BREAK-OUT AND FALAISE GAP

Although the German armies were forced to withdraw from the territory south of Caen for fear of encirclement by the Americans driving eastwards from Alencon, they fought a determined rearguard action against the opposing British and Canadian forces. As has been said, the Orne bridgehead was only won at great cost. In fact, the Brigade of 59 Division that held it suffered grievously in a German counter-attack supported by 40 tanks, and a D Troop AP had to withdraw across the bridge - an operation that itself was not without hazard. Sadly, as a result of the losses of this Brigade in this encounter, and from those incurred elsewhere during the drive through Caen, 59 Division was withdrawn and disbanded.

"As Troop commander my modus operandi was to attend the divisional CRA’s O Group to discover the next forward gun deployments, and then, using a motor-cycle (so as to be able to go up and down the one way routes of advance, and also to remain incognito as an officer in a rather vulnerable situation) to deploy each of my surveyors and bookers in their jeeps to each artillery regiment in their division. They were more or less independent -they had lists of trig points, and failing the opportunity to do semi-graphic resections, they took sun or star shots to establish accurate bearings my two Section Leaders Ray Smith and Mark Longlands had some narrow squeaks with mined cross-roads and verges, but .they got canny with experience"

"I was attached to the Guards Armoured Div and later the 7th Armoured Div (the Desert Rats) and their guns always went into action on very accurate bearings and fixes. It was a matter of pride to have bearing pickets in situ before the guns arrived.." and again...

Survey officers had to do a lot of reconnaissance on motor bikes long before the sappers got round to clearing the mines. I remember on one occasion when I was going up a farm track to try and reach some high ground beyond, I noticed a nozzle sticking up out of the stony surface. I braked hard and put my foot down - within six inches of another nozzle! I found I was in the middle of a Teller mine-field, and had happily sailed past 15 or 16"!

Mention of a semi-graphic resection recalls an amusing moment earlier on (in the bridgehead, when the Troop was very ‘green’) which Charles Kuhl - another contributor - has written about. Apparently soon after the landing, the Troop, wanting to have some data ready for the guns the following morning, took their equipment into an Infantry area and explained to the officer-in-charge that, in order to complete a night traverse, they would be training their .: instruments on to some flickering lights. The officer objected, and to the surveyor’s pleas for understanding, said "Any’ lights you shine I shall at once bloody well fire at and put out!" The point was well taken.

So, once over the Orne, the surveyors traveled with the guns, with some of those attached to the Armoured Divisions travelling with the self-propelled guns. The battle was moving too fast for the sound--rangers and flash-spotters to deploy with any purpose, and they followed up in slow stages. This took them through the Foret de Cinglais to Tourebu (memorable only because D Troop was called upon to bury the dead Germans left behind at an evacuated medical post!) Leffard and, on 20th August - the day after the Canadians had sealed the Falaise pocket - to the neighbourhood of Martigny where all were grounded for about a week.

While at Martigny D Troop suffered that horrifying experience euphemistically referred to by military top brass as "friendly fire". To the astonishment of the troops in the vicinity, the "friendly" aircraft strafed a convoy of ambulances that was passing along the road that ran beside the Troop encampment, and there were many casualties. Troops nearby did what they could to get the stretchered wounded out of the ambulances and on to the verges, but the attack persisted and even this first-aid was interrupted. Jack Bobbitt of D Troop writes of an inexplicable incident during the raid.

"We had placed a casualty - apparently a bad one - on a stretcher, and then had to leave him for a quick dive into the ditch as the guns opened up on us again. We came out to find the stretcher empty - our patient having thought the same as us, but God knows how he made it. He couldn’t be found in the melee, so we started on the next casualty".

But humour is never very far away. During the same episode two soldiers instinctively threw themselves into the undergrowth at the sound of an approaching aircraft. When the immediate danger had passed one straightened up to find the face of the other covered in blood. "They got you mate," he said. "No," came the reply "I hit my head on that bloody tree-stump."

And so through the lanes and villages that collectively were ‘the Falaise gap’. Many who have written speak of their horror at the appalling carnage and gruesome sights. A typical letter contains the following:

"In the Falaise Gap we were surprised at the amount of horse-drawn German equipment. .1 remember a hot day and sitting on a slit trench eating bully beef sandwiches looking in the trench at two dead Germans.. Just after this we found a surplus German field kitchen complete with rations: we towed it behind our 3-tonner for a time and thus had a supply of hot water instead of having to dig a hole and tip a Jerry can of petrol into it."

There were many teams of dead horses lying in ditches with field guns still

 

attached to them. Clearly, they had been terrorised by the aerial or artillery attacks and had stampeded into the verges and down into the ditches, afterwards dying from their injuries. There was no gloating over this, only compassion for those innocent creatures who were the victims of the innate violence of Man’s war. In comparison the hundreds of ruined trucks and scores of burnt out or damaged tanks were of no consequence.

Anxious as they were to leave hurriedly, the Germans were still disciplined enough to plant mines before leaving. "Tiffy" Osborne relates a hair-raising story of the time:

"I put the aerial up in the garden while they put the Rear Link up in the front room. Hammered in all the pegs for the guys. We were there for two or three days before we had to move on. I took down the aerial, pulled up the guy pegs, pushed everything into the jeep, had a last look round and spotted something sticking up in the garden where I had been trampling. Someone fired at it with a sten gun and the whole garden went up!"

The route to the Seine led through Falaise and Trun. Both were ghost towns and were depressing to pass through, the vehicles throwing up clouds of choking dust as they sought paths through the rubble. It was during this period that X Troop suffered a serious tragedy when a well directed salvo was dropped on them while they were having tea in a field, which, one would have thought, was perfectly safe from observation’ There were 11 or 12 casualties.