Operation Goodwood

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Operation Goodwood was also used as the codename for the series of attacks by the British Fleet Air Arm on the German battleship Tirpitz in late August 1944.

Operation Goodwood was an Allied military operation during the Second World War lasting from 18 July to 20 July 1944 in Normandy. It is the largest tank battle that the British Army has fought. Controversy has stemmed from disputes over the objective of the operation: whether it was a successful though costly limited-objective attack to secure Caen and pin German formations in the eastern region of the Normandy beachhead (preventing them from disengaging to join the counterattack against the US Operation Cobra)^[1] or a failed attempted breakout from the Normandy bridgehead. ^[2]

[edit] Background

After initial successes of the Battle of Normandy following the lodgement phase, additional Allied advances were minimal throughout late June and into July. The city of Caen had not fallen on D-Day as planned and remained in German hands. Operation Overlord had predicted an Allied front east of the Orne river as the pivot point of the Allied advance, with possession of Caen giving the British Second Army a suitable jumping-off point for offensive operations in addition to several bridges over the Orne river and Caen Canal. The terrain between Caen and Vimont was especially promising, being open and dry and conducive to swift offensive operations. Since the Allied forces greatly outnumbered the Germans in tanks and mechanized units, transforming the battle into a more fluid fast-moving battle was to their advantage. German possession of the Colombelles steel works to the south of Caen also gave them a unique observation post for artillery observers.

The British 3rd Infantry Division had been unable to take Caen on D-Day as planned while still protecting the Orne bridgehead initially secured by the British 6th Airborne Division. Several subsequent unsuccessful attempts to take Caen and break out to the east were mounted, such as Operation Charnwood. German defense of the area included strong armoured units as well as the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division. Numerous towed antitank guns and heavy flak guns were dug in on the Bourgebus ridge overlooking the area and in small villages dotting the landscape.

[edit] Planning

At this stage in the Battle of Normandy Montgomery had adapted his plans so that there would be an attritional battle in the east fought mostly by the British and Canadians which would allow a breakout in the west by United States forces. For this to work, it was necessary to draw in the remaining uncommitted German reserves to the east^[3] and secure the position in the east by occupying the Caen area, especially the Bourgebus ridge to the south of it.

At a meeting with General Montgomery on July 10th, the Second Army commander, General Miles Dempsey proposed the Goodwood plan. This was the same day Montgomery approved Operation Cobra.

Goodwood's starting point was the inescapable fact that the British Army was incapable of replacing its high Infantry losses at the rate they were taking them in Normandy. On the other hand, by mid-July the British had 2,250 medium tanks and 400 light tanks in the bridgehead in three armoured divisions and five independent armoured or tank brigades. Starting with the premise that the Second Army could afford to lose tanks but not men, a plan was devised to break through the German positions east of the Orne and north of Caen. Goodwood would be the largest armoured assault yet seen in western Europe. The operation was planned to begin 18 July, two days before the planned start of Operation Cobra. Due to delays in seizing the planned jumping-off points, and also because Montgomery had told Bradley that he did not have to hurry^[4], Cobra did not begin until 25 July.

Though it was expected to be costly in terms of tanks and crews, Dempsey had high hopes of a breakthrough. The main force would be the three British armoured divisions of the British VIII Corps led by Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor. Leading the advance, the 11th Armoured Division's targets were Bras, Hubert-Folie, Verrieres and Fontenay; the Guards Armoured Division would push through around Cagny and Vimont; finally the 7th Armoured Division's objective was Garcelles-Secqueville. The intention was to push the Germans from the higher ground of the Bourguebus Ridge. A Canadian force (Operation Atlantic) would cover the west flank and drive the Germans from the rest of Caen while British infantry would cover the east flank. Artillery fire support would come from over 700 guns and howitzers firing over 250,000 rounds.

Infantry and tanks wait to advance at the start of Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944.

The Allied attack had several serious flaws:

• To mount the attack all three armoured divisions had to cross two water obstacles and a minefield prior to crossing the start line. The Orne River and the Caen Canal ran laterally across the British front, directly in the path of the armoured divisions. Only six small bridges were available to move over 8,000 vehicles, including tanks, artillery, mechanized Infantry, Engineers and support vehicles such as ammunition and fuel supply vehicles, medical units and so forth. It was obvious that a traffic control problem would ensue. Dempsey's proposed solution was disastrous - he directed his Corps Commander (O'Connor) to move the tanks ahead, leaving behind everything else including Infantry, Engineers, Artillery etc until all the tanks were across. Thus the British combined-arms team was broken up before the Germans fired a shot. Having crossed the bridges, a British minefield laid only days before by the 51st Highland Division had to be traversed. The minefield was a mix of antitank and antipersonnel mines. This obstacle could have been overcome by strong engineer support prior to the battle. However, because the Germans had the minefield under observation from the steelworks, a mineclearing operation would have alerted them to the attack. In the event, several one-tank wide gaps were cleared in the minefield at night. It was known that this would further constrain the movement of Corps vehicles.

A Sherman Firefly crosses 'Euston Bridge' over the Orne as it moves up to the start line for Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944.

• The issue of tactical surprise was mishandled. Moving the armoured units to their attack positions too early, or gapping the minefield too early, would alert the Germans to the attack as the British positions could be clearly viewed from the high land to the south of Caen. In hindsight we can see that the armour moved too late: the hundreds of tanks were horribly slowed by the bottle-neck of the bridges and minefield. Again, to preserve surprise, artillery units were not moved forward to support the attack. However, Ultra decrypts of German signals, as well as the Second Army's own intelligence estimates, revealed that by July 15th the Germans were well aware of the time and place of the attack and were reinforcing their defenses. At this point, since tactical surprise had been lost, the minefields could have been more thoroughly cleared and units moved up into attack positions without ill effects - but this was not done.
• The 11th Armoured Division was overburdened. Although the lead unit in the attack, the Division was also given the mission of clearing the front-line villages of Cuverville and Demouville. These should have been bypassed by the lead units and left for following units - virtually a standard tactic in any army by 1944. Instead, while the Division's tank battalions attacked Bourgebus ridge, the Infantry battalions were clearing villages. This slowed down both attacks and further broke up combined-arms integrity.
• Fire support planning was poor. Artillery units were left west of the Orne, placing the main German defensive position on Bourgebus ridge out of their range. Coordination between field artillery and tanks was poor. Dempsey appears to have relied on the initial air bombardment by Bomber Command to stun or disrupt the defenders.

Sherman tanks carrying infantry wait for the order to advance at the start of Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944.

The terrain was difficult - the area was filled with small villages, each of which had a small German garrison of infantry, armour and artillery connected by tunnels. The area was thus divided into a series of strongpoints overlooking the intended Allied line of advance. The high ground of the Bourgebus Ridge, with numerous dug-in German heavy weapons, overlooked a clear field of fire into the path of the intended advance. These defences were the strongest and deepest in Normandy. (The defenders were controlled by I SS Panzer Corps, under SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Sepp Dietrich.)

These problems were apparent in the planning stage.

[edit] Execution

Allied preparatory fire was provided spectacularly by almost 1,000 heavy and medium bombers dropping over 15,000 bombs. The German positions to the east of Caen were carpet-bombed and many of the villages were reduced to rubble, disrupting the German defenses. The shock value of the intense, short bombardment was high. However, the German artillery on the Bourgebus Ridge was not hit by the bombardment and was outside the range of British artillery and by chance the defenders at Cagny and Emieville were largely unscathed. These sites had clear fields of fire into the path of the British advance.

Early advances by the Allied armour were made under a creeping barrage but were slow, despite encountering little resistance. This was primarily due to the traffic congestion noted above. But by noon the 11th Armoured Division's 29th Armoured Brigade had gained almost 12,000 yards.

Welsh Soldiers in action near Cagny 19 July 1944.

By the time the Caen-Vimont railway was reached the Germans had recovered from the shock of the bombardment. The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry lost twelve tanks at Cagny when 88mm AA guns were turned on them: a single hit on a Sherman was usually sufficient to reduce it to a burning wreck. The Allies slowly pushed through and crossed the railway line to approach the German-held ridge at Bourgebus, where they encountered elements of the 21st Panzer Division, the Panther battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Division and numerous towed guns. For most of the day only the 29th Armoured Brigade of the 11th Armoured Division was attacking. The 159th Infantry brigade was held up clearing two villages behind the tank brigade. Self-propelled artillery did not accompany the tank attack. Allied fighter-bombers could not provide close support, as the RAF's forward control post was knocked out early on.

The remaining two armoured divisions were still negotiating the river crossings and minefield. The Guards Armoured Division took all day to clear the defenders from Cagny and when they had done so, attacked in a divergent direction towards Vimont to the south east. Unscathed defenders with well dug in anti-tank guns halted them and knocked out 60 tanks. By dusk only a single tank battalion of the 7th Armoured Division was in action; most of the Division did not finish crossing the Orne until 10pm on the 18th and could not add its weight to the attack. Thus the 11th Armoured Division was carrying the attack by itself most of the day.

Medics during Operation Goodwood, 18 July 1944.

The British armour, constrained by the terrain behind the start line, committed the same error that had characterized it in the desert. Individual tank battalions fought unsupported and in succession, rather than fighting together as part of all-arms battlegroups. Unsupported tank units could not easily root out dug-in towed guns, although a combined-arms team of tanks, infantry and self-propelled artillery might have had much better luck. Virtually all the ground gained was won on the morning of the 18th.

The German armour counter-attacked late in the afternoon and fighting continued along the high ground and around Hubert-Folie on the 19th and 20th, bringing the attack to a halt. On the 21st July, Dempsey started to secure his gains by substituting infantry for armour. It is estimated that about 400 tanks were lost, including about half the tanks in the 29th Armoured Brigade. Infantry casualties were nearly as high as in previous operations; total casualties were approximately 5,500 British and Canadian soldiers.

[edit] Effects

Goodwood gained some terrain as the bridgehead over the Orne was expanded; in a few areas the depth of penetration was 12,000 yards, but much of the gain was lateral, southward across the British front rather than eastwards into the depth of the German position; however, Caen was finally secured.

Goodwood was launched at a time of high frustration in the higher command of the Allies and this contributed to the controversy surrounding the operation. The Allied bridgehead in Normandy was not expanding at the pace they wanted, and there was some fear of a stalemate. Allied commanders were not able to exploit their potentially-decisive advantages in mobility during June and early July 1944. They were looking for a decisive breakthrough of the German defensive front.

Map showing territory gained in Operations Atlantic and Goodwood

Much of the controversy surrounding the objectives of the battle originates from the conflicting messages given out by Montgomery. Montgomery talked-up the objectives of Goodwood to the press on the first day, later saying that this was deliberate to encourage the Germans to commit their forces away from the western part of the battlefield. However, Montgomery was notoriously vain, and did not feel he had a responsibility to talk to superiors who were not on the battlefield. Therefore, in the planning stage of Goodwood, he seemed to promise that the attack would be the breakthrough the Allies were looking for, so that when the British VIII Corps failed to achieve a penetration, by some accounts Eisenhower felt he had been misled. While his irregular communications to his commanders appeared to promise a breakthrough, Montgomery was writing orders to his subordinates that played down the chances of a breakthrough. For example, copies of orders forwarded to SHAEF called for an armoured division to take Falaise, a town far in the German rear, but three days prior to the attack Montgomery revised these orders, eliminating Falaise as an objective, neglecting to send copies of the revision up to SHAEF. This left Eisenhower in the dark about the more conservative revised orders and later furious at the result. This was to haunt Montgomery afterwards as it allowed his many enemies (especially Air Marshal Tedder) to imply that the operation was a failure.

Tactically, the Germans successfully contained the offensive, holding many of their main positions though losing the Bourgebus Ridge, preventing an Allied breakthrough. In all the Allies had extended their control over an extra seven miles to the east of Caen and destroyed over 109 German tanks, for the loss of 413 tanks and over 5,500 men, though many of the tanks were repairable.

Probably the biggest post-Goodwood claim of success was that the attack reinforced the German view that the British and Canadian forces on the Allied eastern flank were the most dangerous enemy. This resulted in the Axis committing their reserves to the eastern half of the battle so that the United States forces only faced one and a half Panzer divisions compared with the six and a half now facing the British and Canadian armies. Once Cobra breached the thin German defensive 'crust' in the west, few German mechanized units were available to counterattack.

[edit] Operation Atlantic

The II Canadian Corps launched Operation Atlantic simultaneously with Goodwood, achieving their objectives on the flank of Goodwood.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Nigel Hamilton, Montgomery, Bernard Law, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)
2. ^ Carlo D'Este in Decision In Normandy
3. ^ Dempsey was explicitly instructed to do this "to ease the way for Brad". M.Urban, Generals: Ten British Commanders Who Shaped the World Faber & Faber (2006).
4. ^ M.Urban, Generals: Ten British Commanders Who Shaped the World Faber & Faber (2006)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

• World War 2 Newspaper Archives - D-Day and the Normandy Campaign