Overlord (Pan Military Classics) (56 page)

On 11 August, Simonds ordered his armoured divisions to pull out of the line, to be relieved by infantry formations. On the 12th, the US First Army’s diarist recorded sardonically: ‘The British are making some gains, none of them sizeable or of break-through proportions.’ In Paris, the press was reporting triumphant German claims to have destroyed 278 Allied tanks, and Berlin’s assertion that ‘each foot of ground gained is being paid for with enormous losses of men and equipment.’

For Montgomery, the breakdown of TOTALIZE was a disappointment, but there is no evidence that he yet perceived it as a long-term threat to his hopes. It still appeared incredible to many officers that von Kluge could commit such an act of madness as to leave his forces in the closing Allied noose. There remained ample time and space for the Germans to retreat eastwards. Montgomery had always planned to swing the Canadians and the British left from Falaise across to the Seine, while the American Third Army blocked the so-called Paris–Orleans gap between the Loire and the Seine. This was what was known as the ‘long envelopment’, designed to entrap the entire surviving German forces in western France within its grasp. But when Eisenhower telephoned Montgomery from Bradley’s headquarters on the afternoon of 8 August to discuss American proposals for a ‘short hook’, with the arms of Third Army and the Canadians and British meeting somewhere around Argentan to create a much smaller noose, Montgomery was receptive. He signalled to Brooke the next day: ‘There are great possibilities in the present situation. If we can get to Alençon,
Argentan and Falaise fairly quickly, we have a good chance of closing the ring around the main German forces, and I am making all plans to drop an airborne division at Gacé about 15 miles east of Argentan in order to complete the block.’
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Montgomery retained some reservations about the ‘short hook’, which were shared, unusually enough, by Patton. Both men feared that too many Germans might escape a trap closed at Argentan. They were attracted by the much more dramatic gains of ground and prisoners that might result from encircling the greater area towards Paris and Orleans. But Montgomery was uncharacteristically indecisive, and Bradley was absolutely determined on Argentan. The British general acceded. He told Brooke: ‘Should the Germans escape us here I shall proceed quickly with the plan outlined in M517’
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– the ‘long envelopment’.

It was now, on 11 August, with the Canadians bogged down north of Falaise, that Montgomery missed probably his last opportunity to conduct a major switch of forces in time to hasten the closing of the German pocket. Had he recognized that the Canadians’ difficulties reflected fundamental shortcomings in unit leadership and fighting power, he might have rushed tested British formations south-eastwards to support them, or even to take over the lead. But this was not Montgomery’s way. Such a course would have been exceedingly ‘untidy’ – the word he most detested in military operations – and would have created genuine, though not insuperable, problems of movement, control and supply. It may also be that he was reluctant to impose new strains upon British divisions which had already suffered so much; or even that he doubted whether they would do any better than the Canadians. For whatever reasons, he merely ordered Dempsey’s Second Army to continue pushing south-east. He left the vital operation – the drive to meet the Americans at Argentan – entirely in the hands of Crerar’s Canadian Army, which had graphically demonstrated its shortcomings in the past four days. From that moment, all that followed on the British-Canadian front was preordained.

Beyond a limited operation by 2nd Canadian Division down the
Laize valley on the 12th and 13th, those days were passed entirely in preparations for another big set-piece attack on Falaise, Operation TRACTABLE. It is easy to understand the impatience of the Americans, so conscious of time slipping away. TRACTABLE at last jumped off at 11.42 a.m. on the morning of the 14th, shielded by a smokescreen which Simonds on this occasion substituted for the darkness of TOTALIZE. With the smoke compounded by the great dust cloud thrown up by the advancing armour, the Canadians found navigation difficult. The brigade commander of their leading tanks was mortally wounded in the first hour, causing acute control problems in the actions that followed. More seriously, the Germans had found a copy of Simonds’s orders on the body of a scout car commander killed the day before. They redeployed with exact knowledge of the Canadian lines of advance.

Most of the attack’s early problems resulted from difficulties in finding paths across the little stream of the Laison, which proved a much more formidable anti-tank obstacle than had been expected. More disruptive still, ‘short bombing’ by the RAF’s Bomber Command – much of it, ironically enough, by Canadian squadrons – caused more than 300 casualties among the assault troops. By a tragic error, some ground units ignited their usual yellow identifying smoke, while Bomber Command was employing yellow target indicators. All this seemed to be yet more poisoned fruit of the lack of close liaison and staff planning between the army and the air forces. The Canadians declared that the bombing disaster had a severe effect upon the morale and determination of the troops embarking upon TRACTABLE.

On 15 August, the renewed advance still made poor progress. 4th Armoured Brigade’s chaotic operations broke down after their leading units met a German anti-tank screen. 3rd Canadian Division made some headway, but lost the village of Soulangy to a counter-attack. That evening, 2nd Division reached positions a mile from the edge of Falaise only after the Germans had disengaged and pulled back in front of them. The Canadian and Polish armoured divisions were now ordered to push south-eastwards for
Trun, hooking beyond the original ‘Falaise gap’. Meanwhile, 2nd Infantry Division drove on into the shattered town, which they cleared only on the 17th. Some 50 Hitler Jugend fought to the last in the
Ecole Supérieure
. Only four were reported to have escaped from the blazing building. Two, chosen by lot from among the defenders, had slipped out the previous night to report the situation to Meyer. None surrendered. In many parts of the town, surrounded by rubble, the Canadians found it difficult to judge where the streets had run. It was hours before the bulldozers could clear a path for vehicles.

It was now, for the first time, that large elements of the German army began to retire eastwards out of the shrinking pocket. On the 16th, von Kluge at last issued the order for a full-scale retreat. It was his last act as Commander-in-Chief, almost the last of his life. On the 15th, his car had been shot up by Allied fighter-bombers, his wireless destroyed, and he was cut off from all contact with OKW or with his own forces for some hours. Hitler was convinced, fallaciously, that during his absence the Field-Marshal had been attempting to open negotiations with the Allies. At midday on the 16th, von Kluge declined to execute an order from OKW for a counter-attack, which he declared was utterly impossible. Although a withdrawal was at last authorized by order of the Führer later that afternoon, on the evening of the 17th von Kluge was relieved. On his way back to Germany to explain himself to Hitler, he killed himself. He left behind an extraordinary letter affirming his undying devotion to the Führer, a final testimony to the German officer corps’ obsession with loyalty, its utter inability to grapple with any greater issues of morality, humanity, or the historic interests of the German people. Suicide, for an astonishing procession of German senior officers who failed in Normandy, became the final expression of their own retreat from reason. Von Kluge was succeeded by Field-Marshal Walter Model. The supply of senior officers willing to attempt to implement their master’s deranged will seemed limitless. Model’s first act was to order the immediate escape of Seventh Army and Panzer Group Eberbach,
while II SS Panzer Corps (the ruins of 2nd SS, 9th SS, 12th SS and 21st Panzer) held the north against the British and Canadians, and XLVII Panzer Corps (2nd and 116th Panzer) the south against the Americans.

For the Allies, time had now become the critical factor in blocking the German army’s escape. Yet while the Americans stood at Argentan, the Canadian armour edged south towards Trun with agonizing sluggishness. Their 4th Division reach Louvières, two miles north of the village, on the evening of the 17th after delays caused as much by traffic problems in narrow village streets and at little rustic stone bridges across trickling streams, as by enemy action. At 2.45 p.m. that day, Montgomery himself telephoned Crerar’s Chief of Staff to press the urgency of the situation upon him: ‘It is absolutely essential that both the Armoured Divs of 2 Cdn Corps close the gap between First Cdn Army and Third US Army. I Polish Armoured Div must thrust on past Trun to Chambois at all costs, and as quickly as possible.’
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Yet the Poles, too, were slow to move. Their 2nd Armoured Regiment was ordered on the evening of the 17th to push immediately for Chambois, but instead departed only early on the 18th for Les Champeaux, possibly as a result of a misunderstanding with their local French guide, who shortly afterwards disappeared. The gap through which German vehicles and infantry were pouring in headlong retreat had now narrowed to a few thousand yards. Yet the principal labour of destroying the forces within it was being borne by the Allied air force. The fighter-bombers, flying 2–3,000 sorties a day throughout this period, inflicted massive losses. There were still serious problems with identification of ground troops. The British 51st Highland Division reported 40 separate incidents of accidental air attack for 18 August alone, costing its units 51 casualties and 25 vehicles. The Poles, who had lost scores of men in the ‘short bombing’ of the 8th and 14th, the same day lost half their petrol supplies to Allied air attack.

On the morning of the 19th, Simonds spoke personally to his four divisional commanders at the headquarters of the 4th east of Morteaux-Couliboeuf. He emphasized that their objective was to ensure that no Germans escaped from the pocket. There was fierce fighting that day in the village of St Lambert, where two Canadian infantry companies fought all morning to gain a foothold in the village, then found themselves unable to go further. They dug in, and for the rest of the day fought off successive counter-attacks as German troops struggled to hold open the road east. Extraordinary sacrificial efforts by Meindl’s survivors of 3rd Parachute Division
defended the path east for thousands of their comrades. Canadian units blocked enemy attempts to escape through Trun. Artillery forward observers on the high ground overlooking the gap were calling down massive fire upon every column of vehicles and infantry on the roads and in the fields. That evening, Polish and American units met in Chambois.

Yet still the gap was not closed. Both the Poles and the Canadian 4th Armoured were under ferocious pressure from elements of 2nd SS Panzer, fighting westwards to hold open the retreat of Seventh Army. 1,500 Poles and 80 tanks were cut off from their lines of communication, unable to evacuate their wounded, perilously short of fuel and ammunition. Their battle was fought out with a fury uncommon even by the standards of Normandy. Poles and Germans detested each other with real passion, and each believed that they had much to avenge, the Poles with better reason. Now, from the heights of Mont Ormel, their tank machine-gunners raking the Germans below them, they called down artillery fire on every passing column of vehicles. From their wooded ridge, they could view the battlefield for miles. Meanwhile, the Canadian 4th Armoured Division’s war diary recorded: ‘Due to the heavy fighting, Germans attacking from both the east and the west and the numerous calls made on the div to seal off any German escape routes, the units are all mixed up and it is difficult to define any particular brigade areas.’
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The Canadians merely poured fire into German elements wherever they encountered them. ‘Until about 0800,’ (on the 21st) wrote an officer of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, ‘the machine-gunners fired at whatever they could see. During this time a host of white flags appeared and hundreds of the enemy crowded in to surrender. Many others were unable to give up, for every move towards our lines brought bursts of fire from certain SS troops patrolling the low ground behind them in an armoured half-track.’
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Corporal Dick Raymond, one of the Camerons’ Vickers gunners, said: ‘It was the first time we had ever seen the German army out in the open. We would see a group trying to run across a field from one wood to another, and watch
some fall, some run on, some lie moaning in front of us. It was more of an execution than a battle. I remember feeling puzzled that it didn’t upset me more.’