Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15: INVASION OF NORMANDY

On 4th June 1944 the advance units of the Desert Rats boarded the invasion fleet assembled in the Orwell estuary. Tug Wilson drove our Sherman into a waiting LCT (Landing Craft Tank) where the crew secured it to the deck. The LCT was a flat-bottomed self-propelled barge with a ramp that would be lowered as we beached in Normandy. The craft did not have attractive lines and was not the ideal choice for a 48- hour cruise across the channel in rough weather. It held twelve tanks lined up in two rows, with just a few inches between the tanks and on either side. Ours was the only Sherman, surrounded by the more glamorous and speedy new Cromwells of the Armoured Brigade.

We stayed at anchor for some hours awaiting our sailing orders. Billy Dunlop, one of our Troop Commanders, was on an adjacent LCT. We began a game of pocket chess as we sat on the sides of our respective landing craft. I had just successfully exchanged a bishop for one of Billy's castles when the invasion fleet was given the order to sail. Our promise to continue the game in France was to be frustrated by the Second Panzer Division which took Billy prisoner ten days later.

As soon as we left the estuary we ran into rough seas with a heavy swell. The heaving green of the Channel compared most unfavourably with the blue tranquillity of the Mediterranean which had been the scene of our last invasion. Within an hour or two we were all violently seasick as we clung to the tank turrets or leaned precariously over the side. We did not know what awaited us on the Normandy beaches but it could not be worse than this. Seldom could there have been an invasion force more eager to leap ashore.

It was not a comfortable journey. There was no room to move around in the LCT — we just sat on our tanks or draped ourselves around them for an uneasy sleep during the short hours of darkness. The only entertainment was to watch the rest of the vast invasion fleet, indeed a memorable sight. Thousands of assault craft of all shapes and sizes were flying small barrage balloons. Escorting destroyers and motor torpedo boats dashed to and fro like dogs rounding up a flock of sheep as we nosed our way southwards through the Channel. High above, Spitfires swept the sky. No enemy ships or planes were in sight. It was planned to land 150,000 troops on the first day.

We had been issued with ample rations but were in no state to enjoy them. All I can remember is the self-heating soup, alternating with cocoa, which we drank from cans. These were heated by a central core ignited by a wick at the top, enabling troops to enjoy a hot drink without lighting fires and making smoke.

After what seemed an eternity, we neared the Normandy coast on the evening of 5th June. That night our parachutists and commandos captured the ‘Pegasus’ bridge over the Orne on the left of the invasion front. The Navy launched a heavy bombardment on the enemy defences on and behind the beaches. We were due to land on D-day, 6th June.

At dawn on D-day 50th Infantry Division stormed the beach, code-named Jig Gold. This was a sandy gently shelving beach near Asniere-sur-Mer almost directly north of Bayeux. With the forward troops was the Commander of 22nd Armoured Brigade, Brigadier ‘Loony’ Hinde. The nickname referred to his impetuosity in battle rather than any more general symptoms of insanity. His command tank, complete with the Brigade Major, was in our LCT. As the assault began, wireless silence was lifted, and we established radio contact with the infantry on the beach.

Wikipedia - public domain image

"During the savage fighting around Caen, Normandy, in France, after the D-Day invasion, the following incident occurred on June 14th, 1944, within the British 7th Armored Division: "Brigadier 'Looney' Hinde drove up to his tank positions in a scout car, and began to give his officers their night orders for withdrawal, covered by the exhausted infantry of the Queen's Regiment. Hinde had won his nickname in the desert [North African campaign], both for courage and eccentricity. Now, he suddenly broke off in mid-sentence and peered fascinated at the ground. 'Anyone got a matchbox,' he demanded in excitement. Under the acute strain of battle, Lieutenant-Colonel Carver of RTR suggested that this might not be a good moment to worry about nature. 'Don't be such a bloody fool, Mike!' exploded Hinde. 'You can fight a battle every day of your life, but you might not see a caterpillar like that in fifteen years!'" - from Overlord: D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Max Hastings"

The battle was going well. The enemy gun emplacements had been silenced by the naval bombardment. There was little opposition from the beach defenders, who were troops of poor quality — German youngsters straight from school and ‘volunteers’ from the occupied territories. The quality troops were held in reserve to wipe out any bridgehead that the Allied invaders succeeded in establishing, as we were to find out a week later. The chief problem on the beach was congestion. Ship after ship unloaded its cargo of soldiers, equipment, and vehicles, faster than they could move off the beach. On our radio we heard a company commander being asked how things were at his end of the beach. He replied “My Dear the noise and the people!”. I suspect he had been rehearsing his lines for some days.

Because of the congestion, our LCT was unable to land on D-day. We spent the night anchored close to the shore. At least we were not being seasick. German planes dropped a few bombs before they were driven off by the Spitfire dawn patrol. At six a.m. our LCT nosed its way towards the beach. We started up the engines of our tanks. The LCT grounded and let down its ramp into nearly eight feet of water. The Colonel and I stood in the turret of the Sherman: Corporal Noble manned the radio inside: Corporal Jones and Tug Wilson climbed into the co-driver and driver seats through the hatches. I leaned over with a pot of Bostik and sealed the lids of the hatches, slamming them down as we drove down the ramp into the water. The waves surged round the turret as Tug drove us through a hundred yards of sea and on to the beach.

I pulled a cord to release the exhaust chute to join scores of others cluttering up the beach, and set off the small detonators to pop the rubber caps off our guns. We drove up a gentle slope past shattered blockhouses and into the Normandy countryside of the bocage: small fields, high hedges, thick copses — not at all ‘good tank country’. But it was good to be on dry land.

The infantry had moved swiftly inland to take Bayeux without serious fighting. Elaborate deceptions had led the Germans to expect the landing to be made in the Pas de Calais. We benefitted from the surprise the Allies had signally failed to achieve in my previous invasion at Salerno. At three in the afternoon on D plus one we parked our Sherman in an orchard a mile north of Bayeux. I stretched out on the ground next to the tank and slept. All was peace except for a few shots from snipers. Not all the invaders were so fortunate. At Omaha beach on our right the Americans were still suffering heavy casualties as they assaulted clifftop defences against strong opposition.

That afternoon of June 7th in the Bayeux orchard, was to be my last peaceful afternoon for three months. It was peaceful because of the German strategy to man the beach defences with second-line troops and to keep in reserve their elite armour, ready to counterattack and destroy the bridgehead once the main landing site was identified. A week after D-day we were to feel the full force of this strategy in the battle of Villers Bocage.

The immediate task was to clear north of Bayeux. This was infantry work, supported by fire from one of our batteries. We had few casualties though one of our troop commanders, the tall handsome John Noble, was drowned when his tank toppled into a canal from a light bridge never intended to bear the weight of a Cromwell. Later I saw his grave in the village churchyard of Sully. He must now be re-buried in the formal military cemetery at Bayeux. When soldiers die in battle, they are buried by their comrades in graves marked by a simple white cross by a desert track or in a country churchyard. I always thought it sad that they should have to be dug up and re-interred in an official grave. No doubt the Imperial War Graves Commission needed to assemble the bodies of my comrades in neatly maintained manageable units. But am sure that most of them would prefer not to be pursued after death by bureaucracy and tidied up into geometrical rows. We had enough of that in our lifetimes.

The next task was for the infantry to push and probe into the bocage country south of Bayeux. From the viewpoint of an armoured division, the bocage was no improvement on the close country where we had fought the previous autumn by the Volturno. It was a maze of small fields and orchards, linked by high-banked hedges of pollarded trees. Apart from a few main roads the small farms and hamlets were connected by narrow tunnel-like tracks between the tall hedges. Because visibility was so limited, tanks and anti-tank guns often had to engage at ranges of fifty to a hundred yards. Infantry could creep up under cover: there was plenty of scope for snipers. It was in our sector that the bocage was thickest: to the west, towards the American sector, there more cornfields and open pasture: to the east the country opened up towards the undulating plains south of Caen — the ‘good tank country' that we were to fight in later, not entirely to our advantage.

For the next five days we fought a series of small, fierce battles with our guns in continuous action. Strategically placed villages and cross-roads were cleared and occupied — and sometimes abandoned and then occupied again as the enemy resistance was strengthened with the arrival of reserve divisions. The names of small villages like Hottot and Tilly-sur-Seulles are engraved on our memory, and on the memory of the widows of the men who fell there. A still smaller village called Jerusalem gave its name to a notorious cross-roads accurately registered by enemy artillery. The Jerusalem cross roads was no place to linger. The villages to the south of Bayeux, battered by street-fighting and raked by shell-fire, began to mimic the desolate landscapes of Flanders in the first World War.

I wasn’t doing much survey work in those days. Each battery was operating independently in support of an infantry or tank regiment. For most of the time I was with Colonel Peter in his Sherman or the jeep, liaising with the headquarters of 22 Armoured Brigade, visiting our gun positions, or reconnoitring the ground with our forward troops. The short nights we could sometimes spend in place I was confronted by Madame who was in charge of the farm in the absence of her menfolk. She complained volubly that my men were plundering her onions. I am sure they had been making a welcome addition to our diet of tinned food. I must have been eating them in the meat stews served up by Tug, doubling as tank driver and cook. Madame's protests, on the fourth day of the invasion to liberate her country, seemed out of place. She found me unresponsive.

At other times we slept under the Sherman between the tracks. This was comforting during nights of enemy shell-fire or bombing. It required some agility as the ground clearance was less than two feet. Naturally we had to follow a strict rule of first in last out. There was no question of pushing past if you were in a hurry. On soft ground you needed to make sure that the tank wasn’t going to sink. At least one crew was crushed to death as their tank subsided.

One afternoon we drew up alongside a wood which was being cleared of German infantry by my old regiment, the Essex, from 50th Division. The Colonel went forward to speak to the battalion commander. A shell whistled over and burst a few yards from the Sherman. Corporal Noble (no relation to John Noble who had been killed a couple of days before) received a nasty piece of shrapnel in the upper arm. For first aid we carried little phials of morphine. I was using one to inject just above the wound when the Colonel came hurrying back, realising that we had nearly suffered a direct hit. He saw someone was wounded and showed his distress.

4 CLY were now moving on, as planned, to the high ground at point 213 beyond the town. The successive objectives of the advance had been given code names of the days of the week. Villers Bocage was Sunday. Point 213 was Monday, the successful culmination of the attack. This was how things were supposed to be. We had punched a hole in the German defences and were driving deep into enemy territory. A week after the landing, the Desert Rats were breaking out of the bridgehead.

And then it all went terribly wrong.

We thought we had outmanoeuvred, for the present, Panzer Lehr Division. And so, probably, we had. But another experienced and heavily armoured division, the 2nd Panzer, now added its formidable weight to the battle. This Division, equipped with the powerful Panther (Mark V) and Tiger (Mark VI) tanks, had been ordered up from the enemy reserves to mount a major counterattack on the bridgehead. Their advance guard reached Villers Bocage from the south soon after the CLY arrived from the north.

The first we heard of it over the wireless was a series of confused, and then desperate, messages from the leading squadron on point 213. They were being attacked by a strong force of Panthers and Tigers. CLY tanks were being brewed up right and left by the superior armour and firepower of the enemy. Soon the survivors were surrounded by German infantry.

Meanwhile the next wave of the British advance, including the three 5 RHA OP tanks and half a dozen Rifle Brigade infantry-carrying half-tracks, met a fearful fate in the main street of Villers Bocage. A single Tiger knocked out the leading tank and disabled the rear tank of the group. The tanks and half-tracks in between, unable to manoeuvre, were picked off by the Tiger, whose heavy armour made it virtually impervious to the fire of the Cromwells.

The narrow road was completely blocked. Escape was impossible for the trapped tanks and halftracks, most of them now ablaze in a confusion of flames and smoke. A direct hit usually caused your tank or vehicle to ‘brew up’. You might be killed instantly by the shell, or burned alive if you were too badly wounded to jump out of your tank, or killed by machine gun fire as you jumped out. Many in the column lost their lives. Others managed to escape on foot in the general melee. They joined in the street fighting before trying to find their way back to the main body through the enemy infantry. Dennis Wells and his crew managed to escape though Dennis was wounded: Paddy got away with his life though his signaller was killed: Billy Dunlop was with the leading troops on point 213 where disaster was even more complete.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN THE NORMANDY CAMPAIGN 1944© IWM (B 8633)

Paddy Victory's Cromwell tank knocked out in Villers Bocage - Imperial War Museum collection

Photos from the Bundesarchiv_Bild sourced from Wikipedia. Major Well's Sherman

Audio interview with Paddy Victory at Imperial War Museum

As soon as the advance was halted, our following group stopped short of Villers Bocage and we ordered all our guns into action. Colonel Peter and I brought down a barrage of smoke shells on point 213 in the hope of covering a retreat, but it could do little but add to the general confusion. The leading squadron, with 4 CLY headquarters and Billy Dunlop's OP tank, were surrounded by vastly superior forces and had lost most of their tanks. They had no alternative but to surrender.

Villers Bocage was the scene of ferocious battles throughout most of the day. Our troops managed to put out of action several German tanks, despite the enemy's stronger armour and firepower. However, the speed and manoeuvrability of the Cromwells, which gave them some advantage in open country, were useless in close combat where they were no match for the Panthers, still less for the even heavier Tigers. The skill and coolness of the German tank commanders also contributed to their domination. German records name the hero of Villers Bocage as Captain Michael Wittman, a legendary tank commander who was credited with destroying over a hundred tanks on the Russian front, and adding twenty-six British tanks to his total on June 13th.

By four o’ clock in the afternoon, the second CLY squadron and an infantry battalion of the Queens’ were still holding out in fierce Street fighting. The town was being systematically reduced to rubble by a hail of shells and bullets. We had lost many of our men killed and wounded. Outmanned and outgunned, our troops could not hold out much longer without reinforcements. To send in additional forces would risk losing the lot. The remaining troops were ordered to withdraw to the area west of the town where the rest of us were establishing a defensive position. Our guns put down a smoke barrage, with more success than in the morning, to cover the withdrawal. The retreating troops joined us in a defensive ‘box’ of the type familiar to the Division from experience in the desert. The tight box was about two thousand yards from east to west, and fifteen hundred from north to south at its widest: an uncomfortable eight hundred yards at its narrowest. It was in mixed farm country, amid woods, fields, and orchards, about a mile east of Villers Bocage. We were virtually surrounded except for a narrowly held track to the east, defended by an infantry battalion of the Queens and liable to be cut at any moment by German tanks.

The track towards Briquessard was the only route by which reinforcements could reach us. However 50th Division, who were supposed to be following up our advance, were held up by Panzer Lehr. It looked as if we would just have to stay put until wiped out by two or more German armoured divisions.

We mounted a spiky defence, with the guns of 5 RHA near the centre of the box, pointing outwards to north, south, and west. Our sister regiment, 3 RHA, though held up well short of the box, was on call to provide supporting fire. So also by nightfall were the medium and heavy guns of the Army Group Artillery several miles to the rear, a United States Field Artillery battalion on the right, and an American Army Group of heavy artillery.

The Colonel and I settled down with our tank in a small clearing next to Brigade HQ, about five hundred yards from a thick wood which our infantry patrols were trying to clear of enemy. As we hadn't been able to replace Corporal Noble I manned one of the wireless sets while Corporal Jones manned the other. One set was on the regimental net with our own batteries, OP’s and gun positions: the other, via Brigade HQ, received intelligence about the battle raging around us, and could call on the enormous firepower of our supporting artillery.

“The evening and the night of the 13th passed anxiously" reports the Divisional history with cool understatement “but without undue incident, the enemy contenting himselfwith active patrolling, sniping, and a little shelling..” I did not enjoy the evening and night of June 13th, not at all. I was uncomfortably aware that in our Sherman we had — apart from our personal weapons — no armament more powerful than a Browning machine gun. The usual antitank gun was removed from these command tanks to make room for the extra wireless set and the second signaller. More than once during the night I was about to write my farewell letters, but every time I picked up my pen a new message came through on the blower and I had to call for more artillery fire.

On the morning of the 14th we were heavily shelled and mortared. Our infantry had to beat off several enemy attacks with the help of artillery support. Two of the vehicles in our little clearing were burning. Throughout the day we brought down enormous concentrations of shells on enemy tanks and infantry. Our own patrols were concerned to keep open the lane to Briquessard, which was our only possible line of retreat. In mid morning an armoured car patrol of the 11th Hussars reported “Thirty suspected Mark VI’s approaching from the west”. When I heard this report on the Brigade net, I thought “That's it”. We wouldn’t have much chance against thirty Tigers. But within minutes — and without exchanging fire — the patrol car corrected its own report, and welcomed advancing units of the 1st Royal Tanks who had been kept in reserve.

For an hour or so in the afternoon, the Germans suspended their attacks on the box and tried to cut our line of retreat. They failed. At four o’ clock the Divisional Commander General Erskine decided there was nothing to be gained by holding out any longer in the island. He secured authority from higher command to withdraw when darkness fell.

In the evening the Germans launched their fiercest attack so far in an attempt to eliminate the island from the south. All I knew of it was a lot of uncomfortably close fire from mortars and machine guns and constant calls that Colonel Peter and I made to bring down the fire of hundreds of guns on the attackers. An American liaison officer called ‘Chuck’ helped to control the massive support from the US artillery, and we brought in some naval guns as well from warships offshore. Thunder seemed to fill the air while the earth shook beneath us. Some of the 5 RHA guns were engaging enemy over open sights at a range of 400 yards. The Germans lost heavily in men and tanks. They called off the attack at eight o’ clock without having penetrated our defences.

At half past midnight we began our withdrawal. We had no lights, of course, and the tanks threw up thick clouds of dust. The noise of our withdrawal was drowned by artillery fire from 3 RHA and from Army Group and above all by a bombing raid of several hundred Lancasters aimed at disorganizing the enemy in what was left of Villers Bocage. The Colonel's Sherman and Brigadier Loony Hinde’s HQ tank were among the last to leave in accordance with the best military traditions that the most senior officers are the last to withdraw. We drove through the latter part of the night. We were not attacked. The main problems were to see the road and the tank in front through the darkness and the swirling dust, and to keep awake and alert. We were desperately tired.

We reached Briquessard as dawn broke. Some of our column were machine-gunned by Hurricane pilots who took us for an advancing German column: after all, we were going the wrong way. James Cooke, the Adjutant, was wounded in the head by a Hurricane bullet. We had penetrated further into France than any other unit, or indeed than anyone else was to do for several weeks. But now we were back at Briquessard, taking a badly needed day's rest. The previous day was the only day in the entire war in which I failed to shave. I decided to remedy this now we had completed our retreat. I sat on a boulder and started to shave. Three hours later I woke up with shaving soap still on my face and a razor in my hand. The sun was shining. The Normandy countryside looked beautiful. We had survived the battle of Villers Bocage and it was good to be alive.

THE BATTLE OF VILLERS BOCAGE: ANOTHER VIEW

I interpolate here another view of the battle, as seen by the generals. It is taken from Nigel Hamilton's biography of Montgomery:

"While the first three days of the invasion had gone well for the most part there were two disappointments. On the left flank our forces had failed to take Caen against strong German defences. On the right the Americans had heavy casualties on Omaha and some of the other beaches, and had not yet established a continuous front themselves, nor linked up with the British. Money landed in Normandy on June met his generals, and summed up his strategy in a letter to the War Office that evening:

Monty’s letter read “The Germans are doing everything they can to hold on to CAEN. I have decided not to have a lot of casualties by butting up against the place; so I have ordered second Army to keep up a good pressure at CAEN and to make its main effort towards VILLERS BOCAGE and EVRECY and thence SE towards FALAISE”

By the next day the British and American landings had linked up, but the Germans were counter-attacking north of Caen. Monty ‘s plan now was for the British armour to “get Villers Bocage and to swing east so as to come in on the flank and rear of the German counter-attack”. It was hoped to combine this with an infantry attack on the east side of Caen, and an airborne drop between the two thrusts. If successful this plan would encircle a lot of the German armour now attacking Caen. A simultaneous attack from the Americans would divert some of the German forces.

The planning ran into immediate dfficulties as the slowness of the American build-up delayed their advance, and the air command hesitated to commit First Airborne Division despite Monty’s assurance that the dropping zone would be within range ofour artillery. Nevertheless the attack by 7th Armoured Division was ordered to go ahead.

The Allies had now put ashore the fighting strength of sixteen divisions, and were faced by a similar number of German divisions. The Germans had much greater strength in reserve despite their massive commitment to the Russian front. However, Rommel kept a lot of divisions in readiness to combat an Allied landing on the Pas de Calais ...Rommel wanted to shift the bulk of his forces to the American sector... .He was over-ruled by Hitler who ordered that all Rommel’s attacking strength should be devoted to stopping a British break-out.

Paradoxically the break-out of 7th Armoured Division was not stopped as a result of Hitler‘s order but because Rommel decided to defy it and to send the newly-arrived 2nd Panzer Division to the west towards the American sector. On the way there it smashed into 7th Armoured Division's thrust with consequences that were to affect the whole fabric of the Normandy operations.

Monty reported to the C/OS on 14th June:

“late last evening 2 Pz Div attacked 7 Armd Div in the VILLERS BOCAGE area and we took some prisoners. A real good dogfight went on all the evening. The village itself is in low ground and finally 7 Armd Div withdrew and occupied firmly the high ground immediately to the west — which dominates the village... At 9 a.m. on 14 June the situation in that area is still a bit confused.”

[We who took part in the battle would agree with the last sentence but would not fully share Monty ‘s appreciation of a good dogfight. Odd that he should mention that we took some prisoners without admitting that the Germans took rather more. And I don’t think that our defensive box dominated the ‘village’. Failure of communication somewhere?]

By the next day Monty realised that he had lost the advantage of surprise. The plan to drop 1st Airborne Division, always in doubt, was now abandoned. Monty suspended the offensive for 48 hours, much to Eisenhower‘s dismay, while he regrouped. Then he abandoned the plan to encircle Caen and concentrated the attacking power of the Second Army, led by 7th Armoured in the Caumont sector from Villers Bocage eastwards to the American sector

Next: Chapter 16: Life in the bridgehead