Both the British and Americans were learning all the time, but there is no question that the Americans, especially, had a willingness to soak up new tactics and absorb lessons. For all the concerns about how long it was taking the Americans to grapple their way through the bocage, actually it was only around six weeks from D-Day until the middle of July and in that time they had significantly increased the bridgehead and captured the Cotentin and Cherbourg – all of which had been done in dense hedgerow country and with only gradually increased armour, artillery and tank destroyer support. Rather than getting chewed over for their tardiness, Bradley and his First Army should have been given a massive pat on the back. It had taken six months to take Tunisia, thirty-six days to take Sicily and long months in the wet, cold and miserable winter of 1943/44 to get from Naples to Rome, so there was past experience to draw upon. And what was six weeks in the big scheme of things? Before the invasion, Montgomery had reckoned it would take them ninety days to get to Paris. They were currently about halfway through that.
In any case, the Americans were getting better with each passing week, if not day. There was a willingness to learn that was endemic and equally a willingness to innovate. An example is the way in which troops learned to blast holes in the bocage big enough to allow a tank to pass. Once this big conundrum had been solved, a major stumbling block was removed, because it meant armour could push through with infantry following, sheltering behind their protective armour. The Sherman could then spray the opposite hedgerow with machine-gun fire and blast out the machine-gun posts with its main gun. Then the infantry could fan out, clear up and move on. Dozers were one method; assaulting with combat engineers to blast a path for the armour was another; while a third method was the development of steel forks on the front of a Sherman tank.
During an inspection tour at the very end of June on a quiet sector of the line near Saint-Germain-d’Elle, US V Corps commander Major-General Leonard Gerow turned to the commander of F Troop, 102nd Cavalry Squadron, Captain James Depew, and asked if he had done anything to deal with the hedgerow problem. Depew admitted they had not yet come up with anything. Gerow told him to find a solution and fast. That same night, Depew called a meeting of his officers and senior NCOs. Staff Sergeant Curtis Culin said he had an idea. The problem, Culin pointed out, was that the Sherman and the hedge acted like two cars coming together bumper to bumper. What was needed, he reckoned, was something like a snowplough, which could use the momentum of the tank to get through the hedge rather than banging into it head-on.
Depew liked the sound of this and presented the issue to his squadron maintenance officer, Lieutenant Steve Litton. Litton suggested something like a fork – strong and long enough to dig in and pull up the roots of the bushes and trees in the hedge, and easy to bolt on to the front of the Shermans – and, in fact, these remarkable tanks came with a set of loops at the front on the lower hull. Litton thought maybe the beach obstacles that had littered Omaha and Utah could be used – they were made of strong steel and had good cutting edges to rip the bottom out of landing craft. Perhaps, he suggested, they could be cut and welded to the front of a tank.
Two days later, Depew reported that a prototype had been developed and was ready for testing. At first, the tank drew up and then pushed against the hedge so that the tracks began rising up the mound, just as it did without the fork on front. But then they had another go, charging straight at the hedge, and this time the Sherman sliced straight through as effortlessly as if it had been butter.
Word quickly spread up the chain of command until it reached Bradley, who in turn mentioned to Eisenhower that he was about to see a new device that could cut through hedgerows. Bradley was given his demonstration on 14 July, standing alongside General Gerow. Both were hugely impressed. ‘So absurdly simple that it had baffled an army for more than five weeks,’ noted Bradley, ‘the tusk-like device had been fashioned by Curtis G Culin, Jr, a 29 year-old sergeant from New York City.’1 In fairness, it had been a joint effort, with Lieutenant Litton responsible for the design of the hedge-cutter.
These hedge-cutters became known as ‘Rhinos’. Bradley immediately ordered the chief of First Army’s Ordnance Section to supervise the construction and installation of as many of them as possible. First Army Ordnance then assembled welders and welding equipment within the beachhead and from rear areas in England. These teams used scrap metal from the German beach obstacles to construct most of the devices. Between 14 and 25 July, more than 500 hedgerow cutters were made, while by the end of the month 60 per cent of all First Army’s Shermans were equipped with the device.
While these admittedly arrived mostly too late for the hedgerow battles north of Saint-Lô, they were now available for the COBRA assault and what might follow. In no other army in the world would the initial idea of a mere NCO be listened to, then proved and embraced so emphatically. The US Army was truly a people’s army of civilian conscripts, not constrained by regimental tradition, and that gave it a freedom to innovate in a rapidly evolving world not shared by either the British or Germans.
Other innovations were adopted by both the Americans and British, including improved means of communication between infantry and armour. Telephones had been placed on the back of tanks, for example; these were trial-and-error developments and were certainly something Stanley Christopherson, for one, believed needed further honing. For the most part, however, the British and Canadians followed one approach, the Americans another; because they were coalition partners and fighting together but independently of one another, there was little common doctrine, although tactical developments were shared. The same was true for the air forces. Pete Quesada, for example, got on very well with both Coningham and Broadhurst, but was developing different tactics for his air forces, not least because the fighting in the bocage was different to that experienced by the British and Canadians in the area around Caen. The RAF was using the cab-rank system and VCP – visual control point – but Quesada, in the build-up to COBRA, was now hatching an even more refined system for directly supporting the ground troops. It was yet another example of innovation and rapid implementation being developed in Normandy.
‘Bradley liked me, and I liked him a hell of a lot,’ recalled General Quesada.2 While the planning for COBRA was taking place they were talking daily, with Quesada urging the First Army commander to assemble his armour on a very narrow front so that they could smash their way through and then keep going. Quesada was belying his lack of ground operations experience, but he said, ‘Look, Brad, if you will concentrate your armor, I will tell you what I will do. I will keep over every column that you establish a flight of bombers from daylight until dark.’
‘You will?’ Bradley replied.
‘Yes, I will,’ answered Quesada.
‘For every column I establish?’
‘Yes, and further than that, Brad, we’ll do something else that I think will be a tremendous help. We will put in the lead tank of every column an aircraft radio, so they can talk to the flight that’s above them.’
That wasn’t all. In the same conversation, Quesada also offered to put a pilot in the leading tank. Suddenly, in the space of one simple conversation, an exciting new tactical development had been born, one they then began to thrash out verbally. Quesada’s fighters were now using high-frequency radios and were also being controlled from the ground by their MEW radars as well as by radio and high-frequency direction finding. What Quesada was proposing was a development of the cab-rank and Rover system used by the RAF, but with important differences. By flying directly above an armoured column, the pilots could see ahead. If they spotted an 88, or enemy troops, they could warn the column below and could either deal with it themselves or help the armour to defeat it. Because there was to be a direct verbal link between the lead tank and the pilots above, friendly-fire incidents, which had been not uncommon so far in the campaign, would be reduced. In fact, because of the direct radio link, the gap between the armour below and the actions of the fig
hter-bombers above could be narrower, which would also help the armour get on to their targets more quickly.
That very afternoon, they trialled putting an aircraft radio in a tank with a pilot alongside and found the system worked very well. Within a matter of days, they had practised it on a larger scale. Flights of four P-47 Thunderbolts flew in turns, thirty minutes at a time, over an armoured column, which meant they could maintain a permanent air umbrella over any armoured advance, striking targets and providing advance searches. It also meant an armoured column could dash forward with less concern about its flanks, because any movement on that score was likely to be spotted from the air. Keeping up such an umbrella would absorb a lot of Quesada’s fighters, which would then not be available for interdiction tasks, but it did not have to be kept up all the time; rather, it could be implemented as and when required – such as for Operation COBRA. The Armored Column Cover had been born. It was a potentially devastating development of air–land integration forged from the bloody bocage battles of Normandy.
While preparations for COBRA got under way, Dempsey’s Second Army launched Operation GOODWOOD. The planning of this battle underlined precisely why, so far, British and Canadian efforts had been concentrated on the western, not eastern, side of Caen. Only six bridges crossed the Orne and Caen Canal, over which three armoured divisions, with their thousands of vehicles and men, had to pass. This meant leaving the artillery on the western side, where they would be less effective. Because this was an armour-led operation, the attack was going to be very light on infantry. In other words, largely unsupported British armour would be advancing under the noses of German high-velocity anti-tank guns well dug in above them. Most of the time, the inferior range of British tank guns didn’t particularly come into play. As they advanced towards the Bourguébus Ridge, however, it almost certainly would.
It didn’t take a brilliant military tactician to work out that this was asking for a bloody nose. But what to do? Eisenhower and Tedder were pushing for a breakthrough; Montgomery now had 3,500 tanks and yet was also being warned to conserve his infantry stocks, and attacking to the west had twice failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. It was most likely for this reason that Monty had insisted on a more limited operation, recognizing that his armour would probably take some hits but that, overall, they could continue the chewing up of German forces, especially if supported by heavy carpet-bombing by the RAF and USAAF. After all, Eisenhower and Tedder had offered to support any offensive operation. On the other hand, if Montgomery told them he was substantially scaling back Dempsey’s original plan, would they support GOODWOOD quite so fully? Then what would become of his armour?
The instructions issued for GOODWOOD, however, reflected the mixed messages for the battle’s aims. In his ‘Notes on Second Army Operations 16 July–18 July’, Montgomery hand-wrote his instructions to Dempsey.3 Under the title, ‘Object of this Operation’ he wrote:
To engage the German armour in battle and ‘write it down’ to such an extent that it is of no further value to the Germans as a basis of the battle.
To gain a good bridge-head over the River Orne through Caen, and thus to improve our positions on the eastern flank.
Generally to destroy German equipment and personnel.
Only Dempsey and O’Connor were given these notes – they were not distributed to any of the divisional commanders, nor to Eisenhower or Tedder for that matter. In fact, to Tedder’s follow-up signal of enthusiastic encouragement, Monty replied:
Three things important.4
First: To hold the ring between now and 18 July and delay enemy moves towards lodgement area to greatest extent possible.
Second: To examine every means so that the Air can play its part on 18th and 19th July even if weather is not 100 per cent.
Third: Plan is successful promises to be decisive and therefore necessary that the Air Forces bring full weight to bear.
This was deliberately disingenuous and non-specific, because Montgomery knew perfectly well that both Eisenhower and Tedder had greater expectations for GOODWOOD than he thought possible. Perhaps they would get lucky and a decisive breakthrough would happen, but Monty certainly wasn’t going to bet on it. But he did want that full air support all the same.
O’Connor’s orders to his commanders, on the other hand, gave a more specific objective: the area ‘Bourguébus–Vimont–Bretteville-sur-Laize’; this latter village was the site of Sepp Dietrich’s I. Panzerkorps CP, some 10 miles south of Caen and well beyond the Bourguébus Ridge. ‘If conditions are favourable,’ O’Connor had added, ‘subsequently exploiting to the south.’5 These reflected Dempsey’s own ambitions for GOODWOOD, but they were certainly more far reaching than Montgomery’s.
Because of the lack of space and the limiting constraints of trying to pass 44,892 men, 1,098 tanks and 11,772 vehicles of three British armoured divisions across six bridges in one short period of darkness, it was General Pip Roberts’ 11th Armoured Division that would lead off and head over first. His instructions were to make for the Bourguébus Ridge and, ideally, beyond it, but his motorized infantry were first to clear up two villages near the start line of the attack. Roberts, understandably, was worried that his armour would then get too far from his infantry – and that was not good practice, as the infantry were the eyes of the tanks and needed to prevent lurking Germans with Panzerfausts attacking and to stop enemy infantry from clambering aboard and killing the crew. Armour could not really work entirely on its own in an attacking role. When Roberts questioned this, however, O’Connor insisted he do as ordered, although he allowed him to cover Cagny then pause while the Armoured Guards Division caught up; he also turned over some of the artillery’s half-tracks and self-propelled guns to act as armoured personnel carriers. Dempsey’s vision for GOODWOOD dictated the battle plan, not Montgomery’s. The concern, though, as Montgomery had correctly gauged, was that it was demanding too much in circumstances that were not suited for a breakthrough. Not the terrain, the constraints of time, the Germans’ high-ground advantage or the sudden lack of infantry made this look like an odds-on success. The die, however, had been cast.
Under instructions from Tedder, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris ordered a maximum effort from RAF Bomber Command, with 1,056 heavies attacking at first light. These would be followed by nearly 500 medium bombers of Ninth Air Force and a further 539 heavies from Eighth Air Force. More than 2,000 bombers would be hitting the German positions. That was a huge number; Hamburg, for example, had been destroyed by 3,500 bombers over three nights back in July 1943. Bomber Command’s targets were Colombelles, Cagny, and the villages of Touffréville, Sannerville and Banneville, a roughly diagonal area of some 4 miles by 4 that extended south-east from Caen and covered the gently rising slopes and ridge line; Cagny village straddled the Bourguébus Ridge and was a key German position and OP.
Among those attacking were Ken Handley and his Australian crew in 466 Squadron. Handley was finally coming towards the end of his tour, but he approached this mission with the same phlegmatic attitude that had seen him through so far. Like most of the heavies, they carried 8,000 lb of bombs – 4 tons. ‘A good early morning prang on tanks and enemy gun installations in the battle area prior to a breakthrough,’ he noted; even Bomber Command aircrew had been promised GOODWOOD would prove decisive.6 ‘1,000 aircraft took part at heights of 6-8,000 ft.’ It was also their ‘christening with flak’, as Handley termed it; they had been very lucky to come through entirely unscathed so far. A jagged piece cut through the Perspex nose, missing the bomb-aimer by a matter of inches. ‘Otherwise pleasant,’ noted Handley.
It certainly wasn’t pleasant for those on the ground. Leutnant Freiherr Richard von Rosen had been at a party the previous evening organized by the battalion ordnance officer, but it had broken up quickly once they began to be shelled, and more heavily than usual. Von Rosen wasn’t sure how to interpret this, but he inspected the sentries of 3. Kompanie, warned them to wake him if anything happened, then c
rawled under his panzer, Tiger 311, and slipped into his slit-trench alongside his gunner, Unteroffizier Werkmeister.
He was awoken early the following morning, at around five, by the thunder of aero-engines and, creeping out of his slit-trench, moved through the foliage that was camouflaging them and watched ‘Christmas tree’ marker flares dropping slowly to the ground all around them. Bombs began whistling down and just 200 yards away enormous geysers of earth erupted into the sky, followed by a violent pressure wave that almost knocked him off his feet. As he dashed for his Tiger, more bombs fell, nearer this time, the tank shaking and the pressure painfully stabbing his ears. ‘From now on, I could not think,’ he wrote, ‘I was as helpless as a drowning man tossed into raging seas.’7 The air was filled with the whistling of bombs and von Rosen curled up tightly, pressing himself into the ground. Wave after wave of bombers flew over, the ground trembling, the air sucked from them, the whistling, the explosions, the churning up of soil, rock and grit. Von Rosen felt profoundly and completely helpless. There was simply no escape. All he could do was cover his ears, crouch as small as possible and hope.
Suddenly, a very close eruption flung him and Werkmeister across their slit-trench and covered them in earth. Momentarily, both were knocked unconscious, but when they came to they saw that the side of their slit-trench had caved in and that Tiger 312 was ablaze; their own panzer had been lifted and shifted to one side too, all 56 tons of it. Then it began again, another wave thundering over and more bombs falling. Von Rosen lay under his Tiger with his fingers in his ears and his blanket stuffed into his mouth to stop him from screaming.
The attack lasted about an hour and a half. Four of the Allies’ targets were accurately marked using Oboe, a blind-bombing navigation system, while the fifth was also well marked by the pathfinders. The American bombers then followed and in all some 6,800 tons of bombs were dropped in a series of attacks. Von Rosen couldn’t believe how the landscape had been transformed. ‘Of the once so beautiful parkland nothing remained but shredded trees,’ he wrote, ‘churned meadows and giant bomb craters so numerous they overlapped – a grey, repulsive moonscape and a mist of dust which made breathing difficult.8 Through the thick fog it was possible to see the red glow of trees and cornfields burning.’
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