The genesis of this book occurred in April 1990. That year, the Canadian Armed Forces Officers then stationed in Heidelberg Germany conducted a battlefield tour of the D-Day beaches and the major battlefields of the Normandy campaign. With us were three veterans of the campaign, Major General George Kitching, General Officer Commanding the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, Oberst Hubet Meyer of the 12th SS Panzer Division and Air-Vice Marshal ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, the leading Allied fighter ace of the Second World War. During our tour I had many opportunities to speak at length with these three veterans.
Kitching was quite open about his experiences in Normandy including the fact that he was removed from command of his division on 21 August 1944 by Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. Kitching talked about many of the issues and circumstances that impacted both his own and his division’s performance. I had extensively studied the Normandy campaign during my undergraduate degree in history but had not heard of many of the issues that Kitching brought forth. As a historian, I was intrigued and vowed to investigate Kitching’s time in command to verify if what Kitching had told me was in fact true.
Until now, the assessment of Kitching and his division’s performance has been very negative. In some cases, they are blamed for the delay in the closing of the Falaise Gap and the subsequent escape of thousands of Germans out of Normandy. Kitching has been labelled as incompetent and the division as ‘green’, cautious and inexperienced. This book and the evidence within challenges these commonly held views.
This is the first book to focus exclusively on the 4th Canadian Armoured Division from 29 February to 21 August 1944 and covers both the training and combat operations with Kitching in command. The analysis is focused on providing context before coming to any conclusion on the outcomes or results of 4th Canadian Armoured Division actions. For example, while the division had initial difficulties in its first battles the evidence has revealed that the division was denied the use of its tanks and vehicles for training purposes for two months prior to going into battle! Initial difficulties would not be unusual.
Kitching was shocked and upset at the decision to relieve him and made a number of points in his defence. He complained that the division had had too many changes in orders over a period of ten days and had taken very heavy casualties in commanders, soldiers and tanks in its first battles. The true extent of this statement is quantified for the first time with new research and evidence not currently contained in the existing literature.
21 Days also incorporates a detailed examination of the logistical support for the division’s operations. This vital component of warfare is often overlooked in the discussion of operations yet the supply issue was critical in understanding the division’s performance on the battlefield. Integrating orders and map traces not documented in the current literature with operations logs, combat operations and their logistical basis, this book comes to the very different conclusion that Kitching and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division performed much better during those twenty-one days in August 1944 than history has recorded.