IN THE EARLY morning of July 25, despite Operation Spring’s brutal first phase setbacks, Lieutenant General Guy Simonds ordered the second phase begun. Signals reaching II Canadian Corps headquarters were fragmentary, leaving Simonds confused. He understood that the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, supported by the Fort Garry Horse, were renewing efforts to take Tilly-la-Campagne. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry had secured Verrières, while the Calgary Highlanders had either won May-sur-Orne or were in strength nearby. From his headquarters in Vaucelles, Operation Spring still seemed viable.
The only accurate information in all that was that the Rileys held Verrières. No effort was under way against Tilly.1 After moving the Highland Light Infantry to a start line at Hubert-Folie, Brigadier Ben Cunningham ordered no further action.2 The battalion’s regimental historian observed that the mauling suffered by the North Nova Scotia Highlanders “showed that we were up against a heavily defended enemy line and resulted in the cancellation of the [battalion’s] part in the operation.”3 Cunningham’s refusal of a direct order from Major General Rod Keller abruptly closed 3rd Division’s part in Operation Spring.
At 2nd Division, Major General Charles Foulkes faced no dissent from brigadiers. With Verrières in hand, developments on 4th Brigade’s front looked promising. The brigade also had a new brigadier as of that morning—J.E. “Eddy” Ganong. Previously 4th Armoured Division’s general staff officer, Ganong had only just arrived in France. When he took over from Lieutenant Colonel Fred Clift, the South Saskatchewan Regiment commander returned to the urgent task of rebuilding his shattered battalion.4
While the situation on 4th Brigade’s front appeared in hand, Foulkes decided 5th Brigade needed a personal prod. He walked into Brigadier Bill Megill’s headquarters and growled that Simonds “was furious at the lack of progress by Megill’s brigade and had sent him forward to get it moving.”5 Despite the fact that the Calgary Highlanders had neither won May-sur-Orne nor the Black Watch’s start line, Megill started phase two rolling.
The Black Watch had met problems the moment they withdrew from their position astride the Saint-André–Hubert-Folie road in front of Ifs. At 0330 hours, as they began marching towards Saint-André, the battalion was sporadically fired on by mortars and machine guns stationed on Verrières Ridge. A dozen men were wounded.
Their destination was next to the church on the southern edge of Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, where they were to be joined by the 1st Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron. The tanks were to shield the battalion’s left flank. According to the plan, the Black Watch would march from the church to their start line adjacent to a quarry alongside a road running northeastward out of May-sur-Orne. They would then go straight from May to Fontenay-le-Marmion at 0530 hours. A complex artillery fire plan with fixed timings was in place.6
Believing Saint-Martin secure, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Cantlie got a rude awakening when the battalion came under intense fire from the village. Moving “in the old snake formation” with ‘D’ Company at the head, Cantlie ordered Captain John Kemp to clear Saint-Martin. Kemp quickly reported that ‘D’ Company was meeting stiff resistance. Cantlie decided he had no option but to commit all his rifle companies to winning the village.7
“Along the east edge of the town there were high walls and hedges surrounding orchards,” the carrier platoon’s Captain E. R. “Ronnie” Bennett said later. “Next to these were three or four knocked-out Panther tanks. The Huns had weapon slits outside the walls and hedges and dug-outs and scurry-holes inside. The posts were almost all MG posts and had to be taken out one at a time. This had to be done when it was pitch black and … the artificial moonlight … did not improve close-in fighting to any degree. We were fighting in the shadows against a good many Huns—probably about a company in strength … Everyone realized that we were losing valuable time.”8
In the midst of the fight, Cantlie, ‘B’ Company’s Major Eric Motzfeldt, and Captain Kemp huddled by a hedge outside Saint-Martin. Suddenly, a machine gun ripped off a long burst. Cantlie fell dying, Motzfeldt—the battalion’s senior company commander—was severely wounded. It was about 0500 hours.
Command devolved to ‘A’ Company’s Major Philip Griffin. The twenty-six-year-old had been a McGill University Macdonald College post-graduate student when the war broke out. Like most 2nd Division company commanders, he had seen little combat and had no battalion command experience.
However, Griffin stepped quickly into his new role. Captain Bennett described him later as “a brilliant officer of absolutely outstanding courage and ability. His takeover in this strained and ticklish situation was superb.”9 The battalion was still a mile from May-sur-Orne with the attack time fast approaching. Griffin convened an O Group next to the Saint-Martin church.10
He was relieved to learn that ‘B’ Squadron was deployed in a nearby orchard on the southeast edge of Saint-André. The 1st Hussars had lost one of fifteen Shermans to an anti-tank mine and had arrived ninety minutes late. Major Walter Harris had expected the Black Watch to have already gone into their attack so was pleased to see they were still at Saint-Martin. It was worrisome, though, that the Calgaries reportedly did not control May-sur-Orne.11
Griffin told the assembled officers the attack could not proceed at dawn, which meant the already started artillery program was wasted. He and the battalion’s FOO, 5th Field Regiment’s Captain G.D. Powis, needed to develop a new fire plan. Griffin also wanted to find out precisely how much of Saint-André the Cameron Highlanders controlled and whether the Calgaries actually held May and his start line.
“There was no uncertainty whatever in his actions,” Bennett observed. “He foresaw only a delay, which would at the outside be two hours, while he re-arranged timings and obtained essential information. The plan for the attack would be the same as … previously planned.” In the meantime, he ordered the rifle companies to the edge of Saint-André and next to a road running east to Verrières. This would expose them less to fire from the ridge. “So complete was his control and so well trained the battalion that this was done at once and in incredibly good order.” In the fighting for Saint-Martin, only ten to fifteen men had been hit, so Bennett considered the Black Watch in good shape.12 The artillery program was set for 0930 hours, concentrated on the same targets as before.
During this delay, Griffin was incessantly peppered with messages from Brigadier Megill. “Push on now,” Megill signalled at 0647 hours, “speed essential.” At 0715 hours, just before Griffin held a second O Group in Saint-André, Megill ordered the Black Watch “to go ahead.”13
Megill was reacting to events on Verrières Ridge. At 0800, 4th Brigade intended to advance the Royal Regiment of Canada through to Rocquancourt. The “prospect of the thrust forward over and down the farther slope of Verrières Ridge … appeared bright,” one army observer noted. But the Royals “would be imperiled if swift action was not taken to secure the flanks. Here may be found the real reason for the peremptory orders which reached the Black Watch to press on to Fontenay-le-Marmion.”14
But Griffin was unable to do so immediately. He had already set the attack for 0930 hours and needed the intervening time to determine what was happening at May-sur-Orne. Major Harris of ‘B’ Squadron, suspecting the Calgaries had failed to secure the start line, had independently sent a tank troop to investigate. Harris was unaware that Griffin had also sent a patrol towards May.15
EQUALLY PRESSURED BY Brigadier Ganong, who was responding to Simonds snapping at everyone’s heels, the Royals’ Lieutenant Colonel John “Jock” Anderson made two quick decisions at 0800 hours. Having waited on the Black Watch, his artillery support program had come and gone. Anderson decided against arranging another. Instead, the 4th Field Regiment FOO would just direct fire on targets as they arose. Second, instead of passing through Verrières according to plan, the Royals would bypass it on the left flank to avoid getting entangled in the fighting still under way there.
Anderson advanced the Royals with ‘C’ Company on the right, ‘B’ Company the left, and the other two companies following. As the companies passed Verrières, the battalion’s mortar platoon raced to a gravel pit next to the Caen-Falaise highway on the left. They were just deploying the mortars when some SS panzer grenadiers attacked their position. A short, sharp engagement ensued with the platoon firing Bren guns and mortars at close range, until the Germans were driven off.16
‘C’ Squadron of the 1st Hussars was also left of the Royals with nineteen tanks. Approaching the crest of Verrières Ridge, its second-in-command, Captain Brandy Conron, spotted eight Panthers. “Recognizing the rounded turret lids, he laid a fire plan whereby each troop engaged specific tanks. Then he opened up the barrage with his own tank knocking out and brewing a Panther in the centre. In just a few seconds all … the enemy tanks were ‘kaput’ and most of them blazing merrily.”17
How vulnerable Shermans were to being hit by the Panther’s long 75-millimetre gun was evidenced when the single Hussar tank struck “burst into flames … The hatch flew open, emitting clouds of black smoke, and those of the crew who could do so threw themselves out. One man came out backwards, catching his knees on the edge of the hatch, and hung there for a moment, blazing like a torch, before he fell to the ground on his head. The burning trooper actually set the wheat field afire, and the stretcher-bearers, who rushed forward, had to put out these flames as well as those that covered the body of the man. Soon there were burning tanks and vehicles throughout the entire area of advance.”18
Once the Hussars crossed the ridgeline, the balance tipped against them. A mine crippled Lieutenant Roy Kenny’s Sherman. Then a Ferdinand tank destroyer opened fire. The Ferdinand was a modified Tiger with a heavily up-armoured, boxy turret mounting an 88-millimetre gun. Lieutenant Valdi Bjarnason already knew his troop was in trouble before this monster appeared. “There was no cover, and the Germans had the advantage of the higher ground and they could manoeuvre behind the crest. It was one hell of a fight, and the fire from the tank guns on both sides was absolutely ferocious. I remember firing at the Ferdinand … and seeing the armour-piercing rounds just bounce off, but I did get two … Panthers, and I saw them both burn. One of the most awful moments was when one of our own airplanes came in and knocked out one of our Shermans.”19
The Ferdinand smashed three tanks in Lieutenant Bruce Caw’s troop, including that commanded by Sergeant “Doc” Doherty. He and Trooper George Hamilton died.20
‘C’ Squadron’s commander, Major D’Arcy Marks, led the surviving tanks into a field surrounded by a hedge that screened it from the Ferdinand and Panthers left of the Hussars. Marks had just jumped out of his tank to look through the hedge when several self-propelled guns and tanks opened fire from the opposite flank. Captain Brandy Conron started shouting for everyone to reverse off the ridge crest, but before any tanks moved, an armour-piercing round punched through Marks’s tank and killed Trooper John Monteith and Sergeant Bill Easton. Trooper Hector Lamont and Corporal Fred Baker also died as seven Shermans were knocked out in a matter of minutes.
Just five tanks escaped from the crest to the protective northern slope. Conron’s tank had been holed three times by armour-piercing rounds. Then a mine ripped off half a track. It lurched to safety and became a regimental showpiece for a few days—“one of the most badly battered Shermans ever to disgorge a crew alive.” The squadron had lost fourteen tanks and suffered twenty-seven casualties. By 1100 hours, it was out of action.21
The Royals had crossed the crest of Verrières Ridge at the same time as the Hussars and started descending the long, gentle slope towards Rocquancourt—about a mile distant. The sky was clear. Across the wide horizon, Typhoons swooped down from a circling cab rank to rocket or dive-bomb German tanks and positions.
As the Royals came off the ridgeline, they were “struck by a hurricane of fire” from dug-in tanks and self-propelled guns.22 Mortars and machine guns ripped into the badly exposed infantry.23 In the wide-open field, there was nowhere to hide.
Realizing it was suicide to continue, ‘B’ Company’s Major J.F. Law ordered his men to dig in along the crest about two hundred yards south of Verrières. Major K.G. Singleton’s ‘C’ Company pressed on a few hundred yards farther under “murderous enemy fire … until [it was] almost annihilated.” Suddenly, SS panzer grenadiers burst out of the grain, and those of ‘C’ Company not already killed or wounded were taken prisoner, Singleton among them. Only eighteen escaped.
At 1000 hours, when Anderson reported the situation, a 4th Brigade staff officer ordered him to “get on at all costs.” He directed ‘B’ Company to advance, but Law failed to comply. Anderson then told Major E.J.H. Ryall to pass ‘D’ Company through Law’s position. It was a fruitless effort, the company immediately driven back by fierce fire. Ryall was among the wounded. Reporting the situation “very sticky,” Anderson had ‘D’ Company dig in to the left of ‘B’ Company. Despite repeated orders from 4th Brigade headquarters, the Royals refused to budge. Adding to their woes, a Typhoon accidentally rocketed the two forward companies and Law was wounded.24
Verrières stood out, as one observer put it, “like a sore thumb.” Within the village, the Rileys were digging in. To their left, the Royals were in place. Everyone knew the Germans were not going to let them stay without a fight.25
MEANWHILE, WEST OF Verrières village, Major Philip Griffin had spent much of the early morning hours waiting for scouts to report back on the situation at May-sur-Orne. Hurrying, the scout platoon’s Lieutenant L.R. Duffield, Sergeant B.F.A. Benson, and another man had gone straight down the middle of the road from Saint-Martin into May without seeing any sign of life. As they passed the church, an MG42 dug in at the corner of a house opened fire. Deciding they were too few to tangle with the machine gun, Duffield decided they should withdraw. Even if the only German presence in the village consisted of the machine-gun crew, they could rip into the Black Watch’s right flank during the attack and cause serious harm. It was 0845 hours, just forty-five minutes from the new attack time, when Duffield reported to Griffin. The major ordered Sergeant Benson and six scouts to neutralize the machine gun.26
As Duffield’s party had been probing May, a troop of ‘B’ Squadron Shermans had gained the village’s outskirts. They encountered ‘C’ Company of the Calgaries hunkered in a hollow. The company’s wireless sets were knocked out, and they were “badly cut up and in need of stretcher bearers [and] ammunition,” Major Harris reported. When the troop entered the village, an anti-tank gun knocked out one tank. The troop withdrew and Harris ordered it to support any Calgary attempt to clear the village.
This left ten tanks to accompany the Black Watch. Harris led this group along a series of narrow, sunken roads towards the mine. His intention was to move into the gap between May and the forward slope of Verrières Ridge to screen the Black Watch’s right flank, although this was directly contrary to the original plan whereby the tanks would screen their left flank. Harris realized this but felt the Germans in May posed the greater threat. He also understood that tanks from the 7th British Armoured Division should about this time be advancing towards Garcelles-Secqueville and Rocquancourt. If they were, the left flank should be secured by their presence.27
About the time Harris and ‘B’ Squadron started moving, Brigadier Megill arrived at Saint-Martin. Standing on the verandah of a house looking towards May, Griffin calmly explained his plan.28 Instead of moving to the start line at May, he had established a new line by the mine. The Black Watch would advance on a compass bearing aimed directly at Fontenay-le-Marmion. Megill looked at the open ground Griffin proposed crossing. Wheat fields and patches of rough ground devoid of cover stretched up a long slope that rose some hundred feet over a thousand-yard distance to the crest. No doubt at all that the 272nd Infantry Division waited on the ridge line.29 A “dicey proposition,” Megill thought, and suggested that Griffin secure May first. Griffin said he had patrols in May and the village did not appear to be held on “a continuous basis.” When the Black Watch advanced, he felt, the pressure on the Calgaries would be relieved and they could “fill in behind, on into May-sur-Orne.”30 Megill knew one thing. Simonds and Foulkes were impatient. “An attack had to be made and it was made,” he wrote later. “Once started, everyone was determined that there would be no drawing back.”31
Megill left, and Griffin led the Black Watch towards the forming-up position, a cabbage field next to the mine. The battalion was dogged during the move by heavy artillery and mortar fire. In the resulting confusion, Captain Powis, the 5th Field Regiment’s FOO, lost contact with Griffin. Attempts to raise Griffin on the wireless proved fruitless. Griffin had in fact lost all wireless communication when the jeep carrying his set had been knocked out by shellfire.32
The Black Watch attacked in box formation, with ‘A’ Company on the left and ‘C’ Company the right. ‘D’ Company was behind ‘C’ Company and ‘B’ Company behind ‘A’ Company. Griffin’s battalion headquarters was in the centre behind the two reserve companies. Captain John Taylor commanded ‘C’ Company. There is no record of who led ‘A’ Company, which had been Griffin’s command. Officers were so short that Sergeant Victor Leonard Foam had ‘B’ Company. Captain John Kemp headed ‘D’ Company.33 About three hundred men started up the long slope at 0930 hours.34
Private A.R. Williams was in ‘D’ Company’s No. 16 Platoon. The men “walked forward across the open field ‘spread out’ in ‘battle formation.’” Williams “knew … a frontal attack of this sort across open ground was unsound tactics, but the unit had been ordered to push on and was determined to do so.”35
Sergeant Benson, having been unable to reach the machine gun in May, watched helplessly from a ditch outside the village. “As they started up [towards] the crest of the hill,” he observed, “German mortar fire came down on them and they were under heavy fire for an hour. Jerry had Panther and Tiger tanks dug in on the crest of the hill … Our battalion was pinned down by this fire until our Shermans came forward and diverted the attention of the tanks from our infantry.”36
“Dug-in tanks, 88-millimetre guns, mortars, rocket projectors, machine guns, and other small arms opened up on the advancing companies,” one army report stated. “The enemy’s strength in this area, hitherto in great part concealed, was now fully unmasked. His weapons were skillfully sited and well dug in.”37
Harris and the tanks had arrived five minutes after the Black Watch advanced. He saw the infantry already far ahead. Whether the British tanks were out on the left flank was unclear. The Hussars advanced into the open, but Shermans started being knocked out “as soon as they exposed themselves to anti-tank fire directed from the ridge and the east corner of May.”38
Such a storm of shellfire rained on the infantry that none could say afterwards whether the planned artillery support occurred. In fact, the gunners were firing extra concentrations—dropping shells as close to the Black Watch as they could without hitting them. A smokescreen was also fired onto the left flank to blind the Germans there.39
As the Black Watch closed on the crest, Griffin appeared at their front. “Forward, men! We’ve got to keep going!” he shouted.40 Private M. Montreuil heard Captain Kemp shout “that it was murderous to continue.” Griffin replied that “the orders were to attack and … the battalion would therefore carry on.”41
Private Williams found it “difficult to maintain direction, on account of the heavy fire which made men tend to ‘dodge’ and therefore change direction.”
So many officers and non-commissioned officers were killed or wounded that Williams thought nobody was in control. Men were just going forward. Although twice wounded, Williams was one of these.42 Only about sixty reached the crest. Those watching the attack from the bottom of the slope saw this tiny, scattered force cross over the crest of the ridge and disappear.43
It was about 1020 hours. Six of ‘B’ Squadron’s ten tanks had been knocked out. A sniper had wounded Major Harris. He handed command to Captain J.W. “Jake” Powell. There was no possibility that the surviving tanks could reach the Black Watch or offer any further fire support.44
It hardly mattered. Those who passed over the crest of Verrières Ridge stood little chance. Private Williams saw 88-millimetre guns firing side on at them. There were machine guns firing from concrete blockhouses and enemy positions camouflaged in haystacks on all sides.45
Private T. Murphy saw six Tiger tanks hidden in haystacks as he dodged over the crest. His group of men were “overwhelmed very shortly afterwards.”
To Private E.T. McCann there was no question of withdrawal. “We had the feeling that the enemy was behind us as well as to the front and two sides. The fire that was coming from the rear may have come from a mine shaft that we had passed earlier.”46
Captain John Taylor was wounded short of the crest. Sergeant Foam was dead. Griffin sent a wounded officer back with the simple message, “Don’t send reinforcements—we have too many men trapped here now.”47 At about 1400 hours, a scout appeared at the battalion’s rear headquarters saying he had been sent by Griffin. It had taken the scout an hour to descend the shell-torn slope. He reported that Griffin “had decided it would be necessary to withdraw … and had organized a covering party to do so.”48 Disengaging proved impossible. Finally, Griffin—wounded himself—ordered “every man to make his way back as best he could.”49
Everyone was wounded. Men headed back over the crest and down the slope in any way possible. Griffin was killed—not at the head of his men, charging towards the enemy, as would eventually be enshrined in the myths that emerged in the months and years following the battalion’s destruction. The most credible account determined he was “killed by a mine while walking back after being wounded.”
Private Williams hid in the wheat, watching Germans overrun the area. When it was dark, he crawled towards the Canadian lines but eventually happened into a German position and was captured.50 Captain Kemp was also taken prisoner. No more than fifteen men escaped.
On July 25, the Black Watch lost 307 men. Five officers and 118 other ranks died, 101 were wounded, and 83 were captured. Of the last, 21 had been wounded.51 Only six officers and 326 other ranks remained. That night, the battalion withdrew to Fleury-sur-Orne to begin rebuilding.52 Excepting the battalions involved in the Dieppe raid, no single regiment in the war suffered such heavy casualties in a single day.53
THE GERMANS, MEANWHILE, took the offensive with 9th SS Panzer Division ordered to regain Verrières village and restore the integrity of the main line of resistance along the ridge.54 At 1700 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Rocky Rockingham watched tanks roll into his positions with infantry close on their heels. The mixed force of Panthers and Tigers rolled over the trenches. From a slit trench in ‘B’ Company’s sector, Rockingham saw a “huge tank was right on top of me.” Rockingham ordered a PIAT man to fire a bomb “ right up through its belly. The bomb punched a very small hole in the armour.” The crew bailed and was taken prisoner.55
At least tanks remained inside the village, and Major Hugh Arrell was “scared to death.” At this propitious eight other moment, a British tank squadron commander made a surreal appearance. “He wore a soft hat, corduroy trousers and suede shoes; he carried a cane of brass and burnished wood; a well-worn pair of binoculars hung from his neck and he seemed quite oblivious to the shelling … We didn’t know whether we should getout of our slits to greet him or not.” After being guided to an observation point on the roof of a building under German fire, he calmly surveyed the scene. “It’s a bit sticky, isn’t it?” he said.
The 1st Royal Tank Regiment squadron plunged into the thick of the village fight with crew commanders all exposed from the waist up in their turret hatches. “What do you want us to shoot at, matey?” one yelled to Sergeant Gordie Booker. Rileys pointed out targets all around them, and the tankers blazed away so accurately with main guns and machine guns that the counterattack quickly collapsed.56 At 1750 hours, as the battle had been raging in Verrières, the 9th SS commander leading the counterattack had warned, “Whoever crosses this ridge is a dead man!”57
The Rileys stood firm inside Verrières. During the long fight, the battalion suffered fifty men killed and 126 wounded.58 “Not one of our men is in enemy hands and none are known to be missing,” the regiment’s war diarist recorded.59 It was, the army’s historian recorded later, “a proud declaration … confirmed by post-war study.” The Rileys, he added, “may well remember Verrières.”60
STILL DETERMINED TO keep Operation Spring rolling, Simonds pressured Foulkes to secure May-sur-Orne no matter the cost. Clearly, the Calgaries were in no shape to finish the job, and Foulkes was down to one battalion still capable of fighting. In the late afternoon he visited the headquarters of both Brigadier Megill and Brigadier Hugh Young. Both cautioned that operations in the Saint-André and Saint-Martin area were going poorly. Despite this, Foulkes ordered Le Régiment de Maisonneuve “to restore the situation and capture May-sur-Orne.”61 Dutifully, the French Canadians went forward at 1900 hours.62
As the forward companies crossed the start line at Saint-André, they came under heavy fire. “They were fired on from the rear, as the enemy, evidently jumping up like rabbits from the air shafts leading to the underground tunnels, hammered them from all directions. Not only were the Germans difficult to spot, but out in the fields between the villages the Canadians could be seen and fired on from the left, from the front, even on the right from across the Orne River.” Accepting that the attack was doomed, Megill ordered the Maisies back to Saint-André.63 Twelve men were dead and another forty wounded.64
Foulkes, meanwhile, had convened a meeting of brigadiers at his headquarters in Fleury-sur-Orne. During the evening, he said, Brigadier Young’s 6th Brigade would resume the offensive on 5th Brigade’s front by attacking May. At his headquarters, Young studied his maps. The more he looked at the plan, “the more he felt that it would be unlikely to achieve success with the intensity of mortars and artillery which the enemy could bring down on the area of the objective.” At 2000 hours, Young informed Foulkes that the operation was ill advised and he was prepared to tell Simonds this. Offering no argument, Foulkes went to see Simonds alone.65
Having already learned that 2nd Division was not launching the night attack, Simonds was in a rage. Foulkes recalled telling him, “I had no intention to continue the battle as I had nothing left to fight with.”66 With 3rd Division’s 9th Brigade already in revolt, Simonds could only suspend Operation Spring.67
With the exception again of Dieppe, July 25 was the most costly single day of the war for Canada. Painstaking research later placed the total casualties at about 1,500, of which approximately 450 were fatal. And, as the army’s official historian put it, II Canadian Corps “had struck a stone wall.”68