a small-calibre anti-tank gun. Opening their hatches, the tank commanders wiped out the crew by throwing grenades into their position. A Panzerfaust round penetrated one Sherman but failed to seriously damage it. Several minutes later, this tank engaged and knocked out a Panther attempting to enter Gruchy.39

  Inside Gruchy, the Glens were caught up in a fierce street fight beginning at 0820. The shootout lasted only fifteen minutes, but when it ended, all of ‘B’ Company’s officers except Major Neil Gemmel were dead or wounded. Also dead were ‘A’ Company’s Major Frank Lester Fisher and Company Sergeant Major George Dickson.40 The two men had been killed by a single shell.41

  The moment the firefight ended, the surviving panzer grenadiers in Gruchy attempted to flee southward. No. 1 Troop cut many of them down with its machine guns. When some survivors sought refuge in weapon pits hidden in the grain field between Gruchy and the château, the tankers closed up and killed them with machine-gun fire.42

  Inside the town, No. 3 Troop had also met stiff opposition. One tank was knocked out when a panzer grenadier attached a magnetic bomb to its side. The ensuing explosion killed the gunner and loader-operator. Then an anti-tank gun brewed up two tanks. The lone survivor was later destroyed by an 88-millimetre firing from near Buron. ‘B’ Squadron could only support the Glens in their subsequent advance on the château with its headquarters troop and the three surviving No. 1 Troop tanks.43

  Despite subduing Gruchy, the Glens were too disorganized to immediately take on the château. Christiansen was having difficulty reorganizing his men in the midst of German shellfire still pounding the town. He advised Brigadier J.C. “Ben” Cunningham that “it is evidently [going to be] a long slogging match to get anywhere today.” He asked brigade headquarters to direct artillery onto Authie because “the enemy is lively in that direction.” No sooner had Christiansen sent this message than his battalion headquarters back at Vieux Cairon was shelled. The battalion’s second-in-command, Major A.M. Hamilton, was wounded. Christiansen requested even more counter-battery fire because Gruchy was being saturated. Cunningham replied that brigade needed the Glens to “spot the direction.” By 0900 hours, the shelling of battalion headquarters had tapered off, but Gruchy remained under heavy fire.

  Finally, at 0950, Christiansen reported the Glens ready to attack the château. Cunningham told him to wait so this advance could coincide with the North Nova move on Authie. This plan was badly delayed by the HLI still being locked in a struggle for control of Buron. Until the village fell, the North Novas lacked a start line.44

  THE HLI’S DELAY in clearing Buron was not due to lack of effort. While they had been fighting through to its outskirts, the German garrison within had been steadily growing. From the north, the 25th Panzer-Grenadier Regiment’s company at Galmanche had retreated to Buron to escape the British attack there. Part of the company in Gruchy had also successfully reached Buron. Consequently, by the time the HLI gained the town, it faced all that remained of 25th Regiment’s 3rd Battalion. These panzer grenadiers were amply supported by mortars and machine guns, tanks, and most of the 12th SS artillery. Although the HLI was not outnumbered, the Germans possessed a superior weight of supportive weapons. They also fought from well-prepared defensive positions that gave them a significant edge.45

  Both leading HLI companies had been shredded in gaining the outskirts, and ‘A’ Squadron had lost half of its fourteen tanks. Those Shermans remaining could not find a route into the village, so they “browsed about the slit trenches immediately in front of Buron, shooting up anything and everything.”46

  The HLI’s ‘D’ Company had been pounded at the anti-tank ditch and then left dozens of dead and wounded strewn on the ground between it and the orchard beside the village. On the edge of the orchard, Sergeant August Paul Herchenratter quickly dressed Corporal Frank Weitzel’s leg wound. But when he tried to get Weitzel to go back, the man brushed off the wound. Both men had played a large part in getting the company to its current position. Together or alone, they had overrun many machine-gun and rifle positions. Now, before them, the orchard teemed with more Germans.

  Herchenratter gathered the nineteen men that were all that remained of two platoons and attacked some dugouts next to the stone wall that encircled most of Buron. Seeing a German
in one dugout, he was unable to get an angle for a rifle shot. After he threw in two grenades, both of which failed to explode, the German rested a potato-masher stick grenade on the dugout’s ledge. Herchentratter took a bead on the grenade, and when the man popped up to throw it, shot him dead. The sergeant received a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his heroism this day.

  Weitzel, meanwhile, had led a section-strong charge through the orchard. When only three other men were still standing, he told Private William Spencer to go back for reinforcements. Then he led the other two men forward. Lieutenant G.E. Lowe witnessed Weitzel “going down the orchard with his Bren gun on his hip and two riflemen beside him, then only one, then nobody but himself. The trenches were thick and well filled … Weitzel cleaned them all out but the last one.” Plunging into the last dugout, Weitzel disappeared. The following morning his corpse was found in the body-filled dugout. He had been riddled with bullets. Weitzel was unsuccessfully nominated by the regiment for a Victoria Cross.47

  Once the orchard was cleared, the remnants of ‘D’ Company worked into Buron. A straggling affair, its well-spaced houses had been reduced to rubble and the intervening gardens and orchards reduced to thickets of shell craters. On the northern flank, ‘B’ Company was unable to get into Buron at all because of the heavy defences. The company needed tanks, but the nearby Sherbrookes were milling about in front of a wide stretch of ground they thought concealed an anti-tank minefield. Lieutenant Colonel Griffiths knew the east side of the road leading into Buron was mine free, but his signallers were unable to raise the tankers. Lieutenant Campbell, the intelligence officer, finally dashed across the bullet-swept ground to the tanks. On the back of a Sherman was a button infantry could push to signal the crew commander to open his turret for a talk. Campbell told Radley-Walters how they could get forward, then dodged back to the battalion command group, only to see the tanks still stalled. He made another “broken field zig-zag dash to the Squadron CO’s tank,” his Military Cross citation read. This time he was successful in getting his message across.

  When the tanks followed his instructions, they were able to engage the German defenders. “Grenades, mortars and small arms fire hadn’t budged the group of seventeen- and eighteen-year-old Hitler Youths,” Campbell later wrote. “Twice the tanks overran the slit trenches and the Germans just lay down to avoid being crushed, then rose up again to fight. It wasn’t until the tanks ran right up to the trenches and fired right down on them that they were wiped out. All this time they must have known they didn’t have a chance. The group had two officers. One was twenty-one and the other twenty-three.”48

  After establishing his tactical headquarters in a large dugout designed to shelter vehicles, Griffiths compensated for the battalion’s depleted state by instructing both ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies to attack from the orchard while ‘C’ Company would assist ‘B’ Company on the opposite flank.49 Ten men were standing in a cluster to hear these instructions when a shell struck a nearby tree, and jagged pieces of steel and wood sprayed the dugout.50

  One of the signallers landed with his head on Griffiths’s shoulder. Blood ran from the dead signaller’s eyes and nose. Griffiths realized he would have been killed had this man’s body not absorbed most of the shrapnel. As it was, the lieutenant colonel had a chunk in his ankle.

  Major Ray Hodgins regained consciousness lying on his side. On the other side of the dugout he saw Lieutenant Clarence Sparks dead with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Hodgins had shrapnel in his buttocks, “which is the best place you can get hit.”51 All three signallers were dead. Griffiths, Hodgins, Major Dave Durward, who commanded ‘A’ Company, and four other ranks were wounded. Only Lieutenant Campbell was unscathed. Hodgins and Durward both refused evacuation until they were able to reorganize their companies.

  Campbell arranged for Griffiths’s Bren carrier to come forward to evacuate the battalion commander. His carrier driver, Private A.P. Ableson, had been evacuating wounded from the grain field and the anti-tank ditch when the call came for him to fetch Griffiths. Manoeuvring over “extremely rough ground” under intense shellfire, Ableson reached the dugout. Loading Griffiths and the wounded other ranks aboard, Abelson had just set off when a shell knocked Griffiths overboard and disabled the carrier. Despite his own shrapnel wound, Ableson retrieved a nearby abandoned carrier, single-handedly transferred Griffiths and the other four wounded to it, and then drove through heavy fire to safety.52

  ‘D’ Company, by now, numbered just twenty men commanded by a single officer, Major Harry Anderson. Thirty men in ‘B’ Company were led by Lieutenant J. Chantler. The wounded Hodgins was the sole officer in ‘C’ Company. He had fifty men. ‘A’ Company was the only one that remained fairly intact.

  Prior to every engagement, a nucleus of officers, non-commissioned officers, and some other ranks were selected to be Left Out of Battle (LOB) to provide a core group around which the battalion could be rebuilt if it were destroyed in combat. This group came forward to join their comrades.53

  So reinforced, the HLI fought its way into Buron. At 1010 hours, Major G.A.M. Edwards—the battalion’s second-in-command and now leader—reported they controlled Buron’s centre. “But amongst the rubble small parties of enemy clung on desperately and fought throughout the day—the last of them were not uprooted until the next morning.”54 Headquarters company commander Major F.A. Sparks—whose younger brother had been killed when the shell hit the command group—was shocked when German artillery began showering shells on Buron even while the HLI was still fighting to eliminate these pockets of resistance. Then he realized that the panzer grenadiers were so dug in they were protected, while his men were dangerously exposed.55 Clearing these fanatics was all the HLI remained capable of, and Edwards “appreciated that it would be impossible for him to send his men out across the fire-swept open ground to the south with any hope of success.”56

  This meant the HLI was incapable of securing the North Novas’ start line. It fell to the surviving tanks of ‘A’ Squadron under Major Radley-Walters to advance into the open and gain the higher ground south of Buron. Fortunately, the tankers had been joined by two troops of British 17-pounder M-10 tank destroyers from 2 45th Anti-Tank Battery. Just as the Shermans and M-10s advanced from Buron, German Panthers counterattacked from the high ground that was their objective. In a fierce melee, the M-10s destroyed thirteen Panthers at a cost of six of their own, while ‘A’ Squadron was reduced to just four Shermans.57 One M-10 picked off nine Panthers as each trundled from behind a stone wall into its sights. When the M-10 ran out of ammunition, it was knocked out by another Panther.58 Fourteen of twenty-three German tanks were knocked out.59 When the fighting ended, Radley-Walters led the surviving four Shermans onto the high ground. They were soon joined by two machine-gun platoons from the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (MG). “Thus precariously established,” as an official army report later stated, “the position held firm. An uneasy situation had been set right. The advance could be resumed.”60

  The HLI suffered its bloodiest losses of the war—262 casualties, of which 62 were fatal.61 ‘A’ Squadron lost eleven tanks, but seven were repairable. Three tankers died and five were wounded.62

  [ 4 ]

  Day of Revenge

  FOR HOURS, MAJOR General Rod Keller had been anxiously urging 9th Brigade’s Brigadier Ben Cunningham to get the Canadian advance moving towards Authie and Château de Saint-Louet.1 But the delay in capturing Buron had made such an advance impossible. Finally realizing that “a fresh start must be made,” Keller rescheduled the advance to 1430 and arranged for supporting artillery for that time.2

  To the Canadian left, meanwhile, the inexperienced 59th British Infantry Division had fought its way through to Épron, only to be thrown out by a 12th SS counterattack. The 59th’s attack stalled in front of this village and neighbouring Saint Contest.3 Left of 59th Division, the veteran 3rd British Infantry Division had slashed through the 16th Field Division, which had virtually ceased to exist by
mid-afternoon of July 8. All battalion commanders and 75 per cent of its infantry were killed or wounded in the earlier bombing or following fighting. Lébisey fell, and Hill 64, which overlooked Caen, was taken by late afternoon. The road was open for the British push into Caen.4

  Not so for the Canadians. Here chaos reigned. Expecting to pass through Buron for Authie at 0830 hours, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders had followed close behind the Highland Light Infantry.5 This was to be a “day of revenge for the North Novas,” their regimental historian declared, “and every man was filled with grim resolve.” They sought to avenge the June murder of thirty-seven North Novas and Sherbrooke Fusiliers at Authie.6

  Instead, with the HLI stymied in Buron, the North Novas had to hole up for hours in the anti-tank ditch under continuous shelling. Many men were killed or wounded during the long wait.7 Only at 1045 was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Petch able to move the battalion to the orchard south of Buron, which would be their start line. The men dug in under a rain of mortar fire and the shells of an 88-millimetre gun battery firing from Saint Contest, which remained in German hands.8

  As the North Novas entered the orchard, ‘A’ Company’s Major Errol Stewart Gray became their first officer casualty. Captain L.J. “Lou” Sutherland took over. Then shrapnel severed the right arm of ‘D’ Company’s Major C.F. Kennedy. Arm hanging by “a small shred of skin,” he ordered Private Adrian Gaudet to slice it off with a knife. Kennedy continued command for two hours before handing over to Captain Stephen Stanley Bird and walking unaided to the RAP. Bird and four others were mortally wounded by a shell a few minutes after Kennedy left. Battalion’s support company commander Captain Cecil Matson took over ‘D’ Company.9