Normandy 1944: The Battle for Caen: Photographs From Wartime Archives

By Simon Forty

Caen, a D-Day objective on 6 June 1944, did not fall to the British and Canadian troops of Second Army until 6 August, by which time much of the city had been reduced to rubble. The two-month struggle was a crucial stage in the Normandy campaign and, as Simon Forty demonstrates in this photographic history, one of the most controversial.His detailed, graphic account gives the reader a fascinating insight into the opposing forces, the conditions, the terrain, the equipment and weaponry deployed and it illustrates just how intense and protracted the fighting was on the ground.The reasons for the slow Allied advance have been hotly disputed. Deficiencies in British and Canadian equipment and tactics have been blamed, as has the tenacity of the German resistance. Ultimately a sequence of Allied operations sapped the defenders strength, and it is these operations Perch, Martlet, Epsom, Windsor, Charnwood, Jupiter, Atlantic, Goodwood that feature strongly in the striking photographs that have been selected for this book.They record in the most dramatic fashion the character of the fighting and show how even the SS divisions and heavy tank battalions were eventually defeated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781526723765

Simon Forty

Simon Forty was educated in Dorset and the north of England before reading history at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has been involved in publishing since the mid-1970s, first as editor and latterly as author. Son of author and RAC Tank Museum curator George Forty, he has continued in the family tradition writing mainly on historical and military subjects including books on the Napoleonic Wars and the two world wars. Recently he has produced a range of highly illustrated books on the Normandy battlefields, the Atlantic Wall and the liberation of the Low Countries with co-author Leo Marriott.

Book preview

IMAGES OF WAR

NORMANDY 1944

THE BATTLE FOR CAEN

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

Any discussion of the battles around Caen needs to remember the massive devastation and huge loss of life endured by the civilian population: an estimated 1,150 from D-Day to Liberation. From March 1944 the Allied Transportation Plan was designed to destroy French rail centres to impede German reinforcements to Normandy. Subsequently, air support of the Allied armies included carpet-bombing Caen and Saint-Lô, with the consequent loss of civilian life and reduction of the city infrastructure to rubble.

IMAGES OF WAR

NORMANDY 1944

THE BATTLE FOR CAEN

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

SIMON FORTY

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

P

EN

& S

WORD

M

ILITARY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street,

Barnsley,

South Yorkshire.

S70 2AS

Copyright © Simon Forty, 2017

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 52670 xxx x

eISBN 978 1 52672376 5

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52672377 2

The right of Simon Forty to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

Pen & Sword Books Limited

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Thanks to Jonathan Forty who wrote much of the introductory text.

Abbreviations

1RB 1st Bn, Rifle Brigade

1 or 2NY 1st or 2nd Northamptonshire Yeomanry

2i/c second in command

5 or 7QRR 5th or 7th Bn Queen’s Royal Regt (West Surrey)

8H 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars

11H 11th (Prince Albert’s Own) Hussars

AGRA Artillery Group, Royal Artillery

APCR Armour-Piercing, Composite Rigid

APDS Armour-Piercing, Discarding Sabot

Armd armoured

ATk anti-tank

AVRE Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers

Bde brigade

BR British

CG commanding general

CO commanding officer

CWGC Commonwealth War Graves Commission

CLY County of London Yeomanry, so 3CLY = 3rd Regiment

DCLI Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry

DD Duplex Drive (Sherman DD = swimmable)

DLI Durham Light Infantry

KG Kampfgruppe = battle group

KOSB King’s Own Scottish Borderers

KSLI King’s Shropshire Light Infantry

LCT landing craft tank

OB West Oberbefehlshaber West = German Army Command in the West

OP observation post

ORs other ranks

PIAT Projector, Infantry, Anti Tank

PzGr Panzergrenadier

PzKpfw Panzerkampfwagen = tank

RDG Royal Dragoon Guards

REME Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

RHA Royal Horse Artillery, so 5RHA = 5th Bn

RTR Royal Tank Regiment, so 7RTR = 7th Regt

sPzAbt schwere Panzer-Abteilung = heavy tank battalion

SP self-propelled

TD tank destroyer

Contents

Introduction

Photograph Sources

Chapter One

D-Day Objective

Chapter Two

Operation Perch

Chapter Three

Operations Martlet and Epsom

Chapter Four

Operations Windsor and Charnwood

Chapter Five

XXX Corps against Panzer Group West

Chapter Six

Operation Goodwood

Chapter Seven

Blunting the Panzers

Further Reading

Strong winds helped push the tide in faster than expected. Soon Sword Beach had narrowed leading to great congestion. Added to this, rough seas and bad weather made the unloading of tanks and vehicles extremely difficult. Traffic jams on the beach and the roads leading inland meant that the schedules soon went awry.

Introduction

It’s easy for armchair historians to debate the success or otherwise of military planning. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said, ‘The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon’s saying: I have never had a plan of operations. ’ Corelli Barnett was more succinct: ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy.’

It would have been very helpful to the Allies if they had been able to take Caen on D-Day as had been planned, but it was not to be. Less than ten miles separate Ouistreham and Caen, but it would take until Operation Goodwood, in the middle of July, for the city to fall. While this book is primarily an analysis of how this happened, it’s worth a brief examination of why the battle for Caen lasted as long as it did – at the same time examining some of the myths that have arisen in the intervening years. Luckily, this analysis is assisted by the recent re-examination of the British and Canadian armies and their conduct of the Normandy campaign by such authors as John Buckley and Ben Kite, who question the views of the popular historians of the 1980s and 1990s. The earlier writers tend to overvalue the skills, leadership, weapons and even bravery of the Germans and underestimate that of the Allies. Within Allied ranks, too, there are deep-rooted views, some expressed at the time, often caused by the ambiguous signals put out by generals at Press conferences, and not helped by the antipathy towards Montgomery, who commanded the ground forces in Normandy, from the Americans – much of this was generated postwar and exacerbated by the cult that built up around Patton – and from the RAF, particularly Coningham and Tedder who tried repeatedly to have him replaced.

One of the great strengths of the Allies was its supreme commander. It is no wonder that a man of General ‘Ike’ Eisenhower’s calibre went on to become President of the United States for he showed his finesse as the supreme commander of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. This job required great skills of diplomacy, patience and tact to control unruly, competitive generals from different nations and attempt to satiate an intrusive and opinionated press. Uniquely, the military of the Western Allies were under genuine democratic scrutiny from their different individual states and this led to endless interpretations and debates about what took place, both at the time and afterwards. Ike worked with Montgomery and although