Chapter 8
By the end of the morning, the three ‘prongs’ of 11th Armoured Division’s assault were losing strength and momentum. The chances of any further penetrations by the three armoured regiments were fading as their attacks were blunted against a thickening defensive wall. Help was slow in forthcoming. Meanwhile the German defences were organizing and counterstrokes being prepared.
LEIBSTANDARTE
When the enemy assault he had so long predicted became reality, I. SS-Panzerkorps commander ‘Sepp’ Dietrich was quick to recognise the threat. Even though elements of his 1. SS-Panzerdivision were already occupied with the defence of the Orne river line south of Caen, he responded with alacrity to orders from Panzer Group West to shift a major part of the division to defend the Bourguébus ridge. Reconnaissance elements of the Leibstandarte reached the ridge line about noon, and soon were shoring-up the small garrisons of Hubert-Folie and Bras. (Though equipped with armoured reconnaissance vehicles and able to move rapidly across country, the companies of this Aufklärungsabteilung were well accustomed to being asked to hold the line in an infantry role.)
Behind the infantry would follow the self-propelled guns of the divisional Sturmgeschütz battalion, after it could disengage from its positions west of the Orne River. Its batteries would arrive to stiffen the defence of the ridge south of Bras by about 17.00 hours. Meanwhile, it was on the eastern flank that the primary strike force of the division led the counter attack. The Panther battalion of 1. SS-Panzerregiment was in divisional reserve around the village of Rocquancourt, on the Falaise road just four kilometres south of Bras. Once mobilized, its forty-six Panther tanks required only to turn north and move the short distance to the new battlefield. The orders were to sweep down off the ridge between Bourguébus and la Hogue, cap the enemy penetration, and drive the British tanks back over the Caen to Paris railway. Behind the Panther companies would follow the infantry of second battalion, 2. Panzergrenadierregiment to secure the ground between Soliers and Cagny.
Assault howitzer (Sturmhaubitze). As the Sturmgeschütz battalions equipped with long 7.5 cm antitank guns, a proportion of 10.5 cm StuH 42 were included – typically three per ten-gun battery.
Outclassing Allied tanks in hitting power and protective armour – The Panther, Pzkmpf Mk V.
The main thrust of the Panther battalion attack was east of the Chemin de Fer Minier. Reaching their line of departure between Bourguébus and La Hogue about midday, the Abteilung enjoyed not only a height advantage over the British tanks they faced, but also some cover granted by sunken roads and foliage running across the upper reaches of the gently sloping ridgeline. Below, the ground was open. For once in Normandy, the coming battle might have permitted whole tank companies to manoeuvre together. Still, this was not the Russian steppe, and in Normandy the tactics had been changed. For German tank commanders in Normandy, open country also meant exposure to air attack, and as small groups of Panther tanks descended from the ridge, commanders’ eyes scanned the sky above. Grenadiers huddled in their shallow foxholes as the armour rolled by:
suddenly our Panthers rolled over our positions toward the front. The Kommandants were only looking out for fighter bombers… Our Panthers took off at top speed across the open terrain. They were headed for Soliers and they soon disappeared from view.1
Predictably, the Typhoons descended. By this stage of the campaign, German tank crews had a horror of rocket attacks from the air. At that time, neither Allies nor Germans had come to terms with the extreme inaccuracy of air-launched antitank rockets; their morale effect remained very great indeed. Nevertheless, the attacks were not as well coordinated as had been planned. Direction of fighter-bomber aircraft by ground observers was a science in its infancy: the attachment of a Forward Air Control Post to 29th Brigade Tac HQ was somewhat experimental. Today’s experiment was compromised as early as 12.15 hours. As calls came in for air strikes against tanks advancing across the Bourguébus to la Hogue road, the single Contact Car (a turretless Marmon Herrington armoured car) was hit and the RAF Air Liaison Officer incapacitated.2 The 29th Brigade war diary charitably records that the ALO’s deputy ‘soon picked up what was required of him and coped very well indeed throughout the rest of the day.’ However, many airborne sorties were left that afternoon to find their own targets. The doctrinal resistance within the British Army to greater liaison with tactical airpower is beyond the scope of this study. The Royal Armoured Corps had been especially resistant to painting recognition symbols on tanks, for fear that this could easily be copied by the enemy, as so frequently had been light and smoke recognition signals. The experiment announced two days before GOODWOOD that ‘All tks and and armd cars will have the horizontal surfaces of turrets painted WHITE’ was dutifully carried out, but appears not to have been repeated.3
The Typhoon (‘Tiffie’) RAF ground attack fighter.
Visual Contact Post team: RAF Squadron leader and an Army Major.
Tank combat rapidly descended into a confused mêlée. In an area approximately two kilometres square, bounded by Soliers, le Poirier, la Hogue, and Bourguébus, bands of German tanks clashed with dwindling numbers of British defenders. As poor visibility worsened, ranges of engagement reduced. On mostly flat ground, there was little opportunity to gain hull-down positions and tanks unable to gain the cover of walls or hedges simply slugged it out in the open, relying on manoeuvre and speed of reaction. Solid shot flew in all directions; German infantrymen on the ridge above wondered at shells which did not explode, then realised that ‘they were armour-piercing shells. Our Panthers were fighting up ahead with the British tanks and the ricochets were flying around our heads.’4 Within the maelstrom of smoke and dust, British Fireflies and German Panther alike were denied their advantage of long range fire. The finest all-round combat tank of its day, its frontal armour all but impregnable, the Panther was nevertheless vulnerable to flank shots, and far from its best in such confused close combat.
TACTICS
The British attack that followed the 18 July bombing had concentrated the tank force of three armoured divisions into nine regimental groups, principally tank forces with a small leavening of armoured and mobile infantry and artillery. As has been shown, these formations were in part a carry-over from lessons learned in the open desert of North Africa. They were oddly reminiscent of the massed armour of the German Blitzkrieg tactics which had triumphed in France in 1940. By contrast, the opposing German armour tended to adopt the official tactical policy for Normandy – Panzerkampftrupptaktik – of breaking up armour strength into small units.5
From the end of June, it was laid down that German attacks in Normandy bocage were to be led by the infantry rather than armour. Even the (very few) companies of Panzergrenadiere retaining armoured half-tracks were to abandon their armour for the initial attack, leaving the vehicles in the rear, apart from those used to carry forward ammunition. The tanks themselves were generally to follow the infantry, advancing line abreast in Zug strength (platoons of four tanks) or even less (Halb-Züge, sections of two or three). For veteran German tankers, this was a radical departure. Previously, the ethos of the Panzerdivision had been the massing of armour. Time after time in Russia, greatly outnumbered German forces had survived and prevailed by concentrating the force available at the critical point, whether in advance or defence.
The thinking behind the new tactics was based on the early experience of combat in the bocage, the dense hedgerow country of the invasion front in which lines of sight were short, obstacles to movement many, and every small field a potential fortress. In such terrain, massed formations of tanks were generally impractical, and armour lacking the close support of infantry was fatally vulnerable to enemy infiltration and close-range fire. Additional factors influencing the new tactics were enemy air supremacy (massed armour presented an easy target) and artillery power (controlling massed armour required radio, and radio transmissions invited quick retaliation).
Not all the new tactics were practical on the relatively open slopes of the Bourguébus ridge. Here, the infantry did not lead. But the German tanks did fight in small bands, infiltrating rather than sweeping en masse across the battlefield. And, having broken cover to attack, they became locked in the struggle. Realising that his Panther tank battalion had become closely engaged, division commander SS-Brigadeführer ‘Teddy’ Wisch tried to recall his armour back behind the defensive line of infantry on the ridge. The reply was intercepted and recorded by II Canadian Corps’ Special Wireless Section: the withdrawal could not take place because the battalion’s tanks were too heavily engaged. Moreover, their tactical freedom to manoeuvre was severely limited by the threat of the fighter bombers overhead; better to stay locked in combat than to risk falling back over open ground.6
With the wisdom of hindsight, some have criticised the German counter attacks of the afternoon of 18 July.7 Dempsey had declared himself ‘prepared to lose two or three hundred tanks.’ Replacement Shermans were in plentiful supply, and so long as crew casualties were not excessive, losses could quickly be made good. The precious Panther tanks were virtually irreplaceable. It is argued that the Germans would have been better advised to remain on the commanding ridge rather than descending into the cauldron of Four. Pip Roberts long maintained that the defenders should have relied more on antitank minefields, and less on open space for armoured manoeuvre. Yet the immediate counter attack, when an attacking force was at its most vulnerable, was a fundamental German policy, not lightly to be abandoned. Strategically, the defence of Normandy might better have been conducted by withdrawal to the Seine. But this was forbidden. Instead, the order to stand fast inevitably implied suffering heavy losses. Operationally, von Kluge’s immediate response to the news of GOODWOOD was to order the enemy thrown back by immediate concentric attack. Tactically, the Panther tanks burning in the fields around Four were a price accepted for pushing the Fifes and the Hussars back to the railway, keeping the Allies off the Bourguébus ridge, and defending the Falaise road. What is more, the habit of immediate counterstroke (‘Gegenstoss aus der Tiefe’) so deeply engrained into every field commander might – just – have succeeded.
Smashed and burnt-out Shermans littered the landscape.
TIGERS
After their rebuff from Cagny, von Rosen’s 3. Kompanie took little further part in the battle, busying themselves rescuing their damaged tanks from the Manneville haras before the tide of battle rolled over them.8 By 16.00 hours only one of von Rosen’s tanks remained fully operational: some retained mobility without operational guns, others vice-versa. Shortly after, Fromme ordered the remnants of the company to leave the field as best they could.
Meanwhile, Oberleutnant Oemler ’s 1. Kompanie had been expending frantic efforts to recover from its aerial battering. By late morning the company had managed to prepare eight of its great Königstiger for action. With great tactical insight, they advanced out from their assembly area and north around the Manneville haras. Probing westward, roughly along the line of the modern Autoroute, this potent armoured force approached the point at which the British armoured corridor was barely one mile across, taking as its objective the town of Démouville on the corridor’s far side. Between the Manneville haras and the heavily cratered Banneville the heavy tanks entered a very large wheatfield, partially cropped when the harvest was interrupted by the battle raging. Just 500 metres beyond the German spearhead lay the traffic jams of wheeled vehicles queuing to cross the Caen to Troarn rail line.
The risks inherent in speculating about ‘what would have happened if…’ have been discussed. Nevertheless, it seems in hindsight that this advance did have the potential to turn the entire battle into a British disaster. Had a half-dozen of the heaviest battle tanks in existence only progressed as far as Lirose and established a fire base across the narrow neck of the armoured corridor, 29th Armoured Brigade would have become effectively cut off from its lines of communication and supply. The whole thrust of the battle might have changed: from an advance into enemy territory to the desperate relief of an isolated pocket. To the ‘two or three hundred tanks’ which Dempsey was famously prepared to sacrifice might have been added the tank crews and command structure of an entire brigade, a shattering blow to 11th Armoured Division at a time when it was showing signs of maturing into the Army’s finest. The disaster was not to be. Oberleutnant Oemler ’s command tank ‘100’ immobilized itself by slithering into a great bomb crater, unseen amid the crop. Shortly after, in the same field, Königstiger 111 and 101 were penetrated and knocked out in quick succession (the first Königstiger ever to be lost in action to direct enemy fire; ironically, the Guards Firefly commander responsible for at least one of the kills, firing from the vicinity of the present-day British war cemetery, claimed to have destroyed a Panther). The advance was abandoned, 500 metres short of Lirose.
The path of Oemler’s King Tiger counter-attack.
The Tiger I tanks of 2. Kompanie went on to fight an effective delaying action northwest of Troarn (one of their number having earlier become stuck in a ditch in the Manneville haras, presumably when running blindly from artillery fire). The survivors of 1. Kompanie remained in the general area between Emiéville and Frénouville until a ‘stop line’ of 8.8cm antitank guns could be established to prevent further advances by Guards Armoured. By the end of the day, all remaining Tiger of the 503. Abteilung were withdrawn. The Tiger men went on to experience further hardships in Normandy. Every one of their remaining tanks would be lost on the retreat to the Seine, most destroyed by their crews after running out of fuel or breaking down where no workshop teams were on hand. But for the unit, 18 July remained their ‘darkest day’.
12.00 hours: King Tigers reach the wood-lined road.
12.15 hours: the advance reaches its furthest point with eight King Tigers in the field.
12.15 hours: Oemler’s tank is immobilized in crater while King Tigers 111 and 101 are knocked out.
11TH ARMOURED: DIVISIONAL COMMAND
In light of the potential (if unrealised) threats to the narrow British penetration achieved by midday of 18 July, it is worth reflecting on its leadership. Through that morning, Pip Roberts had shown a quality which set him apart from many of his contemporary British armour commanders: he was utterly determined to push his division’s advance forward with scant regard for what was happening on its flanks. It has been argued that during the morning of 18 July he neglected his duties as divisional commander, limiting his perspective to that of a brigadier.9 Roberts’ judgement on 18 July was influenced by his frustration at O’Connor’s interference – yet again – with the conduct of 11th Armoured Division. Roberts recognised clearly his division’s task of plunging ahead to rupture the enemy lines. If he was to be deprived of his infantry brigade, so be it. Having satisfied himself early in the battle that Brigadier Churcher was making good progress in securing Cuverville and Démouville, Roberts kept a closer eye on the momentum of 29th Brigade (though hardly necessary with the dynamic Roscoe Harvey in the saddle). However, Roberts was not blind to the risk of unprotected flanks. As the morning wore on and the following armoured divisions failed to materialize on his left, Roberts became increasingly preoccupied with the whereabouts of the forces due to follow-through to exploit his penetration of the German front. In this at least, he was not acting ‘one level down’ at brigade level, but arguably thinking ‘one level up’ in terms of securing VIII Corps objectives.
Signals emanating from Roberts’ Tac HQ from the late morning of 18 July had two recurring themes. His communications forward to 29th Brigade (actually, for much of the morning the two Tac HQs shared opposite sides of the same field) stressed the need for the tank regiments to disregard their flanks and press on forwards. His communications back to 11th Armoured Main HQ (and above) mainly concerned his need to be kept informed of the progress of the following armoured divisions.
Where was Guards Armoured Division? As early as 09.40 hours, 11th Armoured had demanded of the Guards’ Headquarters, ‘Where are your leading children?’ The answer came back that the ‘children’ (the leading tanks of 5th Guards Brigade) were ‘coming on well,’ and only five hundred yards behind 11th Armoured. But were they? Ten minutes later, 11th Armoured queried,
Ref your information re your children – this should mean that they are about level with DEMOUVILLE. We cannot see them. Please confirm.’
The Guards’ response was hesitant. ‘Wait for exact locn – sorry delay. Northing grid 68 in answer,’ apparently confirming that their lead tanks were only a mile north of the first railway crossing. Any optimism raised by this reply was tempered a full hour later by the 10.40 hours report from VIII Corps that ‘2 Armd Coldm Gds has reached CAGNY.’ And even this announcement was premature.
Between 11.00 and 11.30 hours, leading elements of Guards Armoured Division at last begun to appear in the vicinity of Pip Roberts’ Tac HQ near le Mesnil, and shortly before midday Allan Adair himself arrived. The two generals ‘had a few words… and he went off to do a recce of the area.’10 Adair’s departure was hastened as a previously unseen Panzerfaust team hidden in the crop nearby tried an opportunistic shot at the general’s tank. They missed the departing Cromwell, which beat a hasty retreat, throwing back smoke bombs. For Adair, the narrow encounter demonstrated all too clearly that the area was unsecured, and further underlined Roberts’ previous warning to the Guards that Cagny should be approached with caution. The warning was heeded all too well.
GUARDS ARMOURED DIVISION
About 11.00 hours, Lieutenant Heywood’s squadron of the 2nd (Armoured) Battalion Grenadier Guards crossed the first railway line and moved south to contact C Squadron of the 23rd Hussars. Impatient to relinquish the task of screening le Prieuré, the Hussars were quick to take their leave, hurrying southbound around le Mesnil Frémentel to catch up with the rest of their regiment. The Grenadiers’ tanks moved into the hedgerow-lined orchards either side of le Prieuré, no more aware than the Hussars had been of the German garrison still within the walled farm, lying low as no British infantry had yet approached and reluctant to engage the British tanks after the departure of Becker ’s mobile guns.
The Guards’ plan was to advance on Cagny with two regiments up: the Grenadiers swinging west while the 1st (Armoured) Coldstream Guards bypassed Cagny to the north. But with the Grenadiers’ advance already well behind schedule, and the Coldstream somewhere behind them even more so, the Grenadiers instead hurried forward on their own. Lieutenant Heywood’s squadron gladly relinquished the lead to number 2 Squadron, whose troops duly set off over open fields of corn and root vegetables towards the ruins of Cagny.11 As the squadron moved south, ominous columns of smoke rose from the fields ahead where the wreck of the Fifes’ C Squadron still burned. Now began the Grenadiers’ ordeal. Antitank fire from the south and east promptly knocked out two of the squadron’s tanks, and the survivors scattered. The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Moore, came forward to get the squadron moving. Since Cagny appeared too strongly held, the tanks should instead attempt to bypass to the north. But attempts to ‘feel the way forward’ to either flank proved unsuccessful. Soon after, the 2 Squadron commander’s tank was hit and Major Sir Arthur Grant killed.
At last it was the turn of the 1st (Armoured) Coldstream Guards to cross the Caen to Troarn railway, and take up their assigned position to the left flank of the Grenadiers. But what was going on ahead remained unclear. While something appeared to be holding up the Grenadiers in front, behind them a traffic jam of monumental proportions was accumulating as vehicles of all types crowded the few railway crossings. And making matters worse, German artillery observers were beginning to recover and re-establish communications with their batteries. The targets were a gunner’s dream. Only shortage of ammunition limited the confusion caused by artillery shells and mortar bombs on the British rear. A shell falling amidst the regimental headquarters group killed Major Peter Buxton, commander of 131 Battery of the Leicestershire Yeomanry, as he left his tank to confer with the Coldstream Colonel Rid Myddleton.12 The Coldstream’s leading 1 Squadron spread out in battle formation to press the advance toward Cagny, their orders now switching them from the left flank of the attack to a move around the right of Cagny. Meanwhile, the left flank of the armoured corridor was exposed, and number 2 Squadron of the Coldstream had to be turned to face the small wood east of le Prieuré. Panther tanks had been reported a few hundred yards away to the east, and the crews of 2 Squadron felt exposed in the open fields. ‘Our tracks were nicely covered in the tall corn, but we were a sitting target to any Panther in the woods.’13
A 21. Panzerdivision Somua halftrack, barely recognisable, and a knocked-out Sherman of A Squadron, 1st Coldstream Guards.
5th Guards Brigade Tac HQ established west of la Prieuré. A pall of smoke from a burning vehicle drifts south west, shrouding the priory.
An abandoned Sherman belonging to the Coldstream Guards. (Also page 171)
Shortly after these events, 5th Guards Brigade Tac HQ established itself in the orchards by le Prieuré. Only when one of the protection troop tanks observed a movement within the walls, and put a few canon shells into the farm buildings, was it realised that the German garrison still remained. To the amazement of the HQ staff a number of Germans gave themselves up. ‘If they had chosen to fight, Brigade would have looked very silly.’ The impression of tough resistance waiting ahead was confirmed.
When the ruins of Cagny came into view, the leading Coldstream squadron
saw a sight that rather shook us all… the horizon was covered with burning Shermans. I could count nearly twenty, a whole squadron, burning in one field alone. More were hidden behind the black smoke of others brewing up, while yet others were still being hit and bursting into flames.14
One of many burnt-out Shermans littering the battlefield.
Pylons marked the route eastward.
The Coldstream colonel quickly decided that ‘We must not add to this disaster,’ and the unit looped even more widely to the west, keeping as far as possible from Cagny itself until reaching the Caen-Paris railway whose earth banks and hedgerows promised the best available shelter. At this point, the regimental history relates,
Major Anstruther-Gray collected his squadron in a wood between Cagny and the railway and awaited further orders. Progress was impossible without infantry to destroy the antitank guns; so the battalion remained, south and west of Cagny, until it grew dark.15
As an officer with the West Somerset Yeomanry (the Guards’ towed field regiment) later pointed out, the Guards division was trying to operate in an unfamiliar manner. ‘The general idea was that infantry made the gap and then the armour flooded through it like the cavalry of old.’16
At last, their arrival delayed by traffic jams until well into the afternoon, the tanks of 2nd (Armoured) Irish Guards arrived on the battlefield to confront the dismal sight of nine Grenadier Guards tanks burning directly ahead, while from the fields and woods to the east German guns were now firing with growing intensity. All visible signs confirmed the suspicion that Cagny was far too strongly garrisoned to be taken by direct assault. Instead, the Irish Guards were to advance eastwards over the open fields north of the small town. This route seemed promising. Once clear of le Prieuré, the regiment found itself in more open countryside with large, gently rolling fields intersected by hedgerows of varying density. This was the sort of country they had trained for. Lieutenant Colonel Kim Finlay directed the lead squadron to follow a distant line of electricity pylons which helpfully gave an easterly orientation. Over the open country, like huntsmen following the pack, the Irish Guards set off.
Before the open fields could be reached, the hunters had first to cross the Ruisseau de Cagny, a small stream running due north out of the devastated village. Though only a narrow trickle, the rivulet was in places surrounded by patches of flat, boggy ground, and it was in one of these that Lieutenant John Gorman’s ‘Ballyragget’ became stuck fast. Ordering his Troop Sergeant Evans to carry on the advance with half the troop including the Firefly, Gorman spent an impatient half hour supervising the freeing of his own Sherman by the troop’s number four tank using a steel towrope. Then, pressing forward with all possible speed to catch up with his own tanks, Gorman came upon his own 2 Squadron commander Tony ‘Dipper’ Dorman.
The Ruisseau de Cagny where Ballyragget bogged.
Taken at around 12.05 hours, this image precedes the arrival of the Irish Guards. Debris in the field is a crashed German Focke Wulf 190 fighter.
“Dipper” was on his feet, evidently wounded, but gesticulating wildly forward. Since the whole strategy of our leftwards attack on Cagny had been to take it by the speed and dash which we had learned on Salisbury Plain and the Yorkshire Wolds, I took it that Dipper was urging us on and we hared up a cornfield, towards a hedge at the top of the rise.17
Amid the dust and confusion of battle, Gorman’s daring advance appears to have carried him past the rest of his squadron, held up by the intensity of the antitank fire to their front. Then, cresting the gentle slope and rounding the end of a hedgerow, Gorman was appalled to see just three hundred yards ahead the great bulk of a Königstiger.
Belonging to 1. Kompanie of Fromme’s 503.s.Pz.Abt., the great tank had become separated from its unit in the confusion of the battle. Its commander was an inexperienced sergeant, Feldwebel Gerber, who had only recently been attached to the Abteilung to gain combat experience and (he hoped!) the possibility of a decoration. As the Kompanie withdrew from its abortive attack, manoeuvring around Manneville towards Frénouville, his Königstiger number 122 lost contact with his company and ‘the inexperienced commander lost his nerve and drove through the area in a fairly disoriented manner.’18 Coming under fire from different directions, the gunner Hans-Joachim Thaysen tried to return fire, but the commander panicked and ordered the driver, Horst Becher, to reverse, taking the Tiger back through a hedge.
In Ballyraggett, Gorman ordered gunner Albert Scholes to ‘Traverse left – on – fire!’ In accordance with standing orders, the tank had gone into action with a High Explosive round ‘up the spout’. The shell burst on the turret of the Königstiger, its blast deflected up into the air. Ordered to keep firing, Scholes’s hollow voice replied ‘Gun jammed, Sir.’ Gorman hesitated a moment, found that his training did not cover the situation, then on impulse he gave the order: ‘Driver, ram!’ Baron accelerated Ballyraggett towards the behemoth, and crashed into its left rear.
Already disoriented, the German commander was further confused by the HE shell glancing off his turret, then the almighty impact of thirty tons of
The ram site in the north-east corner of the field. Note the overhead power lines.
Sherman tank. A moment later, the Königstiger was penetrated by an Armour Piercing round entering its left side between the running gear and the track, and taking the gunner’s seat out from under him.19 Already displeased with their commander’s performance, the crew were quick to follow him as he abandoned the stricken Panzer. Gorman’s crew likewise abandoned the immobilized Ballyraggett, and there were awkward moments as two crews faced off. Gunner Thaysen recalls his encounter with co-driver Guardsman Agnew:
For a moment we looked at each other in a daze. Then a rush of heroism awoke in both of us. Each grabbed for the place where he’d usually find his pistol. Heroism failed for a lack of lethal materials… We eyed each other and each tried to convince the other, with hands and feet, that the other was his prisoner. Since it turned out that each of us had opposite opinions about that, both of us shrugged our shoulders, grinned at each other, and bolted for our own sides.’
Meanwhile, Gorman led the other three crewmen back to the shelter of Sergeant Pat Harbinson’s tank, which had followed their advance, but the Sherman was destroyed by enemy fire before they reached it. Gorman pressed on across fields until he came upon a Firefly whose commander, Sergeant Workman, had been decapitated. The sergeant’s body was draped over the breech of the gun and to either side the gunner and operator were in shock. Gorman took charge, the gory mess was wiped off gunsights and periscopes, and the Firefly advanced to the disabled Königstigerwhere further rounds were put into the German to ensure its destruction. By this time, Harbinson’s Sherman was well ablaze, and Gorman transported the mortally wounded sergeant and his two surviving crew back to the regimental aid post.
Note the penetration of the Tiger’s front-left armour, also the (later) penetration of Ballyragget’s turret.
Attempts to bolster up the thickness of frontal armour by attaching sections of track failed to save this Sherman.
Word of this unusual encounter lifted the spirits of the regiment. But the fact remained that for all the gallantry shown and losses sustained, Guards Armoured Division was performing without distinction in its first battle. Cagny remained untaken. One officer serving with the Guards later reflected,
I do not think that my own division was ready for the shock of reality on 18 July, although 11th Armoured had already been through the fire on Point 112.20
THE ORDEAL OF 29th ARMOURED BRIGADE
For Roberts, the appearance, however brief, of the Guards general signalled his own long-awaited opportunity to disengage entirely from the Cagny area. Trusting in the Guards to cover his division’s left flank, Roberts turned again to encouraging 29th Brigade to press on. Roscoe Harvey hardly needed encouragement. Calls to 29th Brigade from all three tank regiments reporting enemy fire from both their left and right flanks met peremptory responses. To the Hussars at 11.38, ‘leave someone to watch and push on’. (The reaction of 23rd Hussars’ C Squadron, at that time engaging the enemy between Cagny and le Prieuré while still awaiting the arrival of the Guards, can only be imagined!) To the Fifes at 11.42,
‘told not to go for FRENOUVILLE which will be dealt with by the 5th Gds Armd Bde. Told to go to objective via BOURGUEBUS and TILLY-LE-CAMPAGNE 0760’.
And in response to 3rd Tanks worsening plight at 12.34, ‘Told to get onto the main CAEN – FALAISE road.’21
The move of 29th Brigade Tac HQ.
Shortly after midday, Roscoe Harvey had relocated his Tac HQ. The promised arrival of the follow-up armoured divisions seemed to permit a shift of 29th Brigade’s centre of gravity to the west. Equally important to Harvey was ensuring he was close enough to the action – at whatever cost to his own security. The new position chosen was by the Chemin de Fer Minier embankment, just north of the Caen to Paris railway. Here, Harvey’s Tac HQ could see – and be seen from – much farther afield than previously. With him in his command tank was his long-suffering brigade major who recalled,
Roscoe was a marvellous chap and a superb armoured commander, but he was not an easy man to work for… he was also utterly fearless. Most people have a stock of courage and in prolonged conflict that can run out – some run out quicker than others. Roscoe was quite different. The longer and more dangerous the battle, the braver he became. He really didn’t seem to know the meaning of fear, and that is not always easy for those around. He would park his tank well forward and in the most obvious place. If I remonstrated with him he would say that he needed to be there so that he could see the whole battlefield. And of course the Germans could also see us, an obvious command group of three tanks and a protection troop. And they promptly shelled us. It happened frequently.22
In fairness to the brigadier, the chosen site did offer the considerable refuge of the railway underpass through the embankment, though of course Harvey’s tank remained exposed.
The events of the afternoon became rapidly more confused. 29 Brigade reported at 13.05 hours,
On RIGHT preparing to put inf into HUBERT FOLIE. [a trifle optimistic] Enemy in BRAS. We are not. [incontestable!] 2 FF 800 yards NE BOURGUEBUS. [this too was a trifle optimistic, and failed to mention that most of the Fifes’ tanks within a mile of Bourguébus were now knocked out] 23H are relieving 3 R Tks.
This last signal defies understanding, possibly indicating that the Hussars’ hoped-for advance on Soliers might shelter 3rd RTR’s left flank; or possibly just that the newcomers might ‘relieve’ 3rd RTR of their unfinished business in Grentheville.23
In their essentially separate battle west of the railway embankment, 3rd RTR continued with attempts to push up the slopes towards Hubert-Folie. But the high-water mark of the day’s advance had already been reached at noon. Thereafter, the tank strength of 3rd RTR dwindled as the defences of the ridge were gradually increased. Several attempts were made to regain the offensive but were hopeless against stiffening opposition. The right flank remained open to fire from the ridge between Bras and distant Ifs. On the left, even the cover granted by the railway embankment was lost south of Soliers; as the ground rose above the level of the permanent way, advancing tanks were caught by crossfire from the area of Bourguébus. Lacking adequate resupply, 3rd RTR began to run low on ammunition. Silvertop bowed to the inevitable and ordered his tanks back to find what cover they could from enemy fire. In addition to fire from distant emplaced guns, increasing numbers of German tanks were appearing through the smoke and dust.
Meanwhile, the infantry of 8th RB had been offering what assistance they could to stricken tank crews. Their carrier platoon suffered heavily, though encouraged by the success of a section commanded by a sergeant which located and neutralized a German artillery observation post on the railway embankment. Noel Bell moved his headquarters behind a hedge which might offer cover from view, if not from fire.
We seemed to lie behind that hedge for hours, imagining every moment to be our last. I made a great mistake in passing round a bottle of gin, the effect of which lowered everyone’s spirits instead of, as I had hoped, bolstering them up.24
At length, as the tanks fell back, threatening to leave the motor infantry exposed in forward positions, it became obvious that there was little place for an infantry company in this essentially armoured fight. Silvertop released Bell’s survivors to retire to cover until nightfall.
East of the railway embankment, mid afternoon found the remainder of 29th Armoured Brigade performing a complex dance amid a dense fog of war. To the front, even securing Soliers and Four had proved problematic, with 23rd Hussars rebuffed to the line of the Paris railway, and contact with the Fife & Forfar was now sporadic. As for the brigade’s precious motor infantry battalion, G Company was still with 3rd RTR, and in no position to return to Grentheville to complete its suppression. About 12.45 hours, the advancing 23rd Hussar regimental group had detached H Company to take the village; by 14.22 hours they were reported ‘in Grentheville’ though the place remained unsecured. 8th RB headquarters group was ordered to move south east from le Mesnil Frémentel to prepare defences against any enemy breakthrough from the south east (a wise precaution, although the sacrifices of the Fifes and the Hussars did at least forestall an enemy breakthrough between 11th Armoured and the Guards in that sector). Later still, F Company’s attempts to get into Four finally were abandoned and the company moved west to take their turn in Grentheville, while two M10 troops (119 Battery, of 11th Armoured Division’s 75th Antitank Regiment; in all, eight self-propelled 17 pounder guns) arrived to form a defensive screen between the village and the brigade HQ by the embankment.
A troop of four M10s in ‘finger four’ formation east of the Chemin de Fer Minier.
23rd Hussars plunged again into the fray south of the railway. A desperate hour of combat is illustrated vividly in signals coming back to Brigade.
14.07 hours:
23 H report that their move fwd is being delayed by enemy tks. Had to pull back a little as they had 4 Shermans destroyed by 5 Panthers and could not get hull-down posns where they were. 3 more Panthers and 2 SP guns on their other flank. They could also see 2 FF Yeo getting into difficulties. [An understatement?]
14.10 hours: ‘23 H told to prepare to get up on the right flank by 3 R Tks and so make SOLIERS safe and also BOURGUEBUS.’ (The apparent afterthought of Bourguébus was wholly unrealistic; the order might as well have specified Falaise!)
And most poignantly, at 14.25 hours:
CO 23 H reports that it is now impossible to leave his present posn because a sqn leader 2 FF Yeo he has contacted thinks he is probably commanding 2 FF Yeo now.
Advancing south east, the leading Hussars had come across the field in which the Fifes’ earlier advance had been halted.
We crossed the railway line with no idea of what the true situation was. “B” Squadron advanced into the centre of the ring of blazing Fife and Forfar tanks before they saw that there appeared to be almost none left in action. One of the Fifes’ Squadron Leaders ran up to say that, as far as he knew, there were only four tanks left in his regiment… While he was giving us this information, the whole of “B” Squadron’s First Troop were hit and blazing in a matter of seconds. Sergeant Bateman hit a Panther and was immediately killed by a shell which penetrated his turret. Captain Blackman also scored a hit, but his tank went up in flames within the next minute. “B” Squadron began to reverse to the nearest hedge, firing back with all they had… Eventually the remaining tanks of “B” Squadron, together with RHQ, got back to the doubtful cover of the hedge. They were still in view of the Panthers and completely outranged by their guns. It was a most helpless and hopeless situation for nearly all the 17-pounders had been knocked out, and the seventy-fives were virtually useless under the circumstances. Every five minutes there was the crack of an armour-piercing shot passing through the air, the shattering crash as it penetrated a Sherman, the shower of sparks, the sheet of flame, and then black figures silhouetted against the orange glow as they jumped to the ground, sometimes pausing to drag a wounded comrade.25
The armour-piercing shell that finished this Sherman tore through the track, along its breadth, before penetrating the side. All three hatches are open indicating a hasty exit by the crew.
The Fifes’ losses had been (slightly) exaggerated: the survivors pulled back north of the railway and out of the battle. Shortly after 15.00 hours, the Hussars reported that they had one squadron facing Bourguébus, ‘almost completely destroyed’, one facing Four, and one making its way around the west side of Grentheville, ‘in a poor posn’. While 3rd RTR continued feinting towards the distant ridge, the Hussars maintained their position, giving ground only grudgingly and at cost until forced back to the line of the Paris railway. This they held. But as an offensive force, 29th Brigade was spent.
7th ARMOURED DIVISION
As early as 11.45 hours, Roberts had signalled back to 11th Armoured Division Main HQ, ‘Gds Armd Bde not getting on very fast. Will CORPS let 7 Armd Div come on as soon as possible as we require them. 7 Armd Div are just short of DEMOUVILLE and could be passed through Gds.’ But if the Guards’ advance was slower than expected, that of 7th Armoured was more so.26
By midday, as Guards Armoured Division’s tanks were accumulating in the area north west of Cagny, most of 7th Armoured Division was still west of the bridges. With the path taken by the preceding divisions blocked, the only forward regiment of 7th Armoured capable of manoeuvring was 5th Royal Tanks, which was edging westward towards Giberville in search of an alternative way through. Meanwhile 22nd Armoured Brigade Tac HQ (Brigadier Hinde) was reporting back to 7th Armoured that ‘a unit of HCA [the Household Cavalry armoured car regiment of 11th Armoured] says impossible to get through yet – too full of chaps’. Soon after, at 11.45 hours, Hinde reported to 7th Armoured headquarters , ‘Situation obscure but FGP (11th Armd Div) sharp battle. BQT (Gds Armd Div) far further SOUTH so enemy come between own tps. No locn. We are held up behind 11 Armd Div and exact whereabouts NOT known.’27
At some point in the early afternoon, Brigadier Hinde pushed forward as far as 11th Armoured Tac HQ, in its field north of le Mesnil Frémentel. Pip Roberts recalled that,
He had been making a little recce and I thought, “This is good, we will soon have 7th Armoured Division to take over the area between us and Guards Armoured Division.” But not at all; when he reached me he said, “There are too many bloody tanks here already; I’m not going to bring my tanks down yet.” I was staggered, and before I could explain that a lot of the tanks he had seen were knocked out, he had disappeared.28
At 12.55 hours, 7th Armoured HQ recorded a message that the VIII Corps commander was ‘most anxious to push forward as soon as possible.’ But O’Connor was not at this time directing the battle from Corps headquarters. He had come forward to see for himself what was happening at the front. The Household Cavalry history recounts how
General O’Connor, coming forward to see for himself what was holding things up, jumped up on to a tank containing one of the [Guards] tank battalion commanders in the process of ordering forward his squadrons. On the back of this tank was also the Brigade Commander and beside him the Divisional Commander, Major-General Adair, all urgently ordering one another on in descending orders of seniority, the final version doubtless reaching (in wireless form) some harassed subaltern as he struggled through Cagny.[This was overly optimistic, towards Cagny might have been more appropriate!] A Household Cavalry trooper witness of this unusual party, turned aside to his companion,
“Well, I thought that when I had the Colonel and two other bastards giving advice on the back of my Daimler at Linney Head it was bad enough, but three Generals is bloody murder!”29
As the afternoon wore on, harsh realities became clear to Roberts. So long as there was a realistic chance of pushing further forward, unbridled optimism had been the order of the day. He reluctantly recognised that ‘the armoured brigade was now held by strong and accurate fire along the whole front.’ While O’Connor was limiting his perspective to that of a tank commander amid the smoke of battle, it was Roberts who took stock of the overall position of VIII Corps. At least he was soon to have the opportunity to bend the Corps Commander ’s ear.
Now, at two o’clock I met the corps commander, General O’Connor, and the commander of 7th Armoured, General Erskine, just behind le Mesnil Frémentel, and I explained the situation to them, and I explained too that all these small villages, all inter-supporting, were held by strong antitank guns, either from tanks or from the ground. And no real advance could be achieved unless they were all dealt with, or neutralized. At the same time, I said that as my objectives were over to the right, I couldn’t do much more until the gap between ourselves and the Guards on our left was taken over by the 7th Armoured Division. General Erskine understood this and he said that he would get his division forward as soon as possible and fill that gap and take over their line of advance. So I had great hopes that during the afternoon we would see the arrival of the 7th Armoured Division and we would be able to continue the advance towards our objectives over on the right.30
Some time later, at 16.20 hours, following his meeting with Roberts, O’Connor had a personal message sent to 7th Armoured HQ: ‘Tell me what is holding up things?’ The diplomatic reply offered an excuse and a guarded promise: ‘Answer: Traffic but Sunray BQT (Gds Armd Div) and own Sunray [i.e., Adair and Erskine] held conference and a plan has been arranged. Difficult to say how long before it would be put into effect but an estimate 30 mins.’
Roberts was quite unforgiving in his later assessment:
I cursed both my old division and my old brigade... I managed to get a word across to Bobbie Erskine that I was disappointed that “Looney” Hinde did not seem to want to get into the battle.
Apologists for 7th Armoured Division have suggested that deliberate delay would have required an improbable degree of collusion between the brigadier, his leading regiment, and his divisional commander. 31 However, for his part Hinde later admitted freely that he was fully aware of the situation and had advised Erskine ‘that it did not appear sound to advance further.’ Perhaps outright collusion was not necessary given a tacit agreement between Eskine and Hinde that the overall plan was unsound, and the apparent evidence before their eyes that it was already unravelling. The Desert Rats division had experienced a tactical calamity a month previously when ambushed column of march, and its leaders had no desire to see the disaster repeated on a grander scale. Apparently trying to cover his division’s shortcomings, Erskine wrote to O’Connor on 21 July complaining of poor VIII Corps staff work, ‘an odd, almost insubordinate, letter which can have done him little good.’32 Nor did it.
21. PANZERDIVISION
From the point of view of Hans von Luck, the afternoon of 18 July brought a steady improvement in the overall situation. Since his morning discovery of a massed armoured breakthrough to his front which threatened to overrun his entire sector, the position had stabilized. Becker’s mobile guns and Brandt’s infantry had formed a stop line west of Frénouville. By Hauptmann Kurtz’s initiative, the surviving elements of II/125. Panzergrenadierregiment had been pulled together into a screening force north of Cagny. The heart of the division, its tank regiment and accompanying heavy tank battalion, had achieved little more than temporary distraction of the enemy. But at least that distraction by a handful of surviving tanks had discomfited the enemy until afternoon, when reinforcements appeared in the form of a LXXXVI Korps antitank battalion.
Thrown into the line north of Cagny on its arrival, Artillerie-Pak-Abteilung 1039 brought into play twenty seven of the most effective antitank guns in existence: the 8.8cm Pak 43. The rushed deployment of these fine weapons limited their potential. Ideally emplaced where they could enjoy lines of sight to match their awesome killing range, these guns were instead hastily unlimbered behind any convenient hedgerow, ready for immediate action. With no time to prepare concealment of the guns or slit trenches for the crews, half the battalion was lost within twenty-four hours of combat. But for the loss of thirteen guns (and the battalion commander), 1039. Abteilung was credited with the destruction of thirty-five enemy tanks. What is more, the battalion made a major contribution to the sense of hopelessness which afflicted their opponents.
The hastely formed German ‘Pakfront’ east of Cagny.
Tiger 213 immobilized in the Manneville haras. (See page 60)
Thrown into action: the guns of 1037. Abteilung. Some did not even have time to unlimber. Note the power lines north of Cagny.
As well as the praise of his commander, von Luck’s stand was rewarded by the promise of still more substantial assistance. Oberkommando West (OKW) had finally acceded to Eberbach’s pleas and at 15.00 hours 12. SS-Panzerdivision was released to his control. The division was immediately turned from its redeployment north and, after a circuitous approach (made necessary by the destruction of the Dives river crossings) would begin to arrive from the south by the evening of 18 July. From 05.30 hours on 19 July, the Hitlerjugend began to relieve 21. Panzerdivisionfrom the front it had held without respite for six long and costly weeks.
References
1
‘The Leibstandarte IV/I’, Lehmann & Tiemann, 1993, 0-921991-16-9, p 147
2
This appears to have occurred before Roscoe Harvey’s move west to the vulnerable position by the railway embankment. Quite possibly the FCP was located by efficient German radio interception since the immediacy of its role required signals to be received and sent uncoded, ‘in clear’.
3
Gooderson, p 32; 8 Corps Operational Instruction ‘Op GOODWOOD’
4
Lehmann & Tiemann, p 148
5
This is well covered in ‘Panzertruppen, vol 2’ Thomas L Jentz, 1996, ISBN 0-7643-0080-6, p 182-190
6
‘Operations of Eighth Corps’, G S Jackson, 1948, p 99
7
‘Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy’, Terry Copp, 2003, ISBN 0-8020-3730-5, p 157: ‘What ought to have been forbidden was the practice of launching immediate local counterattacks.’ There is hindsight at work in this comment. Whatever its merits or demerits on 18 July, the practice of immediate local counterattack had long worked well for the German army. It was a basic tactical tenet whose abandonment was not lightly to be countenanced by any field commander.
8
Much later, 3rd Division sappers’ delight at discovering ‘undestroyed’ Tiger tanks in the haras quickly turned to respect for the German salvage crews as they realised the enormity of shifting a fifty-eight ton dead weight. (27th Armoured Brigade signals log)
9
This issue is discussed in ‘Operation GOODWOOD – The Caen Carve Up’, Martin Samuels, British Army Review, December 1990.
10
Roberts, p 176
11
‘GOODWOOD’, A G Heywood, Household Brigade Magazine, Winter 1956-57, p 171-177.
12
‘153rd Leicester Yeomanry, 1939-1945’, Winslow & Brassey, 1945, p 14; Rosse & Hill, p 41. Unlike Germans and Americans, British artillery commanders accompanied the troops their guns were supporting; the system led to enhanced responsiveness but the price was often high.
13
Boscawen, p 31
14
Boscawen, p 33
15
‘The Coldstream Guards 1920 – 1946’, Michael Howard & John Sparrow, 1951, p 268
16
Graham, p 133
17
‘The Times of My Life’, Sir John Gorman, 2002, ISBN 0 0 85052 906 9, p 38.
18
Personal correspondence with Richard Freiherr von Rosen.
19
Rubbel, p 243. Thaysen maintains that this was a 7.5cm German round from a Pak 40, presumably aimed at Ballyraggett; this is not at all unlikely, as there were German antitank guns emplaced nearby. At some later time, the abandoned Ballyraggett was holed in its turret from the same direction as this shot.
20
Graham, p 170
21
All this from 29th Brigade War Diary.
22
Major Anthony Kershaw, quoted in ‘The Pendulum of Battle’, Christopher Dunphie, 2004, ISBN 1-84415-010-0, p 128-129.
23
11th Armoured Division signals log.
24
‘From the Beaches to the Baltic’, Noel Bell, 1947, p 28
25
Bishop, 23rd Hussars, p 75
26
11th Armoured Division War Diary; 7th Armoured Division 18 July signals logs
27
7th Armoured signals logs, abbreviations as in original
28
Roberts, p 177. Roberts relates the events of 18 July somewhat haphazardly. While it is understandable that some of his timings might be imprecise, even the sequence of some events as related by him is questionable.
29
‘The Household Cavalry at War: Second Household Cavalry Regiment’, Roden Orde, 1953, p 72
30
Roberts, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979
31
‘Steel Inferno’, Michael Reynolds, 1997, ISBN 1-873376-90-1, p 178, see also Roberts, p 175-176
32
‘The Forgotten Victor’, John Baynes, 1989, ISBN 0-08-036269-9, p 209