APPENDIX VIII
Operation GOODWOOD was an unusual battle in many respects, especially in the use of massed strategic bombers to open a way for the Army through the German lines. Not surprisingly, most accounts of the battle have included assessments of the bombing. It is therefore disturbing to discover that many of these assessments have been contradictory and most of them more or less inaccurate.
CONTRADICTIONS
Some accounts maintain that RAF Bomber Command was simply unwilling to alter its accustomed bomb loads to suit a need different from the destruction of German industrial heartlands. Others however cite Harris as agreeing to aerial bombardment of the battlefield only after a change to impact-fuzed and fragmentation bombs was agreed.1
Cagny is a case in point. Even one of the latest and best-informed works on the subject of air power over the Normandy battlefield perpetuates the myth that Cagny was spared cratering: ‘instantaneous-fused bombs, to avoid cratering were released on Cagny, the most strongly held village in the tank-run. ’2 A common explanation given for this argument is that, since Cagny was ‘regarded as the toughest of the defended villages in the corridor’ (and it was so regarded, albeit erroneously) it would be allocated ‘650 tons, the ration in a normal operation for a sizeable town target, but the bombs would be fused simultaneously to avoid cratering the tanks’ avenue of advance.’3 The argument defies logic. True, rubbling an area the size of Caen had created a serious obstacle in the path of the army. But a little town the size of Cagny was an ideal subject for total destruction. A tank-heavy force lacking infantry would not wish to enter such a place; once its defences were obliterated the tanks could simply bypass the rubble.
In fact, this is one of those cases where the 1947 Battlefield Tour document is entirely correct. It states clearly that ‘The village of Cagny was to be destroyed and cratering was accepted.’4 Also, since we are permitted the benefit of hindsight, let it be noted that Cagny was probably the least strongly garrisoned of all the villages.
Numerous histories have heeded von Luck’s claim to have found a battery of Luftwaffe guns near Cagny church, intact and untroubled by bombs, and have seized on the idea of Cagny being spared cratering in order to make sense of the story. Some quite ingenious explanations have been offered to try to explain these contradictions. Wilmot agreed that ‘Cagny, which stood at the parting of the ways of the 11th and the Guards, was to be obliterated by Bomber Command.’ Yet he persevered with the belief that, ‘In Cagny half a dozen “88s” and some Tiger tanks had miraculously survived amid the rubble of the ruined village.’5 Again, the assumption that the place was strongly garrisoned was wrong. Given the lack of knowledge of German dispositions when Wilmot wrote in 1952, he can be forgiven for mistakenly locating Tiger tanks in Cagny. A more recent account posits that Cagny was ‘ringed but not hit by bombs’.6 This explanation is sadly the reverse of the actuality. Central Cagny was obliterated yet ringed by ground which was in large part untouched. Other writers have taken a cue from Wilmot’s claim that ‘All but one of these villages had been hit by fragmentation bombs, but by extraordinary chance a section of each village had been missed, and in every case it was the section which now faced towards the British line of advance that had escaped unscathed.’7 It is unclear whether Wilmot intended these comments to apply to all the villages flanking the armoured corridor or only to those on the Bourguébus ridge: the context strongly implies the former. Either way, he was wrong. This ‘extraordinary chance’ is no more credible than the ‘miraculous survival’ in Cagny. The only target in the battle area to be partially levelled in this way was Démouville, where the bombers visited destruction only on the western end of the village. (The well known pictures showing the devastation of the eastern side, around the church, were taken later, after the medium artillery had worked over the place.)
ANSWERS
Hitherto, the most authoritative record of the GOODWOOD bombing has been understood to be the study undertaken by Operations Research (‘Churchill’s scientists’) shortly after the battle. Some of the mistaken views mentioned above can be traced directly back to Report No. 6 of Number 2 Operations Research Section, documenting a survey initiated two weeks after the battle at the urgent request of 21st Army Group to analyze the effectiveness of the aerial bombardment.8
This was early days for ORS in Normandy. They did their best. Some of the findings of the project were remarkably apt, not least the conclusions that the aerial bombardment had probably yielded great morale effects, and that ‘progressive’ bombing rather than a ‘one off’ curtain raiser would have been more effective. But the Section confessed dissatisfaction with the outcome of their GOODWOOD study. They had simply too few resources and too much ground to cover. They lacked details of the precise targets, numbers of aircraft, and types of bombs used. The aerial photography made available to them was ‘virtually impossible to interpret’ since it was taken after sustained shell-fire had overlaid the effects of the bombing. And even on the ground, ‘so much other fire power was used apart from bombing, [that] it is very difficult to assess the contribution made by the bombing.’ With regard to the question of Cagny, the team had to record that ‘The ground at Cagny where special instantaneous fuzes were used has not yet been studied.’ Had they been granted access to the ground, they could hardly have missed the craters which belied that statement. As it was, they could only report anecdotal (and misleading) evidence that ‘In spite of the bombing of Cagny, anti-tank guns and tanks were met there at 1200 hours.’ Whoever fed ORS the information that 11th Armoured Division took ‘about ten hours’ to reach the Bourguébus ridge was misinformed; whoever told ORS that ‘a further attack was made next day without success’ was committing a grave calumny against that division.
The evidence that ORS sadly lacked is now available to us. The analyses that follow are based on aerial photographs taken within hours of the bombing. That is, after much of the dust had settled but before ground combat and especially medium artillery pulverized the key villages. All timings are those used by British Second Army’s GOODWOOD plan and broadcast by the BBC. (See Appendix III)
THE BOMBING ANALYSED
RAF Bomber Command:
Areas A1 and A2
Colombelles (from 05.36 hours, approximately 220 aircraft, 1,300 tons HE) & Mondeville (from 05.59 hours, approximately 230 aircraft, 1,200 tons HE)
A concentrated swathe of craters began from the high, open ground (40 metre ring contour) east of Colombelles village. The village itself was only relatively lightly affected. To the north of the village stood the château of Colombelles. In the château itself and further north in its woods alongside the banks of the Orne was established the first company of Jägerregiment 32 (part of 16. Luftwaffenfelddivision). The advancing Canadians would very soon find, to their cost, how little these infantry had suffered from the bombing.
South of Colombelles village, the great metalworks presented an obvious target and was heavily bombed. Thousand pound bombs wreaked havoc here. British Operations Research later found large numbers of damaged antitank guns and German dead. (This last was particularly unusual. German policy was whenever possible to remove their dead before abandoning a position; this policy was generally obeyed even when the impact on the morale of the troops carrying out the removal might be severe.) ORS concluded that, from the amount of debris it did not appear that anyone would have remained unhurt.’ The first Canadian infantry on the scene recorded stiff opposition, especially from the northern extremity of the factory complex. However, it seems most probable that this was caused not by the factory garrison but by troops that had fallen back from the defence of Colombelles village.
The bombers ran almost due south, crossing the factory area and passing directly over the rows of factory workers’ dormitory accommodation between Mondeville and Giberville. These wooden, barracks-style blocks would have offered little or no protection and any occupants must have suffered severely. The bombing was concentrated almost entirely within an area 3 kilometres long by little more than 500 metres across. Apart from the vast factory complex, whose superstructures were extensively damaged, much of this was open ground and railway. Some sticks of bombs fell as far east as the outskirts of Giberville, but clearly most of the damage done to that place was caused later by lighter fragmentation bombs. Had Target Area A1 been set even 500m further west, enemy opposition in Colombelles and along the right bank of the river might have been more effectively reduced.
RAF Bomber Command:
Areas H1 & H2
Sannerville (from 05.41 hours, approximately 230 aircraft, 1,200 tons HE) & Manneville (from 05.59 hours, approximately 230 aircraft, 1,260 tons HE)
This area was targeted very precisely, with most heavy bombs falling within a north-south strip less than a half-mile wide (nowhere more than 750 metres), running from just south of Touffréville (purposely excluded by the RAF) to just south of Emiéville. Although the entire area was heavily cratered, the open ground between Sannerville and Guillerville received relatively fewer bombs. By contrast, the villages received an extremely heavy concentration. The road junction and rail line at Sannerville were devastated; the hamlets of Guillerville and Emiéville were virtually obliterated by overlapping craters, the outlines of buildings, the path of roads, and even the outlines of some fields became utterly indistinguishable. Within this area, even entrenched infantry must have been vulnerable to such devastation. Most of the Panzer IV remaining to 22. Panzerregiment on the morning of 18 July were dispersed within this area, and nearly all of these were incapacitated. Greater still was the impact on the regiment’s personnel and soft-skinned vehicles, with all communications lost and command and control above company level effectively neutralized. Additionally, the combat effectiveness of the 503. Abteilung present in this area was reduced by delay and damage caused to the unit’s personnel and Tiger tanks by the bombing. Overall, these losses were the most serious inflicted in a single bombing raid on a German armoured division in the course of the war. (Though Panzer-Lehr-Division was to suffer on 25 July a deluge of 4,000 tons of American bombs, it now appears that Bayerlein exaggerated his division’s losses, and that relatively few of the division’s tanks were directly destroyed by that bombing raid.)9
Amidst the debates over bomb lines, the RAF had unilaterally moved the target south to exclude the village of Touffréville from Target Area H. Strange as it may seem, it was generally the RAF who favoured increasing the distance from friendly troops to the bombers’ targets. With the Army totally convinced that GOODWOOD could only go ahead with the support of strategic bombers, the RAF felt empowered to set conditions. Assurance was demanded that no troops would be within 2,000 yards of HE or within 2,500 yards of fragmentation bombing, and no troops at all unentrenched within 3,000 yards of any target area. In some cases, this meant withdrawal from FDLs (forward defence lines) prior to the bombing. On the ground, the infantry were understandably loath to give up ground so hard won and so long defended. Second Army grudgingly conceded that this was ‘awkward but had to be accepted’. In return, equally grudgingly, the RAF accepted that leading elements of 11th Armoured Division needed to be on the Start Line for H Hour. Later, and without informing the Army, Touffréville was excluded from the target area, as 3rd Division would soon find to their cost.
RAF Bomber Command:
Area M
Cagny (from 06.15 hours, approximately 100 aircraft, 600+ tons HE)
The delivery on a point target of over 600 tons of High Explosive was predictably devastating. German accounts cite this example of the Allies’ extravagant expenditure of matériel (verschwenderischen Möglichkeit). Much of Cagny was immediately reduced to ruin. (Many accounts claim that cratering of Cagny was not acceptable as this was to be an avenue of advance; like many another GOODWOOD myth, these claims are entirely unfounded.) The bombing was largely accurate and, as with the previous targets, most of the bombers did not stray far to east or west of their southbound track. Few bombs fell short of the small town; the town itself received the most dense coverage. The area south of Cagny as far as the Caen to Paris railway was carpeted, especially the obvious target of the thickly wooded avenue leading south to the railway station. A single bomber, inexplicably on an east to west track, dropped what appears to be a standard Lancaster load (ten 1,000 and four 500 pound bombs) in a single stick east of le Poirier.
Le Poirier itself was entirely untouched; likewise the gun emplacements between the le Poirier farm complex and the railway line. A kilometre to the east, Frénouville was untouched. On the western side of Cagny the chateau just north of the town centre was left blazing and the large church to the west reduced to ruins. Further west the devastation was much less. Structures barely two hundred metres west of the ruined church were left intact, and beyond this radius few RAF bombs had fallen.
Ninth United States Army Air Force:
Areas C, D, E, F, & G
(approx 318 medium bombers)
Area C: Cuverville
The impact of large quantities of fragmentation bombs on a tiny hamlet was nowhere greater than here. Many buildings in the village were extensively damaged. Elements of 3rd Monmouths were entering the ruins by H + 50 minutes and so were ideally placed to observe the suppression of the defenders. These were barely able to put up a fight. British ground troops found German infantrymen shaking uncontrollably, many prisoners incapable of walking back to the rear.
Area D: Butte de la Hogue
This largely open area of rising ground marked the beginning of the ‘armoured corridor’. The leading tank squadrons set off through a heavy blanket of dust and smoke, tank commanders and drivers initially focusing on avoiding shellholes and entrenchments, and witnessing few of the enemy. Units following shortly after encountered enemy infantry still cowering in their slit-trenches, either surrendering willingly or else succumbing to grenades thrown into their entrenchments. ORS later found slit trenches hurriedly filled in by infantry to cover bodies so badly mutilated as to be unmovable. The three antitank guns discovered in this area after the battle had been knocked out not by bombs but later by high explosive rounds, though it was felt unlikely that their crews had recovered from the bombing in time to man them. More guns were found in the orchards to the west also apparently untouched by the bombing. From similar positions to the east of the corridor, guns were manned and commenced firing soon after the smoke and dust of the initial bombardment began to dissipate.
Area E: Démouville to Lirose & Area F: Démouville
To the north east of Démouville a unit of Becker’s self-propelled guns (Eichhorn’s 1. Batterie) was caught in the bombing, its fate reported by Eichhorn himself, whose armoured command vehicle was located some distance away and survived. Photographs of some of the 1. Batterie wrecks reveal shellholes through the armour, but it is most likely that the primary cause of these vehicles’ loss was destruction or at least immobilization during the bombing. It does appear that in at least a few cases, the vehicles were attempting to change positions and were caught in the open, away from their customary, prepared positions.
All the area around Démouville received an even carpeting of fragmentation bombs. The village itself was an obvious target, and unsurprisingly appears to have been accurately hit by a particularly large concentration. However, aerial photographs taken some hours after the bombing reveal little physical damage to the buildings; most roofs remained intact. Defenders sheltering within would have suffered relatively little. While the stone buildings of the village and its imposing church were largely devastated during the course of the battle, it can be concluded that much of this damage was inflicted later by medium and heavy artillery. At the time of this photography, 3rd Monmouths were only approaching the westernmost part the village, 1st Herefords and 4th KSLI were still some distance away: respectively a thousand yards to the north and to the north-east; only in midafternoon and after further attention from the artillery was the place secured.
Area G: Giberville
Further west, the extended village of Giberville was a Canadian objective. Though today linked to Démouville by continuous suburban development, in 1944 Démouville and Giberville were separated by a half kilometre of open fields: alternating ripening hay and turnips. From a chateau just north of the railway line, a road ran north through orchards (today the D 230, amid modern housing and school) to reach an isolated group of buildings around a crossroads on rising ground between Démouville and Colombelles. This prominent position was heavily bombed. Contrary to Alfred Becker ’s claims that his only ‘considerable’ losses during the battle were in 1. Batterie, it is now clear that other batteries suffered losses in the initial bombing. The five 7.5cm antitank guns of his 2. Batterie were positioned between the buildings of Giberville on either side of the road. At least two of these were immobilized by the bombing and abandoned by their crews. But while open-topped vehicles had suffered, German infantry had survived in the buildings. Advancing on the place, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada were shortly to suffer intense machine gun fire from the village. Officers and section leaders were lost; the fire was too intense to evacuate the wounded, and impromptu aid posts were set up in the first buildings taken. Only late on 18 July, after sustained artillery bombardment and energetic German counter-attacks, was the whole place secured.
Eighth United States Army Air Force:
Area I Troarn (from 07.30 hours, approximately 350 aircraft);
& Area P Soliers (from 09.00 hours, approximately 570 aircraft)
& Area Q Frénouville (from 09.00 hours, approximately 330 aircraft)
Areas I and Q can be quickly dealt with. Following the bombing, Frénouville remained untouched. For this we have not only clear photographic evidence, but also the fact that von Luck, arriving at his command post in the village after the bombers had departed, was not immediately aware of anything amiss. ‘Shortly after nine, I arrived at my command post. I sensed that something was not right, for all the men at the command post seemed nervous.’ In fairness, it may be considered that the Target Area entitled ‘Frénouville’ actually included a large area of open ground to the south of the village, and the fields in this area were indeed liberally plastered with bombs. It may be that some damage was inflicted, though later studies showed how difficult it was to damage emplaced artillery pieces with bombs, and how quickly entrenched gun crews could recover if not subject to ground assault immediately following the bombing.
Several miles away to the north east, the town of Troarn also escaped lightly. Though the surrounding fields were pockmarked with craters, and some damage had been done around the area of the railway station at the western end of the sprawling little town, most buildings remained intact. Given the weight of bombing intended, and given the destruction wrought around Sannerville, it is tempting to conjecture that many of the American bombers had mistakenly dropped their loads on the RAF target still smouldering two miles to the west.
Target Area P deserves special mention, since it was shortly to become the arena in which much of the day’s armoured combat took place. This large area included names destined to become legendary after GOODWOOD: Grentheville, Soliers, Bourguébus. South of the Bourguébus ridge, an extensive area of open country was peppered with bomb blasts. Yet, on the ridge itself, the three vital villages suffered little. Bourguébus, Hubert-Folie, and Bras were left intact, their defenders hardly inconvenienced, at least one soft-skinned vehicle still parked in the street.
North of Bourguébus, Soliers itself escaped virtually untouched. By contrast the kilometre of open fields further still to the north was evenly carpeted by light bombs. And beyond these, the occupants of Grentheville and its surrounding orchards apparently suffered little. The area north of Grentheville and likewise the railway embankment and its underpasses to the west were much harder hit than the defended village. It is arguable that bombers unable to discern the point target of Grentheville, a small cluster of buildings screened on all sides by dense orchards, could nevertheless pick out a distinctive line feature such as the Chemin de Fer Minier, its railway embankment throwing a shadow in the early morning sun. Overall, one is driven to the conclusion that a proportion of the bombers allocated to this target area dropped inaccurately, short, or not at all. Hardly surprising, given the poor visibility as dust and smoke from earlier waves drifted south west on the breeze. The conclusion is reinforced by a German account which claims that as early as 07.00 hours ‘many of their [i.e., the Americans’] targets were invisible under the dust clouds, and they left a few things undone.’10
References
1
‘The Struggle for Europe’, Chester Wilmot, 1952, p 394: ‘His [Harris’s] reluctance was overcome only when he learned that Dempsey wanted anti-personnel, not high-explosive, bombs dropped in the path of the main advance.’
2
Gooderson, ‘Air Power’, p 143
3
‘Six Armies in Normandy’, John Keegan, 1982, ISBN 0 1400 5393 3, p 193
4
BAOR Battlefield Tour, page 27, Section VIII AIR PLAN
5
Wilmot, p 395-398
6
Copp, ‘Fields of Fire’, p137
7
Wilmot, p 398
8
Gooderson p 11; Second Army ORS
9
Zetterling,p 42-43 & 386-388
10
Lehmann & Tiemann, ‘Leibstandarte’, p 149