The Valour and the Horror

The gap finally closed on August 21st, when the Canadians connected with the Poles.

The next task was to move up the coast on the Allied flank and liberate the ports vital for Allied resupply with only a fraction of their proper fighting strength: Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk.

The German losses are disputed. There were at least 10,000 dead and some 150,000 or more wounded or prisoners. It seems they lost 300,000+ men, but up to another 300,000 escaped across the Seine during the nights of August 19-29. Kurt Meyer's 12th SS had been a division of 20,000 men with 150 tanks on D-Day. On August 25th, it had less than 300 men, no tanks or artillery. Meyer himself escaped through Trun with 60 men, 30 of whom, including him, eventually crossed the Seine.

"Such losses were testimony to Canadian courage and determination against a skilled, well-equipped enemy. They were also the price of inferior equipment, such as the vulnerable, under-gunned Sherman tank, and of over-confidence and inexperience. For all their years in England, Canadian soldiers and their officers had too many lessons still to learn when they went into battle."

Despite the obvious success, there remains controversy: Veterans argue about whether or not there was any real contribution made at Falaise. Colonel Stacey in The Victory Campaign hesitates to call the Canadian contribution beneficial:

Canadian formations did well, but would certainly have done better had they not been learning as they fought. We had probably not got as much out of our long training as we might have. Canadian generalship in Normandy does not suffer by comparison with that of the other Allies, and the vast majority of the rank and file showed initiative, high courage and steadily increasing skill. The Canadian regimental officer at his best had no superior. There remained, however, a proportion of officers whose inadequacy sometimes had serious consequences.
It is not difficult to put one's finger on occasions when Canadian formations failed to make the most of their opportunities. In particular, the capture of Falaise was long delayed and it was necessary to mount not one but two set-piece operations at a time when an early closing of the Falaise gap might have enable us to end the war some months sooner.

"The Germans were fortunate in that the armoured divisions available to the First Canadian Army had never fought before. The 2nd Infantry Division had troubles too. Its General Foulkes said: "We found that when we bumped into battle-experienced German troops we were no match for them. We would not have been successful had it not been for our air and artillery support. It took about two months to get that division so shaken down that we were really a machine that could fight....'"

The very next day, Churchill raised his doubts about the Falaise campaign to his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden. He felt something was amiss. The number of prisoners was too low, given that there were 16 divisions trapped in the pocket.

Valour and Horror, Second World War, Canadian history, World War II, W.W.II