Breakout from Juno

by Mark Zuehlke

  Lieutenant Colonel David Stewart ordered the remaining two Argyll companies on to Hautmesnil, a scattering of buildings gathered around a large quarry. Hautmesnil was less than a mile away. When they arrived, Stewart sent ‘C’ Company to clear the buildings and ordered ‘B’ Company to contain the quarry. This was a huge, open-pit operation. By the time the buildings had been secured, night was falling. Deciding the quarry was too large for one company, Stewart left it and ordered the Argylls to dig in.11 The Argylls had lost Jones killed and twenty-four others wounded.

  WHILE THE ARGYLLS had marched on Hautmesnil, Halpenny Force had stood down despite several hours of light remaining. Halpenny announced that it was necessary to “renet, regroup, and plan.”12 Unable to contact Booth since late in the afternoon, Halpenny reached this decision alone.

  Major General George Kitching had also been unable to raise Booth or determine his whereabouts. At the same time, a livid Lieutenant General Guy Simonds was demanding that Kitching get his division moving. At 1830, he ordered an immediate advance through Bretteville-le-Rabet and on to Point 195, even if it meant marching through the night.13

  Unable to pass on these orders by wireless, Kitching set out by jeep and finally discovered Booth’s tactical headquarters two miles behind the battle front. Booth’s headquarters staff were sitting about, looking sheepish. Peering into the turret hatch of Booth’s command tank, Kitching saw the brigadier apparently asleep.14 When he climbed inside, Kitching realized Booth was passed out drunk. Shaking him awake, Kitching yanked Booth out of the tank and subjected him to a furious five-minute tongue-lashing. Almost in tears, Booth swore he would pull himself together and do his job.15

  By the time Kitching sorted out Booth and convened a new Orders Group, it was 2000 hours. Kitching ordered 4th Armoured Brigade to renew the advance. Halpenny Force would capture Bretteville-le-Rabet with two Grenadier squadrons and two Lake Superior Regiment companies riding on the tanks. Point 195 would then be taken by a flying column comprised of the British Columbia Regiment and three Algonquin Regiment companies. This force would be commanded by the BCR’s Lieutenant Colonel Don Worthington.16 Although Kitching was retrieving the situation, nothing could change the fact that Halpenny had, as the Grenadier Guards’ regimental historian remarked, “vitiated Simonds’ intention ‘to push on steadily regardless’” of opposition.17

  In fact, little had gone right in Totalize’s second phase. While 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s advance had been fraught with delays and then derailed by Booth and Halpenny, 1st Polish Armoured Division’s gains had been even more disappointing.

  Major General Stanislaw Maczek’s Poles had crossed the start line on schedule at 1355 hours with 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade’s 24th Lancers and 2nd Armoured Regiment advancing to the south of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. Within thirty minutes, Maczek radioed Simonds that his leading troops had been engaged by twenty Tiger tanks in woods about a mile southeast of Saint-Aignan. Another ten Tigers were firing from a wood about a mile south of the village. Artillery was also hammering them. “We have suffered some losses in tanks,” Maczek added. “Appreciate that enemy pushed armour [forward] to gain time to strengthen second defence line with troops reported … coming from south.”18

  The Poles seriously overestimated the Tiger numbers. There were actually only three, those left from Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann’s command. The other tanks were Mark IVs.19 But they were well concealed, while the Poles were in the open. In the thick of the battle, the Lancers requested artillery “which neutralized the opposition sufficiently to enable a short advance, though the left flank was consistently … menaced by enemy armour. The terrain, studded with small woods and high hedges,” a Polish report stated, “made the position very favourable to the enemy!”20 The battle raged until dusk with the Poles losing forty tanks—twenty-six from 2nd Armoured Regiment, fourteen from the Lancers.21

  As night closed in, the 3rd Rifle Brigade pushed ahead against heavy opposition. “The battle continued throughout the night and by 0600 hours 9 Aug[ust] little ground had been gained.”22

  DESPITE ITS FAILINGS, Totalize had panicked the German command. At 0045 hours on August 8, Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge had informed General der Panzertruppen Hans Eberbach that his Fifth Army—as Panzer Group West had been redesig-nated—must facilitate “a speedy transfer” of 12th SS Panzer Division to Seventh Army. They were to join the unravelling German offensive at Avranches.

  Then, at 0545 hours, ISS Corps commander Obergruppenführer Josef “Sepp” Dietrich reported 89th Infantry Division under attack and tanks reportedly already in Saint-Aignan. At 1420 hours, Dietrich pleaded for armoured reinforcements, only to learn that “all flying formations are committed in support of the attack on Avranches.”

  At 1600 hours, Eberbach requested 1st SS Panzer Division’s return to the Canadian front. He was considering withdrawing to a line running from Saint-Sylvain through Cintheaux to Grimbosq and “probably even throwing straight into battle the newly arriving elements” of 85th Infantry Division. Von Kluge said 1st SS Division was already committed by Seventh Army to the Avranches offensive. By 1730 hours, Eberbach reported that his just-proposed new line of resistance “will have to be withdrawn during the coming night, as it [can] no longer be held against the severe enemy pressure.” The Canadians, he said, had “already pushed … tanks as far as Hautmesnil.”

  Von Kluge responded at 2000 hours with instructions to send an artillery battalion and Nebelwerfer brigade to Seventh Army. At the end of his tether, Eberbach phoned von Kluge and provided an “exhaustive description” of his army’s “difficult position.”

  Eberbach said 12th SS Panzer Division had been “crushed.” Only individual tanks from the counterattacking force were returning. “The enemy pressed … as far as Gaumesnil and is continuing his advance.” He doubted the current defensive line at Bretteville-le-Rabet could be held “if the enemy attacks more energetically.” The 89th Infantry Division and the 12th SS, Eberbach stated, “are fifty percent knocked out. I shall be lucky if by tonight I am able to round up 20 tanks, including Tigers.” The 271st Infantry Division facing I British Corps and part of 1st Polish Armoured Division had suffered two thousand casualties and was “very weak. I must confess quite frankly that I am looking forward to tomorrow with anxiety.”

  “I am unfortunately not in a position to send you anything,” von Kluge responded. “That this would all go so quickly, we too did not expect. But I can imagine that it did not happen quite so unexpectedly. I have always anticipated this and have always looked forward to the coming day with a very heavy heart.”

  Fifteen minutes after von Kluge rang off, Eberbach learned that the 12th SS Panzer Division battle group that was to have returned from west of the Orne was still far away. Leading elements of 85th Infantry Division would also not arrive until some time on the morning of August 9.

  Eberbach phoned von Kluge again. He reiterated that the “Hitler Youth Division has been exhausted so much … that I SS Panzer Corps was not able even by means of roving staff officers to get together a combat team again. Telecoms, wireless included, are knocked out.”

  “As a last measure,” von Kluge said, “I have set into march this night twenty tanks of 9th SS Panzer Division, but I fear that, with the long approach march, only half of them will arrive tomorrow morning. If you get back one Panzer Division which I had taken away from you, what will you then be short of most?”

  “Most of all, tanks are lacking,” Eberbach replied.

  “Have you a commander who understands how to handle tanks? Where is the commander of the Hitler Youth?”

  “The Hitler Youth commander telephoned me this afternoon from Saint-Aignan. He was there to organize the resistance.”

  “That is Panzer Meyer,” von Kluge said. “Have you had news from him since?”

  “No news. That was before the area bombing … Since then, I have no further news from him.” Unspoken was the fear that Meyer was dead, wounded,
or captured.

  “If I send you a tank formation, would that help you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you then a man who could lead them?”

  “Yes, that man Wünsche.” Eberbach referred to Obertsturmbann-führer Max Wünsche, the 12th SS Division’s 12th Panzer Regiment commander.

  “He is still there? Aha! I am considering whether I should still send you a Panzer battalion.”

  At 2330 hours, the two conferred again. Eberbach expected the morning to bring a “penetration on the Caen road in the direction of Falaise … Enemy has pressed forward from Hautmesnil with very strong elements through to Langannerie. I hope that we succeed in destroying the enemy during this night … and hold the line Saint-Sylvain-Bretteville.”

  Von Kluge reassured Eberbach that the 9th Panzer Division tanks were marching from Argentan to Falaise, “so that early tomorrow they will be half way on. That is a very weighty decision for me, a major abandonment of an order that has been given to me. I know of no other solution—have no further forces. If it goes on like this tomorrow, there will be no more stopping them at all … I know that, in the long run, the forces will be inadequate,” von Kluge said resignedly.

  At 2350 hours, the commander of II SS Panzer Corps advised Eberbach the tanks to be sent were “built into the main line of resistance, hence he would [instead] send 9th SS Panzer Division’s Tiger Battalion with thirteen tanks … ready for action.”23

  SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT on August 9, Brigadier Booth briefed his two force commanders by flashlight on the floor of his tank. Hal-penny Force would first take Bretteville-le-Rabet, and then Worthington Force would advance through to Point 195.24 Halpenny assigned the Lake Superiors’ ‘B’ Company to take the village. Mounted on the Grenadiers’ No. 2 Squadron tanks, the small force set off at 0330 hours. Following behind was the Superiors’ ‘C’ Company with No. 1 Squadron, Halpenny’st actical headquarters, and Lieutenant Colonel J.E.V. Murrell’s headquarters section.25

  Advancing alongside the Caen-Falaise highway, the column was about a thousand yards north of Bretteville as dawn broke, and it suddenly came under fire. Guardsman Neil J. Stewart “could faintly hear the shouts and screams of the men clinging to the turret, along with the crackle of bullets hitting the steel castings as the Spandau fire swept the top and sides of the tanks.”26 Spilling into the wheat field beside the road, the Superiors shot back at snipers and machine guns that seemed “everywhere.” ‘B’ Company was driven to ground.27

  No. 2 Squadron ripped loose with machine guns, “and the tracer bullets were about as thick as snow in a snowstorm,” the Grenadier war diarist recorded. “Gradually everyone stopped firing, and it was then possible to observe flashes from an anti-[tank] gun,” which was quickly knocked out.28

  Arriving with the follow-on force, Lieutenant Colonel Murrell heard wounded men crying in the wheat field and yelled to ‘C’ Company, “Follow me.” Ignoring the gunfire snapping through the grain, Murrell and some men dashed forward. They carried the wounded to a ditch on the opposite side of the road.

  Realizing ‘B’ Company was broken, Murrell ordered Major E.G. Styffe to advance ‘C’ Company.29 Halpenny sent Major Amy’s No. 1 Squadron in support. He then saddled up his tactical headquarters, gathered No. 2 Squadron, and returned to Gaumesnil.30 Determined to see Bretteville taken, Murrell stayed put.

  The attack went in at 0600 hours. While No. 1 Troop swung to the east to enter the village, the rest of the squadron pounded the buildings with high-explosive shells. ‘C’ Company advanced straight up the road, a move the Superiors’ historian acknowledged “was without subtlety or complex manoeuvre.” It was “perhaps, for sheer courage, the most heroic action by any company of the battalion during the whole war. The resistance put up by the Germans was hard and determined. They had both cannon and small arms and the advantage of prepared positions and good knowledge of the terrain. Steadily the Lake Superiors edged forward. The sun bore down upon them. They were thirsty and choked with dust. Men fought and died; killed and were killed; but their comrades foughton.”31

  Clearly, if the Germans were so determined to stand at Bretteville, they would equally defend the three villages immediately west of it. Directly astride the Caen-Falaise highway was Langannerie. From this village, Grainville-Langannerie trailed away to the southwest, while Vieille Langannerie stood to the northwest. In the late morning, Kitching ordered 10th Infantry Brigade to advance the Lincoln and Welland Regiment south from Hautmesnil to clear these. The Argylls, who had seized the quarry south of Hautmesnil without difficulty over the course of the morning, would follow the Lincs. Both battalions were supported by the South Alberta Regiment, Major Arnold Lavoie’s ‘A’ Squadron with the Lincs and Major David V. “Dave” Currie’s ‘C’ Squadron, the Argylls.

  The Lincs and Lavoie’s tanks attacked frontally at 1300 hours.32 ‘A’ Company, under Major Andy Gilles, led on the left with Major Merv McCutcheon’s ‘B’ Company to the right. It was a mile from the start line to the villages. Two of Lavoie’s tanks were disabled by mines, but the crews escaped unhurt.

  The 89th Infantry Division remnants offered a spirited fight, and soon all four companies were entangled in house-to-house battling, with the tanks providing close support. Trooper Bob Henning’s tank was firing high-explosive and armour-piercing rounds into buildings the infantry were attacking. An infantryman walked out of one front door “holding a German helmet with the owner’s head still in it.” Henning scrambled out of the turret and puked into a ditch. “There is no way I can do this,” he was thinking, when a German counterattack caught him outside the tank. After the Germans were driven back, he climbed back in. To survive, Henning decided, “I would have to do what I had to do and that was the way it was for the rest of the war.”33

  Elsewhere, Major Jim Swayze’s ‘D’ Company met only slight resistance. “We got into the main street, and I put one platoon on the one side of the street and I was on the other … About fifty yards down, two German soldiers ran across the road with a machinegun. They were just putting it in a better position, and, being the first Germans any of us had ever seen, we just stood there with our mouths open and watched them run across.”34

  When the Argylls arrived at 1600 hours, German resistance began collapsing. Two hours later, the villages were secure. About a hundred prisoners were taken. Canadian casualties were very light. The Lincs, their regimental historian noted, “were beginning to get the feel of things, and they thought of objectives ahead, not with the idea, ‘That’ll be a tough one!’ but instead, ‘Wonder how long it’ll take us to get Jerry out of there.’”35

  In Bretteville, where the Superiors won the village in the late afternoon, the prisoners exceeded two hundred. “There had been casualties,” the Superiors’ historian wrote, “a considerable number of them; but whatever the losses had been, the men of the battalion had won their battle spurs. They had a new sense of dedication and a new consciousness of their strength.”36

  But command responsibility had taken its toll. Lieutenant Colonel Murrell was evacuated by the battalion’s medical officer. Major Robert Keene took over and reported that the Superiors would be relieved in Bretteville by 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment at 0300 hours on August 10.37

  [ 22 ]

  Come What May

  WORTHINGTON FORCE HAD advanced before the battle for Bretteville and the other villages was concluded. Comprised of British Columbia Regiment’s three tank squadrons and three Algonquin Regiment companies, with Lieutenant Colonel Don Worthington commanding, the force had been created by Major General George Kitching the previous evening. Worthington was young and competent, considered next in line to Booth for command of 4th Armoured Brigade.1

  The “Dukes,” as the tankers were nicknamed in reference to the regiment’s relations with the Duke of Connaught, had already been well positioned for the advance in a field north of Cintheaux. Not so the Algonquins. They had spent hours advancing in half-tr
acks through a traffic jam at Rocquancourt and arrived at the Dukes’ harbour purely by chance.2 ‘ B’ Company’s Major Lyle Monk had just parked opposite Brigadier Booth’s tank when Worthington walked up and announced that “there had been a change of plans. We were to go under command of the British Columbia Reg[iment] and take on a job as soon as it could be arranged.” Worthington asked Monk to tell Lieutenant Colonel Don Hay he was to attend an “immediate O Group.”

  This was easier said than done, because Hay’s headquarters and ‘A’ Company had missed the harbour area and were almost in Bretteville when Monk reached Hay by wireless at about 2200 hours. It was midnight before Hay returned and climbed into Booth’s tank. Monk and two other Algonquin company commanders, Major Keith Stirling and Major “Wally” MacPherson, “lay on the grass in the dark and talked quietly of what was to come.”

  An hour later, Hay and Worthington “crawled out of the Brigadier’s tank.” Worthington started an immediate briefing. Circled around were Hay, his company commanders, and Worthington’s squadron commanders. They were to seize Point 195 “and hold this feature until the rest of our troops can reach us.” The advance would parallel the Caen-Falaise highway until they came opposite Point 195. They would then turn and assault the hill from the southeast. “The tanks will do the fighting on the way down,” Worthington said. “Keep moving. Try to reach the objective before daylight.”3 ‘C’ Squadron would lead. Worthington’s regimental headquarters would be behind. The rest of the force would form in line—‘B’ Squadron, ‘B’ Company, ‘A’ Squadron, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies, and the light Stuart tanks of the reconnaissance squadron at the tail.4 Hay would ride in Worthington’s tank. Zero hour was thirty minutes away.5