Counter Attacks Against the Germans

I was associated with one company of the Regina Rifles who during the run in on D-Day, let me see, they had 150 men and only landed 67 but the ones they landed were well worth the landing. Together with the rest of 7th Brigade they went right up to the railway embankment that runs by Caen and the next morning they cut and held the Caen to Bayeux highway and for that reason the British 50th Division was able to take Bayeux without a fight making that the only town in Normandy to be captured without a major battle. Bayeux, it wasn’t fought over because the Germans couldn’t get reinforcements up to it. The British 50th Division took it without a fight and that was, “Don’t stay to fight on the beach, get inland.” It was hard, it was hard not to but …

The 12th SS Division was stationed in Rouen, you will set it not far up here, and they were the fire department of the Germany Army West, they were a Hitler youth political division, all young with fully equipped with Tiger and Panther tanks and twenty one thousand strong. They were ordered to Normandy to, as Hitler put it, his words were, “Smash the landing!” Well, the 12th SS, they walked all night, they marched all night and got to Caen in the morning and found their petrol supply was a blazing ruin from our air force, thank God, but an attack of that unit… when you are fighting the German Army, if you take some land from them or make a penetration you better not sit down and get comfortable, you better get ready for an immediate counter attack because it’s coming, it’s a doctrine. The first attack they put in was in the best tradition of the German Army. I had never seen anything like it. It was a volcano of gunfire and Authie, this little town of Authie right here and them tanks were in the village streets and grenadiers behind them and all that night and the day after, all that night, our artillery, in the morning anyway our infantry, the survivors were still standing in the line and the artillery was still firing and the 2nd Armoured Brigade had come up and they were rounding out the rest of the tanks and that was the rest of the German counter attack and from then on it was just a series of attempts. That one didn’t succeed, it was the most severe I think of all.