The Juno Beach Trilogy by Mark Zuehlke

Author:Mark Zuehlke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027100
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Published: 2012-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

SLUGGING MATCHES:

D+4 TO D+6

[ 17 ]

Getting Nowhere

DURING THE NIGHT of June 9–10, Major General Rod Keller’s headquarters bustled with activity while staff drafted plans aimed at closing the gap between its two leading brigades, as well as establishing firm control over all ground north of the Caen-Bayeux highway. As these plans were developed, the officers started looking beyond the highway, with a mind to carrying out an armoured thrust from the Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse strongpoint to occupy a steep hill immediately south of Cheux that dominated the surrounding country. In the original invasion plan, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade was to have cleared both the village and hill as its last action on D-Day. But the brigade’s three fighting regiments had come up well short of this objective due to problems getting ashore and then stiff resistance met throughout the inland advance.

The 1st Hussars and Fort Garry Horse regiments, which had landed close behind the assaulting infantry battalions, had experienced heavy losses among their squadrons equipped with the experimental amphibious duplex-drive Sherman tank. Many of these self-propelled tanks had foundered in the rough seas, while others were immobilized or sunk by mines and beach obstacles. Once ashore, the tankers were exposed on the open stretches of sand, facing antitank guns that were dug into concrete pillboxes. Even when the beach was taken, the tanks were badly delayed heading inland due to the difficulty of getting over or around the steep seawalls. During the inland advance, the armoured regiments had been forced to crawl along at the pace of the infantry, who were often driven to ground by well-concealed machine-gun positions. To press on alone without the infantry was to risk being knocked out by fire from equally well-hidden antitank guns and Grenadiers firing Panzerfausts—shoulder-fired antitank weapons. By day’s end on June 6, tank losses within 2 CAB’s regiments had reached a state of crisis, with the 1st Hussars and Fort Garry Horse mustering barely half their strength.

But now Keller believed the time had come when tanks could regain the initiative on the battlefield and achieve the D-Day objectives. He summoned 2 CAB’s Brigadier Bob Wyman and instructed him to put together two operational plans for his tanks, whereby one regiment participated in clearing the Mue valley to the highway while another broke out of Bretteville and secured what was dubbed the Cheux hill feature.1

Having gone through the Sicily invasion and up the Italian boot to Ortona as the brigadier of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, Wyman had the most battle experience of all Keller’s brigadiers. During the fight for Ortona, he had drawn the ire of 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s Major General Chris Vokes for a perceived hesitance to fully support operations with his tank regiments. Vokes had been so angry at the conclusion of the December 1943 fighting he had made it known to Eighth Army headquarters staff that he would welcome the replacement of 1 CAB as the division’s armoured support by any British tank brigade. As the British considered 1

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