Wyre Forest Gamers - Infantry in the Attack (1) Leaning on the Barrage

The British & Canadian Infantry in Normandy 1944

Infantry in the Attack - Leaning on the Barrage

The bibliography for this series of articles is available here

Infantry with Prisoners at Leon-sur-Mer, 6th June 1944 ©IWM B 5027

The Predominance of Artillery

The key feature of Allied operational technique in Normandy was the employment of large concentrations of artillery firepower on enemy positions prior to assault. There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, Montgomery’s experiences in North Africa had taught him that only heavy bombardments in support of attacks on the ground could overcome German defences. Secondly, he wished to avoid a repetition of the slaughter of the First World War. Thirdly, he wanted to avoid heavy infantry casualties because there was a chronic shortage of replacements. Finally, as we saw in Article 1, Montgomery was concerned that the morale of his men was fragile and he was determined that they should achieve their objectives at minimum cost. Consequently he was prepared to expend thousands of tons of shells to ensure success and save lives. He certainly had the means to do it. For example, the attack on Caen on 8th July was supported by 456 field guns, 128 mediums, 32 heavy guns and 27 medium and heavy guns from the Royal Navy. Therefore, the mainstay of the offensive tactics that 21^st Army Group utilised in Normandy was the timed artillery barrage, behind which infantry were expected to follow swiftly. The essence of battle drill, however, was to teach section and platoon actions in which supporting arms were not involved. The Instructor's Handbook claimed that detailed and methodically prepared plans depending largely for success on heavy and accurate covering fire would no longer suffice against slick and bold opponents such as German troops. This contradiction was at the heart of some of the most serious issues faced by British and Canadian infantry units during the campaign, particularly when, as was often the case, the preparatory barrage failed to produce the intended results.

Battle School instructors recognised that there would be situations (for example where the opposition encountered was strong and highly organised or where a narrow front restricted the opportunities for manoeuvre) when infantry units would require supporting artillery fire. Infantry Training gave instructions on how infantry should act following a barrage. After reminding its readers that it was unlikely that all the enemy had been killed by the shelling, it recommended that the assault should begin as soon as the barrage lifted, Bren guns be moved forward quickly to provide close support, smoke should be used if necessary, attacking infantry to shoot from the hip with all available weapons and the enemy positions were to be searched thoroughly with the bayonet. The suggestion from the training material was, therefore, that even with artillery preparation, some form of fire and movement technique should be employed to secure the objective. Even so, platoon assaults following a barrage were not part of the syllabus at the Battle Schools. The impression given by both the training material and the courses themselves was that set-piece attacks with supporting fire would be the exception rather than the rule.

5.5" Medium Gun in the Odon Valley July 1944 © IWM B 7413

Leaning on the Barrage

This was not the view of senior commanders in 21^st Army Group. They believed that the artillery barrage was to be the primary mode of attack and if it were sufficiently intensive and the infantry followed very closely behind, enemy positions could be overrun without opening fire or employing any tactical manoeuvring whatsoever. Lieutenant General Simonds, GOC 2^nd Canadian Corps, expressed this view forcefully in his tactical notes issued on the 1^st July 1944 when he instructed that: -

“…assaulting troops shall follow closely their covering fire and must enter the enemy position very quickly after the bombardment lifts…troops must not stop and must not open fire until the objective is reached”.

Simonds accepted that a few casualties would be suffered by the attacking troops as a result of being too close to the falling shells. However, he also was well aware that the main effect of an artillery bombardment on the defenders of a position was psychological rather than physical and that any delay in the attackers’ move forward would give them a chance to recover and respond aggressively. The timing was critical, as Simonds believed that German defenders would easily recover from a barrage in approximately ten minutes.

His belief was well founded because the accuracy of predicted artillery fire was indeed very poor but the morale effect of heavy shelling was significant, albeit short-lived. Research completed after Operation Veritable in February 1945 showed that no more than 5% of shells fell in a 100 yards square target area. Work done later in the war on the psychological impact of artillery fire suggested that attackers keeping within a minute or two of the barrage was worth much more firepower than a gap of 5 - 10 minutes and that any delay after 10 minutes would, to a considerable extent, waste the value of heavy concentrations of fire. The importance of advancing infantry keeping close to the falling shells had, in fact, been recognised from experience gathered in overseas operations and this message was repeatedly stressed in the official campaign lessons’ publications. It was also underscored in other training pamphlets. Infantry Training - Training and War 1937 stated in its chapter on the attack: -

“In the attack under a comprehensive programme the security of the leading infantry and the success of the operation will depend mainly on the ability of the infantry to move forward close under cover of supporting fire”.

The infantry attack following a barrage was practised to some extent prior to the invasion. When asked if men under their command had received training in this manoeuvre, half of the Canadian officers who responded to battle experience questionnaires after the war claimed that their units had received preliminary instruction. However, as we have seen, Allied commanders were unwilling to accept heavy casualties in training, so the opportunities to provide realistic preparation were, therefore, strictly limited. Exercises where infantry followed a live creeping barrage would have been extremely dangerous so it is probable much of this so-called preparation took place in large scale exercises in Britain (e.g. Exercise SPARTAN, March 1943) where the artillery fire would have been purely imaginary.

Nevertheless, there were a number of instances during the fighting in Normandy where 21^st Army Group infantry forces were able to follow closely behind a timed bombardment and take their objective with few losses. For example, in the first phase of Operation Totalise on 7^th August, the 1^st Battalion The South Saskatchewan Regiment was assigned the task of capturing the village of Rocquancourt. Leaning into the barrage, and finding that the enemy still had their heads down, the battalion “...swept through the village, clearing houses and establishing a defensive perimeter almost as if on exercise” (Copp, Fields of Fire p.202). The testimony of several German soldiers, many of them veterans of the Eastern Front, to the pulverising impact of Allied bombardments shows how effective they could be. However, for a variety of reasons, there were also numerous occasions where rifle companies were unable to keep pace with the bombardment and got into difficulties as a result.

25 Pounder Field Artillery 1944 ©IWM B 9543

Failure to keep up with Supporting Fire

There were often delays in units assembling at forming-up points and reaching start lines, so that the barrage had already moved on before an advance could begin. Many of these manoeuvres had to be completed in darkness, with poor maps and often inadequate preliminary reconnaissance, so it was hardly surprising that hold-ups frequently occurred. The difficulty experienced by the 2nd Glasgow Highlanders, the 9th Cameronians and 7th Royal Tank Regiment on the opening day of Operation EPSOM (26th June) was a perfect example of this (see Article 9). Enemy intervention could also delay the move forward especially when start lines had not been properly secured. On the second day of EPSOM, men of the 10th Highland Light Infantry were heavily shelled before they set off with the objective of capturing the Odon crossing at Gavrus. The attack was unsuccessful.

Once the advance had commenced, further difficulties were usually encountered because of the nature of the Normandy terrain, with its numerous hedgerows, small fields, woods and orchards. This not only made forward movement slow and ponderous, it also created problems in communication with any supporting armour. The shortcomings in training, discussed above, also undoubtedly contributed to the infantry’s failure to keep up. All too often, British and Canadian infantry fell further and further behind the creeping barrage and thus came under heavy suppressing fire from the machine guns and mortars of their opponents.

In these circumstances, the infantry commander leading the attack had to make a choice. He could halt the advance and request additional support, if communications could be effected and such support was readily available, or he could try and continue to take the objective using the means at his disposal, using some variation of the fire and movement techniques taught at Battle School. Unfortunately, little was said specifically in either the Instructor’s Manual or Infantry Training of precisely what procedure the infantry should follow in attacking a position where the preliminary bombardment had failed. Section 56 of the Instructor’s Manual “Company in the Attack by Frontal Movement” provided a variety of methods for the assault of an enemy position where there was no possibility of infiltration (because of the close proximity of enemy strong points) and where the attack was taking place on a relatively narrow frontage. Three solutions were offered. The first was a simple frontal attack by sections in extended order, taking advantage of whatever cover was available. The second, the so-called ‘Pepper-pot’ method, involved Bren and rifle groups advancing independently in short bounds of around 20 yards, then lying down. As soon as one group went down, the other got up, thus presenting the enemy “…with a succession of difficult moving targets each of which goes to ground before he has time to shoot”. Thirdly, the ‘Lane’ method was a complicated drill that was based on the fact that Bren guns could be used to give continuous fire support provided that the infantry left clear lanes through which the machine guns could fire. None of these methods provided a full solution to the problems faced by infantrymen in Northern France.

Bren gun firing at Douet, June 1944 ©IWM B 5041

The frontal attack in extended order was attempted in Normandy, usually with disappointing or, in some cases, disastrous results. The advance made by the 1^st Battalion The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada on 25^th July towards the Verrières Ridge during Operation SPRING followed an ineffective bombardment and resulted in the destruction of the battalion. In the words of one commentator: -

“Even though they were aware of the inadequacy of their artillery support, the Black Watch attacked a concealed, entrenched enemy position by means of lineal assault. The 300 men of the battalion organised themselves into long company lines and, making little attempt to use fire and movement or to infiltrate, simply advanced up the ridge into unsuppressed enemy fire as many of Kitchener’s battalions had done on the Somme”. (King p.192)

There is evidence that ‘Pepper-pot’ tactics were used in combat by some units. Major Harrison, 1^st Battalion the Calgary Highlanders, wrote that while his unit never used the method of sending sections or platoons on long outflanking movements, the Pepper-pot method was employed frequently. In a post-combat report of his company’s attack on Louvigny Farm in July, Major Whitley of the 1^st Battalion Royal Regiment of Canada commented that “…hand[ing] out the old pepper-pot”, that is, small groups of men dashing forward a few at a time, was a feasible tactic, but only when enemy fire was inaccurate or not placing the men in immediate danger. However, if hostile fire were sufficiently deadly, the pepper-pot approach would fail.

With regard to the ‘Lane’ method, the difficulties involved in putting together a plan in the field and under fire were so challenging that there are no examples of it ever being attempted in Normandy. It seems that there was no wholly satisfactory method prescribed by the training manuals and Battle Schools to deal with the problem of getting units to move forward successfully under their own steam once a barrage had failed.

Infantry in St Manvieu late June 1944 IWM© B 5968

Calling for Additional Support

The lack of a clear, unambiguous doctrine of what infantry should do in a frontal attack was noted by a delegate at the Infantry School Conference in April 1944. Remarking that the new infantry training manual did not include a drill or directive for a frontal attack, he warned: -

“As things are at the moment, there is a danger that sub-units will only be taught to carry out flanking attacks”.

This warning was particularly apposite for conditions in Normandy, where Montgomery’s predilection for attacking on a narrow front and the closeness of the terrain would make flanking movements extremely difficult. Indeed, as Lieutenant Sydney Jary later stated: -

“The right or left flanking platoon attack, so beloved of the Battle School staff, would rarely succeed in the Normandy bocage”.

Given the doctrinal confusion and practical difficulties, it is, perhaps, hardly surprising that many junior commanders resorted to the practice of calling on additional artillery support in order to make progress. Despairing senior officers often remarked on the foot soldier’s dependence on high explosive. Brigadier James Hargest, observing the fighting in June and early July, remarked in his battle notes (13^th-16^th June) that: -

“The old trouble of not relying on their own weapons is prevalent among the infantry here. They call for supporting fire always and often when held up whereas they might well get on alone”.

Similarly, in an appreciation of the campaign completed in October 1944, an officer commented that: -

“Constantly available air support and good artillery support tends to make some commanders and junior leaders ‘stonk-minded’ and inclined, on encountering any opposition, to sit down and call for such support. This action is not always justified and emphasis must be placed on active recce (reconnaissance) immediately opposition is encountered”.

According to one historian, the reliance on supporting fire was instilled in junior commanders as a result of their training regime. In large scale exercises at home they had been encouraged to call on artillery fire as soon as a problem occurred in the tactical plan. As long as the attacking commander had submitted an appropriate fire plan, the means to implement it were in place and the troops had reached the start line at the correct time, umpires would usually allow the attack to succeed, discounting the possibility of defenders making a strong response.(Place p.74) The confusion in doctrine, the deficiencies in training and the ample quantities of artillery and air power available all contributed to the reluctance of some infantry units to press on.

Battle Drill with and without Artillery Support

However, there were also numerous examples of infantry units making progress without total reliance on the barrage. In Normandy, a number of junior commanders were imaginative and flexible enough to combine fire and movement tactics with artillery support, if the circumstances permitted. The performance of ‘D’ Company in the attack by 1^st Battalion The Regina Rifles on the Abbaye D’Ardenne on 8^th July is a case in point. With two platoons up, intense enemy machine gun fire slowed the advance; however, using fire and movement techniques and crawling and running in short bursts, progress was made. The Company Commander, Captain Gordon Brown, was able to call down an artillery bombardment on the Abbaye and, getting two platoons within 100 yards of the objective and using smoke from 2-inch mortars for cover, led his men in the final assault, firing on the run and throwing grenades. In the meantime, one platoon, using its own initiative, had worked round the flank of the position and destroyed an anti-tank emplacement of 88mm guns. The attack was successful and the remaining defenders overwhelmed.

The assault on Troteval Farm by ‘A’ Company, 1^st Battalion Fusiliers Mont Royal on 24^th July showed that it was possible to combine classic battle drill tactics with leaning on the barrage. The plan of commanding officer Major Jacques Dextrase was that two platoons were to encircle the flanks of the farm and, almost simultaneously, the reserve platoon was to strike the farm frontally as the flanking platoons gave covering fire. When the supporting bombardment began, the Company followed it very closely to within 75 yards, taking the chance that no one would be hit. The flanking platoons sent sections to the rear so that the farm was surrounded by automatic fire. The buildings were then cleared within fifteen minutes and the attack a complete success. Dextrase also employed fire and movement techniques and the intelligent use of artillery in the capture of the church at St. Martin de Fontenay by ‘D’ Company of the same battalion on 31^st July. Clearly Dextrase was an advocate of the flanking and pincer movements so beloved of Battle School teaching but he also completely understood the value of supporting arms, considering them to be the “key to success” in operations.

A similar approach was taken by Major Hart-Dyke of the Hallamshire Battalion on 10th July when one of his companies conducted a two platoon raid on an enemy position. The assault was preceded by two short artillery concentrations and attacking infantry were covered by all nine Brens in the company plus mortar fire. The operation was a success though the element of surprise was lost when a friendly flank unit opened fire. Hart-Dyke concluded from this experience that artillery support in bocage country was of little value and only advertised an attack.

Infantry attacks without fire support definitely took place in Normandy although they were comparatively rare. Stanley Whitehouse, then serving as a private with the 1st Battalion the Black Watch, has given the following account of an advance made in mid-July: -

"...our officer informed us that we were to take a hill just ahead, which was obscured by heavy mist. There would be no preceding barrage, which was unusual, but it was hoped that the mist would cloak our movements....we moved off to attack the hill...it was a tremendous relief to find the German positions unoccupied, with signs of a hasty retreat , including hot food tins left near fox-holes. Our quiet approach had worked". (Whitehouse pp48-49)

A further example of an assault without fire support was the response of ‘C’ Company 2^nd Battalion Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry when they came under heavy fire from a wood near the village of Cahiers on 16^th July. Acting without artillery support, a plan was made for the riflemen to storm the woods, covered by the Brens, which were pushed out to the flanks. The attack, delivered with fixed bayonets, was a success, although the company was later forced to withdraw due to heavy machine gun fire. Sydney Jary also believed that the most successful actions of his platoon were fought without the benefit of heavy fire support. Infantry attacks such as those described above are a good indication that some rifle companies were displaying initiative and flexibility in trying to adapt fire and movement techniques to the tactical situation in which they found themselves.

Battle Drill in Theory and Practice

To what extent were the tactical techniques taught at the Battle Schools and described in the training manuals practised by sub-units in Normandy? This question was asked of Canadian officers returning home after the war via battle experience questionnaires. Of those that responded (NW Europe Theatre of Operations), 29% said that they had employed them often, 36% fairly often and 35% seldom. One of the respondents, Major Crummer of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment wrote that fire and movement was employed "on almost every operation". A more sober assessment was given by Lieutenant Stewart, 1st Tyneside Scottish, who remarked: -

"I am uncertain that we made use of the tactics the Battle School taught...what little I observed in Normandy and what I have learnt in conversation with regular soldiers suggest that the theory was seldom put into practice in the field. Companies pushed forward en masse rather than manoeuvring by sections and platoons".

It is hard to get a clear picture of how commonly Battle School tactics were used by British and Canadian infantry units in Normandy. The problem is compounded because many soldiers believed that they were employing fire and movement techniques without necessarily following the prescriptions of battle drill. As one Canadian officer put it: -

"...the teaching of battle drill give(s) a completely faulty impression of actual battle conditions. We can accept the principles of fire and movement but...the speed and inaccuracy with which battle drill movements are carried out would prove costly and unsuccessful".

Some infantry units adapted battle drill to meet their own needs on the ground, as the above accounts show. However, because supporting fire often failed to achieve the desired results, and soldiers lacked clear instructions about what to do if a barrage failed, many units struggled to make progress when difficulties arose. The reasons for this will be discussed in the next article.

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