Hill 112_The Battle of the Odon Page 7

  An M10 repairing tracks before action.

  Despite the equalizing effect of the M10’s 17-pounder gun, it was lightly armoured and was no match for a Tiger in a sustained open battle. The stalemate continued in this very open part of Hill 112 with the 4/Wilts unable to make headway and the Germans unable to drive them back into the Odon Valley. As he rested in a ditch alongside the road that was his Company’s objective, Captain Robbins looked at his watch:

  ‘My God, it feels like teatime but it is still only 8.30 in the morning! It seemed such a long time since dawn. So much was happening in such a short time, with everyone being so excited, people being killed or wounded and many of us killing a German for the first time.’

  4/ Somerset LI’s attack on Point 112

  As the Somerset Territorials lay in their FUP, they contemplated the difficult task that lay ahead. The battalion was to advance across 1000 metres of open ground to their first objective on the Caen to Evrecy road. This was a similar distance to that which 4/Wilts had to cover. However, the shape of the ground was very different. The convex slope on which 4/Wilts had attacked had given them cover for much of their approach from all but the lightly held German outpost line. However, the Roman Road that was 4/Som LI’s ‘centre line’ or axis of advance, made its way up a concave slope. This meant that the attacking troops would be in view of 3/21 Panzer Grenadier Regiment’s main positions from the moment they crossed the start line.

  The open ground across which the Somersets attacked towards Hill 112.

  Major John Majendie, commanding Support Company, was in charge of organizing the deployment of the battalion in the FUP, as his mortar and machine-gun platoons had been attached to the rifle companies.

  ‘In the darkness, it must have been about 4 a.m., the battalion moved into its assault positions. We were well drilled in the occupation of FUPs, so it went smoothly. Except the reserve squadron of tanks that we were expecting, failed to turn up.’

  Major Majendie had a minor but pressing problem just before H Hour.

  ‘I had a very old pair of school braces, which I was very proud of, and, at a very inconvenient moment, they snapped. I can’t remember how I effected running repairs but I do remember that my trousers didn’t come down during the attack.’

  The attack began in the first light of dawn. Almost immediately enemy fire started to take its toll on the Somersets and their supporting armour. Major Majendie remembers:

  ‘…We came on several deserted German slit trenches with stick grenades laid out beside them and I remember being surprised how very close they were to our starting positions.’

  These were the German forward outposts. Despite the creeping bombardment that had helped to keep the defenders’ heads down during the initial stages of the attack, casualties were soon on their way back to the Regimental Aid Post. Walking wounded made their own way back, while the more seriously wounded were left where they fell; their presence marked in the waist-high wheat by bayonet and rifle, often with a steel helmet added for good measure. The following tale illustrates the point:

  ‘Edward Trotman, who was the company commander of A Company, was hit fairly early on in the attack by two or three machine-gun bullets. They ricocheted off the silver whisky flask that he had in his breast pocket and wounded him in the arm and leg. He was lying on the ground with his batman looking after him when either a carrier or a tank came up behind them in the corn and his batman only just saved him from being run over. Maj Trotman’s main concern was, however, that the medics would not conclude from the strong smell of whisky pouring from the bullet hole in his flask, that he was drunk!’

  Casualties to men and armour mounted quickly the closer 4/Somerset LI got to the enemy position. Sergeant Hole of the Somerset’s Mortar Platoon, looking up the hillside from the area of the FUP, described what he saw in the dawn light:

  A Spandau gunner’s view from the hedge which was the forward defensive position of 3/21 Panzer Grenadiers, (1999).

  Spandau gunners await the enemy advance.

  ‘The whole scene was illuminated by burning carriers and tanks. Flame throwers were in action. The enemy, using Nebelwerfers, was mortaring the advancing troops. Practically every weapon was in use - rifles, grenades, phosphorus, machine guns and tanks - and casualties were extremely heavy.’

  SS-Hauptscharführer Kurt Level’s section of three Mark IV tanks from 5 Company 10 SS Panzer regiment, positioned on Hill 112, exacted a heavy toll on the British armour before being knocked out. They were quickly replaced by the stand-by section under SS Hauptscharführer Mathias Borekott. These men, who were later killed, bought time for the remainder of 5 Company’s tanks to deploy to the flanks, where they continued to inflict damage on the attackers.

  Lieutenant Colonel Lipscombe

  As the Somersets advanced, fighting was at close quarters and Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lipscombe (known to one and all in the Somersets as ‘Lippy’) was fighting between the two forward companies.

  ‘The CO was in a Bren gun carrier with his IO [Intelligence Officer] Gordon Bennet, and at one stage, fairly early in the attack, a German with a hand-held Panzerfaust popped up out of the corn. The CO threw a grenade at him and the IO gave him a burst from his Sten gun and dealt with him. Moments later the CO turned to his driver and said ‘Drive on’ but the driver sitting beside him with a hole in his head was stone dead. Gordon Bennet was lucky to survive this incident as a bullet passed through his helmet without hitting him.’

  SS-Sturmbannfürer Karl Sattler

  The forward edges of the main German defences, held by SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Sattler’s 3/21 SS Panzer Grenadiers, was sited along the line of a hedged bank, bordering a field immediately north of the road. The Somersets were no longer advancing at walking pace through waist-high corn but were dashing forward from cover to cover. They moved when the fire slackened or when the force of NCOs’ and officers’ leadership compelled the infantrymen to defy logic and advance. It was inevitably a slow process. 4/Somerset LI had to clear each slit trench individually, while under fire from other mutually supporting trenches. To make matters worse, some enemy positions had been by-passed and came to life after the leading companies had moved on. Private Len Newton of B Company recalled how determinedly the SS panzer grenadiers fought:

  ‘Just to the left of the company there was a young German laddie in a slit trench who popped up and started throwing stick grenades at us and several of us shot at him. He was hit. He reappeared again and threw another grenade. He was hit. He reappeared again and so on, until he eventually succumbed. He was a very brave young man!’

  By 09.00 with the Battalion’s forward and reserve companies hopelessly intermingled, the number of casualties high and tanks being knocked out all over the hillside, the attack –

  ‘…ground to a halt just about on the line of the main road and the Commanding Officer decided that the companies should dig in there and form a firm base. Further attacks were pointless, because by this time companies which were normally the strength of about 100 were down to something like 20 - 30 and platoons which should have been 30 men down in some cases to 4 or 5.’

  This was coincidentally 4/Somerset LI’s first objective, tantalizingly close to the crest of the hill at Point 112, which was little more than four hundred metres ahead. But with the 10th Panzer Division’s artillery and Nebelwerfers of 8th Werfer Brigade concentrating their firepower on the Somersets, the distance was immaterial. Worse still, German tanks had intervened again!

  7/RTR had been suffering casualties. Thus far, C Squadron had lost Churchills to both Panzerfausts and to anti-tank guns in the corn. However, as the infantry were hastily digging in, it was apparent that German panzers were in action around the small woods that crown Hill 112.

  The remaining Mark IVs of 5 Panzer Company had moved up to the crest as the Somersets reached the Caen – Evrecy road. The tanks came into action a platoon at a time, as 4/Somerset LI closed with German infantry’s main position.
This reduced the shock action of the intervention of a mass of armour but, when the feared Allied fighter-bombers were circling above, presenting a small target was imperative.

  10 SS anti-tank gun position in the open fields of Hill 112.

  4/Somerset LI’s war diary records a message from B Company on the Battalion’s left flank, ‘09.33. Enemy counterattacking with tanks and infantry’. Sergeant Morgan, who commanded one of the Somerset’s 6-pounder anti-tank guns, had just deployed his gun and has left a description of the action as the first enemy tanks appeared:

  ‘Two anti-tank guns were in a position guard- ing the flank of the left companies when there was a German counter-attack put in on this front, catching us facing the wrong way. Quickly realizing the situation, we swung the guns around to face the enemy. As a cornfield obscured the view of the guns it was not possible for sights to be laid on the Hun tanks in the normal way. By using an unorthodox method of laying, both of the guns fired through the corn. So successful was this method that three Hun tanks ‘brewed up’ and the fourth retreated hurriedly, smoke pouring from its turret.’

  The war diary records the successful engagements but this was only the beginning for the Somersets. A further counter-attack by another platoon of SS Hauptsturmführer Hauser’s 5th Panzer Company was similarly costly but their presence confirmed Brigadier Mole’s view that Lieutenant Colonel Lipscombe’s decision to halt on the line of the road was correct. In a series of increasingly terse exchanges over the radio he convinced Major General Thomas that 4/Somerset LI could achieve little more and, indeed, would be lucky to hold what they had gained so far.

  For the remainder of the morning, the afternoon and into the evening 4/Somerset LI was in the front line holding a piece of ground that 10th SS Panzer Division were under pressure from II SS Panzer Corps to recapture. The Somersets were either under an unremitting fire from artillery and Nebelwerfers or being counter-attacked. The defence of Hill 112 was declared II SS Panzer Corps’s Schwerpunkt or point of main effort. In support of this aim the Germans applied all available resources to stop the advance of 4/Somerset LI and prevent them crossing the ‘stop line’ and gaining the top of Hill 112. The Nebelwerfer fire had certainly played its part but most telling had been the volume of small arms fire. An officer of the Somersets, Lieutenant Sydney Jarry has given his considered opinion as a front line platoon commander with ten months almost continuous experience of fighting the Germans:

  ‘It took me a few weeks to realize what their little game was. When we attacked a German position the problem, though a simple one, was very difficult to overcome. Vastly superior infantry firepower, both small arms and anti-tank, was their trump card. A German infantry platoon could produce about five times our own fire power. There was just no way through the curtain of fire from the MG42s. Sometimes, by stealth, we were able to bypass it; otherwise artillery or armoured support was necessary – often both. But due to their excellent anti-tank guns, the 75mm and the 88, the use of armour could prove costly.’

  Relatively early in their Division’s first set-piece battle it was apparent to commanders at all levels in the 43rd Wessex, that they had many lessons to learn. Tragically in war lessons are always learnt at the cost of dead and wounded men. Max Hastings in his book OVERLORD described Operation JUPITER as ‘a battle of shattering intensity even by the standards of Normandy’ and the extreme circumstances expo: the lack of experience in the Wessex Division.

  5/Wilts

  5/Wilts were to attack from the small village of Baron on the banks of the Odon in ‘Death Valley’. The Battalion had taken and held the village since 29 June 1944 and from this position they had been able to mount numerous recce patrols of no man’s land and their Operation JUPITER objectives. They were to attack strongly held positions on the north-west slopes of Hill 112 that lay between 4/Somerset LI and the hamlet of le Bon Repos. Unlike the rest of the Division, 5/Wilts were to attack enemy positions that lay downhill from their start-line in Baron. Their mission was to clear positions astride the Caen – Evrecy road and then to form a defensive flank, facing south-west in order to protect the remainder of 129 Brigade on the top of Hill 112.

  The road from Hill 112 down to Bon Repos was the objective of C Company 5/Wilts. Having reached this point they got into difficulties on the open slopes.

  In common with the day’s other initial advances, the leading companies, B on the right and D on the left, reached their objectives under the cover of a bombardment, which included smoke to cover their right flank. The Wiltshires were surprised how well the enemy outposts were dug-in, but the power of the British artillery, directed against the enemy position had quickly cleared the stunned SS Panzer Grenadiers. Sergeant Reg Romain, commanding a 6-pounder anti-tank gun was in support:

  ‘We formed up behind D Company. The enemy spotted us and started to shell and mortar our start line. The gun would have been useless in all that fire, so we looked for a bit of cover and jumped into an old trench only to find a dead German in the bottom. The smell was awful and I jumped back out again. I shall never forget watching our men go forward into the hell of tank fire, mortar, machine gun, shells. You name it, Jerry was slinging it at us.’

  Once on the objective the companies dug-in north of the road, spurred on by an increasing volume of accurate shell and mortar fire. The next phase of the Battalion’s attack was for C Company and the Carrier Platoon to attack through the leading companies, in order to destroy the enemy positions in depth along the crest of the hill, before falling back. This was a far more difficult objective to take. The accompanying 17-pounders of 86/Anti-Tank Regiment were of great assistance, some giving close support to the infantry, others standing back engaging targets as they presented themselves. Again, seemingly against the odds, the Wiltshires were successful but, in a very exposed position, they were quickly pinned down by heavy fire and were unable to move. Captain John McMath recorded in the regimental history:

  ‘C Company advanced up Hill 112 and despite mortar, shelling and small arms gained the top astride the Caen –Esquay road but were pinned down by dug in tanks and machine guns firing from Esquay. CSM Smith in a Bren gun carrier bringing up ammo, saw a tank shooting its way along the road towards the prostrate company, grabbed a PIAT, ran through the cornfield, fired it from the hip and knocked out the tank, for which he received a merited MM. There were well dug-in and well defended enemy artillery OPs on the hill constructed many months before.’

  So firmly pinned down were C Company that they remained stuck in a forward position all day. A Brigade level plan had to be organized to extricate them at about 17.00 hours. This operation included Corps level artillery support from the medium guns of the AGRAs and a feint attack by 4/Somerset LI to the Battalion’s left.

  An 11th Armoured Division Sherman knocked out during Operation EPSOM is used as a German artillery OP.

  Prisoners from 8 Werfer Brigade taken 10 July 1944. Wehrmacht and SS prisoners were separated.

  46 Highland Brigade’s attack on Louvigny

  15th Scottish Division had detached 46 Brigade, along with its divisional artillery, to come under Major General Thomas’s command for Operation JUPITER. The Brigade’s task (see map):

  ‘…was to give left flank protection to 43rd Division’s attack and clear the apex formed by the Odon and the Orne east of Eterville. There, towards Bretteville-sur-Odon, the 46th Brigade was to make contact with 8th Canadian Brigade.’

  One battalion, 9/Cameronians, was to take up defensive postions at Eterville, as we have already seen, and the other two were to attack in an easterly direction astride the River Odon. The advance began at 09.45 hours. On the north bank, the 2/Glasgow Highlanders had their start-line at Verson and on the south the 7/Seaforths advanced from Trette Poux.

  The Glasgow Highlanders’ advance punched into thin air to the north of the Odon. The capture of Carpiquet Airfield and the fall of Caen had led SS Panzer Corps to withdraw the Hitler Jugend to positions with the 1st SS, south of the river. T
o have remained north of the Odon they would have been in an exposed position inviting destruction, sandwiched between the advancing British and Canadians. So hurried had their departure been that there were none of the usual nasty surprises such as mines and booby traps, habitually left behind by the SS, for the advancing British. By midday the Glasgow Highlanders had reached the forward positions of 8 Canadian Brigade south of Bretville-sur-Odon. The historian of 15th Scottish tells of an incident caused by dust:

  ‘At 2 p.m. they handed over to the Canadians and withdrew through Verson into reserve in the woods on the southern bank near Rocrenil. Unfortunately the dust of their withdrawal was seen by the enemy, who still held the commanding spur that runs northeastwards from Eterville to Louvugny. “No dust, no shells.” The Glasgow Highlanders had a number of casualties from mortar-fire’

  At this point in the battle, a reserve battalion would have been most welcome, as 130 Brigade’s situation on the left flank of Operation JUPITER was still precarious. However, the Glasgow Highlanders, were still moving with difficulty into reserve behind the Seaforths and were consequently not available to support either 129 or 130 Brigades at Hill 112 or Maltot at a crucial point in the battle.