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Normandy Tour - Day 5 - Lounges-sur-Mer/Battles Around Caen

Here are some close up shots of the Cromwell.
(To learn how it ended up here see : http://www.hill112.com/index2.htm and click on "The tank on Hill 112")

The Cromwell is facing up hill with the gun pointing at Cornwall Wood:











Before traveling up to the wood I had to take a picture of a cross that was nearby and erected in 1891.
I forget what it was a memorial to but if anyone knows please let me know.

Today:



(Cornwall wood in the background)



From here we went up the hill and in to the wood.
 
Cornwall Wood on the crest of Hill 112

….. By 1500 hours it was clear that a fresh attack on Hill 112 was needed, but of the 214th, the reserve brigade, two battalions had already been committed, leaving only 5 DCLI (Duke of Cornwall Light inf.). The CO was 26-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel James, who had been in command only 14 days, since the former CO had been killed in the first attack at Mouen on 27 June.
With 4 Som. LI (Somerset Light Infantry) as a firm base 5 DCLI launched an attack at 2230 hours with two companies up.
The crest of the hill was reached and the battalion consolidated in a wood, which was later called Cornwall Wood, in time to meet savage counter-attacks from the 9th SS Panzer Division.
In fighting that continued all night, 10 counter-attacks were beaten off, but when Lieutenant Colonel James was killed and most of the officers and NCO's killed or wounded, the remnants of the battalion withdrew.
The CO of 4 Som. LI formed the survivors into two companies and sent them back to the wood for what has been called "the death struggle of 5 DCLI.

….. The enemy suffered equally with the 9th SS Panzer Division, also suffering very heavy causalities that during the battle for Hill 112, with its infantry companies being reduced to five or six men each. On 29th July when Maltot was captured at last by 4th and 5th Wiltshires, and it was found that the dead of the Dorsets and Royal. Hampshires, who had fallen on 10th July, were still laying in heaps around partly dug slit trenches and in streets and fields.

Here we are at the crest of the hill.
These huge power lines are cutting across it but form the entrance of the, what I would call, a memorial park but you can see from this picture it has a panorama view for many miles.



As you enter the wood you are reminded where you are...



There are little memorials to family members at the base of some of the trees.
Some contain pictures of the fallen and letters from the family.
(very sad, very moving)





The trees in their shade and allignment does give a haunting feel...




There is a path that leads in to the woods





With rests along the way to contemplate in the stillness of the woods....



Edit: I've just deleted the Worthington Force.
That should be on Day6
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From this point we left Hill 112.
I could have spent days (weeks? a lifetime?) going over the ground and seeing the movements of Operations Epsom and Jupiter.
Alas, the time was going very short now and there was so much more to see.
 
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Villers Bocage

When Gary started telling us what we will be seeing on our tours he left out Villers Bocage.
"What!?" I exclaimed! "How can you leave out Villers Bocage and Michael Wittman's destruction of that British Column!"
"OK" he said "We'll go, but there's not much to see.
He wasn't kidding.


I am sure eveyone knows about Michael Wittmans ride but what may not be known is larger battle of Villers Bocage and it's bombing
I have but one or two pictures from Villers Bocage, and no before/after pictures so I am not going to go in to detail about the fight.
For more information see Wiki's link to the battle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Villers-Bocage

And for an excellent account of the Wittmans ride and the battle for Villers Bocage see the website:
http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/uitbraak/bocage2eng.htm
Here you will find excellent pictures of post battle destruction and then and now pics.

This may give you an idea of what happened to Villers Bocage.

Villers-Bocage was bombed on 30 June, 1944





We started at the top of the hill looking down in to the town.
This is where Wittman started his ride.
As you can see everything is built up and relatively new.



Theres a small monument describing what took place here in June '44.



Going in to town, although it is in keeping with the original feel of the town it is all new.



However there are still one or two places that there is a hint of the before and after.

Rue Georges Clemenceau, Then (June, 1944) and now.
(left stood the third M3A3 Stuart)







And again to give you an idea of the detruction and perhaps whet you whistle to check out the website: http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/uitbraak/bocage2eng.htm









There is one good story from the British side, that of Sergeant Bramall.
It also shows that the Battle of Villers Bocage was much more than Wittmans ride.

Later in the day the Panzer Lehr counter attacked the town…..

…… The first Tiger, ‘121’, moved with caution the square where Sergeant Bramall had his Firefly positioned. The first shot flew over the top of the turret of the Tiger because the gunner could not use his sight on the short distance. A direct hit of a 6-pounder eventually stopped the Tiger.



The Tiger '121' knocked out in the Rue Pasteur



To prevent that all of the Tigers would be stuck in one street, some were moving through gardens to the south in trying to encircle the British troops. South of the main street, Rue Pasteur, were three streets parallel to it, the Rue Saint-Germain, the Rue Emile Samson and the Boulevard Joffre. Through these streets the Tigers moved to the west. Wittmann, in his drive into down a couple of hours before, was smart enough not to seek a fight in the narrow streets, Möbius sent his heavy tanks through the small streets. He must have known that in every corner the danger lurked of anti-tank weapons, nevertheless he went for the confrontation. The Tiger which was moving through Boulevard Joffre was stopped by a shot of a 6-pounder anti-tank gun. The next Tiger, that was rumbling along through Rue Emile Samson, was stopped by a PIAT. Also the Tiger coming down Rue Saint-Germain was knocked out by a PIAT.



The knocked out Tiger I on the crossing Rue Jeanne Bacon and Rue Emile Samson, Then and Now



In the Rue Pasteur a second Tiger moved with caution. The crew knew that somewhere to their left was an ambush position with anti-tank guns. Just as it reached the square the Tiger stopped. Sergeant Bramall in the Firefly could see the German steel monster through windows connecting the side wall and the front of the building. To bring out a shot, he had to reverse the Firefly a couple of meters. He traversed the turret so the barrel could fire through the two windows. The gunner was unable to line the weapon with its visor and had to look through the barrel to aim it. He fired two shells but they both bounced of the mask of the Tiger. First thing that was observed was, that the Tiger moved back.


The Tiger was finally put out of action notice that the turret has moved to the ambush position.

Probably because another Tiger ('212'?) was behind him, the commander decided to drive pass the ambush position. The heavy turret with the deadly 8,8cm gun turned towards the square, during the drive, to look for a British target. But the shot that was given was a British one, when a shell hit the weak rear of the Tiger. It rolled on for a couple of meters and came to a standstill next to the earlier knocked out PzKpfw IV.

During a lull in the fighting, Sergeant Bramall and Lt. Cotton took some blankets and a jerrican with gasoline. With this they drenched three knocked out German tanks and set them alight. Preventing that the Germans would recover them later.
Cotton was to become the Military Cross and Bramall the Military Medal for courage and the defence of Villers-Bocage.

The ‘torched’ '121', set afire by Bramall and Cotton




All in all it was a short tour.
Perhaps it would have been better to spend more time on Hill 112 following Operations Jupiter and Epsom but I guess now I can at least say I have been to Villers Bocage.
 
On this day, after walking the many towns and battlefields, it was only proper to end it in a cemetery where we could put names to and could pay our respects to the fallen.

On our way back from Villers Bocage to our hotel in Bayeux we stopped at a little British cemetery in Tilly-sur-Seulles.
This cemetery is uniqe in that it has German graves also.



(The Germans are buried in the upper right)



TILLY-SUR-SEULLES war cemetery lies south of Bayeux and contains the graves of 1,222 men, 986 British soldiers, 2 New Zealanders, 1 Canadian, 1 Australian and 232 Germans, who died as British forces fought to move south to encircle the German army in Caen.

There was heavy and fluctuating fighting in the vicinity of Tilly-sur-Seulles immediately after the landings involving chiefly the 49th and 50th Divisions. Tilly itself was not captured until 18 June and fighting continued nearby until mid July.

A noticeable difference between American/Canadian/German and Polish cemeteries is the headstones.
The British were the only ones who allowed family members to add an inscription.



Among the headstones is a Pte N. Lerner of the Dorsetshire Regiment who was killed 22 days after D-Day at the age of 29 and who is notable only because of the unusual character of the text chosen by his family to be carved at the base of his headstone: 'Fell Fighting Fascism from Cable St to Normandy. Marie, Frank and Natalie.'

This single inscription in a cemetery perhaps conveys better than a host of museums and monuments the essential purpose of the massive, elaborate and bloody military operation which was the Allied invasion of Normandy.







I don't want to bore you with headstone after headstone so I'll just post one showing the inscription on the bottom from the families of the fallen.

Most of the graves here were from the Yorkshire Regiment , the Green Howards.
We had followed the Green Howards from D-Day through several of the battles we toured today.

But here also were buried other various units,such as this 25 year old of the Royal Army Medical Corps:



There were also a surprising number of RAF air crew.
Here is a story of a crew who were killed an a mission to bomb Villers Bocage.

(How many bombers can you count in this pic of the bombing of Villers Bocage - I count 6)



Archive Report: Allied Forces

Compiled from official National Archive and Service sources, contemporary press reports, personal logbooks, diaries and correspondence, reference books, other sources, and interviews.

Mission: Villers-Bocage

Date: 30th June 1944 (Friday)
Unit: No. 51 Squadron
Type: Halifax III
Serial: LV782
Code: MH-T
Base: R.A.F. Snaith, Yorkshire
Location: Caan, France

Pilot: Fl/Sgt. John Robert Alfred Cooke (Bob) 1336866 R.A.F.V.R. Age 21. Killed

Fl/Eng: Sgt. Harry Perkins (Perks) 1181759 R.A.F.V.R. Age 24. Killed

Nav: F/O. Tony Negrich J/22062 R.C.A.F. Age 22. Killed

Air/Bmr: W/O. II Wendell Clifford Waye R/154885 R.C.A.F. Age 21. Killed

W/Op/Air/Gnr: Sgt. Harry Barron 15565406 R.A.F.V.R. Age 23. Killed

Air/Gnr: Sgt. Alfred Edgar Jukes 1583474 R.A.F.V.R. Age 21. Killed

Air/Gnr: Sgt. Charles Martin Allen 1385431 R.A.F.V.R. Age 26. Killed

REASON FOR LOSS:
The crew that flew T ‘Tommy’ on this operation had arrived at RAF Snaith at the beginning of May 1944, becoming one of the crews of C Flight, 51 Sqn.
Their first operation was to bomb Morsalines, France on 9th May in MH-S “Sugar”. This was the first of 18 successful operations against transport targets and V1 sites in France and Belgium during May and June.
Their 19th mission, from which they did not return, was a daylight bombing operation.



Above left: Fl/Sgt Cooke, right: F/O. Negrich

In the early evening of 30th June 1944, flying this time in MH-T, they took off from Pollington, South Yorkshire at 18.00 hrs, with the rest of 51 Sqn to join the force of 266 heavy bombers attacking a large formation of enemy armour at Villers Bocage.

This key target, south west of Caen, Normandy, was a Panzer Corps that had been assembled to counter-attack the Allies’ invading forces the following morning. It was essential therefore to attack them that evening.



Sgt. Harry Perkins (Perks) (Courtesy James Seymour)

The master bomber, a Lancaster LL620 JI-T from 514 Squadron flown by F/O. Douglas A. Woods R.A.A.F. ordered the bombers to reduce height because of cloud cover over the target,from 12,000 to 4,000 feet.
Only a small number of aircraft at the end of the bomber stream including T ‘Tommy’ were able to do so, the order being received too late for all the others.
5 aircraft (‘C’ flight, 51 Sqn.) made a steep dive to this very low height. In doing so they speeded up and caught up those above them.

They were then vulnerable to both to flak and to bombs falling from the mass of aircraft above them.



Above left: Sgt. Barron, right: W/O. II Waye


Speaking in 1996, eye witness Eric Millett, who had been flying in MH-S – another of the low flying aircraft – recounted how he had seen the wing of T ‘Tommy’ “fold up” from the wing root. This was just after he had seen the Master Bomber’s Lancaster blow up. He remembered also hearing a bomb scrape the fuselage of S-Sugar, suggesting that it was more than possible that a bomb had hit T-“Tommy” from above and that a similar fate had almost befallen him and his crew.



Above left: Sgt. Allen, right: Sgt Jukes

He remembered this operation so clearly after more than 50 years because about a minute later anti-aircraft fire blew away the front 6ft of the nose of his aircraft. Flt. Lt. Jim Feaver, the pilot of S ‘Sugar’ nursed his damaged aircraft home, for which he was awarded the DFC; however MH-T crashed onto farmland between Cahagne and Le Quesnay, Calvados, on the farm of Monsieur Alain Aubrée.

All the crew members were posted missing and it was not until the 13th September that news from the RAF Liaison Officer HQ Second Army confirmed that their temporary graves had been found at map reference 740580 or 739580. This area had changed hands in the fighting no less than five times during the Normandy campaign before finally being taken by the Americans.



51 Squadron pilots with Fl/Sgt Cooke behind the commanding officer. Taken in June 1944

The operation was considered very successful and bombing classed as very accurate. 1,100 tons were dropped and the German attack failed to take place.
In total 3 aircraft were lost on this operation, the two described and also another Lancaster from 514 Squadron which is understood to have collided with a 15 Squadron Lancaster PB178 JI-P piloted by P/O. Jack E.K. Hannesson R.C.A.F. killed with 4 other crew members and a further 2 injured after it crashed at Pittsam Farm, near Midhurst, Sussex. The other aircraft returned safely. A 75 Squadron Lancaster, LL942 exploded in an accident on the ground after bombing up - no injuries reported.

The crew were initially buried near the crash site at Cahagnes, but later exhumed to various cemeteries on the 14th June 1945.




God rest all their souls.




This ended Day 5.
Tomorrow would be our last day and what better way then to tour the Battle of the Falaise Pocket and the end of the battle for Normandy.
 
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