Eisenhower. The British feared losing face as well as power. Churchill was worried that such an admission of British weakness would reduce his influence with Roosevelt when it came to deciding the post-war future of Europe. It would not be long, however, before Montgomery’s 21st Army Group had to disband the 59th Division to reinforce other formations. And in November, to Churchill’s renewed dismay, the 50th Division would also be split up.
Montgomery’s reluctance to incur losses in Normandy has long been a target for criticism. But the faults were perhaps more institutional than merely personal. The disappointing performance of his three veteran divisions from North Africa, the 7th Armoured, the 50th Northumbrian and the 51st Highland Division, revealed a war-weariness in large parts of the British Army. An aversion to risk had become widespread and opportunities were seldom exploited. The repeated failures to crack the German front round Caen inevitably blunted an aggressive outlook. Increasingly, the Second Army in Normandy preferred to rely on the excellent support provided by the Royal Artillery and on Allied air power. The idea that high explosive saved British lives became almost addictive. But it certainly did not save French lives, as Montgomery’s next offensive showed in the most shocking way.
The battle for Caen began on 4 July with Operation Windsor, a preliminary attack by the Canadian 8th Infantry Brigade to seize the village and airfield of Carpiquet to the west of the city. Carpiquet was defended by a small detachment of their most hated enemy, the 12th SS Panzer-Division
The village and the airfield were held by fewer than 200 members of the 26th SS Panzergrenadier-Regiment and five Mark IV tanks brought up by night and hidden in the battered hangars at the southern end. But their most powerful weapons consisted of a battery of 88 mm guns sited to cover the eastern part of the airfield. They also had an artillery battalion and some Nebelwerfer batteries from the 7th Mortar Brigade.
The Canadians attacked at 05.00 hours, supported by the heavy guns of HMS
Canadian artillery and the warships had also pounded the airfield itself. The SS artillery observer died, skewered with ‘a twenty-five centimeter long fragment of a ship’s artillery shell sticking in his back’. The Queen’s Own Rifles, supported by the Shermans of the Fort Garry Horse, attacked the eastern end of the airfield, but the well-sited German 88s forced back the Canadian tanks. Those infantrymen who reached the hangars and the barracks faced a hard fight, since the fanatical young panzergrenadiers were installed in bunkers and tunnels. In many cases, Canadian infantry went past concealed positions without spotting them and were then shot in the back.
The Winnipeg Rifles advanced on the southern end of the airfield backed by another squadron and also some flame-throwing Crocodiles from the 79th Armoured Division. They too came under heavy fire. The Nebelwerfer ‘Moaning Minnies’ and the SS artillery battalion turned the airfield into a killing ground. The Winnipegs and their armour were forced to pull back to the cover of a small wood beyond the perimeter. They tried again in the afternoon, but by then the 12th SS had brought up more panzers. The Germans had been listening in to the Canadian radio net and knew their next move.
That night, after an unsuccessful attack by Allied fighter-bombers, the I SS Panzer Corps sent in the 1st SS Panzergrenadier-Regiment from the
The Canadians never managed to take Carpiquet with Operation Windsor. They blamed their failure on the British 43rd Division, which lost the village of Verson, just south of the airfield, when attacked by part of the 1st SS Panzer-Division
Montgomery, well aware of the exasperation building up against him in Whitehall, SHAEF and at Bradley’s First US Army headquarters, knew that he could not delay the capture of Caen any longer.[37] He would have to attack the city head on. The offensive would be called Operation Charnwood. On 6 July, to reduce British casualties, he decided to request a massive bombing attack by the RAF to hammer a way through, a possibility which Leigh-Mallory had suggested three weeks earlier. And on 25 June, Eisenhower had written to him, ‘Please do not hesitate to make the maximum demands for any air assistance that can possibly be useful to you. Whenever there is any legitimate opportunity we must blast the enemy with everything we have.’ On the same day, he also wrote to Tedder asking him to ensure that air support ‘in maximum volume’ was delivered.
On 7 July, Eisenhower himself went to a conference at Bentley Priory called by Leigh-Mallory to consider the plan. Even Air Chief Marshal Harris, the head of Bomber Command, did not object for once. It was agreed that 467 Lancasters and Halifaxes would attack the northern fringe of Caen that evening with delayed-action bombs. The two main sceptics, neither of whom was present at the meeting, were Eisenhower’s deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, and Montgomery’s foe Air Marshal Coningham. They feared that the Second Army would keep asking for Bomber Command every time it wanted to mount an offensive, but Eisenhower’s support for the plan made them hold their peace.
When the massed formations of Lancasters and Halifaxes appeared that evening at 20.30 hours, British and Canadian infantry jumped out of their slit trenches to cheer. Tank crews climbed on to their turrets to get a better view. ‘There was high cloud and the sun was reddening [the Lancasters] all across the sky,’ wrote an artillery officer in his diary. ‘An incredible barrage of flak’ went up from German anti-aircraft batteries. British and Canadian artillery immediately began firing on their positions to help the RAF.
‘We could see when the Lancasters released their bombs because they suddenly lifted several feet in the air,’ a medical officer wrote. ‘More and more bombers go in through the flak,’ wrote the same artillery officer. ‘A cloud of smoke starts to rise over the target, dirty grey white, blowing over to the north east.’ ‘Now and then, though pretty rarely, one of our planes comes down. A Lancaster spirals down to the north andcrashes apparently into the sea. A number of parachutes open out and sail slowly down.’ Then yet another wave of bombers appeared. ‘The cloud over Caen covers the whole eastern and south eastern horizon. Now angry glows cover the same area as it gets dark. What could be more encouraging to our chaps?’
An officer in the Guards Armoured Division described the bombing of Caen as ‘a magnificent spectacle’. Most spectators evidently assumed that French civilians had been evacuated. ‘I sat smoking a cigarette beside a river watching 2,300 tons of bombs being dropped on Caen 6 or 7 miles away,’ wrote a major in the Canadian parachute battalion east of the Orne. ‘What an incredible sight it was — the poor bloody hun!’
While most cheered at the sight, a few had misgivings. ‘The awful thing was,’ wrote a captain in the Coldstream Guards, ‘that as an infantryman one was thinking: Why on earth are they knocking it to bits because it will be so easy to defend?’ ‘The sight was frightening,’ wrote a member of the Somerset Light Infantry. ‘Yellow tongues leapt up as the bombs burst on the stricken city and the rising smoke — combined with the dust from the devastated buildings-formed a blackened cloud which spread rapidly across the evening sky.’ Throughout the raid some six miles away, they felt ‘the ground beneath their feet tremble like jelly’.
If the ground shook six miles away, the effect within the city itself can hardly be imagined. One elderly man was asked later what it had felt like during the bombing raid of 7 July. He thought for some time before answering, ‘Imagine a rat sewn up inside a football during an international match…’
The 15,000 inhabitants remaining in Caen despite German orders to leave could be forgiven for assuming that the bombers had targeted the centre of the city, rather than the northern outskirts. Many seemed to think that the
