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THE STRATEGIC SETTING BEYOND THE BEACHES D-Day, June 6 was an overwhelming success. The lead allied divisions, the British 3rd and 50th Infantry, the 3rd Canadian Infantry and the 1st, 4th and 29th American Infantry Divisions had all moved out of the beaches and made the first forays inland. In the British 'Gold' Sector, British 50th 'Northumbrian' Infantry advanced out of its landing beachead and occupied the important Nomand town of Bayeux on June 7, after the Germans abandoned it on D-Day. |
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D-Day. The Allied landing zones and German divisions in the area. |
The Northumbrians kept on moving southeastwards, occupying the village of Sully and coming in to within striking distance of an inland village, Tilly-sur-Seulles. Allied progress was good everywhere, although Caen - the key to the German defenses in Normandy was yet to be captured. The Americans, to the west of the British, had broke out of a bloody quagmire at 'Omaha' and seemed to making good progress in the Aure river valley, through a gap in the German defenses. AT 'Utah', the going was even better, with the US 4th Infantry Division advancing through hedgrow-infested terrain to cut across the Cotentin Peninsula. Still, when the British supreme army commander, General Bernard Montgomery of the 21st Army Group came ashore on June 8 and established his headquarters on the grounds of a chateau at Creully, he found more cause to worry than celebrate. His lead divisions which had landed on D-Day had been in constant contact with the enemy for two days non-stop, and were getting visibly tired. With this the prospect of capturing Caen or even breaking |
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southwards seemed to grow more and more remote by the hours. Worse still, the first of the elite German panzer divisions had arrived onto the battlefield, taking up positions against the veteran, but weak British infantry divisions, who apart from the form of a few armoured brigades, were badly deprived of heavy tank support that could only come from the armoured divisions, still bivouacked in England. Taking up positions opposite the British I and XXX Corps, south of Bayeux were the newly arrived 12th SS Panzer and the 21st Panzer Divisions. Montgomery was quick to realize that an assault on the line held by these two first-class units would spell disaster for his tired troops, and prudently toned back the scale of operations against Caen until reinforcements arrived. He stated his decision in a letter to the Military Secretary at the War Office, writing that: "The Germans are doing everything they can to hold on to Caen. I have decided not to have a lot of casualties by butting against the place. So I have ordered the Second Army to keep up a good pressure at and to make its main effort towards Villers-Bocage and Evrecy, and thence southeast towards Falaise." But the weather was worsening, and in any case, Monty could not advance during the next few days without the benefit of air support, which had only one in three days of clear weather. The loss in momentum in the days after June 6 obviously began working in favor of the Germans – they now had valuable time to bring in fresh divisions from the south. One of these was the 130th Panzer Lehr Division, under an old desert veteran, Lt General Fritz Bayerlein, one of Rommel's staff officers in the Afrika Korps. Considered to be an elite unit, Panzer Lehr was equipped with the best equipment Germany could build, including ninety-nine Mk IVs and eighty-nine Panthers. It was composed of elitist training units, proficient in ceremonial and theoretical tactics, but as of yet, still untested in battle. The division would soon receive its baptism of fire in Normandy. |
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| On the evening of June 9, the Pz Lehr moved into the line on the left of Caen at Tilly and took up positions against the British and the Canadians coming south from 'Gold' and 'Juno' beaches. The three panzer divisions now held the line and formed the principle shield around Caen along with the remnants of various static infantry divisions. There was however one note of satisfaction. Elements of Montgomery's 7th Armoured Division, the battle hardened 'Desert Rat' of North Africa fame, had begun landing on the evening of June 6. By the evening of the following day, the division's 22nd Armoured Brigade had landed in whole, but it was not until June 12 that the accompanying 131st (Queens) Infantry Brigade arrived. The division, long used to the sprawling wastelands of the desert was taken aback by the close-quartered nature of Normandy. Massive towering bocages (hedgerows), some as much as twelve feet high, bordered every field, roads and track, behind which an entire German regiment could have lain in ambush. In one illustrative encounter, a tank commander of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) whilst maneuvering his Sherman along a road, was forced to fight off, in hand to hand combat, German infantrymen who leapt onboard his tank from several high embankments. Also, the very close-set nature of the bocage made ambushes with machine-guns and anti-tank weapons a frightful commonality. |
The Rats advance. Motorized infantry and the armour moves out of 'Gold' Beach. At the lead is a Cromwell of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment. |
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In the immediate vicinity of the 7th Armoured Division was its old comrades from the desert the British 50th 'Northumbrian' Division, which under orders from Montgomery began a slow advance to Tilly-sur-Seulles, a few days after D-Day. Lying in wait was Pz Lehr. The steady advance became a tortuous route to hell, by the end of which the British were stopped cold in their tracks. A stalemate set in, but Montgomery was no amateur, and dispatched the 7th Armoured and the 51st 'Highland' Infantry Divisions to restore the initiative. On the other side, the Germans were planning a counterattack to throw the British back into the sea. Only at the last moment was the proposal by General Geyr von Schweppenberg of Panzer Group West, vetoed by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (of Army Group G) on June 10, for lack of forces. Meantime, Montgomery set aside a new mission for the 51st Division. It was to advance eastwards towards to Orne river to reinforce the British 6th Airborne Division on the other side of Caen. The lightly-armed paras were in bad way, having been repeatedly exposed to unrelenting German counterattacks with panzers. The mission of the 51st Division was no meek task, and division lost heavily in its advance towards the paras. Alarmed, Montgomery decided to further the odds in his favor by capturing Caen, which was deemed as key to the enemy's defenses. And indeed it was. Caen was supposed to have been taken on D-Day, but a panzer division had gotten in the way, and so the murderous slog for its capture began. The British 3rd Infantry Division, moving inland from 'Sword' beach was thwarted time and time again by stiff enemy resistance. Now, Montgomery had a perfect opportunity within his grasp. The advances of 3rd Infantry and 51st Highland Divisions would serve to bait the attention of the German defenders around Caen, while he dropped the British 1st Airborne Division in the sweeping cornfields south of city |
The Bocage. Typical of many a Norman road is the above example. Thick, seemingly impenetrable hedgerows lined small, narrow roads and tracks. The most intense battles were fought in western Europe were conducted in terrain such as this, when the thin line between victory and defeat was decided not upon the descisions of the generals sitting in the rear but by the forward officers, NCOs and enlisted men at the forefront. |
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The unexpected arrival of the paratroopers would throw the German camp into disarray. The enemy would be forced to divert valuable resources into thwarting this new menace, and while they did so, 'Monty' would unleash his left hook, by sending the veteran 7th Armoured Division racing in a wide flanking maneuver from Tilly-sur-Seulles to linkup with the 1st Airborne Paras - thus sealing Caen's fate. Initially, the 'desert rats' would have to advance in backwater country roads, but 5.5 miles south of Tilly was the N175 highway, which led straight to Caen, and the planned 1st Airborne drop zones. The operation, codenamed 'Perch', if executed successful would isolate Caen and the nearby airfield at Carpiquet, thus leaving them open to capture. If all went well, Caen would be British hands before the week was out. Unfortunately, the proposal to airdrop the 1st Airborne Division was vetoed by several senior British officers who feared that the paras would be chopped up the enemy's panzers, and so Montgomery decided that the 7th Armoured division would go it alone. It's mission to cutoff Caen was now much more daunting, but regardless, starting from June 10, the 'Rats', under Maj General William 'Bobby' Erskine, moved past the infantry of the 50th Division at Tilly and headed in a pre-planned route towards Caen. En route was the little town of Villers-Bocage and an engagement with history. LEFT: The situation on the east flank. While the 50th and 7th Armoured Division moved towards Tilly, the 51st Division advanced to aid the paras of the 6th Airborne Division. In the same area was the 3rd Infantry Division, whose brigades, aided by the tanks of 27th Armoured Brigade, fought a desperate struggle to breach the defenses of the 716th and parts of the veteran 21st Panzer Division, to reach Caen They never would. |
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