Operation Goodwood, Aftermath

Shermans in Escoville
(Source)

The rain had returned to Normandy.

Sgt Fitzhugh and his crew were riding on the back of one of his "Lambs." Of the four tanks his troop had taken into battle, the one he was riding on was the last. His own tank, a Sherman VC which they had all referred to as "Old 55" (based on its serial number), was a blazing wreck just outside Sannerville.

When they had received the order to pull back, as the Guards Armoured Division was taking heavy tank casualties and were themselves pulling back, all went well at first. They had lost one tank to an 88 mm gun while advancing on Cagny but the crew had all survived, they had fallen back into Sannerville and had been evacuated by truck all the way back to the tank depot near Bénouville.

Out of the gathering night they had been hit in the left flank by tanks from the 21st Panzer Division. Fitzhugh had lost another Sherman there, again, the crew had all survived though the driver was badly wounded. As Fitzhugh's half-strength troop was rather occupied fighting the Jerries, he didn't know any of that, he had seen Max Caldwell's tank hit and begin to burn but that was it.

"Old 55" had halted and had begun to engage the advancing Germans, a mix of Mark 4s (as the British often referred to the Pzkw IV) and Panthers, as the surviving Lamb, commanded by Sgt Jackie Rothstein, moved to get on the Germans' flank. Rothstein had fired on the move and had hit a Mark 4 which blew up spectacularly, it's turret flipping through the air to land on, and disable a second Mark 4.

Cpl Cecil Chapman, "Old 55's" gunner, had engaged a Panther just as Fitzhugh had been looking forward once more, the bright flash from the 17-pounder dazzled him. He could see nothing for a few long moments. He sat down hard in his seat and yelled, "Cecil, I'm blind, bloody muzzle flash!"

"Sorry Skipper, but..." Cpl Chapman was in the middle of a sentence when he stomped on the gun pedal again. He had closed his eyes when he fired and when he reopened them another Panther was burning. It was then that he'd noticed that the German tanks were not alone, he could see infantry, Panzergrenadiers no doubt, scurrying about in the light from three burning German tanks. It was at that point he really wished they had a bow gunner!¹

In front of Stabsfeldwebel Gerhard Lindner's position on the edge of Cagny, he could see at least fifteen burning British Shermans. He shook his head one more time to try and and clear his ears, they were still ringing but his hearing was gradually coming back. What he thought had been blood coming from his ears was actually a nasty cut on top of his head.

The hit atop 224's turret hadn't penetrated, nor caused any spalling, but Lindner had been startled when the round had hit them. He had jumped and smacked his head against the underside of his cupola. He was still daubing that wound with the cleanest portion of an oily rag. It stung like Hell, but he thought the bleeding had stopped.

He saw figures moving in the field between Cagny and Manneville, as for some odd reason the British had advanced with no infantry support at all, he assumed they were German. But he watched them all the same and had his MP-40 handy, should it be needed.

"Gerhard, it's me, Fromme. Don't shoot!"

Lindner watched as his battalion commander staggered into their position, along with about 20 other men. Major Fromme's uniform was torn and scorched, Lindner recognized some of the other men as tank crewmen and at least three men from the battalion staff.

"Herr Major, where are the others? Where are your tanks?"

"Gone Gerhard, the RAF hit us very hard this morning. We lost all of our tanks. Your platoon is all that is left of the 503rd."

Lindner stood there, looking northwards where he could see a sharp engagement taking place. He assumed that it was 21st Panzer attacking the British who had attacked him that afternoon.

Lindner climbed down from his tank and took the major aside, out of earshot of the others. "Herr Major, we've heard from headquarters, 7th Army headquarters, Rommel is dead and someone has tried to assassinate the Führer. Yesterday. They failed but the Gestapo and the Feldpolizei are rounding up anyone who has spoken out against the war."

"Rommel. Dead? How?"

"Strafed by a Jabo. Reports are mixed, some say he's alive, 7th Army says he's dead. The situation is very confused."

Fromme stood there for a long moment, this was insane. "Gerhard, how many tanks left in your platoon?"

"Two. I lost two when the British attacked. Those damned big gunned Shermans. We killed two of them, but they killed Walter's and Herbert's Tigers."

"Crew losses?"

"Walter lost one man, no one made it out of Herbert's machine."

"Scheiße!"

Knocked out Pzkw VI Ausf. E
(Source)

It had been close to midnight when a 75 mm round had penetrated the engine compartment of "Old 55." The tank had come to an abrupt halt and was beginning to smoke. Another German tank round hit the side of 55's turret, ringing the turret like a bell as the round glanced off and shrieked into the night, trailing sparks.

"Right lads, time to get out!" Fitzhugh ordered. He jumped off the front of 55 and ran into his driver, LCpl Thomas Ginns.

"Right Tommy, head for the rear, we'll meet up again at the tank park, off you go now!"

His loader, Chapman joined him and said, "I saw Willis get clear, told him to head for Bénouville, did you see Tommy, he get out?"

"Yes, Tommy is clear, I told him to make his way to the tank park. We need to get the Hell out of here." He could hear German voices shouting in the near distance, he felt like they were hunting him, personally.

At that moment a tank gun barked, a Sherman tank gun, to their right. He heard a loud bang, when he turned in that direction, he saw a German halftrack flip onto its side, scattering its occupants. Both the coaxial and bow machine guns on the Sherman started to chatter, slaughtering the survivors from the halftrack.

Silhouetted by the flames Fitzhugh could see a Panther roll into view, the big tank stopped and its turret began to turn in their direction. The Sherman's gun barked again, the Panther stopped, a glowing hole in its side armor.

"Come on Fitzie! We can't hang about here all bloody day, I don't think Jerry likes us very much." Jackie Rothstein was leaning down from his turret, yelling at Fitzhugh and Chapman. They scrambled aboard Rothstein's Sherman, then held on for dear life as Rothstein had his driver moving off to the north and into the shroud of night.

Knocked out Sherman and knocked out Pzkw IV
(Source)

That had been some hours ago, now Fitzhugh rode the back of Rothstein's Sherman, lost in thought and soaking wet from the rain. The red caps² had stopped them in Amfreville and redirected them to the brigade's tank park. He reckoned that his troop would be rebuilt, new tanks were plentiful, it was men they were running short of...

Just prior to GOODWOOD, the Adjutant-General of the British Army had advised Montgomery that infantry reinforcements could no longer be guaranteed in sufficient numbers to keep the British formations fighting in France at full strength.

This infantry manpower shortage led Dempsey to persuade a reluctant Montgomery to launch an attack by an all-armor corps. In mid-July, Montgomery's forces needed to resume offensive action to keep German armor tied down in the eastern half of the (Normandy) bridgehead prior to the American "Cobra" offensive in the west. An all-armor attack also was logical because Dempsey could not afford to (lose) infantrymen, but could afford to lose (armour). "Goodwood" contravened Montgomery's stated policy never to employ a corps comprised entirely of armor. This policy reflected both the often poor performance of Allied armor during break-in operations in North Africa and the realities of modern warfare, which now required intimate infantry-tank cooperation. Ironically, the shortage of adequate infantry support for the armor constituted the biggest factor in the failure of "Goodwood."

British and Canadian losses at this point in the campaign had been 37,563. Montgomery was reluctant to mass his armour, having seen the occasional disastrous consequence of unsupported tanks fighting independently in the desert, but was caught between not wanting to fight another costly infantry battle for which he had no reinforcements, and mounting pressure from London and Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). There was still not enough room around Caen to deploy either the 1st Canadian Army, or the airfields needed to support the Allied bridgehead. Montgomery felt that above all, it was necessary to support Operation COBRA, a major American offensive tentatively scheduled for the third week of July. Major action at Caen would prevent German forces from shifting westward to meet the American offensive. (Source)

Operation Goodwood was over, Operation Cobra, on the American flank of the lodgment, was still a week away. Parts of Caen were still in German hands...

One historian, writing in the mid-1960s, referred to GOODWOOD as the "death ride of the armoured divisions" given the number of tanks that were lost in the offensive. General Dempsey, commanding the 2nd Army, later noted:

The attack we put in on July 18th was not a very good operation of war tactically, but strategically it was a great success, even though we did get a bloody nose. I didn't mind about that. I was prepared to lose a couple of hundred tanks. So long as I didn't lose men. We could afford the tanks because they had begun to pile up in the bridgehead. Our tank losses were severe but our casualties in men were very light. If I had tried to achieve the same result with a conventional infantry attack I hate to think what the casualties would have been.

The tangible results of the battle were to put all of Caen in Allied hands, and to prevent the danger of major counter-offensive on the eastern flank. The three major obstacles impeding further advance - the city of Caen, the Odon River, and the Orne - were finally behind the British 2nd Army after six weeks ashore. "Moreover, the new positions occupied by the Second Army posed a grave threat to the entire German right flank: their anchor was lost and the severe battering they had taken during GOODWOOD ensured that they lacked the strength to take it back." (Source)

¹ To provide more ammunition storage for the 17-pounder, the bow gunner's position had been eliminated in the Sherman VC. The vehicle only had a crew of four, most Shermans had a crew of five.
² British military policemen, they wore a distinctive red cover on their