NEITHER MAJOR GENER AL George Kitching nor Major General Stanislaw Maczek agreed with Lieutenant General Guy Simonds’s plan to combine the final two phases of Operation Totalize. Kitching was particularly concerned about the insistence that each division attack on a narrow, thousand-yard front. When they asked for wider frontages, Simonds refused. He envisioned a narrow, mailed fist punching through to Falaise. Kitching feared that instead the Germans would be free to concentrate and block their divisions. Both generals also opposed the long pause between phases. Simonds held firm.1
Ultra decryptions still mistakenly situated 1st SS Panzer Division holding a line crossing the Caen-Falaise highway at Cintheaux. This misinformation reinforced Simonds’s determination to advance the armoured divisions side by side.2 Correctly, Simonds knew that 12th SS Panzer Division lurked somewhere north of Falaise and that 89th Infantry Division remained potent—particularly its heavy artillery. Consequently, the scheduled bomber strike remained essential to his plan.
The changed plan had presented Kitching with a logistical nightmare that had to be resolved in little more than twenty-four hours. All objectives were reassigned, brigade centre lines changed and narrowed, assembly areas relocated, and everything carefully woven into a new design where no operational detail was left unmended.
Maczek, his Polish counterpart, had to not only prepare a new plan but move the Poles across the Orne, then through the congested rear areas of II Canadian Corps, and assemble them east of the Caen-Falaise highway behind 51st (Highland) Division. The highway served as the divisional boundary. Both divisions would advance from a road connecting Bretteville-sur-Laize to Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. Running down the centre of the Canadian advance line, a railway paralleled the highway. It ran alternately along fifteen-foot-high embankments and through deep cuttings. Half a mile west of the highway, the ground sloped steeply to the wooded valley bordering the Laize River. The Canadian objectives were a series of hills between the highway and the river, six to seven miles south of the start line.3 The Poles had two sets of objectives—Point 140 to the south of Estrées-la-Campagne and thereafter Points 170 and 159 overlooking Falaise.4
Neither Maczek nor Kitching had previously led an armoured division into battle. But Maczek was more experienced. Born in 1892, he had first seen military service during the 1920 –1922 Polish-Bolshevik War. When the Germans invaded Poland, Maczek commanded 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade. With Poland’s defeat, Maczek fled to France and re-formed the brigade from expatriates before fleeing again to Britain in 1940. After two years commanding the armoured brigade, he was promoted to command 1st Polish Armoured Division.5
Maczek’s English was poor, so he often fell back on French. Kitching served as translator, although he suspected Simonds understood more French than he leton. In Kitching’s opinion, Simonds used this ruse to allow him time to muster arguments he could then deploy to dismiss Maczek’s concerns and opinions.6
Born on September 19, 1910, in Canton, China, Kitching had trained at Sandhurst before being commissioned into the British army. He served through the late 1920s and 1930s in Singapore, Malaya, and India before resigning his commission to move to Canada in 1938. With the war, he joined the Royal Canadian Regiment and went overseas in 1939. A slender man with a handlebar moustache and clipped British accent, Kitching had more experience with staff postings than with line units. He had risen rapidly on the staff track to the post of general staff officer, 1st grade, of 1st Infantry Division and served under Simonds during the Sicily invasion. In October 1943, he was promoted to brigadier and command of 5th Armoured Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade. He returned to Britain in March 1944 to take over 4th Armoured Division.7
Kitching had brought along a core group of Italian campaign veterans to fill key positions. Brigadier Jim Jefferson, previously commander of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, headed up 10th Infantry Brigade, while Brigadier Leslie Booth took over the 4th Armoured Brigade. Brigadier J.N. “Herm” Lane controlled the division’s artillery. Kitching also leavened through the division a small coterie of tank and infantry majors from Italy.8 Although this gave 4th Armoured Division some combat-experienced officers, the division still had never fought a battle. The same was true for the Poles.
On the morning of August 8, Kitching and Maczek were again of one mind and opposing Simonds. They wanted the air bombardment scrapped so their divisions could advance the moment they reached the start line. Kitching even invoked Lieutenant General Harry Crerar. “Whatever you do in this attack, don’t let the enemy get away, keep pushing, push, keep the mobility. Don’t stop,” Crerar had earlier insisted. Kitching thought it foolish not to advance until 1400 hours. “ Why do we have to wait before going forward?” he asked. Simonds cited his certainty that 1st SS Panzer Division held a strong line that must be broken by bombing. Until the air force struck, there could be no advance.9
As it turned out, Kitching and Maczek could not have advanced immediately, because 2nd Canadian Infantry Division and the 51st (Highland) Division were still fighting for final objectives that morning. As aresult, 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade made only slow progress through terrific congestion to a position in front of Ifs, while 10th Infantry Brigade similarly moved to a concentration area between Fleury-sur-Orne and Ifs. This put 4th Division about four miles north of its start line.
By mid-morning, the division’s artillery reconnaissance teams were working their way forward to scout allocated gun positions between Verrières and Rocquancourt.10 “After a sleepless n ight,” wrote the 23rd Field Regiment (Self-Propelled) official historian, “the recce parties [headed] for a deployment area south of Rocquancourt. As they inched along the road the first grim scenes of death met their eye—smashed equipment, battered buildings, sun-blacked bodies of Germans and British and Canadians who would fight no more and now lay side by side in the silent comradeship of death. No matter how one prepares for that sight, it still comes as a shock.
“The recce party ran into a heap of trouble in the form of an enemy 88-mm gun which had the road well covered. Major [Robert Ernest] Hogarth and Lieutenant [D.A.] Short had to make a fast gallop back to their vehicles after they had gone ahead to look the situation over and the whole column was backed up to a crossing where we turned east and then south to another area. Progress during the night had not been up to expectations so that the original deployment area could not be occupied without ending up dead or a POW.
“Towards noon the regiment finally got deployed near Verrières right in the middle of what seemed to be the main tank paths for the armoured attack.”11
When 15th Field Regiment’s reconnaissance personnel reached Rocquancourt, they huddled behind a stone wall, while the “whole area was being systematically shelled from three sides, snipers were everywhere, and anti-tank guns engaged any vehicle that moved over high ground. Nonetheless, battery and troop areas were allotted, gun platforms were selected, and survey was begun. This work was well under way when it was decided that the area was too exposed, and recce parties were ordered to withdraw north of the town where the regiment had lain for several hours awaiting the order to deploy, still in complete ignorance of what was going on in front and around it.” Not until shortly after noon were the regiment’s guns deployed in an orchard north of Rocquancourt.12
Because armoured divisions had only two inherent field artillery regiments, First Canadian Army’s 19th Field Regiment was attached for Totalize. Struggling through intense traffic congestion, these gunners didn’t reach their gun area near Rocquancourt until after noon and were not ready to fire until 1300 hours.13
Getting the guns positioned was just one problem besetting the division’s artillery headquarters staff. At 0930 hours, they suddenly learned it was their responsibility to mark bomb targets with red smoke. They assigned the task to 23rd Field Regiment, only to learn the gunners had insufficient shells of this type. At 1100 hours, a “priority” convoy rolled into divisional headquarters with the requisite shells, and Captain B.S. Saunders guided it to the regiment’s gun line. “After many anxious moments, [the regiment began] firing red smoke at correct places at the correct time,” the divisional artillery’s war diarist recorded.14
AT 1255, 680 American B-17 and B-24 bombers arrived. Their assigned targets were Bretteville-sur-Laize on the right, Saint-Sylvain to the left, Hautmesnil astride the Caen-Falaise highway, and the little hamlet of Gouvix immediately south of Bretteville.15 Approaching on a west-to-east trajectory crossing the Canadian and Polish front, the bombers were also exposed to heavy German flak, which caused considerable disorganization. Ten bombers were shot down and 294 sustained damage. Low cloud, lingering haze, and battlefield smoke hampered the ability to see assigned targets despite the red smoke. Consequently, a number of bombardiers released bombs onto Canadian, Polish, and British troops.16 Two twelve-plane groups veered far off course, and most of these dropped their payloads between Vaucelles and Cormelles.17
A 3rd Infantry Division column was just coming out of Vaucelles. The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment was in trucks near its head. Major Robert Robichaud “saw a cloud of dust, smoke and fire rolling toward us.” Soldiers piled out of still rolling trucks to seek cover. “The bombing stopped right in front of my company … As soon as the air cleared up a bit I proceeded to the head of the column with [Company Sergeant Major] Roger Tremblay … Fires were burning all over the place and a continuous staccato of bursting shells filled the air, the artillery ammunition dumps had been set on fire. We saw several bodies in flames … This was a severe blow to the unit and we stopped for the night shortly afterward.”18 Twenty-three other ranks were killed, seventy-three other ranks and two officers wounded.19 This was about the same casualty rate the battalion suffered on D-Day.
On the outskirts of Cormelles, the 1st Hussars ‘B’ Echelon had eight men killed and ten wounded. A hit on the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade’s headquarters resulted in several casualties and the destruction of much equipment. The 3rd Division headquarters was also struck. Its signals office took a direct hit that killed or wounded everyone inside and knocked out all communication. Major General Rod Keller was critically wounded.20
The Fort Garry Horse’s ‘B’ Echelon was close by. Major Bruce Macdonald had just overseen loading eight Kangaroos with ammunition and fuel to take to the regiment’s tanks on the front line when a stick of bombs struck. Several Kangaroos were blown up, and a couple of others started burning. To prevent its ammunition and fuel from exploding in the congested area, Macdonald jumped aboard one burning Kangaroo and raced it out onto the adjacent road and into the midst of a passing Polish column. As the Kangaroo plunged through the column and out the other side, it sheered the rear end off a staff car. Snatching up an extinguisher, Macdonald smothered the flames. He was horrified to see the bodies of two Polish officers hanging out of the wrecked car. “Oh, my God,” he cried. A Polish soldier shook his head. “Do not worry,” he said. “They were already dead from the bombs.”
Macdonald staggered off, sick to his stomach but also dizzy. As he remembered all the inhaled extinguisher fumes, Macdonald passed out. When he awoke, he stared up at a movie camera manned by a Canadian Army cameraman. “What the hell are you doing?” he gasped. “Jesus,” the man said, “I thought I was filming one of the dead. Glad to see you’re not.” The cameraman offered a f lask of whisky and Macdonald took a grateful slug.21 Returning to the regiment’s harbour, he learned that ten Fort Garry Horse soldiers had died.22
A final casualty toll, including those of the Polish division, was estimated at 65 killed and 250 wounded. In addition, four Canadian medium and heavy guns were damaged and about fifty-five vehicles destroyed or damaged. Large quantities of ammunition and fuel were lost.23
“This misadventure in the rear did not affect the advance of [4th Canadian Armoured Division],” an army report later concluded. “Its troops were [instead] held up by the jammed traffic resulting from the difficulties around Rocquancourt.”24 This and other critical delays meant that most benefits accruing from the bombing were lost, as the Germans gained several hours to recover and strengthen defensive lines.
While the targets at Bretteville, Hautmesnil, and Saint-Sylvain were heavily bombed, only one bomber dropped on Gouvix. Unable to identify that target, the other bombers assigned to it returned to base without releasing any bombs. Only 492 bombers in fact dropped their ordnance, for a total of about 1,848 tons.25
The bombers had arrived just as Standartenführer Kurt Meyer was launching a 12th SS Panzer Division counterattack. Although his tanks and infantry were rolling through open fields, not a single bomber altered course to engage them.26 The counterattacking force consisted of seven Tigers, a company of Mark IV Panzers, a mixed group of two companies fielding several anti-tank guns, a company of self-propelled guns, and a thinned-out infantry battalion. It advanced against the right flank of 51st (Highland) Division in front of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. While German artillery and mortars hammered the British troops, the Tigers led off from Cintheaux. SS Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann commanded the Tigers. A Knight’s Cross winner and minor German celebrity, Wittmann was the country’s top tank ace, having amassed 143 armoured vehicle kills during fighting on both the eastern and western fronts.
Wittmann directed the Tigers, several Mark IVs, some half-tracks carrying panzer grenadiers, and two SPGs straight up the highway on a trajectory passing immediately east of Gaumesnil.27 From positions south of Saint-Aignan, British tankers prepared to engage the Tigers, while ‘A’ Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers also zeroed in from next to Gaumesnil. Major Sidney Radley-Walters had established the squadron in the grounds of a large château, surrounded by a high concrete wall that ran alongside the highway. ‘A’ Squadron had eight Shermans, two of which mounted 17-pounders. The crews had cut holes in the walls to create firing ports for the main guns.
Seeing a column of five Tigers with the last just ahead of the Mark IVs, half-tracks, and SPGs, Radley-Walters warned his crew commanders to hold fire until he signalled. At a range of only five hundred yards, ‘A’ Squadron started shooting, and the lead Tiger was instantly knocked out. Radley-Walters scored a killing hit on an SPG as the German column swung off the highway towards a wood south of Saint-Aignan. This exposed the column’s rear, and Radley-Walters counted two Mark IVs and a Tiger at the tail as additional kills. While this shootout was under way, the first Tiger exploded, its massive turret somersaulting through the air to land right side up behind the burning hulk. Painted on the turret were the numbers “007”—Wittmann’s designation. Although argument raged over whether Canadian, British, possibly Polish, or even a stray Typhoon was responsible for killing the German tank ace, ‘A’ Squadron’s claim proved the most convincing.28
‘A’ Squadron’s fire forced the column away from the highway and directly into the British right flank. A fierce tank engagement ensued with both sides suffering heavy losses. When the panzer grenadiers dismounted, they were unable to close with the British tanks because of heavy machine-gun fire tearing into their ranks. At 1500 hours, the counterattack collapsed.29
AT 1355 HOURS, the two armoured divisions finally gained their start lines. Kitching’s plan envisioned 4th Armoured Brigade advancing on the left and 10th Infantry Brigade the right. The Canadian Grenadier Guards supported by the Lake Superior Regiment’s motorized infantry headed the armoured advance. They were accompanied by a Flail squadron and the 96th Anti-Tank Battery of the division’s 5th Anti-Tank Regiment. Dubbed “Halpenny Force,” after Grenadier commander Lieutenant Colonel Bill Halpenny, this unit was to bypass Cintheaux and Hautmesnil to the east, capture Bretteville-le-Rabet, and then proceed to Points 195 and 206. The infantry brigade—less the Algonquin Regiment, which was under 4th Brigade’s command—would clear the bypassed villages through to and including Bretteville-le-Rabet. Armour support was provided by the South Alberta Regiment.30
Before 4th Division could advance, however, 2nd Division was to clear Gaumesnil. Due to various communication gaffes within 2nd Division, 4th Infantry Brigade only received instructions to send the Royal Regiment from Point 122 to take the village at 1300 hours. When Lieutenant Colonel Jock Anderson asked whether Gaumesnil was still in German hands, Brigadier Eddy Ganong had no idea. Proceeding cautiously, Anderson sent the commanders of ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies on a reconnaissance.
About three hundred yards north of Gaumesnil, the two officers found ‘A’ Squadron in the château grounds. Radley-Walters said he “had been all around Gaumesnil, but no one as yet had attempted to enter the village.” Returning to Point 122, the company commanders gathered their men and advanced on Gaumesnil through thick artillery and mortar fire that was lacing the entire II Canadian Corps front. It took until 1530 hours for the Royals to reach Gaumesnil. They found “no opposition, although a few stray prisoners were collected.” The Royals were well pleased with the village, finding it “considerably more pleasant than any we had had to date as the barns and farm buildings were not too badly wrecked, and there was a plentiful supply of excellent water at the château.”31
“With this improvement, traffic congestion around Gaumesnil eased, and the tanks … were able to move more freely,” stated one army report. “The infantry of 10 [th Brigade], moving down the Falaise road, resumed the advance as soon as Gaumesnil fell.”32 But precious hours had been lost.
During the afternoon of August 8, an odd disconnect prevailed between Operation Totalize’s phase-two conception and its actual execution, as a rapid armoured breakout was stalled by the slow pace at which 2nd Division was clearing the way. Having crossed their start lines five minutes before the Royals had even received orders to attack Gaumesnil, Halpenny Force and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which were leading 10th Infantry Brigade’s advance, had spent hours waiting on the village’s northern outskirts.
Instead of bulling ahead by skirting the village, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Halpenny did nothing. Nor did Brigadier Leslie Booth urge the force to make haste. The movements of 4th Armoured Brigade that afternoon were marked by a curious lethargy. In Italy, Booth had won a Distinguished Service Order and Bar for courage. But Kitching had noticed lately that Booth was no longer “the keen and cheerful man” he had been. In fact, Kitching worried that Booth had some premonition of impending death, a factor that might explain Booth’s increasingly heavy drinking.33
Although Kitching had given his operational briefing at 1900 hours on August 6, Booth had waited until 1100 hours the following day to brief his brigade. That left little more than a day to get ready. Lake Superior Regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel J.E.V. Murrell and his intelligence officer, Lieutenant D.A. Johnson, left the briefing with only “a rough outline of the operation which was to take place the following day.”
Things did not become clearer over the course of the afternoon and several equally uninformative briefings. Finally, at 2230 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Halpenny presented the final briefing to his officers.34 The Superior’s historian later described this as “not … a very auspicious beginning for the action … In any event, the officers of ‘Halpenny Force’ crowded into the Intelligence room with its smoky, excited atmosphere, its dim light, and its small map tacked to the wall, all eager to learn what they could, and believing that upon their own particular tasks depended the success of the whole battle.”
One observer thought “the milling, pressing mob, except for the presence of army uniforms, had all the appearance of a bargain sale counter in a department store.” Halpenny started ponderously reading orders, only to be drowned out by the sudden appearance of RAF bombers supporting Totalize’s first phase. Someone extinguished the lights. “In the noisy darkness the Orders Group, already large and unwieldy, lost whatever sense of cohesion it might ever have had, and when the lights were finally turned on again, the place was in a state of utmost confusion. And yet it was in this state … that the orders were completed. As he returned to his own lines each officer possessed but the vaguest notion as to what was going to happen on the morrow and what his own role was to be.”35
Watching with a jaundiced eye was Major Hershell “Snuffy” Smith, who commanded the Grenadiers’ No. 3 Squadron. (4th Division armoured regiments used numbers to denote squadrons rather than first letters of the alphabet, as did 2nd Armoured Brigade.) Like Booth, Smith had fought in Italy. Major Ned Amy, commanding No. 1 Squadron, was also an Italian veteran. Both were highly capable.
Smith found Halpenny “didn’t inspire confidence.” At somewhere between age thirty-five and forty, Halpenny was “too old for regimental command,” he thought. His lack of combat experience seemed to have undermined his self-confidence. Whenever Smith or Amy contradicted an order, Halpenny deferred to him without argument. “Hell, he’s the boss,” Smith would complain to Amy. Smith liked Halpenny. He just considered him a “round peg in a square hole.”
As for Booth, Smith flatly believed that “as a brigade commander, Booth was just no good.” He was the brigade’s “weak link.” If Booth “had been stronger, his regimental commanders would have been stronger.”36
After the briefing fiasco, Halpenny Force started moving painfully slowly at 0300 hours on August 8 . At dawn, they were still short of the forming-up position at Troteval Farm. Wireless sets crackled with Booth alternately pleading with and haranguing everyone to “get cracking.” At 0845 hours, Booth instructed Halpenny to pass through 2nd Division and move to the start line. Instead, Halpenny Force lurched along through endless gridlock resulting from vehicles of every division seemingly moving in an absence of traffic control. Five hours later, Major Amy’s No. 1 Squadron led the force past Rocquancourt and immediately lost three tanks to mines. Then it was held up before Gaumesnil. Not until sometime between 1530 and 1600 hours did Halpenny Force finally enter enemy country.37
THE GAUMESNIL LOGJAM resulted from two critical planning errors. First, lying as it did south of the phase-two bomb line, 2nd Division could not secure the village until the bombers left. Second, Simonds had given 2nd Division too many unprioritized missions to complete after conducting a landmark night advance. Despite the urgency of removing the Gaumesnil roadblock, Simonds attached no more urgency to this than clearing May-sur-Orne, Fontenay-le-Marmion, or even Bretteville-sur-Laize. With a list of equally weighted tasks, Major General Charles Foulkes spread his already-depleted forces ever thinner through the course of the day in an attempt to simultaneously complete them all.
At the same time as the Royal Regiment was clearing Gaumesnil, 5th Brigade advanced its battalions towards Bretteville-sur-Laize about a mile and a quarter to the west. This brigade had concentrated in the early morning just north of Rocquancourt and could easily have dealt with Gaumesnil—certainly a more pressing task than expanding the corps flank westward to the Laize River. Instead, at 1000 hours, sticking to 2nd Division’s rote, Brigadier Bill Megill directed the Calgary Highlanders and Régiment de Maisonneuve to attack from Caillouet towards Bretteville at noon.38 Two squadrons of 1st Hussars supported this attack, ‘A’ Squadron moving with the Cal-garies and ‘B’ Squadron the Maisies.39
At 1400 hours, the Calgaries advanced along the right side of the road leading to Bretteville, while the Maisies were to the left. The hamletof Quilly and its surrounding woods that overlooked Brette-ville were to be taken by the Maisies. They would then cover the Calgaries’ descent to Bretteville. It was about a half-mile through smouldering wheat fields to the edge of the valley. At first the descent was gradual, but then the slope fell away steeply.
To the consternation of both battalions—so used to being mauled by artillery and mortar fire during advances—no opposition was met crossing the open ground fringed on all sides by what the Calgary war diarist described as “evil looking” woods. With the tanks on the ridge to provide covering fire, the Calgaries slipped into the valley with two companies forward and two back.
Bretteville “was a complete shambles” due to bombing damage, and the road leading to it had been badly churned up. Inside the village, the Calgaries met only slight resistance and secured it without a single casualty.40 By 1630 hours, all objectives had been secured without any losses.41
As both battalions brought support company, headquarters, and other rear-echelon elements forward, these encountered German fire. Calgary Highlanders’ Lieutenant Colonel Donald MacLauchlan’s Bren carrier was hit by 88-millimetre fire from the opposite side of the river, and MacLauchlan was blown out of the vehicle. Unhurt, he climbed through the woods to the tanks and pointed out the German gun position. The tank fire silenced and possibly destroyed the gun. A “very beautiful château” standing on the edge of Bretteville was sheltering several machine guns firing on the village. MacLauchlan hated to do it, but he had artillery reduce the fine building to a battered ruin, which ‘B’ Company swept through without finding any trace of Germans.42
When two Nebelwerfers started firing salvoes into Bretteville from a position five hundred yards to the northeast, the Maisies charged it. The crews fled, leaving behind brand-new launchers around which was stacked “a plentiful supply of ammunition.”43
Bretteville, MacLauchlan observed, lay “in a saucer … commanded by the high ground north of it.”44 It was also surrounded by wooded heights that made MacLauchlan uneasy. Always before, the Germans had counterattacked any objective won. He expected them to do so that night. His companies had little room to manoeuvre. With the roads virtually impassable, reinforcing them would be difficult. MacLauchlan decided to withdraw from the village and up onto the high ground for the night.
The decision meant carrying out “one of the most dangerous manoeuvres in modern warfare,” according to one regimental historian—a withdrawal “over a forward slope.” The move was made while still light and without covering artillery. Nor did MacLauchlan have either the tanks or his battalion mortars fire a smokescreen.
A hundred men were still climbing the exposed slope when an 88-millimetre gun opened from the ridgeline to the east. Shrapnel cut down rows of men; concussion sent others sprawling. Soldiers wandered blindly in shock or cowered.45 Captain Ross Ellis scrambled down the slope with a party of stretcher-bearers. He found the acting company commander of ‘D’ Company severely wounded, hefted the man over his shoulder, and carried him through shellfire 250 yards up the hill.46 When everyone gained the covering woods, the battalion counted three officers wounded, one in shock, three other ranks killed, thirty-nine wounded, and twenty missing.47
The average remaining company strength was twenty-five to thirty men. This “extremely small number of bodies,” MacLauchlan said later, “was thickened” by having the tanks stay through the night and the battalion’s anti-tank guns, carriers, and mortars deploy with them. During the night, Brigadier Megill reinforced the Calgaries with a Toronto Scottish heavy-machine-gun platoon and a troop of 2nd Anti-Tank Regiment’s 17-pounders.
Megill ordered Bretteville retaken the following morning. The Calgaries went in at noon. MacLauchlan kept ‘D’ Company back to provide covering fire, while ‘A’ Company gained the edge of the village to establish a base through which the other two companies passed.48 Captain R.L. Morgan-Dean’s ‘A’ Company was fifty yards short of the river when a machine gun opened fire and drove the leading platoon to ground. Bren gunner Private William Cook dodged into the open to draw fire and situate the German gun. Alternately crawling and dashing across open ground, he closed in. Then, firing from the hip, he rushed the position and took six prisoners. Cook’s rapid elimination of this threat earned him a Military Medal.49
Resistance collapsed. Two officers and nineteen soldiers surrendered, mostly Russian or Polish conscripts happy to give up. The Calgaries spent the restof August 9 “sleeping in shifts” and enjoying “two hot meals.” Rumour held they were in for several days of rest, 2nd Division’s role in the big offensive over.50