Later, Eisenhower showed up at Bradley’s HQ. He was elated – elated and relieved, and joked that if they were in Paris for Chet Hansen’s birthday in October, they would take over the biggest hotel and have the biggest party in the world until everyone got tight. It was that kind of day, when even a Supreme Commander was so giddy with excitement he could make rash promises. After dropping Ike at the airfield, Hansen returned to join Bradley and his deputy, General Courtney Hodges, for a steak supper while they marked up their maps with the latest advances, which now amounted to some 30 miles. ‘We eagered,’ added Hansen, ‘for good news from the front.’9
On Sunday, 30 July, Lieutenant Richard Blackburn was glad to go to a short church service led by the chaplain in an orchard. Most of the company attended without much coaxing. It was raining, as it had been on and off for the past few days, but then, suddenly, halfway through their prayers, the clouds parted and great shafts of sunlight shone down. That day, Blackburn’s 121st Infantry enjoyed a pause, but the armour continued to surge ahead. By now, 2. Panzer-Division had been brought over from the Caen area, while 116. Panzer-Division was also on its way as von Kluge desperately tried to stem the collapse. On the 30th, the 4th Armored Division managed to seize a key bridge over the River Selun at Pontaubault. This bridge was the gateway to Brittany. As July drew to a close, the Germans were completely reeling, with most of 7. Armee’s armour gone, some 20,000 troops taken prisoner and countless dead and wounded.
It was now time for Patton’s Third Army to enter the battle and, with it, US 12th Army Group was activated with Bradley as its commander. This meant that from Tuesday, 1 August, Montgomery was no longer C-in-C of all Allied ground forces, but instead, as had always been planned, he took sole charge of 21st Army Group, which made him equal to, rather than above, Bradley. D-Day might have been a predominantly British operation, but a shift was about to take place. Not only had the US Army’s first army group become operational, but the number of US troops in France had exceeded those of the British and Canadians. The United States had just become the dominant partner.
Further to the east, the British had been planning and getting ready for BLUECOAT. It had actually been an extraordinary feat of logistics to get VIII Corps switched all the way to the Caumont area without being detected. Armoured units had moved at night and the corps’ white knight symbol had been painted out. Dummy radio traffic was transmitted to fool the enemy, although rather than these deception measures, it was Eberbach’s hunch that the British wouldn’t be capable of mounting an armoured thrust through such terrain that ensured they were caught off guard when BLUECOAT was finally launched.
Weakened though the panzer divisions might have become, more and more infantry units had also been brought up from Brittany and now, finally, from 15. Armee too – units that had been held back in case of a subsequent Allied amphibious invasion. By the last week of July, there were four German corps facing the British and Canadians. The ground around Caumont, however, fell into the area of General Erich Straube’s LXXIV. Korps. The key piece of terrain, Straube declared to his men, was Point 309, to the south of Caumont, not Mont Pinçon as Dempsey had concluded. This hill, Straube ordered, was not to be given up under any circumstances.
Among the British now gearing up for the battle was newly promoted Captain Robert Woollcombe, now second-in-command of A Company, the 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers. After Hill 113, the chance to rest and refit in Caumont had been gratefully taken, and they had been especially pleased to occupy the old positions of the Big Red One, who were only too glad to hand over large numbers of surplus supplies. ‘This windfall,’ noted Woollcombe, ‘covered the entire floor of a farmhouse attic knee-deep.’10 It included cigarettes, chocolate, tinned fruit and enough lavatory paper for an entire brigade. There were even boxes of cigars.
The Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry were moving up too, having also taken over from the Americans, in this case from Lieutenant John Rogers and the 67th Tank Battalion. The Sherwood Rangers had just taken on a lot more replacements, both officers and ORs; since the invasion, they had already lost forty tank commanders, killed or wounded. That was around 80 per cent. The 24th Lancers, also of 8th Armoured Brigade, had been so badly mauled they had been broken up – the SRY received some of them – and their place taken by the 13th/18th Hussars. The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, meanwhile, had been sent a number of Northern Irishmen. At the start of the war, local regiments had been filled with local people. Five years on, they were filled with all sorts.
Behind the usual bombing and artillery barrage, on 30 July both corps started on BLUECOAT, jumping off either side of Caumont. Dick O’Connor’s VIII Corps on the left saw the 15th Scottish Division lead off. Supporting them were the 6th Guards Brigade. O’Connor had made it clear he wanted the very closest of infantry and tank cooperation; they would be heading through dense country and it was essential, he told his commanders, that they worked together. Fortunately, they had trained together back in England before the invasion, so their staffs and senior officers were quick to cooperate. It made such a difference, and what’s more, their advance benefited from the number of Crocodiles and mine-clearing flail tanks that were now part of their arsenal. Particularly impressive was the attack on Hill 309, the main objective for the first day. It was defended by the 326. Infanterie-Division, originally formed from Eastern Front veterans, but another static division with little or no transports.
Although the British infantry became held up with hedgerow fighting, the Churchills pressed on alone and took the summit by 7 p.m.; these tanks could climb peaks and mounds that others could not and, perhaps more than any other tank, were suited to operating in the bocage. The infantry then followed and secured the feature overnight. This was no small achievement. That day, yet another German general was killed, this time Leutnantgeneral Victor von Drabich-Wächter, commander of the 326. Infanterie. Next day, 31 July, VIII Corps pushed on and took the next hill. Three monstrous Jagdpanther high-velocity assault guns knocked out eleven Churchills in no time, but British versions of the M10 tank destroyer, equipped with 17-pounders, soon joined the battle and their superior guns helped force the Jagdpanthers to withdraw.
Leading the XXX Corps attack, meanwhile, was 50th Northumbrian Division on the left, heading towards Villers-Bocage, and the 43rd Wessex Division on the right, with 8th Armoured Brigade directly supporting them. Stanley Christopherson, who had a wonderful sense of humour and was rarely without a smile, rather struggled with the po-faced martinet Major-General Ivor Thomas, the Wessex Division commander. He was known as ‘Butcher’, but ‘Von Thoma’ to the Sherwood Rangers, after the German general in Tunisia. ‘He was a wiry little man,’ noted Christopherson, ‘with piercing little eyes, a long nose, which protected a bristling moustache, devoid of any sense of humour and a hard relenting driver, but a good soldier whom I am convinced enjoyed his fighting and discomfort.’11 It was hardly a ringing character assessment, but they didn’t need to be bosom buddies, and while there might not have been a lot of jokes in Thomas’s CP, he had already proved an effective divisional commander. The Wessexmen made good progress that Sunday as the sun beat down hot and strong for a change. It also helped that they’d trained in the tight fields and sunken lanes of rural Kent before the invasion; the ground they crossed was not at all dissimilar.
Cahagnes fell on 31 July, with almost 200 prisoners taken and a further 100 Germans killed. The 4th Dorsets had been in reserve, but on that day were given a ridge beyond the village to capture. They were ready at 4 a.m., had breakfast at 8.30 and then attacked, although not as a whole battalion. Instead, they pressed forward with fighting patrols alongside the 7th Hampshires and this proved very effective. Sergeant Walter Caines managed to keep communications open with radio sets only. In the evening, once the intelligence from the various patrols was brought back, an attack on the ridge was made at around seven. ‘This ridge was captured,’ noted Caines, ‘without a single casualty.’12 More patrols were sent forward to
try to find out exactly where the enemy was. They returned with a number of prisoners. ‘Everyone dug in as usual,’ added Caines. The following morning, Tuesday, 1 August, it remained blisteringly hot and there was still not much sign of the enemy. The Germans had, Caines noted, been a tough nut to crack so far, and he, for one, felt uneasy. It was quiet. Too quiet.
That day, though, the 7th Armoured Division, the Desert Rats, were to pass through between the two infantry divisions and seize the town of Aunay-sur-Odon, a few miles to the south of Villers-Bocage. Their orders were that speed was very much of the essence, yet they managed to get themselves held up by pockets of resistance, minefields and too many vehicles trying to pass through too few, too narrow roads. Their problems were compounded by lack of visibility caused by early-morning mist and, when it lifted, they found themselves on forward slopes where they soon began to be picked off by Panzer IVs of Oberst Oppeln-Bronikowski’s 21. Panzer Kampfgruppe, who had been hurriedly sent to the rescue and were now dug in, hull down, and keen to stop the British advance dead in its tracks.
It did seem, however, as though the Desert Rats had lost some of the chutzpah and elan that had so marked their earlier career in the war. Bucknall, the XXX Corps commander, now urged Major-General George Erskine, CO of 7th Armoured Division, to get a move on and throw all caution to the wind. The corps artillery, he added, was very much available to help. Dempsey in turn was losing his patience. ‘You may lose every tank you’ve got,’ he told Bucknall, ‘but you must capture Aunay by midnight tonight.’13
It didn’t happen, however. Erskine wasn’t prepared to push his men that hard; neither were his junior officers willing to make the potential levels of sacrifice needed to push on to Aunay. The Desert Rats had first gone into action against the Italians under General Dick O’Connor in the Western Desert in 1940. They had fought all through the North African campaign, then in Sicily and again in southern Italy. Of course, much of their personnel had changed, but not all, and if this was a cadre of men who felt they had more than done their bit in this war, it was, in fairness, entirely understandable. Both Bradley and Montgomery had wanted the invasion forces to have a mixture of experience and men new to combat, but it was perhaps no coincidence that Collins was also currently worrying that the Big Red One, veteran division of Tunisia and Sicily, was now under-performing and lacking drive.
Meanwhile, the Wessexmen and 8th Armoured Brigade were carrying out a daring night move south on the right flank of 7th Armoured to take the village of Jurques, some miles south of Cahagnes. ‘It was a terrible night,’ noted Walter Caines, ‘troops were lifted on tanks, and were continuously dropping off to sleep.’14 Caines was following, as usual, by motorbike, his third of the campaign after the previous two had been destroyed, and feeling on edge about potential enemy resistance opening fire at any moment, but also absolutely exhausted and struggling to keep awake, as they ground their way forward at little more than 5 m.p.h.
At 5.30 a.m. on the 2nd, the column halted on the edge of Jurques. Firing could be heard up ahead and word got back that the leading company had met resistance. ‘A few fanatics were holding out in the village itself,’ wrote Caines.15 ‘These fools were quickly dealt with and were no more.’ They pushed on through the village, but then Caines was told that the signals scout car, which had been travelling behind the lead company, had hit a mine and been destroyed; the adjutant had been killed and so too had the control operator, Corporal Penny. The signal officer had survived, but had suffered burns to his face and arms. To make matters worse, just beyond the village they ran into far more serious resistance as artillery, self-propelled guns and machine guns opened up; like 7th Armoured, they had now hit Oberst Oppeln-Bronikowski’s Kampfgruppe from 21. Panzer.
Responsibility for the battalion’s signals now rested with Caines, but then word arrived that the two signallers with B Company had also been killed. Several tanks were knocked out and D Company’s commander, Major Letson, was also badly wounded. Caines now had just one wireless set but couldn’t reach brigade, so dispatch riders were sent instead, while in the meantime the 4th Dorsets and their accompanying armour managed to push through and take the next village of La Bigne. Incredibly, however, within an hour and a half of the signals scout car being hit, a brand-new one arrived, complete with fresh equipment. It is hard to think of a better indication than this of the superb British logistics now operating in Normandy. It was no wonder the Allies were winning. The Dorsets now dug in and further supplies came forward. Shelling continued through the afternoon and into the night as Caines and his depleted team worked to lay telephone lines and repair those broken by shelling. At first light the following morning, 3 August, every man was given a hot meal and issued with chocolate and cigarettes, another vital filip in the British quest to keep up morale. ‘I was so tired and literally worn out,’ noted Caines, ‘that I gave up all efforts to dig in properly.’16 No one in the signals ever had much time to themselves, as they were always busy with the upkeep and maintenance of the lines.
VIII Corps, meanwhile, had been in danger of getting too far ahead of XXX Corps on its left, so 15th Scottish and their accompanying armour had paused to allow the Wessex Division to catch up, but had used the time to see off repeated counter-attacks in which, as usual, the Germans had exposed themselves and got progressively chewed up. Meanwhile, 11th Armoured Division, on the right, which had been supposed to offer flank support only, drew alongside 15th Scottish only to be urged on by O’Connor, and by 11 a.m. the following day, 31 July, having unusually moved through the night, they attacked the village of Saint-Martin-des-Besaces. While this was happening, a remarkable incident took place. Reconnaissance scouts from the 2nd Household Cavalry had been probing forward, looking for gaps in the German defences. With their eyes focused on the fighting at Saint-Martin-des-Besaces, the German defenders failed to notice a Dingo scout car and an armoured car speed past. Led by Captain Dickie Powle, the reconnaissance party motored on a further 6 miles, reaching a bridge across the River Souleuvre, which gave them a potential route to Le Bény-Bocage 2 miles further on, a village that stood on a ridge of high ground bestriding a road that led south-east towards Falaise. If they could take that village quickly, it would unquestionably be a great triumph. With the armoured car acting as cover, the Dingo sped forward and crossed the bridge. The cavalrymen then dispatched the sentry and, despite the difficulties of sending radio signals across rolling and wooded countryside such as this, eventually relayed a message back. Within a matter of hours, the advance of 11th Armoured was thundering down the same road and on up the ridge beyond to take Le Bény-Bocage and, from there, the town of Vire, which lay on the main west–east road to Falaise and to which the Americans were also now advancing.
In some ways, it had been a lucky strike as the road taken lay on the border not just between two German divisions, but also between Panzergruppe West and 7. Armee, but in the confusion and hiatus it was not clear who was going to reach Vire first, the British or the Americans. Meanwhile, 15th Scottish had also continued to drive south. The 6th KOSB went into action on 1 August wearing roses in their helmets to commemorate the Battle of Minden in 1759 during the Seven Years’ War. Supported by eight artillery regiments and swarms of rocket-firing Typhoons, they attacked across the main road from Avranches to Villers-Bocage, gained the woods on the far side and found a number of knocked-out Panthers and large numbers of enemy dead. It had been an exemplary assault of combined arms reminiscent of the kind of confident coordination and cooperation the Germans under General Guderian had employed in 1940 to such devastating effect. Most of the dead, Woollcombe noted, were shockingly young, boy conscripts of the 276. Infanterie-Division. ‘But it seemed we were hardened by this time to any sight,’ he wrote.17 ‘We trod among the bodies of the blonde boys with hardly a thought.’ He was then sent on a patrol down into the woods on the far side of a narrow valley to see if there were any enemy left alive. He found only the dead.
Progress that day, 1 August,
was not as dramatic as it had been the previous two days, but by this time the entire German front was in danger of complete collapse. With the greatest threat still a British and Canadian breakthrough in the eastern half of the front, von Kluge now ordered II. SS-Panzerkorps from the Caen sector to try to stem the flow of the British drive from Caumont. On 2 August, 11th Armoured managed to take and hold the next ridge line, the Perriers Ridge, which overlooked the main Vire–Falaise road. For the next few days, 10. and 9. SS-Panzer-Divisions desperately tried to push the British back off the ridge, but to no avail. General Pip Roberts was following one of Joe Collins’s mantras: always head for the high ground and then don’t let go.
A little further east, 15th Scottish continued to sweep south, and were now coming up against 2. SS-Panzer. The rest of 21. Panzer, meanwhile, had also been pulled across from the Caen sector and pushed in beside them on their right. This meant there were now four panzer divisions facing VIII Corps’ thrust. On the extreme right, the 2nd Northants Yeomanry had been given the unenviable task of bridging the gap between VIII Corps and the Americans on their right. None of the Yeomen was very happy about operating on their own without infantry, although to begin with it had been all right, as the gap had been a narrow one and they had been close to the rest of the drive south. By 2 August, however, they were holding an area about 7 miles wide, each squadron spread out worryingly far apart. They were in bocage country too. ‘Even a troop of three tanks,’ noted Reg Spittles, who had only just returned from hospital, ‘were out of sight of each other and had to rely on radio contact.’18 This was asking for trouble and, sure enough, they got it. By the following day the reinforced Germans had realized the Northants Yeomen were on their doorstep and so counter-attacked with panzers and grenadiers. B Squadron lost six tanks that first day, but by the evening of the 4th the 2nd Battalion had been reduced to just fourteen tanks.
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