Arras Counter-Attack, 1940 by Tim Saunders

Author:Tim Saunders
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Second World War
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2018-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

An 88mm anti-aircraft gun battery deployed for anti-tank action.

The side of Colonel Fitzmaurice’s tank had been blown in and both he and his radio operator, Corporal Moorhouse, had been killed. Major Stuart Fernie, who had survived the debacle, took command of the remainder of the regiment for the rest of the action.

How had all this come to pass? While it was certainly not planned by the Germans as an ambush, the ‘killing area’ that 4 RTR had driven into had served very well as exactly that. The battalion of 105mm guns on Telegraph Hill, positioned to help screen Arras, had been complemented by their 1st Battalion on the northern side of the ridge between Neuville-Vitasse and Mercatel. Add into the equation a battery of the dual-purpose 88mm guns on the ridge near Mercatel, originally sited to provide anti-aircraft cover to the 7th Panzer’s move around Arras, and it is easy to appreciate that the main body of 4 RTR had entered what was, by default, an almost perfect killing area.

On their own, without timely close air, infantry or artillery support to drive the German gunners from their pieces, 4 RTR was extremely vulnerable to an enemy who received very little return fire. Once again it is obvious that all-arms tactics were almost non-existent in the British army of 1940.

This was as far as the ‘Arras counter-attack’ reached in its attack towards their first objective, the River Cojeul, which was still over 2 miles further on to the east.

The Infantry Arrive

6 DLI, following in the wake of the tanks, arrived on the scene some time after the disaster that had befallen 4 RTR, having made their way through shellfire and the resulting piles of rubble in Achicourt to reach the area of Beaurains. Having crossed the start line it will be recalled that Major Jeffreys had deployed the battalion’s four rifle companies: ‘I put D Company on the main axis, B Company to the right and C Company to the left and A was back in reserve. We pushed on in artillery formation, with shells coming down harder and harder.’

By the time 6 DLI reached Beaurains, where they had been warned not to advance beyond the village, they saw for themselves the burning wreckage of 4 RTR’s attack laid out in front of them. For an infantryman, the columns of smoke rising from what to them were armoured monsters plus the dead and wounded tank crews was a singular shock to men in their first action.

With Colonel Miller back at Main Headquarters 6 DLI, Major Jeffreys was forward with the battalion’s small and mobile Advanced Headquarters in order to deploy and control the three leading companies in very difficult circumstances. He explained:

I had no contact by this time with Battalion Headquarters and the CO. It seemed to me that the only thing we could do was to press on, so we pressed on. We pressed on to a village called Beaurains. When we got to Beaurains I pushed ‘C’ Company, Ronnie Rodden, up through the village.

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