In the American sector
The liberation of Pont-l'Abbé
Pont-l'Abbé, the objective of the 508th Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, could not be liberated on June 6 by paratroopers who were too spread out and concentrated on covering the southern flank of the fragile airborne bridgehead west of the Merderet. After an aerial bombardment at 17:00 p.m. and heavy artillery fire at 19:30 p.m., the 359th Infantry Regiment of the 90th American Division entered Pont-l'Abbé during the night of June 12-13. The village was 85% destroyed, the result of fierce ground fighting, American bombardments—which, with incendiary bombs, leveled certain neighborhoods, including the psychiatric hospital district—and artillery fire. At the head of the division, General MacKelvie, whose results had so far been deemed unconvincing, was dismissed by General Bradley and replaced by General Landrum.
A continuing, but fragile, bridgehead
By evacuating Carentan on June 11, the Germans allowed the Americans to establish their junction in the city. On June 12, at 8:00 a.m., the 506th Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division entered Carentan, which had been severely battered by the night's bombing, but had finally been liberated. With this success, the Allies now had a continuous beachhead extending along some 10 kilometers of coastline, from Quinéville to the mouth of the Orne, to a depth of 30 to 17 km. This continuous front, however, remained very fragile and at the mercy of a German counterattack. Having succeeded in positioning himself south of the city, von der Heydte was already preparing to react. To do so, he could count on the reinforcement of the XNUMXth SS Division, recently arrived from Poitiers.
In the Anglo-Canadian sector
SS Michael Wittmann enters the scene at Villers-Bocage
Unable to capture Tilly-sur-Seulles two days after landing on Gold Beach, the British decided to bypass the Panzer Lehr's resistance by passing through Villers-Bocage. The mission was entrusted to the 2th Armored Division, the famous "Desert Rats" who distinguished themselves against Rommel in North Africa.
On June 13, at 8:30 a.m., the British 22nd Armored Brigade, launched as an advance guard, entered the streets of Villers-Bocage, abandoned the day before by the Germans. While part of the brigade was left at a standstill outside the town, a reconnaissance was carried out on Hill 213 towards Caen. It immediately encountered Tiger tanks from the 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion of Lieutenant Michael Wittmann – the man with 119 tanks destroyed on the Eastern Front – who had arrived on the Normandy front the day before. Wittmann's armored vehicles had waited until the last moment to uncover themselves. The surprise was total, the damage considerable, the German tanks gradually closing in on the British column, which attempted a desperate retreat through the streets of Villers-Bocage for more than 10 km. In the town, the fighting was of rare violence. The British brigade left 25 tanks and 28 light vehicles on the ground, before abandoning Villers-Bocage to withdraw to Hill 174. As for Wittmann, even though he had lost his tank, and with only 13 armoured vehicles, he had just stopped the advance of an entire division and the beginnings of an encirclement of the German positions west of Caen.
British reinforcements
Under the command of Brigadier Scott, the British 33rd Armored Brigade, formed in 1941, landed in Normandy at Gold Beach. Before going to the front, the division was placed in reserve for a training period of about two weeks. Its Sherman tanks, for their baptism of fire, were engaged at the beginning of July as part of the Battle of Caen. The British 11th Armored Division, formed at the time by Major General Hobart, landed at the same time between Bernières and Courseulles-sur-Mer. Entrusted to General Roberts, it was also initially placed in reserve, before being engaged on June 27 in the narrow beachhead held by the 15th Scottish Division and in the fighting for Hill 112.
The evacuation of Lord Lovat
It was during the battle for the liberation of Bréville, a decisive battle to definitively establish the British bridgehead on the Orne, that Brigadier General Lord Lovat, commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade since June 6, was seriously wounded. While observing an artillery bombardment by the 51st Infantry Division, a shell landed among the officers. The commander of the 12th Parachute Battalion, Colonel Johnston, was killed instantly alongside him. Lord Lovat and Brigadier Kindersley of the 6th Airborne Brigade were hit by shrapnel. Lord Lovat had to be evacuated from his headquarters in Amfréville to receive medical treatment in Great Britain. He handed over command of the brigade to Brigadier Derek Mill Robert.
German forces
Counterattack on Carentan
Postponed several times, the counterattack of the 17th SS Panzer on Carentan, just liberated, was finally launched on June 13, at 5:30 in the morning. Led by the 37th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, which managed to advance along the Périers road to within a hundred meters of the town, the offensive was contained in the late morning by the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne, who were unarmed but particularly well supported by the combined intervention of fighter-bombers and a tank detachment – Combat Command B – of the 2nd Armored Division from Omaha, and whose baptism of fire in Normandy was taking place. The Germans lost more than 500 men in this battle.
The Odyssey of the 275th Infantry Division
Put on alert as soon as the landing was announced, the 275th Infantry Division, stationed in southern Morbihan, had sent a first detachment, Kampfgruppe Heinz, by rail as an advance element. It arrived with difficulty in Saint-Lô five days later, on June 11. The rest of the division would take two more days to reach the Cotentin Peninsula. Gathering the men scattered between Vannes and Saint-Nazaire had taken time. Sabotage and air attacks significantly hampered the rolling stock transport operations. The nine trains transporting the division were blocked in Rennes, Pontorson, and Redon, stops caused by the destruction of the railways by aerial bombardments. Two days after its departure, the division was still immobilized in Brittany.
On June 9, a final attempt was made to bypass Vitré and Fougère, but the line was also cut. The trains were then unloaded, and the remainder of the journey was made by road using makeshift means, often on foot. The entire 275th Division was reunited on June 13.
Civilians in war
The end of the Lignières maquis
The Lignières-la-Doucelle maquis, established south of Gacé on the border of Mayenne and Orne, is one of the few maquis in Normandy, a region not very conducive to the development of armed resistance due to its geography. On June 13, the maquis was attacked by the Germans in retaliation for the attack on a German convoy. During the fighting, Daniel Desmeulles, departmental head of the Secret Army, was taken prisoner without his identity being revealed. The assault on the maquis pitted some forty maquisards against Germans five times their number. As night fell, the resistance fighters withdrew, leaving behind five dead and seven wounded, who were finished off by the Germans.
The evacuation of the Fleury-sur-Orne quarries
Located in the commune of Fleury-sur-Orne, on hillsides or buried underground, quarries have been sheltering hundreds of Caen refugees since June 6th, having fled the bombing of the Lower Normandy capital. A few days later, their number had increased. There were now thousands of civilians who needed to be cared for, protected, and fed not far from the German lines. In Caen, on June 13th, Prefect Cacaud, who had remained loyal to the Vichy regime, ordered, at the request of the German authorities, the evacuation of refugees from the Fleury-sur-Orne quarries to the commune of Trun in Orne. The order was poorly followed. More than 6 refugees lived hidden in these quarries until the Germans ordered their evacuation and the village was finally liberated by Canadian soldiers on July 000th, 19.
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