The Valour and the Horror

World War Two, Second World War, W.W.II

World War Two, Second World War, W.W.II

"A 20th Century army consists in the main of a mass of vehicles, equipment, and stores, with a comparatively small number of men up at the sharp end, actually in contact with the enemy. It is a potential two-way traffic jam of immense magnitude. Because of the bulk of the vehicles are wheeled, not tracked, the decisive factor in battle is the number and quality of the roads leading in the right direction." Alexander McKee, Caen - Anvil of Victory

The logistics of transporting men, weapons, and supplies proved to be a real problem for the Allies in Normandy. The Normandy bocage, the hedgerows and dense thickets in the field, were often intraversable to the tanks, let alone to ordinary transport vehicles. The great caravan of men and equipment had to travel along the roads, which often were virtually destroyed by shelling, and which, when they led through a village, were usually blocked by the piles of rubble that had previously been homes, churches, and farms. Several operations that the Allies undertook in Normandy (such as Epsom, June 28th-July 2nd, the first attempt to take Caen from the West; and Goodwood, July 18th-19th, the somewhat successful attempt to encircle Caen from the East and take the high ground to the South) were failures, or only half successes, largely due to the fact that reinforcements, although they were available, simply could not make it through the traffic in time to broaden the front.

On the afternoon of June 30, F.R. Leatherdale, a Canadian bomber plane navigator, was abruptly woken from his nap at the 115 squadron base, Witchford, England. A message was blared over the loud-speaker: the standard missions scheduled to raid Germany that night were cancelled in favour of an emergency operation. All men were to report at once for a briefing.

"Never before had the sequence of events been altered," recalls Leatherdale. "As soon as we were all gathered, the Station Commander announced the amazing news. Rommel was moving a Panzer division to repel the sorely-pressed Allied armies trying to break out from their beachhead in Normandy. The battle had reached a critical stage, for the bad weather had prevented us from landing all the supplies and troops that had been planned. An attack by the veteran panzer division could well tip the scales against us. Field Marshal Montgomery remembered that the bombing of Casino had so torn up the streets of the town that his tanks could not pass through it. Between the front and the German panzers was the small town of Villers-Bocage. If that could be torn apart by our bombs, the panzers would be stopped long enough for British armour and field guns to be brought up to join the battle. Accordingly, he had sent a signal to HQ Bomber Command, asking for every available bomber to be thrown into the battle."

It was highly irregular for strategic air-raid bombers to be thrown into the front, especially as this was their first daylight mission. But, excitement ran high as everyone was "pleased to take a hand in the land battle and help our brethren on the ground". Crews were dispatched immediately upon readying their craft.

"At 1755 hours, our Lancaster lifted eleven 1,000 pound bombs into the Cambridgeshire air. There was still no sign of cloud, and the Luftwaffe was still a force to be reckoned with. We were not optimistic about our chances of returning to base: but nor were we frightened, for we realised that, if shot down, we would be able to get back behind British lines...

"While I was busy calculating the details of our flight, into my ears came the excited chatter of our air gunners and bomb aimer. They had never seen so many aircraft in the sky before. Everywhere they looked there were Lancasters and Halifaxes converging slowly on our track. Then they saw some Stirlings- another surprise, for this was an obsolescent bomber. We droned out over the Channel and below us, in the clear, sunny air, was spread out the invasion armada. Some vessels headed north, their job done, but most were headed towards the French coast.

"Now our amazement new no bounds, for we were overtaking planes of even older vintage than the redoubtable Stirling. Here there were Blenheims, there an Anson, and way below a few Oxford trainers. Truly, Bomber Harris had dug deep to unearth such planes. Then, the French coast loomed up, and we could see that we were getting near the front of this massive bomber fleet. We got into position beneath a nice little gaggle of Halifaxes, keeping clear of their bombs, but taking some comfort from their superior fire power. Now we were passing over the green French fields, and anxiously I checked my wind finding, to pass the most recent and reliable wind to Ken, our bomb-aimer.

"Had I found the right target? Anxiously I stood behind the flight engineer, checking our path from my map. Below we caught an occasional glimpse of a Spitfire sweeping round in an arc; and on the ground, some signs of battle raging there-columns of smoke, occasional vehicles. I think we were about 12,000 or 14,000 feet, a good height for accuracy, and too high for the light flak to really worry us. Then, in the evening sunlight, we spotted Villers- Bocage. It looked a very neat town. It did not sprawl out into the patchwork of the fields around it; its edge was abrupt, as if it was a walled town, perhaps a relic of medieval France.

"As I began to wonder about it, the bombs from the leading wave of aircraft erupted across the town in long sticks. Huge spouts of reddish smoke shot upward. I wondered why the smoke was red. I scanned the sky for enemy fighters but saw none; only a few puffs of black smoke as two or three 88mm flak guns opened up. As we began the run up, I looked at the target once more. Then the reason for the red smoke struck me - it was brick dust. Villers-Bocage was being pulverised. Such is the price of war: a neat, pleasant town whose only crime was that it lay in the path of Rommel's panzers. The Lancaster dropped its bombs and arced off to the West and to home. The crew looked below to the two lines of vehicles, fire, smoke, and dust, one facing North, the other South, which appeared thin and far away. They thought of their fellows down there who would not be going home tonight, and of those who would never go home.

"Our bomb aimer said how much he wished we had even one bomb left to aim at the German position. The desire to help our soldiers was great in us all...Three hours and ten minutes after take off, we landed back at Witchford to discuss excitedly and at length what had been, for us all, the most moving experience we had ever had. How many planes were used on that raid I do not know; but if it was not the largest raid of the war, it must surely have been the raid on which the greatest variety of aircraft were used. Had Villers-Bocage suffered in vain? We were told that it had not, and that the frustrated panzers could not join the battle at the critical stage."

However, it is unlikely that the destruction of Villers-Bocage had the effect that Montgomery expected. "I can speak of that air attack from personal experience, for I was in the vicinity when it took place," recalled General Bittrich, who was then commanding II SS Panzer Corps, coming in as reinforcements behind the front line. "The bombardment fell on the Panzer Battalion, which was strung out along the road towards Villers-Bocage, and it was hit there. But in spite of casualties and damage, the Battalion continued its march through the plowed up little town into the assembly area allotted to it." And thus, German armoured reinforcements did make their way, albeit slowly, to the front lines of operation Epsom, where the enemy held their ground. Eventually, the Allies abandoned the stalemated operation in favour of a more direct approach to taking Caen: levelling it.