The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier's Eye View, France 1944
Language: English
Pages: 536
ISBN: 0771015038
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In the weeks after D-Day, the level of artillery action in Normandy was unprecedented. In what was a relatively small area, both sides bombarded each other relentlessly for three months, each trying to overwhelm the other by sheer fire power.
The Guns of Normandy puts the reader in the front lines of this horrific battle. In the most graphic and authentic detail, it brings to life every aspect of a soldier’s existence, from the mortal terror of impending destruction, to the unending fatigue, to the giddy exhilaration at finding oneself still, inexplicably, alive.
The story of this crucial battle opens in England, as the 4th Field Regiment receives news that something big is happening in France and that after long years of training they are finally going into action. The troop ships set out from besieged London and arrive at the D-Day beaches in the appalling aftermath of the landing.
What follows is the most harrowing and realistic account of what it is like to be in action, as the very lead man in the attack: an artillery observer calling in fire on enemy positions. The story unfolds in the present tense, giving the uncomfortably real sense that “You are here.”
The conditions under which the troops had to exist were horrific. There was near-constant terror of being hit by incoming shells; prolonged lack of sleep; boredom; weakness from dysentery; sudden and gruesome deaths of close friends; and severe physical privation and mental anguish. And in the face of all this, men were called upon to perform heroic acts of bravery and they did.
Blackburn provides genuine insight to the nature of military service for the average Canadian soldier in the Second World War – something that is all too often lacking in the accounts of armchair historians and television journalists. The result is a classic account of war at the sharp end.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Ten-thirty next morning, they enter the town, meeting no opposition. The Germans have gone. They left in great haste, it seems, when they heard Canadians with dark-blue patches on their shoulders were headed this way. This is according to the owner of the Château d’Ambrumesnil, close to where 4th Field is directed to park the guns and vehicles for rest and maintenance. About eight miles as the crow flies southwest of Dieppe, the château was used by the Germans as an officers’ mess of the Dieppe.
Hidden from view, about one and a half miles away, is the village of Louvigny. Forward on the left front sit three blackened Churchill tanks, partially hidden by the tall wheat. Judging from the direction their guns are pointing, all three were headed for Maltot and were well-dispersed as they moved to the brow of the hill. But the long-barrelled 75-mm gun of a Panther or the 88-mm of a Tiger hidden among the trees of the orchards of Maltot had potted them just the same — long before they could.
The 16th, Jerry bombers hummed in very low over the guns as everyone held their breath. But they dropped their flares and most of their bombs on Verson, only a few smaller anti-personnel bombs landing out ahead of the guns. Tonight just before 11:00 P.M., following the now normal drill, everyone settles down in holes with the thickest roofs of earth to await the sound of the approaching enemy planes. As always at this hour the whole bridgehead seems to be quiet and waiting. Minutes pass slowly.
Acting battalion commander, and his company commanders go forward on reconnaissance to a cluster of ancient farm buildings held by 8th Recce near the hamlet of Le Mesnil and just short of the road running east from Eterville to Caen, which will be the startline for their attack. From here they sneak forward to study the ground over which they must pass on their way to taking their objectives: the village of Louvigny and its château, which is some fifteen hundred yards away down on the Orne, well.
Must be done. As you pass the gun pits on your way back to the trucks, you hear the soles of hobnailed boots being kicked and mumbled explanations given. What torture it must be for those men to force themselves to reject sleep for which their bodies are aching — let alone to start shifting 160 hundred-pound cases of shells and eighty boxes of cartridge cases per gun. But in the pits, where dark figures are staggering to their feet and yawning prodigiously, there’s no word of complaint. You.