Chapter 6
Wiederstandneste 27, at the eastern end of Nan Red Sector, formed a part of the North Shore Regiment’s initial objective that had to be taken before moving inland towards Objective Yew. Landing behind the North Shore were the Royal Marine Commandos, in the form of 48 Commando and Headquarters 4 Special Service Brigade. While 48 landed, 46 Commando RM was to remain afloat as the Commando reserve, ready to be deployed anywhere on Second Army’s front or on the Allied left flank in order to deal with batteries that had not been silenced by the naval or air bombardment.
48 Commando’s task was not to strike inland but to fight its way from St Aubin eastward towards Sword Beach, where landing behind 3rd British Division, 41 Commando would be heading westward to meet them. The task of fighting an independent action, on a flank, to linking up the two beachheads, was never going to be an easy job, hence the commitment of commandos to the task. The gap between Sword and Juno was just less than five miles and included the coastal resort villages of St Aubin, Lagrune, Luc and Lion (all with the suffix ‘sur-Mer’). Amongst these villages were a series of strong points held by the reinforced 9 Kompanie 736 Grenadier Regiment and a part of 10 Kompanie. The Wiederstandneste at Lagrune-sur-Mer, as forecast, proved to be well constructed and surprisingly determinedly held by the German coastal troops and osttruppen.
St Aubin-sur-Mer
It will be recalled that The North Shore’s B Company had been held up by machine gun fire from WN 27 and that the strong point’s 50mm guns knocked out the first tanks coming up onto the beach. An AVRE, after forty-five minutes fighting, ‘cracked the concrete casemate with a “Dustbin” and took the sting out of the Germans’.
Wiederstandneste 27 had more or less fallen to B Company, after two hours of fighting, as described in Chapter 3. However, resistance from German infantry in the houses along the esplanade and in the village was to persist until 1800 hours and it was not until the following morning that an isolated group of osttruppen gunners finally surrendered.
The Germans who escaped from the strong point fell back into the village where, particularly to the east, some of the houses had been prepared for defence. These enemy infantry had been largely spared the worst effects of the heavy bombardment and had seen the effects of their resistance on the Canadians whose tanks and men fell under their fire. However, those taking refuge in the coastal villas and terraces received some close range fire support from converted landing craft, while the Canadians attacked from the landward side.
St Aubin then and now pictures taken from the 50 mm casemate. Note the crashed P 47 Thunderbolt.
The North Shore’s history described the fighting in St Aubin and the problems faced by the soldiers from New Brunswick at WN27:
‘Major Bob Forbes [Officer Commanding B Company] needed some help for his troops, so a section of carriers was suggested to push along through alleyways and give his men cover to advance in attack. It was a slow procedure, but the carriers moved along, the anti-tank guns blazed and B Company cleared one building after another. They were joined together by underground passages and there was a system of trenches as well. We would get the Germans out of one tough spot and they would re-appear in another. We could not figure it out at the moment but by persistent fire and rushes B Company got them out and took a lot of prisoners. The pioneers were called and blew up a building that was in the way.’
B Company’s protracted battle in the area of WN 27 required them to clear the village, building by building, which contributed to the North Shore’s lack of combat power to speedily overcome opposition when the remainder of the battalion advanced inland.
Meanwhile, C and D Companies, the reserve companies of the North Shore Regiment, left B Company to clear WN 27 and set out to clear the remainder of St Aubin. Amongst those making their way through the village was Gunner Johnston driving an M10 Tank Destroyer belonging to 52nd Canadian Anti-Tank Battery. He described how having got off the beach and driven into St Aubin:
A Sherman moving through the streets of St Aubin.
‘I forget at what point we blew off our waterproofing, but we came into a corner, maybe one hundred yards, and we met the British commandos. We were about the first troops that they had run into and one of their officers said, in his British accent, “You have to turn left heah!” I looked and saw there were bodies lying on the road and I said, “Oh my God, not for a minute.” I said, “Were gonna have to move some of those bodies because I am not going to run over any more of my own bodies today” The bodies were still warm, I know because we moved them. There were lots; I guess a machine gun nest or something caught them.
‘We went round the corner – you have to realize I was only looking through a periscope sight and you can only see so far down – and came across a slit trench behind a pillbox. We dropped the muzzle of our 50 – calibre into the trench, gave it a couple of blasts and a couple of grenades and we heard ‘Kamrade’ and they was coming out. I don’t know how many we killed but we took twenty-one men and an officer out of there as prisoners.
‘The prisoners were shaken up pretty good. The order of the day was ‘no quarter’, that meant no prisoners to my way of thinking. So one of my buddies wanted to shoot them, …but our officer was a good guy and he said, “No.” So we took them back. These were the first prisoners we took. One of our guys, the gunner on our vehicle, had a Bren gun and every time these guys would slow down he’d let off the Bren over their heads and got their jackboot heels going like you wouldn’t believe. By this time, the engineers were trying to build a PW compound and we brought these prisoners in there.’
Landing some minutes after the first wave, were the North Shore’s reserve companies. Captain LeBlanc, second in command of C Company, recounted that the heavily laden men were born across the beach by a wave of adrenaline.
‘We didn’t have too many casualties on the beach, because we had made plans to get across as quickly as possible. I made a gap with my own wire-cutters along a wall and, after a reconnaissance, I told the platoons to follow me. Lieutenant MacQuarrie’s and Lieutenant Fawcett’s platoons followed me, with no casualties but Lieutenant Day’s platoon had found another gap and in going through it suffered three casualties. We met Major Daughney where we should have and then all started working our way towards St Aubin church and cemetery.
‘We met Lieutenant Colonel Buell and proceeded to the middle of the town. On reaching the main street, we went right along to the church passing by the station and through D Company. We met two troops of tanks at the church and had our three-inch mortar sections with us. Sergeant Drapeau was in charge. The anti-tank guns soon joined us and I had to stop Sergeant Fitzgerald’s boys from firing at the water tower.’
Military police of 103 Beach Group search German prisoners of war.
Over a hundred of the drowned tanks were recovered and repaired within days.
Having cleared through the village and reached the open country inland from the village, after some considerable delays, Lieutenant Colonel Buell reorganized the North Shores before leading them on towards objective Elm. (See Chapter 5).
The Landing of 48 Commando RM
Number 48 Commando was born out of 7 Royal Marine Battalion in March 1944, at the Royal Marine Barracks Deal in Kent. As an OVERLORD priority, Lieutenant Colonel Moulton took his new ‘Commando’ north to the Commando Training Centre at Achnacarry for an abbreviated conversion and training package. After six gruelling weeks in the Highlands, 48 returned south to the Commando assembly area on the banks of the River Hamble, near Southampton. On 3 June they embarked at Warsash into the ships of Assault Group J4. The commando units assigned to Juno Beach crossed the Channel in the SS Princess Margaret and HMS Prince Albert and were to be delivered to the beaches by the landing craft of 503rd and 523rd Assault Flotillas.
Lieutenant Colonel Moulton outlined the plan that had been developed by I Corps and Brigadier ‘Jumbo’ Leicester of 4 Special Service Brigade:
‘Between the Canadian 3rd Division on Juno Beach and the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach, there was a gap of five miles, caused by a reef off the coast which prevented landings; No. 48 Commando was immediately behind the North Shore Regiment, the left battalion of the Canadians, wheel left, and clear the beach defences opposite the reef – until it met No. 41 Commando, who would be doing the same thing, coming the other way, after landing behind the right battalion of the British 3rd Division. We were to meet at a group of houses on the stream, which runs through a village, engagingly called Petit Enfer [Luc-sur-Mer]. … When we started off on our task, a squadron of light support craft would work along the shore to support us.
‘… As we should not be under fire when we landed, and as our transport would not be available for the first day, we would land carrying a fairly heavy load of ammunition and explosives. We would dump this at St Aubin and then lightly equipped, would move down a road parallel to the shore to Lagrune. This would be our firm base, and from it we would tackle the coast defences from the rear.’
However, the elegant simplicity of this plan, in common with many D Day plans, did not survive contact with the enemy. The Royal Marines were to be committed to a difficult and bloody fight that tested to the limits the results of their six weeks of commando training in Scotland.
The Canadian official historian recorded that ‘An especially unlucky landing was experienced by 48 Commando’. The RM Commando D Day report goes on to explain that:
An LCI (Small) made an unsteady platform from which to disembark.
Commandos landing from their LCIs. Note the mini motorcycle.
Wreckage on the beach at the point wherre 48 Commando landed.
Even before touching down on Nan Red beach in six LCI(Small) at H plus 45 minutes, these troops were engaged by machine gun and mortar fire from the beach defenders, who chose at this moment to return to life. They had previously been subdued by the neutralizing fire from sea. The Commando therefore suffered heavy casualties before reaching the beach.’
Colonel Moulton described his unit’s run in to the smoke shrouded beach, which at first was relatively uneventful:
‘As we closed the beach … I tried to pick up the beach signs and beach parties. The beach seemed confused and they were difficult to spot, but it was clear that there were a lot of people there, and we could see some signs of work on the beach exit to the right of the houses. Now we were very close. No one seemed to be shooting at us. It was probably all right. Our motion checked sharply and … we hung rolling on the beach obstacle we had fouled; then a wave caught our stern, swung us, and carried us forward to the beach at a bad angle and rolling. As we struck the obstacle, the enemy opened fire with mortars and machine guns from the esplanade, a little more than a hundred yards away. The sailors replied with crashing bursts of Oerlikon fire.
‘I looked around and saw the other landing craft of the squadron in confusion. Our craft and the three next to it on our left had got through to beach reasonably close in, further left the other two were hung up on beach obstacles, helpless and well out from the beach, in the noise and confusion, I realized that the enemy were firing at us and that men were being hit. No question now of our smoke upsetting the Canadians’ battle or interfering with the work on the beach – that had all too clearly gone very wrong – and I looked for the mortar men to fire the smoke. Thinking that they would not be wanted when we were first fired at on the way in, they had dismounted their mortars and gone forward ready to land. I shouted to them, realized that my voice was powerless against the noise, I jumped down from the bridge on the port side and ran forward a few paces to grab one of them by the arm. He looked around, saw me, said something I could not hear, then ran hack to the sandbags and started to mount his [2-inch] mortar. Someone had done the same on the starboard side. Back on the bridge, I realized with a sinking heart that the Commando was meeting something like disaster. Then the mortars popped, and seconds later, hissing out of the sky on to the esplanade to windward, came the blessed smoke bombs. The other craft, seeing our smoke, joined in with theirs, and in a minute or two we were in dense white smoke, and the Germans were firing blind.’
Despite the smoke, some of the wooden LCI, including those of Z Troop, were hit by enemy fire from WN 27 and with little to protect the closely packed troops, casualties were suffered. 48 Commando had expected to make an orderly landing on Nan, with the German defences having already been taken by the Canadians. This was all to evidently not the case. The beach obstacles were still in place and the expected signs, tapes, beach masters and military policemen were not to be seen. Chaos reigned on the beach. Most of the commandos were landed in about three feet of water but, according to 4 Special Service Brigade’s war diary, with some of their craft stuck on obstacles:
‘Y and Z Troops could only get ashore by swimming. Many heavily laden officers and men attempted to swim ashore from these craft and a high proportion of these were lost, drowning in a strong undertow.
‘On reaching shore, troops made for the cover of the earth cliff and sea wall. Here they found a confused situation. The cliff and sea wall gave some protection from SA fire but any movement away from them was under MG fire. The whole area was under heavy mortar and shellfire. Under the sea wall was a jumble of men from other units including many wounded and dead. The beach was congested with tanks, SP guns and other vehicles, some out of action, others attempting to move from the beaches in the very confined space between the water’s edge and the sea wall. LCTs were arriving all the time and attempting to land their loads, adding to the general confusion. A quick recce showed that the beach exit to the right of the isolated houses was free from SA fire, except for occasional shots, and that a gap had been cleared through the mines.’
48 landed at 0843 hours, some twenty minutes behind the second wave of the North Shore Regiment. However, as explained, the Canadian infantry had found it an exceedingly slow and costly business to break into WN 27. Colonel Moulton wrote that:
‘The time allowed for the Canadians was very short, and in the circumstances quite impossible. We realized this from the start and never had any inclination to blame the Canadians for our bitter medicine.’
Colonel Moulton had been hit near the beach by splinters from a mortar bomb but he remained in command despite the pain and discomfort of his wound.
Having crossed the sea wall and made their way through the coastal minefield, leading elements of 48 Commando headed inland to their assembly area. Here, behind the ‘crust’ of German defences, it was ‘much quieter’ but Colonel Moulton found that much of his unit was missing. Various estimates have been made as to 48’s losses but it is clear that, initially, the Commando mustered only about fifty percent of its strength and that many men had lost equipment, weapons and ammunition, particularly support weapons. Leaving the troops to reorganize in the assembly area, the Colonel retraced his steps back to the beach. Here, according to the war diary:
‘A considerable number of men of mixed troops were found under the cliff and these were moved off to the right. He found Y Troop attempting to get ashore from an LCT to which they had transferred from their LCI. However, the landing of Y Troop was very slow and few men managed to get ashore before the LCT shoved off, taking with her about fifty men of the Commando to England despite their energetic protests. Z Troop was more fortunate and about forty men were eventually collected in the assembly area.’
The Colonel collected his men from the beach and led them inland.
With a much-reduced strength but as planned, 48 Commando moved east through the country to the rear of St Aubin towards Sword Beach. After the noise, death and confusion of the beaches, once through the crust of defences, it seemed ominously quiet.
Lagrune-sur-Mer
Having assembled his Commando, Lieutenant Colonel Moulton directed A Troop across the half mile of relatively open country that separated St Aubin and Lagrune. Taking an inland route, their mission was to head towards the farm that had been selected as the Commando’s firm base for the clearance operations. Meanwhile, B Troop was moving to clear the sea front houses between the two villages. Having established his headquarters Colonel Moulton:
‘…ordered Z Troop to organize its defence and N Troop to start on their sector of house clearing. At some time about then, I sent an officer’s patrol to our junction point with No. 41 (RM) Commando.
‘Apart from this, B and N Troops had met nothing but snipers and patrols, which withdrew before their advance; a little later, B Troop rejoined us at the farm… X Troop reported that it was held up. Moving along the sea front, they had reached the west side of Lagrune, but could make no further progress. I pressed him for more definite information about what was holding him up, but all he could say was that he was losing a lot of men to snipers. Feeling rather futile, I told … B Troop to work down the road leading to the seafront on the east side of the village, so getting behind whatever was holding up N Troop. I gave him our one mortar under Lieutenant Mike Aldworth of S [Support] Troop, who had now reached us from the beach, in case he met opposition.
‘Soon, B Company reported that they were in contact with the enemy, … I went down to have a look. We walked through the back gardens, scrambling over walls and pushing our way through side doors; passed Aldworth who started to range his mortar, and came up with the men of B Troop. They were having a good many casualties from light mortar fire, we could see the tails of the bombs flying about, and I told them to keep inside the houses until they were wanted. At last, we reached a house …, and were directed upstairs to find the OC B Company in the loft. I started to haul myself up through the hatch, but my arm and shoulder felt very sore from mortar bomb splinters, so I stood with my head and shoulders in the hatch, talking to the OC. He said he could see right into a German post, and was quite confident he could capture it as soon as he had a fire plan arranged.
The ‘strong point’ (WN 26) defended by a reinforced platoon from 9 Kompanie 736 Grenadiers, was centred on a group of fortified houses on Lagrune’s sea front and a newly casemated 50mm. The attack on it began with the already below strength B Troop dashing across the lateral road to attempt to break into the houses on the far side of the crossroads. However, the Germans had prepared the buildings for defence and according to Colonel Moulton,
In the centre of the town the houses and streets were an integral part of the strong point.
‘They seemed unable to get in. I watched them crouch under the ten-foot wall that blocked the street, and saw half a dozen stick grenades come over it to fall among them. Miraculously, it seemed, there were no casualties.’
Despite the confidence of the company commander, the attack by B Troop had been halted.
A Royal Marine Centaur tank with a 95mm howitzer. This example is to be found at La Breche.
The attack on WN 26 was renewed, this time supported by pair of Centaur tanks and a Royal Marine Assault Regiment but this too failed. The Centaurs’ main role had been to bridge the fire support time gap between the end of the amphibious bombardment and the deployment of the SP field artillery ashore. However, the Royal Marine gun crews had belatedly been given Royal Armoured Corps drivers and a mobile role, ‘within a mile of the beaches’. However, their landing craft were top heavy and of the eighty Centaurs, only forty-eight made it to shore on the morning of D Day. Most, as planned, remained in the immediate beach area. In the attack on the Lagrune strong point, the first Centaur attempted to destroy an anti-tank wall some six feet high by four feet thick. It used up all its ammunition without seriously damaging the wall, exposing the limitations of the 95mm high explosive. However, the wall would have even challenged the AVRE’s Petard demolition gun. The second Centaur ran over a mine amongst the rubble surrounding the defences. Despite the failure to breach the concrete wall, some of the commandos had forced an entry into the strong point but had ‘fallen foul of anti-personnel mines’. Colonel Moulton admits that he ‘… should have had more men close up, ready to back up their momentary success’. He continued his account:
Centaur in action in support of 48 Commando at Lagrune-sur-Mer on the afternoon of D Day.
‘We were nearly back where we had started, one Centaur less, and the road blocked to tanks. Worse, we now knew that the enemy had built and wired themselves into the block of houses they were holding. It seemed that, until we could knock something down, it was physically impossible to enter, while, by demolishing a house on our side of the crossroads, they had given themselves a clear field of fire to prevent our close approach. While I was digesting these unpleasant facts, Jumbo Leicester came up and told me to call off further attempts on what we now began to call the Lagrune strong point, and to organise the rest of the village for defence; German armour was moving up towards the coast, and Lagrune was on its axis.’
As darkness fell, the officers’ patrol returned from the junction point, reporting that it had seen nothing of 41 Commando but had met no enemy either. Isolated, the commandos prepared their defences and went into their night-time routine. Overnight, Colonel Moulton considered the problem posed by WN 26. How were they going to force an entrance?
‘The Germans had so arranged things that they could shoot at us while we were doing so, it was not going to be simple for us, and could be very costly’.
With an uncertain situation inland, the commandos were a low priority for support. However, 21st Panzer Division did not, as expected, push home their attack at dawn and therefore:
‘The Brigadier came up and confirmed that … our job was to finish off the strong point. I realised our duty, both to the military world at large and to our own self-respect, to capture it ourselves and not to leave it to someone else; it would make a great deal of difference to the Commando’s future morale to finish the job – and we all, by now, had a personal score to settle. But then weakness: the strong point was beginning to seem impregnable; and it would be nice to stop and lick our wounds, without the prospect of more casualties, more danger and perhaps another failure. Jumbo Leicester’s matter-of-fact order was just what I needed, and I recognised not only its correctness, but the moral stiffening, which I needed, and which it gave me. I tried not to show all this, as I acknowledged his order in what I hoped was an imperturbable way.
A Canadian M10, Tank Destroyer, moves down the road towards the knocked out Centaur and WN 26.
Dawn 7 June, the strong point is battered by anti-tank gun fire from a M10.
‘The Brigadier also gave me some tanks to replace the Centaurs: two Canadian M10s and a troop commander’s Sherman from the Royal Marine Armoured Support Regiment.’
However, the knocked out Centaur was blocking the route from the lateral road up to the strong point and the open, fire covered, approaches were mined. Amongst the ammunition that the commandos had safely landed were some Bangalore Torpedoes. These were essentially six foot long steel pipes packed with explosives, which when detonated would shred barbed wire defences through which they had been placed. They also caused sympathetic detonations to mines that laid near the torpedoes. Having screwed several Bangalores together end to end, the Commandos used this effect to breach the minefield. Colonel Moulton described the operation:
‘We used some smoke; Lieutenant Mackenzie, with some of A Troop, rushed across the road behind the Centaur and into the field, placed the Bangalore Torpedo, checked its placing and lit its fuze, then rushed back into the cover of the houses, and the Bangalore exploded with an almighty hang.
‘Covered against possible anti-tank weapons by our men in the houses, one of the M10s went forward, swung clear of the Centaur, followed the line of the Bangalore past it, then swung back into the road. I watched, heart in mouth, fearing to see another mine go up under it; but nothing happened, and now it could blow us a hole in the masonry, it started to fire at the wall across the street. Yesterday, the Centaurs high-explosive shells had burst on the thick, concrete wall and hardly dented it; now, the M10s solid, high-velocity anti-tank projectiles went right through it.’
German Grenadiers killed during the fighting with 48 Commando.
Commandos inspect the newly constructed 50mm gun casemate at Lagrune after the battle.
The M10 used most of its ammunition up but the wall had plenty of small holes in it and one of the Royal Marines’ Sherman command tanks was brought up ‘to have a go with high-explosive. … In a while, the wall and the house on one side of it began to crumble’. According to the Royal Marines’ D Day report: ‘An assault party then went in and seized the houses on either side of the gap. One of these was blown up by a demolition party and the resultant rubble used to fill in the anti-tank ditch inside the wall.’ Colonel Moulton continued his account of the end of the battle:
‘After a bit, I judged we could make it and gave the word, Lieutenant Mackenzie led the way with A Troop, and I followed with B, then … X Troop and a working party from Headquarters with shovels and explosives. While A and B Troops worked through the houses along the sea-front, the working party blew down what was left of the wall, and shovelled the debris into the trenches and fire positions around it, so that a tank could pass. Germans were firing down the open promenade, but Mac seemed to be getting along well through the houses. The Sherman ground its noisy way across the debris of the wall onto the promenade, slewed to fire along it, and as it did so put a track into a trench on the promenade and wrenched it off. Hell! Were we going to fail now? The tilted Sherman fired as well as it could down the promenade, and I tried to follow Mac down the houses to see if I could do anything to help him. Then, suddenly, grey figures began to emerge with their hands up. RSM Travers fell them in and checked to see that they were unarmed, and the officer in charge was brought to me, but we had no language in common. As we looked at each other, I saw one of 48 kick a German bottom, and shouted to him to shut up being a fool. Mac came along and reported no further opposition; the prisoners were marched off; and that was that.’
Meanwhile, 41 Commando, who had been landed on Sword Beach, had been attempting to fight westward through the coastal villages of Lion and Luc-sur-Mer to meet up with 48 Commando and link the two beachheads. 41 found the strong point in Lion strongly held and it was only finally overcome on 8 June. Meanwhile, 46 Commando Royal Marines, who had been kept afloat as 4 Special Service Brigade’s reserve, were landed and effected the link up on the coast by clearing a strong point at Petit Enfer. The Royal Marine Commandos had been committed to fighting along the coastline, with little support, while I Corps’ main effort lay in getting as far inland as possible. The result, as we have seen, was some serious fighting by groups of equally determined men.
Prisoners marching to capivity from the Lagrune strong point.