By Mark Zuehlke
Lucky paratroops of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion have a jeep for transportation after landing in Normandy on the eve of D-Day.
While some Canadian paratroops still wandered lost or purposefully navigated through no man’s land to reach the battal- ion’s objectives, most were engaged in set- ting up a strong defensive position astride the vital le Mesnil crossroads. Another smaller group remained dug in at the village of Robehomme, which overlooked a bridge crossing the River Dives that the paratroops had blown on D-Day. The force here, under command of Captain Peter Griffin, numbered about one hundred. But only thirty to forty men—mostly from ‘B’ Company—were Canadian. Lost British paratroopers, drawn towards Robehomme by the sounds of gunfire as Griffin’s men had fended off several determined German counterattacks on June 6, made up the rest.
From the bell tower of Robehomme’s small church, Griffin watched German infantry slowly tighten a noose around his position throughout the daylight hours of June 7. Three miles separated Robehomme and le Mesnil crossroads, with the town of Bavent situated at roughly the midway point. From his vantage, Griffin could see German troops gathered around Bavent, which stood astride the road they needed to take to get through to the battalion. A stretch of low country almost a mile wide had been flooded between Robehomme and Bavent when the Germans had breached the banks of the River Dives as a defensive measure, intended to prevent these open fields’ use as airborne drop zones. The raised roadbed connecting the two communities via Bricqueville provided the only viable route across the flooded ground. Griffin was under no illusions that his paratroopers could hold Robehomme indefinitely. They were surrounded and would eventually be outgunned and outnumbered. It would be wise to be gone from the village before the Germans decided they were strong enough to overrun the position.
Following the airborne drop and beach landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, the German Wehrmacht rushed reinforcements to contain the beachheads.
Hoping that the Germans at Bavent might still be disorganized, Griffin and Lieutenant Norm Toseland decided to try slipping a patrol through to le Mesnil. Private W.J. Brady was one of the men sent on this mission. They returned soon enough, having determined that the Germans had established a roadblock to prevent such an attempt. With water covering the ground on either side of the road, there was no way the blocking position could be outflanked, even in darkness. The Canadians had learned during the night of June 5–6 the perils of trying to slosh about in the flooded zones. Some men had drowned in water that was over their heads, while others had become hopelessly mired in deep mud, and it was virtually impossible to move quietly enough to avoid detection, anyway. There seemed no alternative. Griffin’s small force would just have to stay put. The paratroops were determined to protract the siege as long as possible, exacting a stiff price for their inevitable elimination.
At the crossroads, Lieutenant Colonel G.F.P. Bradbrooke had problems of his own. The aloof commander of the parachute bat- talion, who had proven before the invasion to be more concerned with fussy administrative paperwork than preparing the men for combat, had gathered about four hundred Canadian paratroops around him by the morning of June 7. He had also surprised some of his officers and men during the long day’s fighting on D-Day by leading them with steely resolve on a bitterly contested march from the drop zone to the crossroads. There had been those who had thought Bradbrooke would prove a poor combat officer, but his performance that day indicated otherwise.
The Bridge at Robehomme was the initial target of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion after landing in Normandy.
Most of the men at the crossroads were armed with rifles or Sten guns. Only a few had Bren guns. Ammunition and grenades were in short supply. During the dispersed drop, the containers containing the heavier weapons had by and large gone astray. Those that were found had usually broken open and the equipment inside was either wrecked or damaged. The mortar platoon had lost its mortars this way, and the majority of the battalion’s wireless sets had similarly been scattered to the winds or broken. Equipment lost in the drop tallied up to 50 per cent of the battalion’s total.
The crossroads formed the intersection point for five roads that ascended the ridge’s gradually rising slopes from opposite compass points. Bavent ridge was only a significant feature because the country surrounding it was so low and flat. Run- ning along a generally north-south line from Sallenelles near the coast almost to Troarn, which was east of and parallel to Caen, it formed the only viable defensive ground that the airborne division could use to advantage in securing its eastern flank. If the counterattacking Germans broke through the defensive line holding the ridge, they would likely succeed in pushing the division’s lines back to the River Orne bridges. These bridges, captured by British glider troops on D-Day, were vital to Second British Army’s plan to break out from the Normandy bridgehead and advance towards Paris.
Canadian paratroopers rest and refit during a brief lull in the ferocious battles to defend Juno Beach.
Holding the ridge from Sallenelles to Bréville was the 1st Special Service Brigade, a commando force that had landed at Sword Beach and linked up with the airborne troops late on June 6. From Bréville, which stood atop the highest point, to where the ridge overlooked the southern extremity of a small forest known as the Bois de Bavent was the responsibility of 6th Division’s 3rd Brigade. The 9th Parachute Battalion held the line from right of Bréville to just short of the crossroads, then the Canadians took over the defence from the crossroads to the forest’s northern edge, where they handed off to the 8th Parachute Battalion.
The crossroads was easily identifiable on the ridge’s skyline because rising above it was the smokestack of a nearby brick and pottery plant. Bradbrooke had been quick to establish his headquarters inside the building, whose stout walls provided good protection against the German artillery and mortar firing that was directed against the paratroopers with ever increasing intensity as June 7 wore on. A short distance to the right of the crossroads, Brigadier James Hill put his headquarters in a small château and the 224 Field Ambulance’s aid post set up on the same property. Each of the 3rd Brigade’s battalions was responsible for about a mile of line that numbers would not allow to be held by positioning men along its entire length. Instead, Bradbrooke organized small strongpoints, with the strongest in front of the crossroads, and covered the flank positions with Vickers machine guns. These weapons had arrived mid-morning, having been landed at Sword and moved up to the battalion by jeep. A good stock of ammunition and a trio of mortars were also included in the resupply package. Happy to be back in business, the mortar crews established a firing position beside the brick factory from which they could bombard targets to the front of any point on the Canadian line.
In addition to the vital supplies, Bradbrooke also received the cheering news that the battalion would be able to call on the British cruiser Arethusa and a destroyer for naval gun support. These two ships had been allotted specifically to fire missions assigned by 3rd Brigade, which was also given the dedicated support of the 302nd Field Battery of one of the 3rd British Infantry Division’s artillery regiments. The paratroops would not have to rely entirely on their own combat resources, after all.
Canadian paratroops armed with Sten guns take up defensive positions on the outskirts of Caen in Normandy.
The arrival of the mortars proved in the nick of time, for no sooner had they been dug into firing pits than a strong force of infantry supported by several self-propelled guns and Mark IV tanks struck the Canadian line. These were troops of the 346th Grenadier Division’s 857th and 858th regiments. The 346th had just arrived in the area after marching through the day and night from Le Havre, the only division to be released from the Pas de Calais on June 6 to meet the Allied invasion in Normandy. On D-Day, the Canadian paratroops had fought elements of the 716th Infantry Division. A coastal defence unit, the 716th had been comprised of soldiers generally considered unfit for service in active combat divisions. With its fighting teeth concentrated in bunkers directed towards the beach areas, the division had been ill-positioned to offer a coordinated defence against 6th Airborne Division’s drop and was shredded by day’s end. Brigadier Hill, however, reported that the 346th “was a first class German division,” so the Canadians faced a tough, competent adversary.