APPENDIX IX
Anyone with more than a passing interest in GOODWOOD will have come across the story of a battery of four Luftwaffe 8.8cm antiaircraft guns in Cagny, unwilling to engage ground targets until ‘persuaded’ at gunpoint by an army officer to change position and fire on the advancing British tanks. According to the story, these guns then commenced a wholesale destruction of British tanks (and in particular, wiped out most of C Squadron, the Fife & Forfar Yeomanry). However, the truth behind this intriguing anecdote is elusive.
QUESTIONS
On studying photographs of Cagny taken shortly after the supposed relocation of the battery, the author was surprised to find no obvious sign of its initial or final positions, nor any tracks indicating the movement of these heavy guns and their associated equipment. Further questions then arose.
Assuming the guns engaged the rear squadron of the Fife & Forfar between 09.30 and 09.45 hours, where were the guns when the Grenadier Guards came on the scene, and later when the Coldstream passed around Cagny? And if it was these guns which accounted for von Rosen’s leading Tiger tanks towards 11.00 hours, what had they been doing in the meantime?
After some years of study, the author has as yet no conclusive proof as to the identity, movements, or firing positions of this battery. Rather than offering a speculative solution to the puzzle, the evidence so far gathered is presented here and you the reader are invited to form your conclusions.
THE EVIDENCE
Firstly, therefore, what evidence is there that such a battery existed at all? There turns out to be surprisingly little.
We have von Luck’s testimony as to his actions on the morning of 18 July. His account appears to be the only existing source for this oft-told tale. That is to say, all records so far discovered of the actions of the Cagny battery can be traced directly to von Luck and no one else. Alfred Becker was active in the vicinity of Cagny throughout most of the morning of 18 July. In addition to receiving reports from his battery commanders, he kept in touch with von Luck, so must have been abreast of the most important developments of the day. Yet Becker makes no comment whatsoever in his memoirs of any Luftwaffe guns engaged in the area. Could this be due to an unwillingness to share the glory? Perhaps more surprisingly, the officer in command of all Luftwaffe 8.8cm guns in the area makes no mention in his memoirs of any Cagny detachment. Both Becker’s and Pickert’s testimonies are considered below.
There is a second piece of evidence. Around 11.00 hours on 18 July, the southbound advance of the surviving Tiger I of von Rosen’s 3. Kompanie was checked by antitank fire which cleanly penetrated the frontal armour of two of the heavy tanks. Assuming at the time that he had been engaged by some unknown Allied weapon, von Rosen concluded only several years later that the likely source of the fire was a unit of German guns.1 Given the known position and facing of the Tiger at the time they were stopped, guns on the northern edge of Cagny are indicated. Since two Tiger were penetrated almost simultaneously, it is likely that the gun calibre was more than 7.5cm. At one thousand metres range a Pak 40 had some chance of penetrating the 100-110mm frontal armour of the Tiger I, but for a battery to achieve two such kills in quick succession would have been improbable. What is more, it is unlikely that any Pak 40 were positioned in front of the Tiger advance (i.e., in Cagny itself) at the time. Which leaves only three further possibilities: self-propelled Pak 40 of Becker’s Sturm-Panzer-Abteilung 200; defensive fire by one or more British 17 pounder-armed ‘Firefly’ tanks; or von Luck’s 8.8cm Flak. The first will be considered along with Becker’s recollections; but in summary it seems improbable. British Fireflies remain a theoretical possibility though it is unlikely that any were in the right vicinity at the time, and no record has been found of any attributable British claims.
LOCATION: THE HUNT FOR THE GUNS
Von Luck’s recorded story is imprecise as to the place in which he claims to have discovered the battery. In his published memoirs he writes that he spotted the battery ‘as I was driving past the church of Cagny, which lay in the undamaged part of the village.’ This is unhelpful, since the church was surrounded by devastation. He called a halt ‘under a tree’, then ‘bailed out and ran to the battery’, though whether he ran north or south we do not know.2
Expert analysis of aerial photographs of the area taken at midday on 18 July, using stereoscopic viewers, reveals no trace whatsoever of any 8,8cm Flak emplacements nor of any towing vehicles or their distinctive tracks. Of course, by 1944 the Germans were masters of camouflage against aerial observation, but this took time and large artillery pieces could not be hidden within a mere couple of hours of relocation.
If it is assumed that German 8.8cm guns were present somewhere near Cagny, the only feasible position would seem to be the walled orchard on the north side of the former Cagny chateau. This location allows superb vistas across the British line of advance (yet not too close to have been immediately obvious), and would permit frontal shots in the direction of von Rosen’s oncoming Tiger tanks. The high walls (two metres) would have been ideal for screening an antiaircraft battery, yet at some time they have been loopholed, as would be necessary to permit outgoing fire against ground targets.
Cagny.
A: Most of the Fife and Forfar wrecks are within the triangular field.
B: Two destroyed vehicles 1 km from central Cagny, 650 m, north of walled orchard. Westernmost is the size and shape of a Tiger I, facing south. The easterly wreck is shrouded in smoke.
VON LUCK’S STORY
Major Hans-Ulrich von Luck served with distinction throughout the war. His reputation survived unblemished by association with Nazism.3 His long and successful service record spanned campaigns from the invasion of Poland to the last stand in Berlin. His exploits in Poland, France, Russia, and North Africa counted for more than his association from 1944 with the reconstituted 21. Panzerdivision, whose reputation suffered, however unfairly, due to Feuchtinger’s later disgrace.4
With GOODWOOD such an important feature of the Staff College annual tour, and the German defence an important study topic, von Luck was one of the obvious ‘good Germans’ to be invited to participate (as also was the then Generalmajor der Bundeswehr, Richard Freiherr von Rosen, a career soldier, and moreover a former Tiger commander happily untainted by SS membership). Von Luck clearly relished his role on the battlefield tours. He enjoyed lively debates with his sparring partner Pip Roberts, post-war friendship growing out of mutual respect which dated back to their armoured encounters on desert battlefields. And before groups of admiring students, von Rosen delivered his patter: a gently condescending story from which future British officers might learn from the ‘mistakes’ of their fathers and the example of energetic and decisive German leadership.
Indeed, so great was von Luck’s self confidence that the tour organizers occasionally found ‘We had to remind him that he had lost the war.’ One standing joke between them and von Luck went, ‘It’s an odd-numbered year, so this year we win!’ As the years went by, the ‘regular’ presenters inevitably picked up details of each others patter. As an example: von Luck quotes his ‘good friend’ Bill Close as saying, ‘We had warned the Guards Armoured Division coming after us about Cagny... We were glad we had been able to turn off to the west and so escape the fire of your damned “eighty-eights”.’5 Whether or not these are the actual words of Bill Close, the account is misleading. Since Major Close was at the very front of the advance, he had no knowledge of Roberts’ warning to Guards Armoured Division and first heard the story of this and of the ‘88s’ long after the battle, though his comments as presented by von Luck might imply involvement with both events.
Von Luck’s portrayal of the model officer came easily to him. The self belief that sustained his military career came through clearly in his lectures. Little wonder, therefore, that a generation of British Army officers came to regard von Luck’s personal role as a major determining factor in the GOODWOOD battle. However, some who watched his performance year after year came eventually to doubt aspects of his story. And as more German accounts of the battle have come to light, some criticisms of von Luck’s story have emerged. The picture of an individual single-handedly turning the course of the battle has been questioned.
Some of those critical of von Luck’s story have wished their comments to remain ‘off-the-record’, insofar as they might be taken to impugn the integrity of a brother officer. These confidences are of course respected. However, some published accounts shed light on the subject. As a former Staff College tour organizer, Brigadier Christopher Dunphie was well placed to write that, ‘In fact the issue is not so clear cut as von Luck’s story suggests.’6 Dunphie suggests that on his return from Paris, von Luck encountered a chaotic situation in which not all events occurring on the battlefield could be known to him. Less sparing of von Luck’s reputation was an American historian, accompanying the 1971 Battlefield Tour. In his dispassionate assessment, John Sweet concludes: ‘Luck’s full story was that he... came over the ridge just in time to see the bombers attack and did not even have time to change his uniform before single-handedly stopping the British. He most certainly played a major role in the battle, but he undoubtedly enjoys claiming an even larger role.’7 This view appears to fit with the evidence.
Central Cagny.
A: area around church devastated (note craters).
B & C: some military debris but no guns.
D: Von Luck told Staff College Tours that guns were located here.
E: Orchard with loopholed walls, clear of bombing.
From the first publication of the ‘BAOR battlefield tour’ book in 1947 to the Staff College ‘film of the book’ in 1978, von Luck’s story of his ultimatum to the young Luftwaffe battery commander was recounted in full detail. However, nowhere in these publications was it explicitly stated that the Luftwaffe battery was responsible for the destruction of the Fife & Forfar. Similarly, some of the most authoritative German accounts of the action only credit the Luftwaffe battery with destroying German, and not British, tanks.8
BECKER’S GUNS
The story of Becker’s batteries on 18 July has been told many times, with many variations. Where doubt exists, particularly with regard to the initial positions and subsequent movements of the five batteries of his Abteilung, this author gives preference to Becker’s own memoirs9, which fortunately are illustrated by highly detailed situation maps (‘Stellungs-Skizzen’). Contrary to many accounts, when Becker’s fourth and fifth batteries fell back before the British armoured tide, they did so respectively to the south of Four and to the west side of Frénouville (straddling the railway). Before retiring, 5. Batterie fought a successful delaying action from the woods east of le Prieuré. Here they held up the advance of the 23rd Hussars, and screened the Tiger tanks of the 503. Abteilung until at least some of their number were ready for combat). On its way to Frénouville, 5. Batterie almost certainly moved through the cover of the orchards around Cagny. It is entirely possible that elements of this battery managed to find covered firing positions by the time that the Fifes’ C Squadron came on the scene. From such positions and at point-blank range, even a single rearguard section of three Pak 40 could have achieved the destruction of the squadron, and might well have done so without the knowledge of a German officer passing briefly in his tank along the main road through Cagny.
PICKERT’S FLAKKORPS
A key element of von Luck’s story is the fact that the gunners he found were Luftwaffe personnel and not in his direct chain of command. Of course, he might legitimately have demanded the obedience of any Luftwaffe gunners of the 16. Luftwaffenfelddivision. But that division lacked any heavy Flak. (Its only antiaircraft component was found in the third company of its antitank battalion, which contained a dozen towed 2cm guns.)
Any Luftwaffe 8.8cm guns close to the battlefield would have belonged to General der Flakartillerie Wolfgang Pickert’s III. Flakkorps, whose three heavy antiaircraft regiments were sited in a ring to the south and east of the battle area. In his memoirs, written in April, 1947, Pickert expressed pride in his Luftwaffe Flakkorps’ effective cooperation with the army in Normandy10. However, he made perfectly clear the limits of that cooperation. His guns’ primary role was to shoot down enemy aircraft; in this they were unquestionably successful. Their secondary role was to supplement the army’s hard-pressed artillery (who suffered from shortages of equipment and ammunition, and increasingly from losses incurred by relentless counter-battery fire). Luftwaffe forward observers signalled target orders to antiaircraft batteries behind the lines whose 8.8cm Flak could rapidly switch from direct antiaircraft fire to the indirect artillery fire mode: ‘The rapid swing of the 8.8cm guns made the transition from air targets to ground targets (and vice-versa) very simple and caused no loss of time.’ There were limits to their assistance. For example, ‘An undesirable restriction was that against ground targets, rounds with impact fuzes usually had to be fired, in order to preserve the valuable timed fuzes for use against air targets. That was unfortunate as the extraordinary effectiveness of airburst rounds against personnel targets could not be realised.’
Could this be one of the Cagny ‘88s’?
As regards antitank fire, Pickert regarded his heavy guns as a last resort only. ‘In the fight against hostile tanks these guns enjoyed less success than in the east [i.e., the Russian front], because in both areas of dense cover and also in the open areas the hostile tanks attacked much more carefully and with better fire discipline and thereby overpowered the firing 8.8 faster than had so far been experienced in the east.’ Several times, Pickert stressed that the heavy Flak were only to be employed in an antitank role against ‘deep penetrations’. He firmly resisted the dispersal of his regiments into forward positions where their primary role would be sacrificed and heavy losses incurred: ‘The Flakkampftruppen were less successful when the heavy batteries were pulled forward into advanced positions, since then they were not then in sufficient numbers to employ their skilful defensive fire and attack methods against strong tank attacks. The dispersal of Flakkampftruppen was therefore rejected in principle, as the manpower and material losses bore no relationship to the expected success, and the undesirable dispersal of Flakkampfgruppen for antitank defence came about only later.’
Lastly, it has to be asked why an antiaircraft unit would have been positioned in Cagny at all. Some accounts follow von Luck’s 1989 account, citing the young Luftwaffe officer in charge of the battery as claiming he was there to ‘protect the factories and city of Caen against air raids.’11This is not convincing. The defence of the city of Caen (what was left of it) from air attack had ceased to be of interest to the Luftwaffe when the place fell into Allied hands. Local air defence of point targets such as the factories was the job of smaller-calibre, rapid-firing 2cm and 3.7cm guns, whose targets were the jabos, fighter-bombers descending to the killing zone below five thousand feet. The light Flak tactics that proved successful in Normandy, after some early and costly mistakes, involved protecting principal supply routes with highly mobile units armed with 2cm and 3.7cm automatic antiaircraft guns. These would typically lie in wait to ‘ambush’ low flying fighter-bombers with simultaneous fire from numerous concealed locations, after which they would move to new positions to retain the element of surprise.
The 8.8cm Flak were more concerned with the medium bombers, typically American B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Marauders, flying higher and in formation. Pickert recalled, ‘The enemy air units intervening over the battlefield were mostly Marauder squadrons of from twenty to forty aircraft... and were suitable targets for the heavy Flak batteries.’ Against such a target, whole regiments of 8.8cm guns would open fire simultaneously, and so ‘They were often successfully engaged and forced to greater heights or to turn back. The numbers shot down were considerable.’ These heavy Flak were not typically sited to engage low flying ‘jabos’.
In summary, if indeed a lone battery of four 8.8cm Flak was positioned in Cagny, far ahead of its parent regiment, the reason for its deployment there remains a mystery.
THE CHANCES
Given present knowledge, this author reaches the following tentative conclusions.
1. The destruction of C Squadron of the Fife & Forfar Yeomanry is not in itself evidence of the presence of a Luftwaffe battery in Cagny.
2. If a Luftwaffe battery was present, it probably did not change position at all, though it might have had to make adjustments in its emplacements to permit horizontal fire. A possible location would be the long, narrow, walled orchard north of the (former) Cagny chateau (Army map reference 112645).
3. ‘Friendly fire’ incidents were by no means uncommon amid the confusion of 18 July. It seems that a German antitank round penetrated Königstiger 122 later that day. Early-arriving German antitank weapons unknown to von Luck might possibly have accounted for von Rosen’s Tigerlosses.
References
1
‘The Combat History of Schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503’, ed. A Rubbel, 2000, ISBN 0-921991-55-X, p 241.
2
‘ Panzer Commander, the Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck’, 1989, ISBN 0-440-20802-5, p 193; also, Von Luck, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979. Note that von Luck’s various versions of his story differ in details.
3
As a serving officer, von Luck was throughout 1944 officially and repeatedly denied permission to marry his fiancée due to her ancestry. While remaining clear of politics, he continued trying to ‘pull strings’ through purely military channels. This was not hard, as he was known and respected by high-ranking soldiers, both Wehrmacht and SS.
4
Generalmajor Feuchtinger became notorious both for his private life and his reluctance to obey orders he believed would lead to pointless losses. Such traits were not conducive to career development in the post-20 July German army. Feuchtinger was relieved on the night of 21-22 January, 1945, and sentenced to death by court martial. Reprieved in March, he was reduced to the ranks. He was fortunate to be captured by the British before his transfer to the eastern front was carried out.
5
Von Luck, ‘Panzer Commander’, p 197
6
‘The Pendulum of Battle’, Christopher Dunphie, 2004, ISBN 1-84415-010-0, p 80
7
‘Mounting the Threat, the Battle of Bourguebus Ridge’, John J T Sweet, 1977, ISBN 0-89141-026-0, p 82
8
Rubbel, p 241-242; ‘Hitlerjugend: the History of 12. SS-Panzerdivision’, Hubert Meyer, 1994, ISBN 0-921991-18-5, p 158
9
Becker’s unpublished ‘Invasion’ diary, particularly Section III ‘Action at Orne from 18th to 20th VII. 1944’.
10
Unpublished account, ‘Das III. Flak Korps in der Normandie Schlacht’, Allendorf, 20 April 1947.
11
Von Luck, ‘Panzer Commander’, p 193