Chapter 7
By 10.00 hours, 29th Armoured Brigade had two sharp prongs inserted deeply into enemy territory. Troops of tanks at the tip of each prong had a clear view of a crest line barely two miles distant. The order was clear: get to the ridge and complete the breakthrough. The hope in every heart was that most of the work had already been achieved.
29th BRIGADE: CLEARING THE PATH
General Roberts and Brigadier Harvey in their respective Tac HQs, just north of le Mesnil Frémentel, were truly in the midst of the battle. On every side, the fight was intensifying as the shock of the aerial bombardment wore off and the enemy began to reorganize and resist. This was not entirely bad news. In its first day of battle, three weeks before at the end of June, 11th Armoured had been ground to a halt by enemy outposts and hasty counter attacks long before reaching its (ambitious) objectives. Now, the growing volume of defensive fire indicated to the general and the brigadier that they had already penetrated the enemy’s Main Line of Resistance. Confident of suppressing that resistance, relying on his general’s assurance that two further armoured divisions were hurrying to secure and expand the gap punched through the enemy lines, Roscoe Harvey’s single-minded goal was to press his tanks forward to the ridge. Meanwhile, around Harvey’s headquarters, the work of mopping up continued.
Tony Hunter’s improvised 8th Rifle Brigade battlegroup began the attack on le Mesnil Frémentel with eleven Sherman flail tanks firing against the western walls of the complex. Other tanks (possibly including some troops of the passing 23rd Hussars) added their fire against the north wall. Closing to barely two hundred yards, the flails’ fire covered the advance. Most of the eight carriers of 8th RB’s E (Support) Company were present, and the small carriers swept through the corn with machine guns blazing. Next, an ad hoc infantry platoon which had been scraped together from Hunter’s HQ Company prepared for the assault. These advanced under cover of the fire. The enemy was by now so suppressed by the tanks’ Brownings and the carriers’ Vickers machine guns that the riflemen were able to cross the open ground and gain the shelter of the west wall.1Supported by men dismounting from the MG carriers, the small force went over the wall and began methodically to work across the farm buildings. Sensing the resistance crumble, the footsoldiers summoned a Sherman tank (possibly one of the Dragoons’ ‘control’ tanks: equipped with one ‘38’ and two ‘19’ wireless sets, flail-less but retaining its 75mm main armament). Its flanks covered by the infantry, the Sherman passed through the wall and entered the central courtyard, where it poured fire through the windows and doorways of the inner walls of the farm houses, and came to rest on top of the battalion headquarters bunker of I./125. Panzergrenadierregiment.
The assault on le Mesnil: to the west are clearly identifiable eleven Dragoons’ flail tanks (circled).
Supporting Shermans shown in squares.
3. Kompanie commander Oberleutnant Bandomir (who had earlier regretted his lack of antitank weapons), now abandoned his own dugout outside the north wall, ducking through a gap in the wall and through the orchard it enclosed, in hopes of finding men of his company, or indeed anyone capable of resistance. From the edge of the courtyard, he was horrified to see the Sherman tank sitting on the battalion bunker. Recoiling, he passed again through the orchard. Collecting men both able and wounded, he determined to leave the farm and seek a place to hide up with them until dark. The band got as far as a tree-lined path east of le Mesnil. Before long, armoured vehicles rolled to point blank range and, unable to prolong the struggle, Bandomir surrendered.
Arrows mark Bandomir’s path from his command bunker to eventual capture. Three half-tracks and a scout car stand by the west wall. At least one Sherman tank remains within the courtyard.
Inside le Mesnil today. Philippe Wirton indicates the position of the battalion HQ bunker.
It was about midday that the war ended for me and the survivors of 3. Kompanie. The situation did not admit any possibility of escape. Lacking any antitank weapons and with manpower become so weak, it was impossible to maintain command of my company.2
When 8th RB finally rounded up the prisoners, Bandomir counted only 134 of what had been the better part of the battalion. He noted too the abundant equipment and the relative freshness of the British troops, in contrast to his own weary grenadiers.
The sunlit cornfields west of the railway embankment.
3rd RTR: ACROSS THE RAILWAY
Shortly after 10.00 hours, Major Close with his reunited A Squadron was reconnoitring west of the Chemin de Fer Minier in the general direction of Cormelles. His 1 Troop leader, Lieutenant Langdon, thought he saw a Panzer IV in Cormelles itself, which he fired upon. But any Germans in that direction were preoccupied with the Canadian threat from the north, and Langdon’s superiors were concerned only with attaining the day’s objective, which lay due south. Close himself had his eyes, and his binoculars, firmly fixed on the Bourguébus ridge. He scanned methodically: from the railway running straight up to Bourguébus itself, westward past Hubert-Folie with its distinctive church tower, and still further around past Bras, largely hidden in trees, to distant Ifs, shimmering in the haze on the far side of the important Caen-Falaise highway. All in that direction seemed tranquillity. There was reason to hope that success lay just ahead.
Meanwhile, the main force of 3rd RTR was pressing its advance past Grentheville. As the main body of tanks worked their way southward across the dual-track Paris railway line, progressing into the narrow passage between the embankment and the western side of the Grentheville woods, they found themselves sheltered from enemy fire. Forward elements of 8th Rifle Brigade’s G Company dismounted and entered the woods. Clearing Grentheville of the enemy would not be completed for some hours, and G Company did not attempt this. For now they were directed only to screen the treeline west of the Grentheville chateau as the bulk of the regiment resumed the move south. When the regimental group moved out along the eastern side of the railway embankment, the motor infantry followed. Grentheville was not yet secured.
Progress was careful rather than rapid. Brigade HQ noted a report at 10.12 hours that ‘3 R Tks getting around West of GRENTHEVILLE.’ While vehicles accumulated in the ‘dead ground’ west of the village, the tanks pressed on south in a narrow column. Emerging from the narrow gap between the orchards and the elevated railway, the leading tanks kept close to the foot of the embankment, eyes and turrets trained left towards the walled fields south of Grentheville, 500 metres distant. Of this stage of the advance, little has been recorded. The attention of Brigade HQ was elsewhere, and enemy fire appears to have been negligible. Somewhere ahead of 3rd RTR, Becker’s 3. Batterie was out of touch with 200. Abteilung headquarters; on his own initiative the battery commander had broken contact with 3rd RTR and fallen back from Grentheville in the direction of Soliers.
Tank tracks clearly indicate the route of 3rd RTR regimental group south from Grentheville and across the railway embankment.
Soliers lay even closer to the elevated railway than did Grentheville. It is not clear whether the advancing 3rd RTR group was unwilling to risk a close approach to yet another village; perhaps the leaders heard gunfire from that direction (Becker’s guns and others located in Soliers were by now beginning to engage B Squadron of the Fifes, away to the east). It may be that Colonel Silvertop was simply keen to find a safe route across the Minier railway in order to expedite progress towards the ridge. In the event, before approaching within five hundred yards of Soliers, most of the regiment’s tracked vehicles turned right and climbed the embankment along a short stretch where the slope was not as steep as elsewhere. Two main crossing points were established, one hundred yards apart, four hundred yards north of the bridge where the minor Soliers to Cormelles road passed under the railway. Further back, wheeled vehicles crossed under the railway using a small bridge due west of Grentheville.
So it was that shortly after 10.30 hours the 3rd RTR regimental group found itself on the far side of the embankment, in the peaceful landscape west of the railway. Increasing numbers of eyes joined Bill Close’s careful scrutiny of the two villages, Hubert-Folie and Bras. Just a mile away, up a shallow slope over fields deep in golden, sun-dappled wheat, the twin objectives beckoned. The temptation to take them on the bounce may have occurred to some. By rights, according to the briefing, the morning’s advance of six miles in three hours should by now have taken the regiment well into the German rear areas. Colonel Silvertop could see that seizing the two villages ahead would cap his regiment’s success and provide a springboard for further exploitation. But, for all his drive, the desert veteran understood the difference between drive and folly. The villages were potential strongpoints. The advance would be uphill over open fields with only the grain and the occasional ripple in the ground offering the slightest cover. Before he ordered an all-out assault, he would have the objective reconnoitred.
When Colonel Silvertop cast about for a Rifle Brigade officer to conduct the reconnaissance, G Company commander Major Noel Bell was not to be seen. However, among the vehicles of the regimental HQ group alongside the railway bridge over the Soliers to Hubert-Folie road, was the half-track of the 11 Platoon commander, twenty year old Lieutenant David Stileman. He later recalled,
At this juncture, it so happened that my platoon headquarters half-track vehicle was some three yards distant from the gallant colonel, and fixing me with those steely eyes, he beckoned me over and said, “Boy, we must find out if Hubert-Folie is occupied.”
Leading squadrons of 3rd RTR fan out as they press south towards the ridge.
“Jolly good idea, Sir,” I said or something equally fatuous. “How do you propose to do it?”
“You’re going to do it,” came the reply. And, as I swallowed, the ever-reassuring Noel Bell appeared at my elbow. The plan, like all good plans, was extremely simple. I was temporarily to command a section of the carrier platoon and drive hell-for-leather down the main street of the village. If we fail to appear, the chances are that the village was occupied; but if we emerge unscathed the chances are that the village was not occupied.3
The apprehensive Stileman received words of encouragement and more practical assistance from his seniors.
Now, it so happened that Noel Bell produced a marvellous air photograph of the village of Hubert-Folie and the surrounding area. Well of course this meant that I didn’t have to fuss around with maps. And also at this moment [Major] Bill Smyth-Osborne who commanded H Battery of 13th RHA offered his services. And he decided to put a heavy artillery concentration down on Hubert Folie as we approached to the village. And the last shell was to be a phosphorous one, and this [dense white smoke] was the signal for us to start on our journey down the village.4
Stileman took command of two carriers of the G Company scout platoon. Following Bell’s advice, the carriers were to edge as close as possible to the village under cover of the promised artillery ‘stonc’. This duly arrived, and when a single white smoke shell burst on the church tower of Hubert-Folie, the party sprinted up the shallow slope to the village.5
Racing through the fields on the north side of the Soliers to Hubert-Folie road, the five-foot high carriers were barely visible above the uncut crop.
Believe you me, once we’d started, there was no time for sauntering and within seconds we appeared at the other end of the village and reported back to Noel Bell and told him that we had met no resistance and had seen no sign of the enemy. But how wrong one can be! Because as we discovered later, the village was groaning with enemy.6
In fact, the truth lay in between Stileman’s optimistic reconnaissance report and his later overestimate. As was the case elsewhere, the British fixation with the village ‘strongpoints’ tended to blind them to significant forces arrayed around and behind. The main antitank strength of the enemy at this time was to be found in gun emplacements higher on the ridge behind and on the flanks of the villages. On 18 July, the meagre infantry reserves of 21. Panzerdivision simply did not allow for more than token garrisons in Hubert-Folie and Bras. At any rate, whether suppressed by the artillery, surprised by the sudden onrush of the racing carriers, or recognising the small reconnaissance party for what it was, the defenders of Hubert-Folie did not reveal themselves.
3rd RTR: ONTO THE RIDGE
With every indication that the way ahead was clear, Silvertop ordered the ridge to be stormed. The regiment was ready. The brief hiatus while the reconnaissance was ordered and executed had given time for some reorganization. Each of the three sabre squadrons had lost a half-dozen tanks: squadron commanders profited from the time to re-structure troops. Now, the squadrons were spread out in a crescent-shaped front line: from the regimental group’s headquarters by the railway bridge on the Soliers to Hubert-Folie road, north alongside the railway embankment, and then north west along the Soliers to Cormelles road. On the far right flank was A Squadron, roughly on the mid-point of that road, a mile due north of Hubert-Folie.
Stleman began his reconnaissance mission from here, up the gentle rise to Hubert-Folie church.
Opposite, Hubert-Folie: arrows show Stileman’s reconnaissance, up the hill, around the church, and through the village.
Shortly before 11.30 hours, the tanks began to roll: up the slope towards the ridge. The tanks of A Squadron moved off first, advancing in a south-westerly direction aiming to pass around the eastern side of Bras. Echeloned behind to their left followed B and C Squadrons. The tanks of A Squadron ground steadily uphill: a dozen Shermans on a three hundred yard front, their treads leaving dead straight tracks in the uncut corn. In the vanguard of the advance was 1 Troop commander, Lieutenant ‘Johnny’ Langdon.
The quiet country scene erupted into violence as carefully sited guns let loose a torrent of Armour Piercing shot. The foremost Sherman was just short of the road leading south-east out of Bras towards Hubert-Folie. Its driver instinctively hauled the tank in a sharp left turn, then pulled back to the right in an attempt to throw off the enemy aim. But in vain. The tank was hit as it reached the road and crashed to a halt before erupting in a dense column of smoke. Langdon’s tank was hit, and somehow he managed to extricate himself and his crew as the ammunition went up and the tank burst into flame, though his gunner was mortally wounded. As smoke billowed from the stricken Sherman, Buck Kite watched from the following tank.
The failed assault on Bras: 3rd RTR falling back, shortly before noon.
Bras is at the top of a slope beside a small wood. We started copping it there and I fired back… before the Sherman on my left brewed up. The crew baled out and came over to my tank carrying the gunner, a Scots lad called Hume who used to play for the battalion football team.
With extraordinary bravery, Kite’s tank halted alongside long enough for
After its drive straight up the hill this tank reversed ‘left stick – right stick’ until it was hit and burned.
Langdon’s tank was hit as it reached the road.
Langdon’s stricken crew to clamber aboard.
I thought, “My God, Hummer, you’ll never keep goal again.” Both legs were hanging on by threads of sinew. They got him on the back of my tank and I handed him morphine as I had other things to do... When I had reversed to the bottom of the hill Mac [the regimental Medical Officer] came up in a half-track and took Hummer away but I heard that he died in hospital.7
Burning crewmen rolled on the ground to extinguish the flames. Blackened survivors helped each other back through the corn. Some were lifted on to the engine covers of a reversing tank, where the turret might offer some protection. The more fortunate were picked up by a regimental ambulance or by 8th Rifle Brigade half-tracks and carriers to be rushed back to an aid post.
The surviving tanks of A Squadron needed no instructions. Facing an insurmountable deluge of fire they changed gear and reversed down the hill, drivers hauling on their steering columns, ‘left stick, right stick’, zigzagging back the way they had come. As his squadron fell back, Bill Close’s own tank was hit with a crash. Fortunately it did not brew.
There was a hell of a crack and someone shouted “Bale out, sir”, so I hopped down and saw that a shot had neatly removed the rear sprocket and the track was cut in two.8
The crew baled out unhurt and Close sent the four crewmen back to the cover of the rail embankment where an advanced aid post was to be found alongside regimental headquarters. Close then dashed over to take over his sergeant’s tank. He was ‘rather disconcerted’ to find this tank had already been hit and abandoned, so he carried on to resume command of the squadron from the troop corporal’s tank. Covered by the two surviving Shermans of Buck Kite’s troop (one a Firefly) and accompanied by the faithful artillery officer in his Stuart, Close organized the survivors of his squadron.
A Squadron regrouped, taking what shelter they could find from vegetation, folds in the ground, or abandoned tanks (whose growing numbers helped by attracting a proportion of the Germans’ fire). B and C Squadrons also took losses in the opening salvoes, and their advance angled away eastwards, away from Bras, skirting Hubert-Folie in their search for a way forward. The fire appeared to be coming from all directions. From directly ahead, not only guns hidden within Bras and Hubert-Folie but also several concealed in previously unseen emplacements were unmasked behind and above the villages, with a field of vision over the battlefield hindered only by smoke from burning tanks. It is likely that one of Becker’s mobile batteries had moved into positions to the west, just short of Ifs, where still more guns were emplaced, enfilading the British advance. And shortly after, the few tanks to penetrate as far south as the Hubert-Folie to Bourguébus road found themselves also exposed to flanking fire from the south east.
Jim Caswell, commanding one of the forward B Squadron tanks, ‘could only see two Tigers or Panthers in a wood at Bourguébus. Until then everything had gone well.’
Then, disaster.
Tanks reversing away from Bras.
Several B Squadron tanks were knocked out, some burning. I ordered Barney (Trooper Barnes) to turn left to face the enemy tanks and then reverse… We were now firing at the enemy, but I could tell they were ranging on us. We had reversed about 25 yards and we were hit in the front and the shell killed our gunner, Bill Slater, outright. Stan Duckworth (wireless operator/loader) was seriously wounded in the legs and slumped onto the turret floor.9
Though himself wounded in the knee, Jim tried unsuccessfully to open the two forward crew hatches, before giving up and hauling the wounded operator out of the still-reversing tank. Jim carried the operator for an hour to an Advanced Field Dressing Station where he himself collapsed with wounds that ended his Army career. Only twenty years later did Jim learn why the tank had continued moving. Throwing the tank into reverse gear was an instinctive response.10 Barney the driver had gone a step further by inventing a device to keep the accelerator compressed if he were wounded while reversing. The gadget served its purpose; with its driver dead at the controls the tank continued its unrelenting backwards voyage across the battlefield.
About this time, an enigmatic signal was recorded by 29th Brigade: ‘11.30 3 R Tks report their flanks rather exposed to AP fire from area BRAS 0663 and SOLIERS’. Almost simultaneously, 11th Armoured Division noted the position of 3rd RTR: ‘11.35 On line of road BRAS – BOURGUÉBUS’. This was optimistic but soon to become actuality. Before midday, three troops of B Squadron tanks did indeed reach the Bourguébus road at the point where it bridges the Chemin de Fer Minier (here the embankment became a deep cutting as the ridge steepened and the railway ascended more gradually). Individual tanks (possibly elements of the Reconnaissance Troop) had probed even deeper, south of that road. But this was to be the high-water mark of the regiment’s advance. By the time the reports were received, the surviving tanks of 3rd RTR had recoiled northwards down the slope before intense fire. At 12.01 hours, VIII Corps still believed ‘Battle going very well. 11 Armd Div pushed on extraordinarily well but beginning to feel a little naked.’ ‘A little naked’ was something of an understatement.
THE CAULDRON OF FOUR
The Fife & Forfar’s Colonel Scott quickly revised his plans to take account of both the apparently total loss of his reserve squadron, and also the prohibition against sending an avenging force back to clear Cagny. (Though, truth be told, the attached H Company of 8th Rifle Brigade could probably have been spared to accomplish this.) His regiment’s route up to the Bourguébus ridge ran between Soliers and Four, a corridor barely a thousand yards wide. Scott remained convinced that this was a single squadron front, and so chose to send B Squadron forward, to be followed by A Squadron in support, less two troops protecting the left, a sensible precaution, since most of the opposition so far seemed to be coming from that flank.
3. One lone tank progressed this far towards the Falaise road before being hit, its turret facing enemy fire from 8 o’clock.
1. Two troops advance past hay stacks. (Note: the southernmost tank has begun to reverse.
2. Leading tanks approach the railway bridge.
Taken at 11.50 hours: the closest approach to Bourguébus on 18 July.
B Squadron set off in a south-westerly direction. Scott recalled,
‘We shook out into a tactical formation, passed Grentheville on our right, shooting up a number of Nebelwerfers in the woods there, and pressed on.’
(The defenders of Grentheville were by this time too concerned with pressure from the western orchards to offer effective return fire.) Meanwhile, the Fifes’ flank guard moved out south east, around the other side of Four, the farm of le Poirier on their left. Steel Brownlie recalled being,
given the job of looking left and covering that flank, while the rest of the regiment went on, down into the valley in front. We had no cover, except for the shape of the ground, and simply sat in the corn. I was at once fired on by what appeared to be a self-propelled gun in the valley, and two tanks to the right of me went up in smoke.To the south-east was an artillery position, a row of guns, maybe 105mms. They were firing. I did an HE shoot on them, until they shut up, and there was no movement except wisps of smoke.11
Steel Brownlie’s judgement (or hindsight?) was exceptionally accurate. The two tanks of Captain Hutchison’s 3 Troop had indeed been brewed by fire from Becker’s 4. Batterie, now occupying positions to the south east of Four. Behind these self-propelled guns was a complex of artillery emplacements containing heavy batteries of the Luftwaffen-Artillerie-Regiment 16, equipped with captured Russian 12.2cm howitzers.12
One of the great attractions of open country for the British tank squadrons was the possibility of employing the fire and movement tactics in which they had practiced so extensively in England. The principle involved troops of tanks moving alternately: some using speed and manoeuvre to make themselves difficult targets while others behind gave covering fire. The moving elements would seek protection, ideally hull-down behind hard cover or simply using the folds in the ground, stop, and in turn open fire to cover the advance of the rear units. Unfortunately the ground over which the regiment now advanced was very open indeed. Opportunities for the leading tanks to ‘go to ground’ were few. Even the crops hereabouts in the triangle of fields between Grentheville, Soliers, and Four would steadily becoming flattened. So it was that after a very few ‘bounds’ forward beyond the railway line, the whole of Scott’s force was in country more ‘open’ than they might have desired.
B Squadron was spurring forward. Before long the Soliers to Four road was reached. Tanks were within a hundred yards of the hedges and orchards around Soliers when a volley of antitank fire was loosed from the village. Becker’s 3. Batterie had successfully disengaged from its positions around Grentheville and was now well placed to meet the new threat from the north east. One tank was knocked out just outside Soliers on the Four road, opposite the little hedged roadside calvary. Others reversed away in haste. The following troops of tanks edged away from Soliers, still taking losses but now at slightly greater range, and using bursts of speed to give the Soliers gunners tricky deflection shots. Crossing the Soliers – Four road just 500 yards west of the centre of Four, tanks crept in close to a hedgerow and took measure of the situation. There was little that could be done: the Soliers guns were too well camouflaged to be picked out. To the south, more emplacements were visible on the ridge, looming above the exposed tanks. (In fact, the nearest battery was over a kilometre away, and only eight metres higher in elevation, though on that flat terrain eight metres was sufficient to give the Fifes the impression of being at the bottom of a fire-ringed bowl.)
The unequal struggle continued. At last, goaded by demands from brigade to press on, another push forward was attempted. The precise story of the Fife & Forfar’s midday battle between Soliers and Four is generally glossed-over as one of those frantic exchanges in which no one could keep track of events. However, some idea of the development of the action can be gained by following the sequence of signals recorded by the parent unit, 29th Brigade Headquarters.13 The following list includes all signals recorded by 29th Brigade as received from the 2nd Fife & Forfar Yeomanry in the three hours following 10.00, together with comments made at leisure by an author not engaged in battle and blessed with the wisdom of six decades of hindsight. (For interpretation of map references, see Appendix II)
10.02 hr: 2 FF Yeo report enemy inf and guns in SOLIERS 0862.
10.38 hr: 2 FF Yeo in FOUR 0962
This is misleading. Individual tanks of the regiment may have approached the northern edge of this map square around this time. But the Fifes were not in Four!
10.48 hr: 2 FF Yeo report SP guns in BOURGUEBUS and unspecified guns in FRENOUVILLE. Leading sqns between these two places.
Bourguébus appears to have been used to indicate the approximate direction (south) rather than the precise location of enemy batteries; ‘Frénouville’ likewise appears to indicate fire originating from anywhere south of a line from Four to Frénouville. The two troops of A Squadron (now reduced to six tanks) might have been approximately half-way between the two villages, but the rest of the regiment was still north-west of Four.
11.15 hr: 2 FF Yeo reach 085611 near BOURGUEBUS
This is the most contentious of the signals purportedly sent by the Fifes. If true, it would have meant that tanks had reached the mid point of the road between Bourguébus and la Hogue. Far from reaching the Bourguébus to La Hogue road, it seems that no Fife & Forfar tank passed further south than the little track leading south-east out of Soliers. No explanation can be offered for this signal save that it was mistaken by someone.
11.23 hr: 2 FF Yeo report one Panther engaged on left.
It is unlikely that any Panther tanks were engaged in the area so early. In the distance, an enemy vehicle firing from cover would be hard to identify.
11.30 hr: 2 FF Yeo pushing on to BOURGUEBUS
11.38 hr: 2 FF Yeo report heavy AP fire from FRENOUVILLE 1162 which is pinning down their left sqn
By this time, losses to B Squadron had reached the point at which A Squadron’s two unengaged squadrons and the squadron headquarters troop had to be called forward. So B now became the ‘left’ squadron. Its survivors had again attempted an advance southwards (and so towards, though still very far from, Bourguébus) from the Soliers to Four road, along their sheltering hedgerow. As soon as the tanks passed the end of the hedgerow, they were immediately exposed to fire from west, south, and east (the batteries from the east only now unmasked and joining in the fight, hence their mention in this signal). By the time the signal was received, a number of tanks were burning furiously in the field less than a hundred metres beyond the hedgerow’s end. This is almost certainly the furthest the squadron penetrated south.
In this newly-harvested field, map reference 087625, aerial photographs taken between 11.45 and 12.00 hours reveal at least seven vehicles burning within a fifty yard circle; it is possible that more knocked-out vehicles may be concealed by the billowing smoke drifting downwind.
11.42 hr: 2 FF Yeo 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-LA-CAMPAGNE 0760
Hearing of the heavy losses being incurred and checking the map reference, Brigadier Harvey drew the incorrect conclusion that the Fifes were deviating eastwards, towards Frénouville. Like General Roberts, Harvey was determined to stick to 11th Armoured objectives and leave Frénouville to the Guards. His attempt to put the Fifes back on a southbound track was ill informed. By the time this message was sent, all of the Fifes’ tanks west of Four which were still capable of moving were falling back in a northerly direction.14
11.52 hr: 2 FF Yeo report four unidentified tks moving SOUTH area 1162
11.55 hr: 2 FF Yeo report four camouflaged enemy tks at 083605
The leading tank was knocked out by the tree-lined calvary east of Soliers. (See page 151)
12.00 hr: 2 FF Yeo report tks moving into BOURGUEBUS
12.14 hr: 2 FF Yeo report eight tks probably Tigers moving into BOURGUEBUS from SE
According to the pre-battle briefings, reports such as these were supposed to bring down a rapid response from Typhoon fighter-bombers orbiting ready to offer close support. The response was slow in coming, and lacked the hoped-for coordination with the needs of the ground forces. By midday, the guns of I Battery, 13th Royal Horse Artillery had come up and the two four-gun troops were in firing positions nearby, south of the Paris railway and ready with a rapid response to urgent calls. But there was a limit to what eight twenty-five pounder guns could achieve against ever more numerous enemy tanks. During this period, Colonel Scott concentrated on attempting to reduce enemy resistance in the village of Four: the remaining tanks of A Squadron attempted to shoot F Company of the motor infantry into the place, with any covering fire the beleaguered tanks of B Squadron could add.
12.40 hr: 2 FF Yeo 800 yds short of BOURGUEBUS and keeping West of LA HOGUE 0960. Mot coy in FOUR 0962. Held up by the 8 enemy tks.
Once again, this entry is potentially misleading. The best explanation offered is that, from the vantage point of tanks seeking what cover they could find west of Four, Bourguébus loomed twenty metres higher, and (like the closer, lower batteries) its height advantage might have foreshortened its actual distance of a mile. As for the motor company, they were certainly attempting to close Four, but any suggestion that they held the place was wide of the mark.
12.45 hr: 2 FF Yeo report that they have now only 20 tks left; heavy fire from Cagny was stated to be the cause of most of these losses. Later a few tks which had got lost rejoined the regt. Five appeared at Tac Bde HQ at 1250 and were sent on. 2FF told to clear SOLIERS.
This interpretation is interesting. 29th Brigade Tac HQ was close to the wreck of C Squadron and remained under the impression that Cagny was the main source of the Fifes’ problems. Still failing to appreciate the strength of the defences on the Bourguébus ridge, Harvey believed the ridge could be reached. But far from breaking through to the distant ridge line, the Fifes were struggling merely to hold their ground. Now in the attempt to maintain the momentum of the advance there appeared the 23rd Hussars.
At 12.05 hours, 29th Brigade had recorded: ‘23 H ordered to move up area GRENTHEVILLE.’ Though the author has no direct evidence, it seems highly likely that 23rd Hussars passed from le Prieuré around the west side of le Mesnil Frémentel. It is almost inconceivable that they would have proceeded across the killing ground between le Mesnil and Cagny, where C Squadron of the Fifes had so recently been massacred. Certainly, the tail elements of the Fifes’ own regimental group took the roundabout route, and since the Hussars’ leading B Squadron crossed the Paris railway near to Grentheville, a roundabout route and approach from west of le Mesnil is indicated.
The fire of optimism still burned at Roscoe Harvey’s 29th Brigade Tac HQ. Hard on the heels of the 12.45 order to the depleted Fife & Forfar to ‘clear SOLIERS ‘, 3rd RTR was signalled at 12.50 hours to ‘try and clear up BRAS 0663 and if possible HUBERT FOLIE 0662 as well.’ In similar vein, at 12.55 hours 23rd Hussars were ordered to ‘move up to 2 FF Yeo area and clear up BOURGUEBUS and prepare to move on TILLY-LA-CAMPAGNE.’ These orders appear to assume that the main enemy line had been breached and that all the tanks needed was a direction in which to head. As the Hussars’ B Squadron emerged onto the Fife & Forfar battleground, the truth was quickly revealed.
Minutes later a more realistic order followed. At 12.58 hours, Brigade told the Hussars ‘not to come further South than SOLIERS.’ Unaware of the plight of the Fifes, the Hussars might well have wondered at this sudden curtailing of their task. In blissful ignorance of what had gone before, the Hussars quite naturally used the same tactics, advancing from the Paris railway towards the gap between Soliers and Four on a single-squadron front. From the railway just east of Grentheville, the Hussars struck south with two troops up: 1 Troop on the right, 2 Troop left. The advance continued almost to the centre of the triangle formed by Grentheville, Soliers, and Four. Then it was stopped short by enemy fire. The troop Fireflies were among the first losses. Lone tanks manoeuvred desperately, releasing smoke and firing at anything resembling an enemy, until the welcome order came to fall back on the rest of the regiment. The survivors of the Fife and Forfar were meanwhile clustered close to the hedgerows west of Four, not far away across open ground but unseen through smoke and dust. No contact between the Hussars and the Fifes had yet been made.
Taken about ten seconds apart, these two images reveal the northern (rearwards) direction of the Fifes’ tanks at 11.50 hours.
References
1
In this author ’s previous work on the subject, he believed the infantry had crossed the open ground in three M3 half-tracks. He now has photographic evidence that these vehicles, followed by a Dingo scout car, only arrived at the west wall between 11.40 and 12.00 hours, i.e., after the infantry had moved into the buildings.
2
Bandomir diary
3
Stileman, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979. It was typical of the banter that grew over the years between speakers on the Staff College tour that Major Bill Close took to referring to the – then – inexperienced young lieutenant as the ‘florid cockerel’. To which Stileman’s self-effacing response was that ‘At the prospect of this charade I must confess that I felt more like an anaemic broiler!’
4
Stileman, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979.
5
29th Brigade noted at 10.58 hours that ‘3 R Tks ask for arty conc on HUBERT FOLIE’. It seems most likely that this was for information only, and that the concentration was fired by the eight 25 pounder guns of Smyth-Osborne’s H Battery alone. Nevertheless, in a confused battle and lacking an accurate 3rd RTR record, the signal is useful in pinpointing the time of Stileman’s reconnaissance to shortly after 11.00 hours.
6
Stileman, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979.
7
‘Panzer Bait’, William Moore, 1991, ISBN 0 85052 3281, p 147
8
Close, interview at Staff College, Camberley, 1979.
9
Caswell diary
10
Jim Caswell recalls that later, when Bingo callers announced the number ‘88’, the audience would roar out in unison ‘driver reverse!’
11
Steel Brownlie diary
12
The artillery regiment of 16. Luftwaffenfelddivision was also equipped with batteries of Russian 7.62cm guns. Neither calibre had particularly impressive armour piercing capability, and the 12.2cm guns may even have lacked AP ammunition. Becker ’s guns were generally sited in well camouflaged prepared positions, from which they hoped to open fire before being spotted and then displace away from any situation before it became threatening. Becker himself was at this time in his armoured command vehicle close to the front, and according to his own account coordinating all the artillery in the area of Four via his 200. Abteilung Gefechtsstand [mobile headquarters] currently south of Frénouville.
13
Though invaluable to the historian, signals logs need to be studied with some care. Where either the sender or the recipient of the signal is in a combat area, many interruptions may occur: the sounds of battle or poor reception, to say nothing of the sending or receiving signaller being distracted by actual combat. The 29th Brigade signals officer sat in the bow gunner’s position of Roscoe Harvey’s command tank, frequently distracted by urgent communications from and to the brigadier himself via his brigade major sitting between the two, in the gunner’s seat. A former officer gives the warning that, ‘timings recorded are more often that not those when the messages were received at the battalion, brigade, or divisional H.Q., instead of those when the action really took place.’ (Scarfe, Assault Division, 1947 Preface) Nevertheless, signals logs are a great help, especially when, as here, the battalion, brigade, and divisional records can be compared!
14
Since British aerial reconnaissance photographs were taken with considerable overlap (to permit stereoscopic viewing), the direction of moving vehicles can easily be ascertained from successive images.