Not all of the division had reached the front by the afternoon of Wednesday, 7 June, but Standartenführer Kurt Meyer’s SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25, which was in the van, could call on at least fifty artillery pieces and a similar number of tanks, as well as his highly mobile infantry, who were also bristling with mortars and machine guns: each of his three panzer-grenadier battalions had some 69 machine guns, except the III. Bataillon, which had a staggering 151. A gaping chasm existed between the best and least within the German armies; the British and Canadians who were about to come up against 12. SS were taking on troops of an entirely different calibre and level of equipment and fire-power to the German infantry divisions they had encountered on the crust. It was like comparing the little leagues with the majors. What’s more, quite regardless of the standard of training and leadership, the men of the 12. SS ‘Hitlerjugend’ were, almost without exception, highly motivated and, crucially, disciplined. They were men who were very unlikely to roll over easily and would do exactly as ordered.
Nor were they on their own that day, because on their right flank was half of 21. Panzer, reinforced by a hastily reconstituted battalion from the remnants of the 716. Division. Despite its losses the previous day, 21. Panzer still had plenty of Panzer Mk IVs and lots of powerful mobile artillery; Kampfgruppe Rauch, under Oberst Josef Rauch,fn1 could, for example, call on twenty-four self-propelled 105mm guns as well as a further four 100mm guns.
Moving up from the north of Caen directly towards Kampfgruppe Rauch was an infantry brigade of the British 3rd Division, who had now passed through the men of the D-Day assault brigade. After their bloody battle at Hillman, the 1st Suffolks were dug in among woods near the tiny village of Le Bois du Mesnil. As far as Arthur Blizzard was concerned, it was still pretty hellish, even dug in there. ‘That was a bad day,’ he said.21 ‘Jerry had us pin-pointed with mortars and 88s and stonked us day and night.’ At one point during a pause in the firing, he and his mate, Alec Bailey, had been making a dash to the cookhouse (a couple of makeshift petrol-fuelled tins) when the shelling opened up again. When they eventually got back to their trench there was a large unexploded shell right in the middle of it.
To the west of them, the Canadians were pushing forward, with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders leading the advance – just one battalion – supported by some fifty Shermans of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. Their advance was supposed to be supported by a Royal Canadian Artillery field regiment, as well as by offshore naval guns. Unfortunately, by late morning the artillery was still supporting the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment’s attempts to capture the Distelfink radar station near Douvres; although its radar equipment had been destroyed, the strongpoint itself had not. Bob Roberts was among those making little progress there. Nor could the Nova Scotias call on naval fire support as planned, because the FOB – the naval forward observer, bombardment – could not make radio contact with the cruisers out at sea; there was just too much radio traffic and the interference across the airwaves was too great. To make matters worse, nor did the Canadian vanguard have their normal allotment of anti-tank guns – they had not yet been unloaded, for which the weather and choppy seas were largely to blame. This was why Dempsey was so worried about the slow rate of unloading; without the full complement of fire-power, his forward troops were vulnerable.
The countryside around Caen was very different from the western half of the invasion front, which was laced with small fields, bocage, and winding, softly undulating valleys. Here, the landscape was altogether more open, with wide fields no longer trimmed with a mass of dense hedgerows. From his viewpoint in the towers of the Abbey d’Ardenne, Kurt Meyer could see all the way to the beaches of Juno some 8 miles away. There were ridges and folds, but less pronounced, while the latticework of roads wove through a network of small and ancient villages, most no more than 1 or 2 miles apart. The landscape did, however, drop into dead ground just to the north of the airfield of Carpiquet, which could not be seen by any troops advancing from the coast – an ideal place in which to site waiting tanks and artillery, as Meyer was very well aware. The Nova Scotias, with the Sherbrooke Fusiliers in support, were advancing up the eastern side of the River Mue, with the airfield as their ultimate objective, although if they encountered heavy opposition they were to consolidate and secure the ‘high ground’ between the villages of Buron and Authie. Unfortunately, however, there was no high ground. Someone had misinterpreted their map.
By midday, the Canadians had managed to push back the blocking force of Kampfgruppe Rauch and get through the villages of both Villons-les-Buissons and then Buron by midday. Next on the road to Carpiquet was Authie; the airfield was now just 3 miles to the south-west.
From the Abbey d’Ardenne, Kurt Meyer was getting his men ready for the planned counter-attack, due to be launched at 4 p.m. This was to be a major drive forward, with both 12. SS and 21. Panzer operating side by side and with Panzer-Lehr joining in and securing their left flank as soon as they arrived and were in position to do so. Their orders from Marcks were to ‘drive the enemy who had broken through into the sea and destroy him’.22 It was unequivocal. The arrival of the Canadians in front of him rather upset these plans, however, because they forced him to engage far earlier than intended and so without the kind of coordination that might have been achieved had they been able to stick to the 4 p.m. kick-off as ordered.
The Canadian advance reached Authie and then, as they probed forward once more, hit the 12. SS. Tank duels opened up in which both sides lost armour, while heavy shelling thundered into Authie, Buron and the ground in between. Meyer’s men were now advancing all along the north-west of Caen. Smoke and the fog of war obscured Meyer’s view, however, and, charged with adrenalin, he jumped on a motorcycle and sped towards his III. Bataillon as it advanced on Buron, speeding past some fifty Canadian prisoners who were being frog-marched towards the abbey. No sooner had he reached the open ground south-east of Buron than Canadian Shermans opened fire and shells began whistling around him. Diving for cover in a shell-hole, he was startled to find himself face to face with a Canadian soldier. They looked at each other warily, then the Canadian made a dash for it as more shells flew over.
Meyer eventually found Obersturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Milius, the commander of his III. Bataillon, between Authie and Buron. Heavy artillery fire was falling on Buron. ‘One could no longer identify the village,’ wrote Meyer.23 ‘Smoke, explosions and flames marked its position.’ By around 4 p.m. the Canadians were pulling back to Les Buissons as their artillery was finally arriving to give support. It was clear, however, that, although they were being pushed back and had taken heavy casualties, this was far from being a rout. The combined infantry and armour had taken a considerable toll on the Germans too – a toll that was worsening now the artillery was joining in. Obersturmführer Hans Siegel, whose II. Bataillon was also involved, discovered the effectiveness of Allied artillery fire at first hand. Although only a first lieutenant, he was a highly experienced 25-year-old who had fought in the Polish campaign as well as through much of the war on the Eastern Front. Commissioned back in 1940, he had won an Iron Cross First Class at Kharkov before being badly wounded and invalided out for more than six months. Now recovered, he was one of the tough, dedicated and battle-hardened officers who had been brought in to provide the backbone of the new ‘Hitlerjugend’ Division. This afternoon of 7 June, though, he was leading his 8. Kompanie of Mk IV panzers in an attack towards Cambes, a couple of miles north-east of Buron.
His was the lead tank when the shelling began, so he sped towards the edge of a wood for cover. Suddenly, a shell exploded above them, knocking a tree directly on to their tank, cutting off their visibility entirely and jamming the turret. ‘We quickly turned back and forth,’ said Siegel, ‘but were unable to strip the monster from us.’24 Siegel then bailed out and was hurrying to get another vehicle when two more of his panzers were hit as they stopped to fire. His fourth tank had slid sideways into a shell crater, which meant all f
our were out of action before they had properly got involved in the battle.
These mounting losses were riling the men of Milius’s III. Bataillon. Commanders always set the tone for the men serving under them and Milius was an old-school SS Nazi who had worked at Dachau concentration camp before the war. First in Authie and then in Buron, his men went on the rampage. Wounded Canadians were bayoneted and bludgeoned to death, and a number of those trying to surrender were shot. In Authie, eight prisoners under guard were executed, then two of the bodies were dragged on to the main road and a Mk IV brought up to run back and forth repeatedly over the corpses. When a French civilian was later authorized to remove the mess, he needed a shovel to do so. More prisoners were summarily shot in Buron.
As soon as the SS men tried to push north of Buron, however, they were cut to pieces in turn and, with the Canadian artillery now supporting, Meyer had no choice but to recall his men. With the lead German units in retreat, the Canadians counter-attacked and managed to retake the shattered remains of Buron. Shermans of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers were now running down fleeing grenadiers. At long last, naval fire added support to the Canadians’ efforts and that evening the entire area, including the villages of Cambes, Buron and Authie, over and through which the battle had raged all afternoon, were plastered by offshore naval guns, while once again fighter-bombers swooped in to strafe and bomb enemy positions. In a fit of murderous pique, a further eighteen Canadian POWs were shot in the grounds of the abbey that evening; of the 110 Canadians who died that day, at least 37 were executed while others were murdered by panzers deliberately guided to run over a number of wounded lying by the sides of the road. Witnesses recalled seeing the streets running with blood. However, the Germans were not the only ones murdering prisoners – the Allies were doing it too; Bob Slaughter, for example, had been expressly told not to take prisoners on D-Day. This had set an ugly tone for the rest of the campaign.
The battle demonstrated much else besides. The 12. SS, one of the best-equipped and most motivated divisions in the German Armed Forces, had been stopped by an initially under-gunned Canadian force only a sixth of its size. There had been no drive to the sea; the Allies had not been destroyed. This was in part because of the high level of training and excellent equipment of the Canadians, who yet again had punched above their weight – a feature of their performance throughout the war so far. It was also because fighting in this open ground around Caen was extremely difficult, especially when on the offensive, which necessarily meant moving up and out of concealed positions. In this regard, not very much had changed since going over the top from the trenches in the last war. The Canadians and British could take great cheer from having seen off this strong counter-attack, but the experience of the 12. SS and 21. Panzer that day also served as a warning. Being on the offensive in this eastern part of the battlefield was not going to be easy or straightforward in any way.
Normandy was going to be brutal.
CHAPTER 16
Fighter-Bomber Racecourse
With the Allied urgency to build up men and supplies rapidly, one of the most vital objectives was the capture of Port-en-Bessin. No. 47 Commando had spent the night of 6 June in the open on Mont Cavalier, marked up as Hill 72 on their maps. At its foot was a German bunker being used as a medical post, which the Commandos had quickly captured, taking the German medical officers prisoner. During the night, a group of Germans had arrived there thinking they would be attending morning sick parade, only to be met by Commandos with blackened faces. They were swiftly added to the growing prisoner count, although as the morning of 7 June broke the Germans still occupying the town were none the wiser that the Commandos were at their backs.
Up on the hill, as dawn arrived, Lance Corporal Frank Wright looked down the straight road that ran a mile or so into the town and small fishing port. Three strongpoints covered Port-en-Bessin, one on either side on the cliffs overlooking the town and sea beyond – labelled the Eastern and Western Features – and a third at the southern edge of the town, which appeared to consist of strengthened billets and ammunition store bunkers. The attack of 47 Commando was due to be coordinated with American artillery from Omaha and offshore naval gun support, but Colonel Charles Phillips and his HQ team could not make radio contact with the Americans. They did, however, manage to link with HMS Emerald, a light cruiser lying 5,000 yards off shore. It was agreed the navy would bombard both the Eastern and Western Features, then Second TAF would send in rocket-firing Typhoons. Immediately after that, at around 3 p.m., the Commandos would attack. A Troop was to assault the Western Feature, B Troop the Eastern and X Troop the ammunition bunkers. The already depleted Q and Y Troops would remain in reserve at the hamlet of Escures, with Rear HQ remaining on Hill 72 to control the battle.
As planned, naval shells began screaming on to the cliffs either side a little after 2 p.m. Frank Wright and the rest of the assault troops could only watch as shell after shell screamed on to the German positions. The town was swathed in smoke as the Commandos set off and, since a grass fire had broken out on the Eastern Feature, there was no sign of it subsiding. Frank Wright and X Troop now passed through A and B Troops and at the crossroads before the town they turned left, westwards, towards the ammunition pits. Cornfields edged the sunken track and at the third field they came to they stopped and then, two at a time, passed through a gap in the hedge and into a ditch. This gave them cover as they looked out across another meadow, roughly the size of a football field, towards a man-made hill about 25 feet high. Trenches had been dug around it and they could see troops moving about. Lieutenant Armstrong, Wright’s section officer, was now moving along, two or three men at a time, explaining in whispered tones the plan; in a nutshell, this was to fix bayonets and then charge the position.
‘Any questions?’ asked Armstrong.1
Wright said nothing. No one did. They were all speechless, because advancing over an open field towards an enemy strongpoint seemed liked suicide.
‘I hope they are going to notify our next of kin,’ muttered Marine Brian Skinner.
At 3.50 p.m., right on cue, first one squadron of Typhoons roared in overhead, then a second five minutes later. Thundering in over the town, they shot off their rockets and cannons with impressive accuracy, then disappeared again. ‘Our target,’ noted Wright, ‘had been transformed into a miniature volcano.’2 With smoke still in the air, Captain David Walton, the troop commander, raised himself up and gave the order to fix bayonets. Wright climbed out of the ditch, clicking his bayonet on to the end of his rifle. ‘I must be dreaming,’ he thought.3 ‘This isn’t really happening – I’ll wake up in a minute.’ Mortars and a few Bren guns gave them some covering fire, and then they were running and shouting and in moments had reached the foot of the mound, miraculously still alive. Pushing into a concrete entrance, Wright and his fellow Marines, black streaks on their faces and their blood up, emerged into a bunker to find about twenty Germans, all cowering. ‘White faced, hands held high,’ noted Wright, ‘they were shaking uncontrollably.’4 Half an hour later, X Troop was marching back towards the town. As it turned out, their objective had been a walkover.
It was not so easy for A and B Troops, however. A Troop were climbing the Western Feature when they suddenly came under murderous fire from the harbour. Unbeknown to the Commandos, two small German flak ships had evidently entered the harbour since the last reconnaissance photos. The survivors kept going, only to be hit by machine-gun fire and grenades as they broke through the wire around the strongpoint. With more than half the force of fifty now dead or wounded, A Troop were forced to pull back. B Troop also came under heavy fire on the eastern side of the harbour, while the Germans then counter-attacked from the south towards Rear HQ, with Y Troop also coming under fierce attack. Suddenly, the entire operation appeared to be in jeopardy.
Help was at hand, however, when two destroyers, one of them the Polish Krakowiak, bombarded the flak ships. Some from X Troop, Frank Wright included, were also sent forward
towards the Western Feature to shoot up the flak ships and keep the enemy gunners from firing at their own.
Wright was firing away when he heard the crack of a rifle from behind them and realized they were being sniped. Nearby, Taffy Evans was firing short bursts on the Bren. As Wright fed another clip of bullets into his Lee–Enfield, he glanced across at Evans, who he realized had stopped firing. To his horror, Evans was dead. Another crack rang out. ‘I’m going to die here, now,’ thought Wright, ‘and won’t know a thing about it, here on this fucking stupid hill – dear God, get me out of this.’5 Fortunately, Captain Walton then pulled them back into the town, where they waited, fearing a major counter-attack and worrying they were surely doomed. Unbeknown to them, however, the battle had already turned in their favour.
One of the flak ships had half-sunk and both had been abandoned. Meanwhile, Bren carriers with machine guns and mortars from the Heavy Weapons Troop had been able to get forward and, as darkness fell, a combined force from A and B Troops assaulted the Eastern Feature. Although the commander of the attack, Captain Terence Cousins, was killed, they successfully overran the strongpoint, taking nearly forty prisoners in the process. Early the following morning, it seems the enemy troops still in the Western Feature decided it was time to quit, because voluntarily they surrendered to a Commando they had taken prisoner the day before. At around 4 a.m., just as Wright and his fellows were advancing back up the Western Feature, Corporal Amos led a further twenty-three Germans down the hill and into the port. By the time the men of X Troop reached the strongpoint, the position was deserted. ‘And we were over the crest,’ noted Wright, ‘and walking on to open fields and the rolling countryside beyond.’6 Port-en-Bessin had fallen. Now both artificial harbours, the Mulberries, could be swiftly brought over and put in place.
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