07/08/2024
Aug. 14, 1944- Anniversary of the 'short bombing' by the RCAF & RAF on our troops on the road to Falaise. Dad's 112th Bty. were at the epicentre of this tragedy, near Saint Aignan-de-Cramesnil. It was the worst day of the war for them. Many casualties buried in the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery. They lost all their guns, equipment, vehicles and personnel records. This event is well described in chapter 57 of Capt. George Blackburn’s book- Guns of Normandy. Capt. Blackburn MC, as well as Bomber Harris watched this horrific event, which lasted close to 2 hours, from their location at the Haut Mesnil Quarry, which was about 3.5 kms from where Dad’s gun was sited, and even closer to Cintheaux, which was only 2 kms from his gun, In the attached photo here, the purple pin is the location of Dad’s gun and the red pin is Saint- Aignan- de- Cramesnil. You will note on the top left corner of the B&W here a straight line from north to south, with the words SHORT BOMBING AREA. If you can’t make it out- at the north end is the village of Saint- Aignan- de- Cramesnil; and at the south end is Haut Mesnil Quarry. In between these 2 locations, was Dad’s #2 Gun on the west side of the line between the country road leading out of Saint- Aignan- de- Cramesnil and the main road to Falaise.
When I talked, by phone, to Capt. Blackburn at his home in Ottawa, who watched this tragedy unfold for 2 hours, along with Air Marshal Coningham, from the outskirts of the Haut Mesnil Quarry. He said that the tragedy was even worse than he had written about in chapter 57 of his book, and that it still haunted him years later, watching his comrades being blown up and running in sheer terror, in all directions, many of them calling for their moms. Initially, waves of bombers flew over low carrying what looked like clusters of black grapes. Then the bombs started falling short, until the sky was dark with dust, where no one could see. Many thought they were blind. Many were almost completely buried in the dirt. It was chaotic, to say the least.The photos here give a good depiction of this tragedy.
Here is a summary of Operation Tractable & the events that preceded the short bombing(not part of WD) on August 14, 1944, near Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil, Cintheaux & Haut Mesnil Quarry.
The 14th of August was a beautiful summer day. Those who saw it were to remember long the sight of the great columns of armour going forward "through fields of waving golden grain". At 11:37 a.m. the artillery began to fire the marker shells for the benefit of the medium bombers; at 11:55 it commenced to lay the tremendous smoke-screens intended to shield our columns from enemy observation. At 11:40 the medium bombers began bombing the enemy positions, hitting Montboint, Rouvres and Maizières in that order. Sweeping in over the waiting tanks, they attacked the valley for a noisy quarter of an hour. Forty-five Mitchells and 28 Bostons actually bombed. At 11:42 wireless silence was broken by the command "Move now"; and the armoured brigades began to roll towards the start line.
The artillery smoke-screen was designed to be "impenetrable" on the flanks and of the density of thick mist on the front. As soon as the armour moved, the smoke-clouds were supplemented by dust-"dust like I've never seen before!" was one unit commander's phrase. The two things together made it extremely difficult for the drivers to keep direction, and there was little they could do except press on "into the sun". The German gunners, fully alert and knowing in advance precisely the frontage on which we were going to attack, took their toll in spite of the smoke cover. One of their victims was the commander of the 4th Armoured Brigade, Brigadier E. L. Booth, who was mortally wounded when his tank was hit.* There were other casualties to the brigade headquarters, and the resulting disorganization had an adverse effect on the 4th Division's subsequent operations.
The armoured carriers bearing the infantry again showed themselves extremely valuable, boring straight through into the valley of the Laison where the riflemen jumped down and set to work clearing out the enemy. In general, the infantry task here was not formidable; large numbers of Germans surrendered after slight resistance or none. At one point, the Château at Montboint, a company of The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders--who arrived in the valley before our tanks--were held up by machine-gun posts; these were rapidly dealt with with the aid of a new and terrible weapon here first used by Canadians, the "WASP"--a flame-thrower mounted on a carrier. A Tiger tank (apparently one of two which were causing trouble hereabouts) was knocked out by an S.D. and G. 6-pounder detachment.
The Laison valley, deep-cut and wooded, is a rather striking feature; but the "river" itself is little more than a ditch, six feet or so wide and a couple of feet deep. Nevertheless, it proved itself a more considerable tank obstacle than had been expected. The provision made for crossings was "fascines", great bundles of brushwood carried by engineer assault vehicles. These were effective when once in place, but it was some time before the AVREs could reach the crossing-places, and meanwhile there was congestion and confusion along the little stream. Some tanks bogged down in attempting to ford it; other groups managed to improvise crossings from rubble and the remains of destroyed bridges. On the 3rd Division front on the right most of the tanks of two squadrons of the 1st Hussars suffered the former fate; the reserve squadron discovered a crossing at Rouvres, found itself leading the regiment's advance and pushed on to occupy the high ground west of Olendon. The light vehicles of the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment (17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars) seem to have been first across the river, and this unit's squadrons advanced toward the high ground with a view to occupying it pending the arrival of heavier armour.
On the 4th Division front, some tanks, seeking a crossing, got as far east as Ernes, where they found a practicable one; others waited until crossings were completed at Rouvres and Maizières. According to the Canadian Grenadier Guards' diarist, "the whole brigade was split up into small groups, each group containing representatives of all the units". Late in the afternoon the armoured advance on this front was proceeding beyond the Laison. Shortly before midnight the armoured regiments of the 4th Armoured Brigade were disposed about Olendon (which the 10th Infantry Brigade had captured in the evening) with the 21st Armoured Regiment, the farthest forward, immediately south of the village. The main body of the 10th Brigade was in the same area, and The Algonquin Regiment was about to carry the advance on towards Epancy. In the 3rd Division's sector, the 2nd Armoured Brigade were on the north end of the high ridge between the Laison and Olendon, and the 7th Infantry Brigade were reinforcing them. The 8th Brigade, having cleared its portion of the valley, was now back under the 3rd Division, and the North Shore Regiment had occupied Sassy.
The assault had been a complete success; the 4th Division reported that by 11:00 p.m. it had captured prisoners numbering 15 officers and 545 other ranks. But it also reported that progress south of the river was slow. It seems evident that this was due not so much to enemy opposition as to the degree of disorganization, all across the front of attack, which resulted from the losses of direction during the advance to the Laison and the confusion in the valley while our units sought for crossings.
In the early morning of the 14th the 2nd Canadian Division, on the right of the Corps front, had attacked successfully to enlarge its Clair Tizon bridgehead. During the afternoon it beat off three counter-attacks delivered at La Cressonniere* by troops identified as belonging to the 12th S.S. Panzer Division. The Polish Armoured Division, now operating on this same flank west of the Falaise Road and having no major role in the day's offensive except to exploit the Bomber Command attack, got patrols into Bray-en-Cinglais, north of Clair Tizon, but does not seem to have held the place.
The day's success had been marred by another incident, strikingly similar to that of 8 August, in which our troops were bombed by our own supporting aircraft. On the 8th the errant bombers had belonged to the US Eighth Air Force. This time they were aircraft of the RAF. Bomber Command; and of the 77 planes that bombed short 44, by ill hap, belonged to No. 6 (RCAF) Bomber Group.
As we have seen, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Bomber Command was to strike at six targets in the area Quesnay-Fontaine-le-Pin-Bons-Tassilly. The damage done the enemy may have been somewhat reduced by the warning given by the captured document above referred to. All told, 417 Lancasters, 352 Halifaxes and 42 Mosquitoes of Bomber Command took part and 3723 tons of bombs were dropped. Two aircraft were lost, one of them, it appears, unfortunately by our own anti-aircraft fire.
The short bombing was chiefly in the area of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil and about the great quarry at Haut Mesnil on the Falaise Road. One senior RAF officer experienced its effects, for Air Marshal Coningham was in General Simonds' armoured car near Haut Mesnil at the time.
Though it is impossible to state precisely how many casualties it caused, it seems that the loss was somewhat heavier than that in the earlier incident A return prepared at Headquarters First Canadian Army on 15 August showed totals of 65 killed, 241 wounded and 91 then missing. Many of the missing were certainly killed. These numbers have been revised over the years to indicate that First Canadian Army suffered, in total, over 150 Allied soldiers were killed and 241 wounded by the short bombing.
Canadian artillery regiments east of Haut Mesnil suffered heavily, the 12th Field Regiment RCA having (as finally established) 21 killed or died of wounds and 46 wounded. The Royal Regiment of Canada was badly hit, its casualties this day being six killed and 34 wounded. The Poles again had serious losses, reporting 42 killed and 51 missing as of 15 August.
The incident was fully investigated on the orders of Air Chief Marshal Harris. The technical reasons which led to it need not be explored here, but Bomber Command considered that a blameworthy aspect was the failure of the bomber crews to carry out orders which required them to make carefully timed runs from the moment of crossing the coast. This precaution would have prevented the errors. Disciplinary action was taken against individuals whose responsibility could be established. Two Pathfinder Force crews were re-posted to ordinary \crew duties, squadron and flight commanders personally involved relinquished their commands and acting ranks and were re-posted to ordinary crew duty, and all crews implicated were "starred" so as not to be employed upon duties within 30 miles forward of the bomb line until reassessed after further experience.
One particularly unfortunate aspect of the bombing was not the fault of the aircrews. Under orders issued by SHAEF, one of the recognition signals to be used by Allied troops for identification by our own air forces was yellow smoke or flares. This was duly shown by our troops on 14 August. Unhappily, neither SHAEF nor Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Air Force had advised the R.A.F. Bomber Command of this procedure.* Even worse, the target indicators used by Bomber Command on 14 August were of a yellow colour similar to the army recognition signals. Thus the yellow smoke burned by the units under attack had the reverse effect to that for which it was intended, merely attracting more bombs. The Royal Regiment recorded that it was out of yellow smoke, took steps to get a supply when bombing began nearby, displayed it, and was immediately bombed.
Sir Arthur Harris complained, as well he might, of the failure to inform his Command in this matter. He asserted indeed that his Senior Air Staff Officer, who had arranged the operation with First Canadian Army, "had particularly sought information on the subject of possibly confusing pyrotechnics and been assured that none would be used". It seems evident that it simply never occurred to General Crerar's staff that Bomber Command would not be fully conversant with a procedure laid down by SHAEF long before D Day and used universally throughout the campaign so far; and, most unfortunately, nobody thought of mentioning yellow smoke in the discussions with Harris's representative. It was certainly not the responsibility of an army headquarters to inform Bomber Command of such a matter, and it was undoubtedly assumed that higher authority had done it long before.
During the time when our troops were being bombed an attempt was made by the pilots of small Auster aircraft of Air Observation Post squadrons to warn the bombers off by going aloft and firing red Verey lights. Observers at Headquarters 4th Division felt sure that one such aircraft "was responsible for preventing the bombers from dropping more bombs on our own troops", and there are other similar reports. Air Chief Marshal Harris, however, commented that this procedure was "likely to and did in fact, give a misleading imitation of target indicators". With the best intentions, he said, these Austers "succeeded only in making confusion worse confounded".
There are many reports to indicate that this incident, following the similar one 6 days earlier, had momentarily had a severely depressing effect on the morale of the units and formations that suffered.
Here are the regimental casualties from this day. Many others were evacuated with Battle Exhaustion.
BRETTEVILLE-SUR-LAIZE CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY
XXIII-F-5- Warrington Foy- 1st- August 14, 1944- 22 Yrs
VII-C-15- Wesley Taylor- 112th- August 14, 1944- 21 Yrs.
X-D-11- Gordon MacDonald- 6LAA, RCEME- Aug.14, 1944
XV-G-6- Roley Carl Curtis- RCCS Signals-Aug. 14, 1944 29 Yrs
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