The 13th of June, 1944 - D + 7, One Week Ashore

Loading 17-pounder APCBC¹ rounds into a Firefly

"Driver, halt!" Sergeant James Fitzhugh barked at Lance Corporal Thomas Ginns over the tank's intercom system. Turning to the wiry Scots corporal on the tank's rear deck, he simply nodded. The infantryman knew his business, he'd been doing it since Jerry had chased them out of France back in '40. Well, they were back now!

Corporal Billy Wallace slid down off the big Sherman with two of his squaddies, the others remained in place. He could smell the unmistakable aroma of burned vehicle in the air. Slowly, and crouching very low, the three Lowland Scots infantrymen eased into the brush beside the road. While he doubted that a German tank would take potshots at three squaddies, he wasn't taking any chances.

Down the road Wallace could see the burned out wreckage of a number of Bren gun carriers. He wondered what sodding idiot had sent those chaps swanning down this road in broad daylight. From what he'd heard, the chaps had suffered three dead and five wounded in that little brush.

He trained his field glasses along the tree line, which was about 600 meters away. Scan, pause, then scan some more, he caught a hint of something, so he stopped his scan. There! That's a bloody tank! Stowing his field glasses, he and the others scurried back to the Shermans waiting on the road, just below a wee rise in the ground.

"Sarn't, there's Jerry tanks up in that tree line, I saw one, but where there's one..."

Sergeant Fitzhugh completed the man's sentence, "There's bound to be more..."

"Right lads, off the tanks, deploy along the verge while we try and get some air to come take a peek."

(Source)

Squadron Leader Miles Tremayne acknowledged the call from the RAF liaison on the ground, seems some of the boys on the ground had spotted Jerry tanks hiding in a wood. "Red Two, we've got some trade, follow me down, watch my arse won't you?"

The two big Hawker Typhoons eased over and headed towards the coordinates given to them over the radio. "Max speed Two, don't want to give these blighters a target, now do we?"

Pushing the throttle forward, the big aircraft headed down the road that their chaps were following. He spotted them, then he spotted the tree line. As the two aircraft flashed overhead, Two called, "Red Leader, I see them, at least three Jerry tanks just inside the tree line."

"Copy Red Two, let's go around and light them up. We'll come in from the opposite direction this time."

Schwerer Panzerspähwagen (heavy armoured scout car) Sd.Kfz. 234/4 with 7.5 cm Pak 40.
(Source)

As the two Allied Jabos flashed overhead, Scharführer Otto Grünze ducked involuntarily, it was a reflex action, it seemed that the Amis and the Tommies had aircraft up from sunrise to sundown. They'd nearly been caught in the open two days ago. Looking down the road towards the beaches, he wondered at the Tiger unit that had been here that morning. Seventh Army had shifted them further west to make room for his unit, the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitlerjugend². 

Time to shift again, as he signaled his two lighter armored cars to pull out, he heard, then felt the hiss of aerial rockets coming in. One of his cars was hit and blew up in spectacular fashion, the other rockets were near misses. With that, his car and the lone survivor of the two lighter cars pulled out and sped to the other side of the road.

"Red Leader, did you see that secondary? Rather like Guy Fawkes day, what?"

"Rather, Red Two. No more chatter, let's rejoin the cab rank, shall we?"

As the two British aircraft went to rejoin their comrades in the "cab rank" (aircraft circling in a particular area awaiting targets), Squadron Leader Tremayne saw what had to be Shermans below. I guess I should inform them that their "tanks" are gone, looked like armored cars to me. Which is what he radioed to the RAF ground liaison.

When they received the report of the Tiffies³ having flushed a Jerry reconnaissance element, Sergeant Fitzhugh had his infantry climb aboard. They would push on ahead to the next road junction and perhaps have a spot of tea there. It was getting rather late in the day, he felt peckish, he was certain the lads were as well.

As the Shermans began to move, Fitzhugh kept low in the commander's cupola, one of his mates had been killed by a sniper the day before. While he didn't want to button up completely, couldn't see a damned thing that way, he could keep a lower profile this way.

As the drivers of the Shermans shifted to the side of the road which wasn't littered with destroyed Bren gun carriers, his gunner, Corporal Cecil Chapman announced that he had a target to his right front.

"Jerry armored car Fitzie, range 450 yards. Kill it?"

"Engage that bastard Cecil."

The Sherman Firefly's 17-pounder gun barked and sent its projectile towards the Germans, who apparently thought they were safe in their new position.

Scharführer Grünze didn't feel a thing when the tank round penetrated the gun shield in front of him. Metal from his destroyed 7.5 cm cannon killed him and one of his other crewman. The driver managed to get out, but the fourth man died in the resulting explosion of the vehicle's onboard ammunition.

His other car almost escaped, but another round from one of the British Shermans hit the rear engine compartment. That Tommy had had a high explosive round loaded. While not really useful against a tank, the high explosive round shredded the rear end of the SdKfz 222 and killed all three crewmen.

It would be another day before the advancing SS troops knew what was in front of them.

(Source)

Another history bit, liked it so much, I bought his book!

¹ APCBC = Armor Piercing Capped Ballistic Capped, a type of anti-tank munition
² Hitler Youth Division, average age of the soldiers was 18 to 19 in Normandy.
³ Tiffy, nickname for the Hawker Typhoon.