[ 9 ]





Green As Grass

IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of June 8, the invasion was more than forty-eight hours old. Forced to face the failures of their tactics on D+1, Allies and Germans alike had to modify ambitions accordingly. Along the battlefront’s entire length, the Germans, meeting the invasion more fiercely than anticipated by the Allies, had checked the divisions striking inland from the beaches. Yet General Bernard Montgomery, who had arrived off the beaches aboard HMS Faulknor just after dawn on June 7, considered this setback of minor consequence. Boarding General Omar Bradley’s command vessel, the USS Augusta, at 0600 hours, Montgomery told the American general that his main concern regarding the First American Army operations was the gap between the 4th Division at Utah Beach and the badly pummelled 1st Division on Omaha. Montgomery pressed Bradley to secure his D-Day objectives, particularly by seizing Carentan and Isigny in order to establish a link between the two divisions. He then sailed eastwards to confer with General Miles Dempsey, who assured Montgomery that “all was going according to plan on the British beaches and there was no cause for anxiety.”1

As the day progressed and Faulknor steamed back and forth in front of the invasion beaches, Montgomery decided Operation Over-lord was unfolding as it should. This perfectly fit his philosophy that it was his duty to “conceive and execute a simple, workable plan which could be easily understood by all concerned” and followed with clockwork precision.2 At the outset of planning Operation Overlord, Montgomery had warned the staff of 21st Army Group that he would “not get bogged down in details… I will give orders to the next lower commanders. Nothing will be in writing either in the first place or for confirmation. I never read any papers. Half of all papers are not read and the other half are not worth reading.” This was not an operational environment that encouraged subordinates to be bearers of bad tidings. So despite the growing crises many brigade and battalion leaders encountered on D+1, optimism prevailed from Montgomery’s headquarters down the line to all the divisional commands. Everywhere objectives were failing to be won, casualties mounted, and the enemy responded with increasing tenaciousness, but all this went unacknowledged by the invasion command.

From Faulknor’s bridge, Montgomery saw “no enemy air action and few signs of battle on sea or land. It was difficult to imagine that on shore a battle was being fought which was deciding the fate of Europe.”³ Deciding he could only fully appreciate the situation beyond sight of the warship by getting onto the ground, Montgomery decided to go ashore next morning and establish his headquarters behind the 50th British Infantry Division’s front lines.

Meanwhile, the invasion plan remained unaltered. Once Bradley established a link between his two divisions, the Americans would march on La Haye du Puits to cut off the Cherbourg Peninsula and then seize the vital port of Cherbourg. At the same time, Dempsey’s Second British Army would maintain a flank-holding position along the west bank of the River Dives while simultaneously capturing Caen and Bayeux. Once this phase of the operation concluded, Dempsey would “pivot on Caen and swing his right forward” to break into the Caen-Falaise plain.⁴ That had always been the plan and Montgomery saw neither need nor opportunity to justify its alteration.

Caen remained the primary objective for 3rd British Infantry Division and 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Bypassing the city was not an option because its strategic position on the River Orne barred free access to the Falaise plain. One hundred miles long, the River Orne rose south of Argentan and flowed northwest to Thury-Harcourt, then north to Caen, and from there into the Channel. To gain the Falaise plain, British Second Army had to capture the bridges crossing the Orne in the city itself or the bridges southeast of it near Thury-Harcourt. To the southwest, the River Odon flowed in from the west to join the Orne on the city’s southern perimeter. Leaving Caen in German hands would permit them to use it as a strong base from which to attack the rear of any bypassing force.5 But the two divisions would have to fight their way to Caen through the mounting opposition offered by the German Panzer divisions beginning to arrive on the battlefield.

At the end of June 7, the 6th Airborne Division, with assistance from various units that marched to its aid from Sword Beach, had retained control of all the vital objectives it seized on D-Day east of the River Orne. For its part, 3rd British Division had been stymied in its attempts to seriously deepen the front west of the Orne that it had won on D-Day. Concentrating its attacks on the high ground in front of Lebisey, the division had been beaten back by thick automatic fire from heavily entrenched elements of 21st Panzer Division. Finally, in frustration, Major General T.G. Rennie broke off the head-on attacks in favour of trying to move battalions westwards to establish contact with the Canadians. This proved more successful, and by day’s end his 8th Brigade was tied in opposite the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment near Douvres-la-Délivrande. But the Germans still clung tenaciously to the radar station set right between the divisional flanks. And although the British 9th Brigade had managed to get up beside 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade at Anisy, it was still well short of the forward position 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade held at les Buissons.⁶*

* Coincidentally, both the Canadian and British 9th brigades were commanded by brigadiers named Cunningham—D.C. “Ben” Cunningham and J.C. Cunningham, respectively.

To the Canadian right, 50th British Infantry Division had enjoyed a more rewarding day. Unhindered by the presence of any Panzer divisions on its front, the leading battalions had easily swept aside the weak resistance offered by German infantry and were soon receiving a liberator’s welcome in the streets of Bayeux. This city was the largest strategic objective as yet gained by the Allies.7

While the Canadians had reached their D-Day objective on the right flank when 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade cut the Caen-Bayeux highway and railway, the disaster that befell 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s North Nova Scotia Highlanders had resulted in a withdrawal of two miles on the left. This left 9 CIB about three and a half miles shy of Carpiquet airport. Wrenching this ground back from the grasp of the 12th SS Panzer (Hitlerjugend) Division promised to be no easy affair. Major General Rod Keller’s plan for the morning, however, was to do precisely that, with a renewed 9 CIB assault along the same route taken the day before. His other two brigades would, meanwhile, consolidate their positions to fend off expected counterattacks. Once 9 CIB punched through to the airport, the division would be “firmly entrenched in positions of great tactical value, prepared for further offensive operations” west of Caen. The city would be less than a mile to the left, and the moment 3rd British Division secured Caen, the drive into the Falaise plain could begin on a two-division front.⁸

Opposite the Allies, the German commanders charged with repulsing the invasion began to face the fact that no coherent strategy for defending Normandy had previously been developed. The tactical situation that had emerged on June 7 convinced Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel that he must focus operations precisely on the same ground the Allies had selected as their primary objectives. To the west, he ordered Carentan “defended to the last man” to prevent the two American divisions making contact with each other. Then Rommel told I Panzer Corps Obergruppenführer Josef (Sepp) Dietrich that “a crippling blow should be delivered against the British before they became established” around Caen by hammering the full might of three Panzer divisions against the enemy standing between Caen and Bayeux. Rommel expected this attack on June 8, with primary emphasis and consequent artillery support given the 12th SS striking the Canadian front in the middle, while the 21st Panzer Division would come up on its right flank and Panzer Lehr Division the left.⁹

Despite thinking that Rommel’s orders were absurdly grandiose given the straitened circumstances of these divisions, Dietrich hastened to comply with their general tenor. The 21st Panzer Division, tied down in holding actions against the 3rd British Infantry Division and 6th Airborne Division, was in no position to undertake more than modest local offensive attacks. Panzer Lehr was still grinding towards Normandy from a holding area near Seventh Army’s headquarters in le Mans, dogged the entire way by Allied fighter-bombers. By late evening of June 7, the Panzer Grenadiers in the vanguard were only approaching Fontenay-le-Pesnel and Tilly-sur-Seulles, and still about six miles from the battlefront. The division’s tanks were still far behind and hours away. Dietrich knew there was no way this division would be in position for a morning attack. That left 12th SS to fight alone, with only a portion of its strength yet in position.

Considering what he had available, Dietrich decided to hit the Canadian right flank in order to open a wedge between them and 50th British Infantry Division, through which the Germans could drive right to the coast. This tactic had failed on the opposite flank when 21st Panzer Division had been driven back during its attempted advance on the night of June 6–7 into the gap between the Canadians and 3rd British Infantry Division. Standartenführer Kurt Meyer’s 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 12th SS, supported by elements of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment’s I Battalion, had also failed to carry off virtually the same manoeuvre the following day. But Dietrich hoped to succeed this time by striking where the Allied divisions were only tenuously linked, unable to support each other or coordinate their response to meet the German onslaught.

It was a tall order for the 12th SS, as the entire division could not participate. Having battered 9 CIB back from Franqueville through Authie and Buron to les Buissons, Meyer’s Panzer Grenadiers were now tied down keeping this brigade pinned in place. That left Wilhelm Mohnke’s 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, which in the early morning hours of June 8 had passed behind Meyer’s regiment to take up a position on its left, to carry out the attack. No tanks from 12th Panzer Regiment were yet available. The only armour Mohnke had were six 75-millimetre self-propelled guns from the 12th SS (Heavy) Company allocated to III Battalion. Mohnke detailed I Battalion to capture Norrey-en-Bessin, II Battalion Putot-en-Bessin, and III Battalion to secure the left flank by advancing just behind and to the west of II Battalion. When Panzer Lehr finally arrived, it would broaden the German attack on this flank, accelerating the creation of what should be a rapidly widening gap between the Canadians and 50th British Infantry Division. Tactics decided, Mohnke set his men marching towards combat.10

DIRECTLY IN THE PATH of the advancing Panzer Grenadiers were two 7 CIB battalions—the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and Regina Rifles. Since arriving at their D-Day objectives in the mid-morning of June 7, the Canadian riflemen had been setting up defensive positions on ground little suited for defence. Brigadier Harry Foster was dismayed, noting that the terrain consisted of “gently rolling agricultural land, 75 [per cent] of which has standing grain. Villages are numerous, and generally speaking, stand in the low ground. Good observation is difficult due to the fact that from the beaches we have been continually fighting ‘up hill’ with the enemy [positions] on the next bit of higher ground. This very open ground tends to favour the defender as he can get long fields of fire with [antitank] guns, and good observation from the higher ground.”¹¹

Although reverting from the offensive to the defensive, the Germans would retain long fields of fire while 7 CIB’s remained restricted. The four-to-five-foot-high wheat that stood unharvested in the fields only aggravated the problem.

Trusting his battalion commanders could make the best of a bad situation, Foster left the details of their defensive schemes up to them and concentrated on securing as many supporting arms as possible. Two platoons of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, several batteries of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, and two batteries of 17-pounder antitank guns from the 62nd British Anti-Tank Regiment soon moved into the brigade lines. Foster could not offer the infantry close tank support, however, because the remnants of the 1st Hussars were still reorganizing alongside the brigade’s Canadian Scottish Regiment at Secquevilleen-Bessin after being mauled on D-Day.

Out on the brigade’s left flank, Regina Rifles Lieutenant Colonel Foster Matheson established his headquarters in a large courtyard across from Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse’s towering thirteenth-century church, and decided to centre the battalion’s defence on this village. He then pondered the problem posed by a two-mile-wide gap between his men and those of 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade to the east. If he kept the battalion tightly knitted around Bretteville, the Germans could easily turn his left flank to get behind the brigade’s front lines. The only solution Matheson saw was to position his companies in four separate isolated locations “vital to the defence” in order to form a semi-circular defensive line arcing south from Rots to Norrey-en-Bessin through la Villeneuve.12

Responding to Matheson’s orders, Major C.S.T. “Stu” Tubb’s ‘C’ Company moved a mile south of Bretteville to occupy Norrey-en-Bessin. Matheson considered this village vitally important because it was situated on a low hill that provided a view of all possible approaches that could be used by the Germans. A towering Gothic church, considered one of the finest examples of such architecture in Normandy, dominated the place. ‘B’ Company occupied Rots a mile and a half east of Bretteville, while ‘D’ Company moved into la Villeneuve to cover the road and rail bridge crossings over the River Mue. Serving as the battalion reserve, ‘A’ Company remained in Bretteville with the Headquarters unit.¹³

A little to the west, Winnipeg Rifles Lieutenant Colonel John Meldram faced a different problem than Matheson. Putot-en-Bessin was less a village than a tight cluster of small farm plots, with houses, outbuildings, pocket orchards, pastures, vegetable gardens, and wheatfields all intermingled. Following Norman custom, most farms featured a rectangular or square courtyard surrounded by a stout six-to seven-foot-high limestone wall, the farmhouse, a barn, and other outbuildings. Establishing positions in this environment where platoons, let alone one company to another, were able to overlap their fields of fire proved impossible. But with the Caen-Bayeux highway at its back and the railway immediately ahead, holding the village was essential to preventing these lines of communication being used by the Germans. Meldram decided the only thing the Royal Winnipeg Rifles could do was to spread out in a scraggly line through the village as close to the railroad as possible. Where the tracks passed Putot-en-Bessin, they descended into a deep cutting that would be virtually impossible for tanks advancing from the south to cross.

Immediately west of the village, a north-south running road marked the assigned boundary line between 3rd Canadian and the 50th British divisions. This road crossed the railroad cutting via an overhead bridge. Meldram positioned two of Major Fred Hodge’s ‘A’ Company platoons in front of the bridge and sent Lieutenant Frank Battershill’s platoon three-quarters of a mile farther west to the hamlet of Brouay to establish a link with the British 7th Green Howards.14 When Battershill got to Brouay, he discovered that the Green Howards were not to be seen nor were any other 69th British Infantry Brigade battalions coming up to anchor the Canadians’ right flank.

Until the British infantry turned up, Meldram knew he had to strengthen his flank position to avoid having it turned. He therefore detailed ‘F’ Troop from the British 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment to join Battershill’s platoon in order to cover the open ground west of him with its four towed 17-pounders.¹⁵

‘C’ Company, under Major Jimmy Jones, meanwhile established itself to the left of Hodge’s company directly in front of Putot, with Major Lochie Fulton’s ‘D’ Company extending the line a little to the east of the village. ‘B’ Company, commanded by Captain Phil Gower, stood in reserve in a position between ‘C’ Company’s left flank and the battalion headquarters, which was situated in a stone-walled farmyard on the village’s northern edge.¹⁶ Stretching his meagre resources even thinner to link up with the Reginas, Meldram moved the Bren carrier platoon a thousand yards left of Fulton’s position to la Ferme de Cardonville.¹⁷

Lieutenant Donald James had come onto Juno Beach at about 2300 hours on D-Day as a Winnipeg Rifles replacement officer, taking command of a ‘B’ Company platoon the next morning. This company had been shredded, losing most of its men and all platoon commanders and other officers except for Captain Gower. James recognized that he and his men “were pretty green troops” and wondered how they would do.18 He was not the only one worried. Brigadier Foster had anxiously noted that because “one assault company had been practically wiped out on the beach… the gaps in its ranks had to be replaced by reinforcements of all sorts, some not even infantry.”¹⁹ A good number of these men were inadequately trained. Foster was particularly concerned that many were “not even familiar or well trained in our own grenades” or able to maintain, load, and fire the two-inch mortars.²⁰ Although in reserve, ‘B’ Company faced an open front merely set back somewhat more from the railway than the other companies. The men carved out their slit trenches on the edge of an orchard facing a wide grain field that lay between their position and the railway.

“The front at Putot was so fluid at the time,” James later recalled. “There were people all over the place—Canadians, Germans and French. The French were in front of us going along the road on bicycles. And the wheat in the field in front of us was so high you couldn’t see over it.”²¹

‘C’ Company was in another orchard to the left of a farmyard enclosed by a high limestone wall and the farmhouse. No. 15 Platoon dug in alongside the wall, with No. 14 Platoon slightly behind and to the right, while No. 13 was also to the right, but out to the front in line with No. 15 Platoon, so that the company perimeter was roughly triangular-shaped. As No. 15 Platoon Rifleman Robert G. Smellie hacked out a slit trench that conformed to regulation dimensions of two feet by six feet with a three-foot depth, he was struck by what a “pleasant sight” the farm presented, with its old apple trees and the nearby wall. He spotted the farmer looking out a window “with dismay as we dug our slit trenches among his beloved trees.” The men had been “instructed to have no communication that wasn’t necessary with the French people. My buddy John Thompson and I collected the water bottles from the whole platoon and went into the farmyard to fill them. The farmer watched us filling the bottles at his well without comment and we did not speak to him. We were destroying his orchard, and our presence there would inevitably bring more conflict.

“That night we were treated to more fireworks. But we suffered less fear… because we were surrounded by the rest of our battalion.”22

THE CRACKLING OF GUNFIRE, thump of explosions, and glare of flares lighting up the sky with blinding intensity to the east of Smellie’s position erupted when I Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadiers slammed into the front lines of the Regina Rifles at 0330 hours. Without conducting any reconnaissance, Sturmbannführer Bernhard Krause threw his men into a pincer attack against Norrey, with two companies striking from the right and another the left. There was no attempt to achieve surprise as the troops moved forward noisily, their half-tracks grinding along in support. As they closed on Norrey, the Germans deployed mortars and began pounding the village.

Inside Norrey, Major Stu Tubb raced to where No. 13 Platoon on the right flank of the village was being hit. Hunkering down beside Lieutenant Ray Smith, Tubb saw what looked like a company-sized force coming up the open slope towards the village. Both sides were putting up flares that silhouetted the Germans in a white glare. Tubb, a tall, scholarly sort, who was noted for being soft-spoken and calm no matter the crisis, behaved true to form this night. Earlier, he and the artillery Forward Observation Officer from the 13th Field Regiment had pre-plotted defensive fire targets that precisely intersected the areas through which the Germans now advanced. Tubb called for artillery, and the 105-millimetre Priests of ‘C’ Company in its gun positions near Bray loosed off a deadly barrage of shells fused to explode over the heads of the Panzer Grenadiers.²³

At the same time, Smith’s platoon ripped into the advancing Germans with small-arms fire, while the Reginas at la Villeneuve and Rots hit the second Hitler Youth pincer that was approaching Norrey from the left with flanking fire. Tubb watched with satisfaction as the artillery shells thundered in, exploded “virtually over our heads [and] sprayed shrapnel forward into the intruders.”²⁴

When the first artillery concentration failed to stop the attack and the Germans kept pressing in on No. 13 Platoon, Tubb considered calling up his reserve platoon to thicken the line. Just as he moved to do so, “the Germans decided to call it quits for the time being. Later we recovered a couple dozen bodies we stacked like cordwood along a garden wall behind 13 Platoon. Several days elapsed before burial could be made in a small cemetery between Norrey and Bretteville. By that time the odour was pretty offensive.”25

Tubb’s No. 13 Platoon and the supporting artillery fire had caught I Battalion’s No. 3 Company in the open, forcing it “to stop halfway up the slope in front of Norrey.” When No. 1 Company attempted to come up on the right flank of No. 3 Company, it too was pinned down by the artillery concentrations. Meanwhile, No. 2 Company had one platoon trapped in a clover pasture, while the other two platoons had managed to secure a position among some houses by the railroad tracks. Realizing that his men were incapable of pressing home the attack without being slaughtered, Krause ordered them to break off. No. 3 Company moved back a short way and dug into “a knee-high grain field.” The other two companies took up positions nearby. Krause reported having lost five men killed and twenty wounded.²⁶ However, as the situation was so confused and the Reginas and I Battalion continued trading bullets throughout the night and into the morning, a reliable casualty count was almost impossible.

Neither Tubb nor the Regina war diarist fully appreciated the strength of the attack thrown against them. Tubb remained convinced he had faced down no more than a single company, while the war diarist blandly noted that a minor counterattack “was repulsed by our troops.”²⁷ A poorly executed attack carried out hastily and without artillery or tank support had resulted in the Reginas stopping a full battalion of about 1,000 Germans cold with only about 250 men. The outcome of the short firefight served as a testimony to the power of well-directed artillery.

At dawn, Lieutenant Colonel Matheson tightened his battalion’s lines, withdrawing ‘B’ Company from Rots and ordering it to dig in astride the Caen-Bayeux highway immediately east of Bretteville, while ‘D’ Company moved across the battalion’s front from la Villeneuve to relieve the Winnipeg carrier company at la Ferme de Cardonville. News of the disaster that had befallen 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade also prompted his superior, Brigadier Harry Foster, to commit part of 7 CIB’s reserve by moving the Canadian Scottish out on his flanks. He sent ‘B’ Company east of Bray to protect the 13th Field Regiment’s gun position from possible attack and a ‘D’ Company platoon to the northwest of Bretteville to fortify la Bergerie Ferme.28 The 13th Field’s gunners had spent a long night providing near constant support to the Reginas, while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye out “for small parties of enemy snipers.”²⁹

Seeing that 7 CIB’s forward position protruded like a butcher’s blade into the German front, the 12th SS were determined to force Foster’s battalions to withdraw. Until another major attack could be mounted, teams of snipers were filtered onto the brigade’s flanks to harry the rear areas. By morning, so many snipers harassed the Canadian Scottish at Secqueville-en-Bessin and the gunners near Bray that the infantry found it impossible “to ferret them out.” Finally, Canadian Scottish commander Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu asked Foster for tank support. The brigadier passed this request to 1st Hussars Lieutenant Colonel Ray Colwell, who dispatched Lieutenant W.A.P. Smith in a reconnaissance squadron Stuart. Unable to spot likely sniper positions with his turret hatch closed, Smith shoved it open and stood up with half his body exposed in order to see better. Instantly, a sniper round struck him in the arm, followed a second later by a bullet that “went through the side of his helmet and came out the top without causing any injury to his head.”³⁰ Smith’s crew rushed the wounded officer back to regimental headquarters at Secqueville, where he refused treatment until he passed on the location of several snipers he had located just before being shot.³¹ For this and several earlier acts of bravery during the inland advance, Smith was awarded a Military Cross.

Two more Stuarts dashed to where Smith had been wounded, and succeeded in helping the Canadian Scottish carry out a determined sweep of the wheatfields the Germans were using as a route to sneak up on Secqueville. More than thirty snipers were either killed or captured, and thereafter incidents of sniping in the brigade rear areas significantly declined.32

To address the snipers pestering the ‘D’ Company platoon at la Bergerie Ferme, Cabeldu arranged some heavy support. The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa sent No. 5 Platoon with its Vickers machine guns and No. 13 Platoon with its heavy mortars, while the 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery provided ‘E’ Battery and the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery contributed a troop from the 94th Battery. When Captain Harold Gonder of No. 5 Platoon reported to Canadian Scottish commander Cabeldu for instructions, he was told to “build up as strong a redoubt there as you can. Make it impregnable and ready for any attacks during the night or the morning.”³³

Born in China to missionary parents, Gonder had lived overseas until his parents returned to Ontario when he was sixteen. He had entered the army during the Depression and worked his way up from the ranks. Prior to the invasion, he completed a stint as Major General Rod Keller’s aide-de-camp. Normally, following such a posting an officer was appointed to headquarters staff, but Gonder had asked instead to return to the Camerons because he felt more at home in the ranks of a combat unit. The machine-gunner set to the task of fortifying the farm in close coordination with Lieutenant Gerry Blanchard of the 62nd’s ‘E’ Battery, whose 17-pounders provided the greatest weight of firepower. Gonder found Blanchard to be “a very easy going, friendly, debonair, Errol Flynn type of fellow. We managed to emplace our guns, so we were well concealed but had an unobstructed field of fire and view ahead of us.” Digging their antitank guns and the Vickers machine guns into firing positions on the edge of a wood immediately west of the farm, the two men agreed that “if enemy tanks should appear [Blanchard] should give first order to fire. This was only logical because machine guns couldn’t do much damage to tanks, whereas an antitank crew—properly trained and with the advantages we enjoyed—could create a great deal of havoc.”³⁴ The guns were positioned so that they had a clear field of fire along an arc swinging from the west to the south in order to cover all potential routes of approach likely to be used by the enemy.

FOSTER, MEANWHILE, was increasingly worried about the Regina Rifles. Tubb’s ‘C’ Company was dangerously isolated in its forward position at Norrey. He urged Matheson to pull it back across the highway into a position to the front of Bretteville. The Regina Rifles commander “protested that he would just have to retake the position later.” Reluctant to override the officer, Foster cautioned him to keep a close watch on the situation and to have an extraction plan in place should it be necessary.35

That Norrey was going to be hit hard was obvious to everyone. Early in the morning, Tubb evacuated its residents to a refugee camp established at Reviers. “Two families pleaded to remain,” Tubb later wrote, “one an elderly couple living in a small, one-room cottage near Company HQ, the other a mother of about 30, with 2 or 3 children in a two-storey brick and stucco house close by. We gave way to both and put together a shelter of sorts to shield them somewhat in case of shelling.”³⁶

As ‘D’ Company marched through Bretteville en route to la Ferme de Cardonville, it picked up a new commander. Major Jack Love had died on D-Day and the company second-in-command, Captain “Hec” Jones, had been wounded in the leg the following day. To fill the senior officer post, Matheson had called Captain Gordon Brown, who for the past year had served as the battalion’s transport officer. Brown was nervous about the change in duty, trying to remember those long-ago training lessons about the ins and outs of running a rifle company. Although most of his men had only two days’ combat experience under their belts, Brown knew they had undoubtedly learned much in those hectic days while he was still “green as grass.” Matheson warned Brown and his colleague, Major Eric Syme, who was taking the helm of ‘B’ Company (Major F.L. Peters having been killed by a mortar round late on June 6), “that the enemy was getting ready to launch an all-out attack to drive us back into the sea.” He said they should expect to be attacked by armour sometime in the evening, but were to “just ignore the tanks. ‘Your job is to stop the infantry that comes with them.’”³⁷

A bemused Brown wondered “how one ignored enemy tanks… I was uncertain and very apprehensive. The prospect of being attacked by a bunch of marauding Panthers was almost beyond my comprehension, especially since we had no tank support of our own.”

The company walked out of Bretteville towards the farm and Brown’s combat initiation began immediately, as what seemed to be more than a dozen German snipers started blasting away. Brown and his men crawled on their hands and knees through the cover of the tall grain or hunkered down below and alongside the armour-plated sides of Bren carriers pulling two six-pound antitank guns from the antitank platoon that were to support them. In this manner, ‘D’ Company arrived at Cardonville without loss, which relieved the Winnipeg Bren carrier platoon. The Winnipeg troops left on the double, for the sounds of a heavy gunfire exchange from their lines over by Putot-en-Bessin indicated the Little Black Devils were hotly engaged. Brown figured it would be ‘D’ Company’s turn soon enough and that he had best waste little time establishing a defensive perimeter.

Cardonville was built more like a small fort than a farm. Its two-storey farmhouse faced east and was constructed of two-foot-thick stone walls. An eight- to ten-foot-high wall extended out from the house to enclose a courtyard, barn, several storage buildings, and small field. Pressed up against the north wall was an orchard, while to the south lay the railway track. Bordering the west wall was an open field. Brown instructed two of his platoons to dig slit trenches inside the courtyard but right against the base of the walls running along the north, south, and eastern flanks of the farm. To gain fields of fire, the men hacked holes in the walls through which they could aim rifles and machine guns. Several Bren guns were set up on the farmhouse’s second storey to gain long-range fire fields in every direction except east. That side of the farmhouse lacked any windows, but Brown decided this was acceptable, for in that direction lay the rest of the battalion. With insufficient manpower to defend the courtyard’s almost thousand-yard perimeter, Brown decided to leave the west wall unprotected except by a single Bren gun and several riflemen who could cover the open field from a second-storey window.

Aware of “the conventional wisdom of ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’” Brown and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Dick Roberts, “decided to leave one of the platoons in reserve in the small orchard behind the back (north) wall. We also arranged to leave all the vehicles there except two Bren carriers being kept inside the walls. Finally, we placed our two antitank guns in the orchard to cover a mile of open ground to our right. Some of these decisions we [came] to regret, as we learned that often war is not fought according to the book. In the meantime, the signallers had strung the phone lines into position and communication with the battalion HQ was established. All of this took a couple of hours after our arrival and the departure of the Winnipegs’ carriers” to complete.38 Also positioned in the orchard next to a hedge was a Bren carrier with Lieutenant Ronald Joseph Macdonald, the Forward Observation Officer assigned to ‘D’ Company by 13th Field Regiment. The carrier was equipped with a wireless set that the thirty-year-old artilleryman from Peake’s Station, Prince Edward Island would use to call in fire support for the rifle company. Brown was grateful to have the gunner on hand because his own skills at ranging artillery were greatly limited.

No sooner had ‘D’ Company finished its early afternoon preparations than the gunfire that had been constant from the direction of Putot-en-Bessin rose to a fierce crescendo. Sprinting up the stairs to the farmhouse’s top floor, Brown peered through his binoculars and saw a large German infantry and tank force charging the Winnipeg positions. He was “stunned by the swiftness of the attack” and fearful the Little Black Devils were being overrun.³⁹