AS JUNE 7TH’S pre-dawn light brushed the farm fields, country villages, and sandy beaches of Normandy in a delicate golden wash, Allied and German soldiers readied weapons, gulped rations, and prepared for another long day’s fighting. The smoke of fires caused by shellfire and exploding bombs drifted up from ruined buildings, smouldering orchards, and the wreckage of military equipment. Several miles east of Juno Beach, a larger, darker cloud boiled out of bomb-battered Caen—grim testimony to the beginning of that city’s tragic destruction. Six miles inland from the beach, the breezes were light under clear skies. Stretched across an eight-mile-wide front, the men of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade moved forward, intent on finishing the business of reaching the objectives that were to have been in hand by the end of the previous day. Carpiquet airport, the Caen-Bayeux highway, and the parallelling railroad lay little more than three miles to the south, an easy morning’s march away.
To 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the left flank fell the task of seizing the airport. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders supported by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers would kick off from Villons-les-Buissons and lead the way with the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and the Highland Light Infantry in trail. Standing behind the so-called Highland Brigade would be two battalions from the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade—the Queen’s Own Rifles and Le Régiment de la Chaudière. On the division’s extreme left flank, 8 CIB’s other battalion, the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, was marching a mile east of its June 6 end position in Tailleville to capture the Luftwaffe radar station situated on a hill next to the village of Douvres-la-Délivrande. This would also enable the Canadian division to tie in with 3rd British Infantry Division advancing inland from Sword Beach. On the division’s right flank, meanwhile, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade would bull southwards to take up positions astride the Caen-Bayeux railway at Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse and Putot-en-Bessin.
Despite the heavy casualties suffered on D-Day, a mood of determined optimism prevailed. While the previous day’s fighting left no illusion that this day would be a stroll in the French countryside, the expectation was that the Allied juggernaut unleashed in Normandy would crush the opposing Germans in its maw. During the night, from his forward headquarters in an orchard outside Bernières-sur-Mer, Major General Rod Keller had issued orders for the advance, set schedules for its completion, and the brigadiers had in turn passed instructions to the battalions under their command.
At forty-three, Keller was the youngest Canadian major general—having attained divisional command on September 8, 1942. Five-foot-eleven and weighing about 170 pounds, Keller had ramrod-straight posture that created the impression of greater height. A stickler for military protocol, Keller was a spit and polish officer who expected his division to be as meticulously turned out as his own battle dress. Although most of the time strict and grim, Keller could as easily be charming and jovial—particularly when in company of women. Although married, he had spent much time in England away from divisional headquarters dallying at the estate of his upper-class mistress.
That had been fine by his General Staff Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Don Mingay, for he considered Keller a dunderhead qualified to be little more than the division’s figurehead, while he and the headquarters staff ran things. In a time and an army where hard drinking went hand in hand with hard-driving soldiering, Keller’s excessive boozing worried subordinates and superiors alike. But, despite a rumoured scotch-bottle-a-day habit, Keller was seldom seen to behave worse for it. On D-Day, however, the general had proved increasingly excitable from the moment he waded ashore in the late morning and his anxiousness seemed only to increase on June 7.1
If Keller seemed to be holding a relatively unsteady hand on the division’s reins, the same could not be said of his infantry brigadiers. Each was a solid, experienced commander, ready for the tough job ahead, despite the fact that the two officers who had attended Royal Military College had been less than exemplary students. The youngest, 9 CIB’s Douglas Gordon “Ben” Cunningham, had graduated in the class of 1929 with marks hovering on the line separating the middle and bottom thirds of his class. During his four years at RMC, he had demonstrated consistent indifference to academic studies. Cunningham had arrived at RMC in 1925, a lanky red-haired youth weighing just 135 pounds, but quickly adapted to the strict regimen of athletics and military drill, to be transformed on graduation as a six-foot-two “wiry athlete with imposing presence.” Hockey and soccer were his key sports. Although ending every semester with reports that scolded his academic failings, he inevitably garnered praise for his military bearing and motivation. RMC Commandant Archibald Cameron Macdonell, the strict World War I veteran who ran the school with a stern hand through the interwar years, described him upon graduation as showing “indications of developing considerable strength of character and leadership.”2
From RMC, Cunningham proceeded directly to a short-lived career in the financial industry on Toronto’s Bay Street that ended abruptly with the stock market crash. He then entered Osgoode Hall, following his father’s footsteps to a law degree attained in 1933. Returning to hometown Kingston, Cunningham opened a legal practice, but his first interest was the army. He joined the local Princess of Wales Own Regiment militia and soon became its adjutant. Shortly before the war, when asked about his availability for full-time military service, he responded, “available at any time to serve anyplace.”3
With war, Cunningham answered the call to duty and by 1942 was the brigade major of 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the ill-fated day its troops hit the beach at Dieppe. Circling offshore in a LCT command ship, Cunningham handled the fire support provided by the naval ships. For eight hours, with the ship repeatedly raked by fire from the beach that wounded his brigadier and killed or wounded many others aboard, the major continued calmly performing his job and then was instrumental in ensuring the evacuation of many troops from the blood-soaked sand. For his bravery, Cunningham was awarded an immediate Distinguished Service Order and the next day promoted to lieutenant colonel in command of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. Following a short stint on the general staff of I Canadian Corps, he was promoted to brigadier of 9 CIB in November 1943.
Cunningham’s counterpart at the helm of 7 CIB was Brigadier Harry Foster, who had conducted himself even more poorly during less than three years at RMC even though his father, a retired Permanent Force officer, had used a personal friendship with Macdonell to gain the young man entrance. As Harry was enrolled in the first year of a science program at McGill University, Macdonell agreed to let him into RMC only if he achieved an 80 per cent average at the Montreal institution. But Foster managed only 67 per cent and failed one course entirely. Yet Macdonell relented and accepted him anyway in 1922.
Having entered the college via influence rather than competition, Foster continued to put in a lacklustre academic performance. Five months after enrolling, Macdonell declared his efforts “satisfactory, albeit uneven.” That the commandant was being surprisingly lenient towards Foster was evidenced by the fact that he had failed physics, chemistry, and English. More damning was the verdict that Foster “is a fine type but must cultivate cheerfulness.” Cadets at RMC were “expected to grin and bear the pressures of military life. Demeanour was the most obvious indication of character. It was considered an accurate reflection of a cadet’s potential to inspire and lead soldiers once he earned the King’s Commission. In a school where most of the military instructors had fought in the trenches of the Western Front, sad sacks were considered unsafe leaders; optimism remained the order of the day in the cadet wing.”4
By the end of the first semester of Foster’s second year, Macdonell’s frustration with the young man was evident. “Conduct, fair,”
he wrote. “This cadet does not begin to do himself justice, tho[ugh] I think he is trying now. Hope so. He had been slacking and drifting through life, not getting anywhere when I spoke to him. Grade ‘A’ in Riding, ‘C’ in P.T., ‘D’ in Drill and Musketry. He could easily be ‘A’ in each one.”5
Even his peers were disappointed in Foster. In the December 1923 yearbook, he was described as suffering “to some extent from taking things too easily. When he wants to he can play a good game.” Faced with a series of failing grades in his third year, Foster decided to pack it in and, with his father’s blessing, withdrew from RMC in July 1924 to receive the King’s Commission. Such a commission in the Permanent Force was available to all cadets after two full years at RMC.6An excellent horseman, he was posted to the Lord Strathcona’s Horse cavalry regiment.
No longer having to worry about academic studies, Foster flourished in the regular army. By war’s outbreak, he had risen in rank to captain and was pegged early for a fast-track career. In late 1939, he attended Staff College—a major rung up the ladder leading to brigade or divisional command—and in 1941 reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, with command of the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. The following year he was assigned as General Staff Officer 1 of 1st Canadian Infantry Division, an important posting that provided officers identified as having brigade potential with critical staff management experience. In late 1942, Foster took command of the Highland Light Infantry, a move that served to broaden this cavalry-cum-tanker’s expertise by giving him experience in infantry command. The following year, he was promoted to brigadier of 7 CIB. Within a few months of assuming this duty, Foster was seconded to temporary duty as the commanding officer of Canadian forces engaged in the Kiska Island invasion in the Aleutians. He returned from that assignment just weeks before D-Day. Forty-two years old in June 1944, Foster was now regarded as a tough, hard-charging career officer already earmarked by First Army commander Lieutenant General Harry Crerar for eventual divisional command.
At forty-six, 8 CIB’s Brigadier Kenneth Gault Blackader was a World War I veteran, who had distinguished himself in a long career. Having gone overseas in 1916 as a lieutenant in the 5th Regiment, Royal Canadian Highlanders, Blackader had been wounded on August 8, 1918 during the Battle of Amiens. His heroism in the course of that action garnered a Military Cross.7 After the Armistice, Blackader joined the Black Watch Regiment of Montreal and earned rapid promotion up the reserve unit’s command chain. At war’s outbreak in September 1939, he was a full colonel and the regiment’s commander. He immediately set to raising 1st Battalion Black Watch for active duty and, in order to take it overseas, reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In January 1942, Blackader left the regiment after being promoted to brigadier and command of 8 CIB.
Although it was unusual for someone his age to command a combat brigade, Blackader’s reputation was rock-solid. That he had not been promoted to even higher command likely resulted from the fact that he was a militia soldier rather than a Permanent Force officer, combined with a lack of divisional command openings. Within the Black Watch, Blackader held almost legendary standing because of his long service with the regiment during the interwar years and his combat service during the Great War. But in many regards, Blackader retained the mannerisms and temperament of the upper-class World War I officer, so that he often seemed deliberately aloof and formal in his dealings with subordinates and superiors alike. He was not a man to suffer fools quietly or to hesitate in strongly stating his opinions about divisional operations.8
AT 0130 HOURS, Brigadier Harry Foster convened an Orders Group for 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade at his headquarters in a farmhouse on the edge of Colombiers-sur-Seulles. Here, the commanders of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Regina Rifles, and Canadian Scottish Regiment gathered around a large table in the crude kitchen. By the yellow glare of a kerosene lamp, Foster gave the tired men their marching orders.9
Knowing he was blessed with excellent battalion commanders, Foster did not waste time covering every detail of what they were to accomplish in the morning. Beginning at 0600 hours, the Winnipeg Rifles would advance on the right and the Regina Rifles on the left to sever the Caen-Bayeux highway and the parallelling railroad a short distance beyond. The Canadian Scottish would remain in reserve, providing a firm base to the advance in case the Germans countered this attack in strength with one of their own before the lead battalions reached the iron rails.10 Backing up the brigade would be a machine gun and mortar platoon of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, three troops of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, and two batteries of 17-pounder antitank guns drawn from the 62nd British Anti-Tank Regiment.
Intrinsic to the division’s operational plans in the aftermath of the landings was the assumption that the Germans would respond according to their standard doctrine, with an immediate counterattack. Foster hoped his brigade could reach the railroad before the German onslaught. With its sunken bed, the line would serve well as an antitank barrier. Briefing over, the battalion commanders raced to ready their battalions for the morning.11 They had less than four hours to not only set out their plan of advance, but also determine how to meet the likely German counterattack. Nobody expected any sleep this night.
Immediately on returning to his headquarters in the village of Pierrepont, Canadian Scottish commander Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu summoned his company commanders to a briefing. His battalion had ended June 6 well forward of the other two 7 CIB battalions, but with the companies widely dispersed. The thirty-seven-year-old former real estate agent from Victoria still regretted that Foster had insisted his companies dig in for the night short of their D-Day objective. Convinced nothing stood in his way but a few demoralized Germans, Cabeldu had begged permission to keep moving despite the onset of darkness until he reached the Caen-Bayeux highway. Foster, bowing to instructions from Keller’s headquarters, refused and ordered him to “freeze” in place for fear of the possibility of an “enemy tank counterattack.”12
Because his units were so spread out, the lieutenant colonel had yet to know for sure whether all his company commanders had survived the day unscathed. When ‘C’ Company’s Major Desmond Crofton arrived, Cabeldu happily shook his hand. Crofton wrote later “how glad the C.O. was to see one of his company commanders coming in, and then another, and all of them arriving, as he never thought that he would see all his old group intact.”13
The scene unfolding at Cabeldu’s headquarters mirrored that played out at other battalion headquarters, although his had been the only D-Day assault unit fortunate to have had no company commanders killed or wounded. Elsewhere, the assault battalions scrambled during the early morning hours to bring up major drafts of reinforcements to replenish the ranks, while replacement company officers attempted to acquaint themselves with new commands.
Regina Rifles Lieutenant Colonel Foster Matheson noted a good number of ‘B’ Company survivors—first cut apart during the landing and then heavily engaged in fighting within Courseulles-sur-Mer—straggle into the battalion lines during the night. The majority of these men had barely survived drowning when the landing craft dumped them into deep water well out from the beach. In the struggle to get ashore, many had abandoned weapons and ammunition in order to swim to shallower water. They had then spent the afternoon and night wandering country lanes in an attempt to reconnect with the Reginas. Lacking replacement weaponry for those without arms, Matheson ordered them “supplied with enemy equipment.” The Reginas also welcomed into their ranks about one hundred reinforcements. Having withdrawn the terribly mauled ‘A’ Company from the front lines back to battalion headquarters at Reviers, Matheson used these men to restore it to combat strength.14
Most of the reinforcements received by the Royal Winnipeg Rifles went to bring the devastated ‘B’ Company back to a semblance of combat readiness. This company had been shredded on the beach, its commander Captain Phil Gower counting only twenty-six men fit for duty and all its platoon commanders either dead or wounded after the German beach fortifications were cleared.
The battalion was in the midst of integrating the reinforcements at 0200 hours when a German patrol blundered into ‘C’ Company’s perimeter and was lashed by rifle and machine-gun fire as the troops hit it from the protection of their slit trenches. Most of the Germans immediately surrendered, while a few managed to escape into the darkness. The Canadians rounded up nineteen men and one officer, who was quickly shot and killed when he attempted to make a break for it.15
The Winnipegs’ other assault company had been Major Lockhart “Lochie” Ross Fulton’s ‘D’ Company. Although his men had suffered fewer casualties than ‘B’ Company, Fulton knew they were badly worn out from the hard fighting and undoubtedly had managed little rest during a night disrupted by the fireworks at the beach and ‘C’ Company’s sharp fight with the German patrol. With dawn approaching, the thirty-seven-year-old officer from Birtle, Manitoba set out with his runner to check his company lines and ensure everyone was ready to begin the dawn move.16
The short firefight had left everyone in the battalion jumpy. Private Gordon Maxwell stared into the blackness beyond his slit trench and imagined anything moving out there must be Germans trying to creep up on him. His heart started pounding when two shadows slinked across his front. Maxwell drew a bead on the lead shadow, but eased off the trigger at the last moment. “I decided not to fire. If it was a German, we may have been able to take him prisoner. I finally figured out who the man creeping around in the darkness was. It had been a close call for Major Fulton.”17 Maxwell later confided that, although happy he hadn’t fired, he was “such a poor shot I probably wouldn’t have hit him anyway.”18
UNAWARE OF HIS CLOSE brush with death, Fulton led his company out at 0615 hours towards the objective. Fulton’s men trailed behind those of ‘C’ Company, which led the advance under the command of Major J.M.D. (Jimmy) Jones. Concerned by a gap between the Winnipegs and the 7th Green Howards of the 50th British Infantry Division advancing from Gold Beach, Lieutenant Colonel John Meldram assigned Captain D.B. Robertson to guard the battalion’s right flank. He was given a platoon from ‘A’ Company, two sections of the carrier platoon, and one section of six-pounders from the anti-tank platoon for the task.
Hedgerows walled in the narrow lanes and it was difficult to locate any reference points to serve as guideposts. Consequently, ‘C’ Company soon took a wrong turn and wandered off into the blue.19 When Fulton reported that the company he was supposed to be following was no longer out to the front, Meldram said, “Lead the battalion into Putot.”20 The lieutenant colonel, fretting that the Germans would soon counterattack, urged haste and left it to ‘C’ Company to find its own way back to the rest of the battalion.
‘D’ Company moved quickly, Fulton effectively using his map and compass to stay on a track that took the Winnipegs through the hamlet of Lantheuil and then a maze of grain fields, dairy cattle paddocks, and orchards that led unwaveringly towards Putot-en-Bessin. The only opposition was presented by a scattering of snipers who were either quickly wiped out or took to their heels after snapping off a shot or two. Occasionally, a German artillery shell shrieked down to explode nearby, but this seemed nothing more than undirected searching fire intended to harass the advancing troops. Neither the snipers nor the random shelling caused any casualties and little slowed the pace of the marching troops.21
So quickly did the Little Black Devils, as the Royal Winnipeg Rifles were known, and the Regina Rifles move in the early morning that Brigadier Foster decided at 0800 hours that the Canadian Scottish should join the advance by coming up in the centre between the two battalions. This battalion could then easily shift as needed to support the Winnipegs or the Reginas if either ran into stiff fighting, while also keeping the entire brigade in contact across a one-and-a-half-mile-wide front.
Despite the ease of the advance, Canadian Scottish Lieutenant Colonel Cabeldu was uneasy. “Rumours were running rampant through the ranks of the battalion that paratroopers were dropping. We were green troops in a strange land, therefore we believed everything that came our way.”22 Throughout the night, there had been numerous baseless reports over the Canadian wireless net that German paratroopers were being dropped to the rear of the forward battalions in an attempt to cut them off. At one point, the Sherbrooke Fusiliers came up on the net insisting that paratroops “had landed nearby but… were adequately handled by the infantry and our machine guns.”23 In the morning, no sign of phantom paratroops were found, but the reports of paratroop drops and fierce fights persisted.
The Canadian division’s radio communications were badly confused by German signallers, in possession of the radio code books captured along with the two Sherbrooke Fusilier officers during the night, interjecting with regular disinformation. 9 CIB’s Brigadier Ben Cunningham was so pestered by one German operator that he later commented on how “an interesting example of enemy ingenuity is afforded by the skill of a German wireless operator whose set was functioning on the brigade link to [the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.]” The German signaller “quickly adopted our wireless procedure, even to such details as: ‘Report my signals’ and ‘Say again all after… ’ His cleverness was annoying at the most, since it became difficult to know if wireless messages were being received, but his skill at mimicry was such that by the end of the day he could imitate the voice of Colonel [Mel] Gordon, OC [Sherbrooke Fusiliers.]”24
The sun soon rose high overhead and the heat became stifling as the Canadian Scottish, for want of a road running in the right direction, cut through grain fields. Captain P.F. Ramsay, second-in-command of ‘B’ Company, noted that “the yellow grain was almost waist high and the ground beneath dusty so that movement had to be cautious to prevent clouds of dust. Water discipline had to be maintained at a high level.” The wisdom of not raising dust that could betray their positions was rammed home when a German ME-109 fighter plane roared overhead, only to be pounced upon by a Spitfire. “We witnessed the first daylight air skirmish above us and an me came hurtling down in flames and a parachute blossomed out above us. A cocky young German pilot landed in the middle of the company,” Ramsay wrote.25 He was shunted off to battalion headquarters.
Although 7 CIB was moving forward quickly, the lead companies also anxiously expected at any moment to meet heavy resistance. As the men passed through small hamlets, local farmers generally offered up dire warnings along with copious helpings of calvados, a French apple brandy, and wine. At 0950 hours, Brigadier Foster radioed a report to Keller’s headquarters that the Winnipegs had just been advised by “local inhabitants” that “150 enemy” were massed in St. Croix Grand Tonne and were “in goodly number” at Brettevillel’Orgueilleuse.26 Both these villages were byways on the Caen-Bayeux highway, situated directly in front of the brigade’s line of advance.
Despite the grim cautions from locals, the Germans failed to materialize in any strength. ‘D’ Company continued brushing aside snipers that were more nuisances than effective opposition. At 1010 hours, Lieutenant Colonel John Meldram reported to Foster that Fulton’s men, having found St. Croix empty of enemy, were crossing the highway and pushing on to Putot-en-Bessin. He expected to have an advance platoon in the village within ten minutes. For the Winnipeg Rifles, Putot was their final objective—codenamed Oak—for D-Day. Exactly at 1020, Foster reported that this battalion had reached Oak and was concentrating there.27
Instead of trading bullets with a determined enemy, Fulton and his men were met by a mayor bent on celebrating the village’s liberation with “calvados he had saved for three or four years. So we drank to the victory.” Then Fulton said, “I’ve got to move now. I’ve got to take up a position just to the side of the village.” When the mayor asked if there was anything further he could do for Fulton’s Canadians, the officer replied, “Well, we haven’t been eating that well. We’ve been aboard that ship for three or four days and eating British compo rations and we’ve always been short of eggs in England.”
“Do not worry,” the mayor declared. “There’s no shortage of eggs here.”
“Well, that’s nice if you want to deliver some eggs to us. But I need to move my company to our position now.” Breaking up the party, Fulton marched his men out to the left of Putot and ordered them to dig in. Within a couple of hours, the mayor and several villagers showed up with “a big washbasin filled with a thousand or so eggs that were hard-boiled. It was rather pleasant.”28
By this time, the rest of the battalion had arrived and Meldram deployed three companies forward and ‘B’ Company in reserve within the village. Guarding the left flank was Fulton’s ‘D’ Company, with ‘C’ Company to the immediate front of the village just back of the railroad, and ‘A’ Company to the right of Putot where a white limestone-coloured bridge provided a road crossing over the railway.29
Out on 7 CIB’s left flank, the Reginas had been neck and neck in the advance with the Winnipeg Rifles and each regiment would claim to be the winner. Foster credited the Manitoban regiment with this honour, while divisional headquarters diplomatically declared a tie.30 Unlike the Little Black Devils, the Reginas had advanced in two columns, with ‘C’ Company leading ‘A’ Company and battalion headquarters along a road running south from Camilly to Bretteville and from there across the highway and railroad tracks to seize Norrey-en-Bessin. ‘B’ Company, meanwhile, moved with ‘D’ Company in trail via Thaon to Vieux Cairon and then along the western bank of the River Mue through Rots to take up positions behind the railroad to the right of la Villeneuve. Matheson had split his battalion into two columns in order to sweep as much of the three-mile-wide gap between 7 CIB’s eastern flank and 9 CIB’s westernmost battalion as possible. Along the way, ‘D’ Company was to drop off and “occupy the road, rail and river crossing just south of Rots” in order to provide some semblance of flank protection. Even then, 7 CIB would be out on a salient with its left flank dangerously exposed.31
Because of this open flank, the Reginas had originally been expecting support from ‘C’ Squadron of the 1st Hussars Armoured Regiment. Needing first to resupply with ammunition and fuel, the tankers were unable to get on the road until mid-morning and then failed to link up with the fast-marching infantry. Unable to establish radio contact with the Saskatchewan battalion and unsure where in the open country it might be, ‘C’ Squadron’s commander finally ordered an about-face and rolled off towards the regimental harbour. He had only just turned the Shermans around when up came the nine tanks of ‘A’ Squadron and four tanks of ‘B’ Squadron that had managed to survive D-Day and had been pooled together into a composite unit, under command of Major Dudley Brooks. Determined to establish contact with the infantry, Brooks turned ‘C’ Squadron around and the entire force pressed on towards Bretteville.32 The tankers rolled up on the heels of ‘C’ Company just as it pushed into the village.
Matheson’s wisdom in having ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies guard the left flank was confirmed when they met fairly stiff opposition. While the rest of the battalion enjoyed “a very friendly reception” from the villagers of Bretteville, ‘B’ Company had to call upon the mortars of the Cameron Highlanders to convince a group of heavily entrenched Germans to fall back. Intermittent small firefights continued throughout the morning until the two companies reached their assigned positions at about noon.33
This was much later than ‘C’ Company’s arrival time at Norreyen-Bessin, a village that “consisted of a score of houses which straggled along a main street for 500 yards.” The street was actually a section of paved secondary road running through the village that linked it to St. Mauvieu, a mile to the south, and to le Mesnil-Patry, which lay just over a mile to the west. The road from Bretteville linked up to the street at Norrey’s old church, around which were three or four shops.”34 From the bell tower of this four-hundred-year-old church, a German sniper started snapping off rounds at the lead platoon as it moved into the village along the Bretteville road. ‘C’ Company responded and it seemed to Rifleman John Swityk that “everything available was shot at the tower until Major [Stu] Tubb told us to stop since we were only giving away our position. I think F.H. (Froze and Hungry) Smith got the sniper. We were assigned to clearing houses; then some of us found some wine… we drank beside our [antitank] gun, which was sighted to cover the open field beyond the hedge. We all really thought it was a picnic.”35
“Having been the first battalion in 21st Army Group to reach the final objective,” Matheson declared, “[the] Regina Rifles were determined to hold it.” Whichever 7 CIB battalion was first on the objective, the fact remained that this brigade was ahead of any other brigade in the Allied invasion force. Second British Army commander General Miles Dempsey acknowledged this fact in a message to Keller that read: “A battalion of 3 Canadian Division was the first unit in the Second Army to reach the final objective. That is something which you will always remember with pride.”36
Sandwiched between these two battalions, the Canadian Scottish moved into Secqueville-en-Bessin and Cabeldu quickly got his four companies fanned out in a defensive arc south of it, which extended from immediately south of the village eastwards to where a low ridge bordered the River Chiromme opposite Bray. Orders issued, the lieutenant colonel then happily sat down in a farmhouse at 1330 hours and dug into a late breakfast prepared for him by the battalion quartermaster that consisted of “eggs and calvados (straight) to drink. I didn’t know whether I liked it or not.”37
From his position on the battalion’s left flank, ‘B’ Company’s Captain Ramsay thought Bray was “an insignificant conglomeration of barns and stone buildings with stone walls around some of them.” On the opposite side of the village, just beyond a dense wood, Ramsay could hear the growl of engines and squeal of steel tracks that told him some of the 105-millimetre self-propelled Priests being used by the division’s artillery regiments were moving into their assigned position, codenamed “Norah.”38
The 13th Canadian Field Regiment’s war diarist noted that “the gun position at Bray was most satisfactory and defensively ideal with a good tank killing ground forward.” All would have been well, he figured, had the regiment been occupying the position alone and able to develop an all-round defensive perimeter. Unfortunately, good artillery positions were in short supply amid the broken farm country and small woods dominating the area near the Caen-Bayeux highway, so divisional headquarters had also ordered 12th Field Regiment and two batteries of Centaurs seconded to it from the Royal Marines to crowd into the same space. “The result,” wrote the war diarist, “being a dangerously cramped group position without any advantage of perimeter fire!”39
There was good reason to be concerned about this, he thought, for as the afternoon progressed, many German troops that had been passed undetected by the infantry during their rapid advance began to emerge from hiding. Most were scattered remnants from the 716th Infantry Division, who could do little more than snipe at the gunners with rifles and light machine guns. But there was also a worrisome increase in the rate of German mortar and artillery fire falling on the gun position and beginning to harry 7 CIB’s infantry battalions. “The regiment is being constantly annoyed by snipers, mortars, 88-millimetre airbursts, and machine guns,” the 13th’s war diarist wrote. Combined with news that 8 CIB’s North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment was locked in a bloody slugfest in front of Douvres-la-Délivrande radar station and confused reports that 9 CIB had stepped into the middle of a major German counterattack, a grim fight seemed imminent. But he was reassured by the fact that “an absolute determination to stand on the line come ‘Hell or high water’ was evident in all ranks.”40