Well done, 50 Div.{251} — Lieutenant-General Brian C. Horrocks Commander, XXX Corps
Following the breakout from Normandy, the 50th Division fought the retreating German army in a series of small battles across France and into Belgium. After the failure of Operation Market Garden in mid-September, 1944, the 50th held a position in Holland between Arnhem and Nijmegen for the next two months. On November 29, 1944, fresh formations relieved the 50th and the division moved from its forward position in Holland to Belgium. This ended the combat action of the 50th Division in World War II.
By the end of October, 1944, the 21st Army Group suffered from a manpower deficit of roughly 14,500 men. Faced with a projected shortage of 18,040 men by the end of November and 22,300 men by the end of December, the 21st Army Group decided in early November to cannibalize the 50th Division and distribute its trained infantrymen throughout the remaining divisions of the group.{252} The remainder of the division would return to the United Kingdom in skeleton form where it would provide training cadres. The commander of the 21st Army Group, Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, initially considered removing one of the Scottish divisions, but latter settled on the 50th Division.{253} Citing low strength and battle weariness, Montgomery believed that he could no longer count on the 50th in an offensive role.{254} In an attempt to stop the break-up of the 50th, Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggested alternatives in early December such as the addition of Royal Marines to the 50th. Churchill feared that the loss of a division would weaken the 21st Army Group front.{255} During the month prior, however, the 21st Army Group had already begun the dismantlement of the 50th by diverting replacements to other formations and removing the 50th from the line. Churchill, after learning how far the dismantling process had moved, issued a message on December 12 which permitted the 21st Army Group to complete the cannibalization of the 50th. In a telegram to Montgomery, Churchill wrote, “I greatly regret the destruction of 50th Division as a fighting force, but as you have gone so far, I fear the process must be completed.”{256}
Historians are divided on the performance of the 50th Division in Normandy. In Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, Max Hastings writes that the 50th’s performance was “very good” and that the division did not suffer the same problems of the 7th Armored and 51st (Highland) Divisions.{257} In his commentary of the 6th Green Howards at Cristot, however, Max Hastings infers that the battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Hastings, did not agree with the mission and therefore his unit did not give one hundred percent to the effort. The nearly 250 casualties suffered by the Green Howards in the battle, however, speak to the effort expended. Recounting the withdrawal from Cristot, Lieutenant-Colonel Hastings wrote that he “walked back down the lane of death, leaving a great part of (his) battalion dead among the Normandy hayfields.”{258} Carlo D’Este’s Decision in Normandy is more critical of the 50th. Drawing upon the observations of Brigadier James Hargest, Decision in Normandy highlights the tactical shortcomings and morale issues faced by the 50th. D’Este states, however, that the 50th did not experience the same problems as the other veteran divisions.{259}
Other historians, in contrast, are more critical of the 50th Division. Stephen Ashley Hart deems the decision to use the veteran divisions in Normandy a “serious mistake” and that only through the “inspired leadership” of the “outstanding” Major-General D.A.H. Graham was the 50th able to overcome its earlier problems.{260} David French judges the performance of the veteran divisions “lackluster” and that Montgomery made a mistake in featuring the veteran divisions so prominently in the battle for Normandy. French uses combat evidence such as the 7th Armored Division’s defeat at Villers Bocage and the “not battle worthy” assessment of the 51st (Highland) Division in his evaluation of the other veteran divisions. In his case against the 50th, his argument centers on morale issues and the decision to disband the division in late 1944.{261} By not emphasizing the combat performance of the 50th and focusing on battle weariness, French overlooks key evidence regarding the 50th Division’s performance. Furthermore, French proposes that the decision to remove the 50th was based more on performance than army-wide personnel shortages. Citing continually declining morale throughout the campaign in northwest Europe, French argues that the manpower crisis gave Montgomery an “excuse to send the division home.”{262} Certainly the condition of the 50th Division in December, 1944, was worse than it had been six months earlier on D-Day, but it is incorrect to include a decision made three months after the battle of Normandy in an assessment of fighting performance in Normandy. Other factors such as the division’s readiness following Market Garden and two months on the line in Holland surely influenced Montgomery.{263} Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks saw the fatigue in the division when he took command of the XXX Corps in early August. A further three months of fighting had definitely taken its toll on the 50th.
Many historians have focused on battle weariness when assessing the performances of the veteran divisions in Normandy.{264} This thesis argues that battle weariness and the subsequent problems of “stickiness,” AWOL, and desertion did not significant affect the 50th Division’s ability to carry out its assigned missions. John Buckley’s British Armour in the Normandy Campaign 1944 also challenges the link between battle weariness and poor veteran performance. The 4th Armored Brigade, veterans of North Africa and Sicily, fought throughout the entire Normandy campaign with no accounts of poor morale or performance. Fellow Mediterranean veteran 8th Armored Brigade split upon its return to the United Kingdom, retaining one veteran armored regiment while sending its two remaining regiments to the 27th and the 29th Armored Brigades, respectively. Like the 4th Armored Brigade, no issues of morale or battle weariness emerged from any of these formations.{265} Ultimately, while battle weariness and the resultant psychological cases, AWOLs, and desertions concerned British commanders, the numbers never reached a magnitude that jeopardized the performance of the 50th Division or the British army as a whole.{266} Major Roy Griffiths of the 9th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry, attributed the struggles of the veteran divisions in Normandy not to morale, but to the difficult bocage country:
Some books I read after the war about morale of the troops who came back from the desert, that the reason why there was a slow advance in Normandy was because we were rather wary of and inexperienced in the Bocage country because we were so used to the wide open spaces of the desert. But no-one was experienced in the Bocage country.
There were these high hedges at the sides of the roads and no-one was experienced and the people who got the most stick, quite honestly, were the lads in the tanks, because they couldn’t see. They could see straight up the roads, but they couldn’t see over the high hedges and what was in the cornfields... It is true to say, that when we achieved our objectives we were never pushed off. What we took we held always and to say that morale was low in 50th Infantry Division or 7th Armd Div is absolutely arrant nonsense and it makes my blood boil.{267}
Therefore there is no consensus in the historical record on the effects of battle weariness and performance in Normandy. While historians debate the issue, veterans of the campaign are quite clear that battle weariness was not an issue that significantly impacted their fighting capabilities.
In its pre-invasion training, the British army did not fully appreciate the terrain it would face in Normandy and instead focused its invasion preparations almost exclusively on how to defeat the beach defenses.{268} The ease of concealment in the distinctive Normandy bocage, with its sunken roads and dense hedgerows, required close cooperation between infantry and armor forces. Ideally, those forces would have been organized and trained together. The intense amphibious assault preparations, however, prevented integrated training prior to the invasion.{269} While the failure of combined infantry-armor tactics led to defeats at Cristot and Villers Bocage, lack of training was not solely responsible.
A prevailing attitude existed within the armored forces that tanks alone could win the battle. In a clear example, Brigadier Hargest recommended to the 7th Armored Division commander to integrate infantry with his armor after observing the in division action. Major-General G.W.E.J. Erskine replied that he preferred to “go on alone.” While Hargest praised the combined attack on St. Pierre by the 8th Armored Brigade and the 8th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry, he noted that “in nearly every other action, the tank’s tactics have been bad.” During the battle for Tilly-sur-Seulles, Hargest described the performance of the tanks as “incredibly bad.” Hargest believed the armored forces did not possess the will to fight, and that the tanks were “badly led and fought.”{270}
Brigadier Hargest found the performance of the artillery within the 50th Division to be “rather splendid,” but criticized the 50th Division infantryman for relying too much on artillery and not using weapons organic to the infantry battalion. Those weapons, however, were no match to the superior weapons possessed by the defending Germans. Furthermore, the heavy reliance on artillery was in line with both 21st Army Group doctrine and Montgomery’s own operational technique, as the British had made a deliberate decision to use overwhelming firepower to support their advances.
While artillery was effective, the bocage made its use difficult and terrain often neutralized the mechanical superiority enjoyed by the Allies.{271} Like the 1940 Arras attack, the tanks at Cristot outran their accompanying infantry and the 50th Division suffered the same result—defeat. Lieutenant-Colonel Hastings assessed tanks as “useless” except when fighting enemy counter-attacks.{272} The doctrine of 1944 was a significant improvement over the doctrine of 1941, yet it was still not perfect. By effectively integrating lessons learned in combat and refining training, the 21st Army Group developed a doctrine that succeeded on D-Day.{273} This doctrine also provided a good starting point for adaptation to the unique enemy and terrain of Normandy, but required significant modification once the battle moved beyond the beaches. Unfortunately, the British army developed their new doctrine under fire and paid for it at great cost to its soldiers.
While this thesis has analyzed the influence of the 21st Army Group on the 50th Division, the 50th’s higher headquarters, the XXX Corps, deserves a critical examination. Commanding two of the three veteran divisions, the XXX Corps certainly had a key role in the successes and failures of both the 50th and 7th Armored Divisions. Decisions made at the corps level definitely influenced operations of the subordinate divisions. There is, however, little published about operations at the XXX Corps level in Normandy. Thus a detailed study will require extensive primary source research at The National Archives of the United Kingdom.{274}
Another factor influencing the performance of the 50th that warrants additional research is the senior leadership of the division. As many studies of the British army in Normandy focus on the 21st Army Group level, Montgomery has received the majority of the leadership analysis. With the regimental histories covering the battalion and company commanders, there exists a gap in the historical record regarding the leadership of the 50th Division’s commander, Major-General Graham, and his brigade commanders. Specifically, Graham, the commander of the largest British division on D-Day, is mentioned only once in the United Kingdom’s official history of the Normandy campaign, listed as the 50th’s commander in an order of battle table in Appendix J.{275} Even less is mentioned of the brigade commanders. In comparison, the commanding generals of the American assault divisions are each mentioned numerous times in the official American history of Normandy, with many other books articles and written on their leadership.{276}
According to Montgomery, he never had any intention of breaking out of the Normandy beachhead in the east with British and Canadian forces, nor did he have any reason to change his master plan once the battle began. Apparently even Eisenhower failed to fully understand the plan he “cheerfully” approved.{277} While historians will continue to debate Montgomery’s plan compared with its execution, it is certain that British and Canadian forces performed a vital role in the east of the beachhead. Montgomery estimated that the British 2nd and Canadian 1st Armies fixed seventy-five percent of German armor in Normandy.{278} Lieutenant-General Horrocks refined those numbers, estimating that at the beginning of August, fourteen British and Canadian divisions faced fourteen German divisions with 600 Panzers, while the nineteen American divisions in the west faced only nine German divisions and 110 Panzers. The constant pressure placed on key terrain at places such as Tilly-sur-Seulles and Villers Bocage forced the Germans to commit their reserves and reinforcements piece meal, affecting command and control and denying the Panzers the mobility they desired.{279}
Currently, the United States military uses the problem solving construct of DOTMLPF (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and education, Personnel, and Facilities) to assess a unit’s current capabilities and to manage transformation.{280} While DOTMLPF is a modern evaluation tool, it offers an effective framework with which to analyze the 50th Division’s performance. British combined arms doctrine evolved throughout the war, albeit slowly, and sometimes in the wrong direction. The 50th Division underwent considerable organizational changes and was a radically different formation on D-Day than it was in September, 1939. Training for the invasion was effective, as the division quickly got ashore and inland on D-Day. Focusing exclusively on the beach assault in the months leading up to the invasion, however, in effect stunted the 50th’s development of effective combined arms tactics, forcing the division to develop those tactics and inter-arm relationships while in combat.
The weapons (materiel) used by the 50th were inferior to those employed by the Germans in Normandy. To mitigate this weakness, the Allies relied on numerical materiel advantage combined with the heavy use of artillery, naval gunfire, and air support. On D-Day, the 50th possessed a large number of combat veterans among both the leadership and personnel of the division. Though combat experience did not make the men of the 50th eager to return to battle, they did know Montgomery’s “tricks of the battlefield.” In the 50th’s preparation for Normandy, the training facilities assigned to the division were inadequate. Small training areas prevented the division from operating as a complete combined arms organization. Additionally, the terrain did not replicate the bocage, again forcing the desert veterans to adapt to new conditions while in combat.
With a clear understanding and appreciation of the constraints that divisions of the 21st Army Group operated under and the forces they faced, it emerges that the harsh criticism of their combat performance is not justified. Facing a better equipped enemy in terrain favoring the defense, the 50th Division performed well. While the division certainly struggled to adapt to the bocage and was forced to develop infantry-armor tactics under fire, the 50th most certainly did not suffer from the serious problems of its fellow veteran divisions. Senior leaders in Normandy agreed. While fellow veteran divisions 7th Armored and 51st (Highland) were pulled from the line due to poor performance, the 50th (Northumbrian) Division only came off of the front line for 48 hours late in the campaign to rest and re-fit—a testament to its hard fighting and satisfactory performance.