Osprey's Operation Totalize 1944

After the initial Normandy landings in June 1944, Allied planners had hoped to quickly break out of the beachhead and, using their superiority in numbers and movement, press south. However, two main obstacles prevented this. One was the bocage, a thick hedgerow that surrounded French farms and proved very difficult to overcome. The other was the fierceness of the German defense. By this time of the war the German army was very good at concealing defenses and often the Allies did not realize they were there until it was too late.

What was supposed to take weeks turned into months. On the British side of things, getting to and through Caen turned into a real nightmare. It was here that most of the German armor was concentrated and while small in numbers compared to Allied tanks. German tanks in the field were generally superior. Able to knock out Allied tanks at long ranges, the loss in Allied tanks was incredible. To the Allies benefit, there was a seemingly never ending supply of tanks, while the same could not be said of the Germans.

Come early August of 1944, Montgomery decided to have the Canadian and Polish units spearhead a breakout towards the town of Falaise and gave II Canadian Corps General Guy Simmons the task of planning the assault. Simmons decided to do things differently from the norm. The norm was a huge artillery and air assault on the German positions before the attack. This often let the Germans know something was coming and allowed them to prepare. This time, the assault would be at night without the usual huge barrage.

The plan worked and the Germans were taken by surprise as the Canadians moved their armor behind a rolling artillery barrage. To allow the swift deployment of infantry troops, they were put aboard converted M7 Priests making this the first assault by APC mounted troops. This allowed them to follow the swiftly moving Shermans to their objectives.

As you'd expect, all plans work until they start and in this case, all the dust put up by the tanks and APCs caused several units to lose their way. The Germans put up stiff resistance and it was during this operation that Tiger ace Michael Wittmann was killed by a Canadian Sherman Firefly. Still, objectives to part one were mostly met and it was time to implement part II.

To say; that General Simmons was a difficult person to work with would be putting it mildly. He was not happy that all objectives were not met according to his time table. So when part II of the operation was started, he expected even more. This went wrong from the start. Units were unable to form up in time and so the operation was hours late getting started. The bombardment raised so much dust that even more units got lost. One was several miles off course and ended up well behind enemy lines where the entire battalion was effectively decimated. This only made Simmons more and more irate, leading to more issues. Eventually it was obvious that the operation had stalled and the Canadians and Poles dug in. In all the operation was a tactical loss, however, it did allow Commonwealth forces to get that much closer to the US forces that were to the south. While it eventually was able to trap much of the German 7th army, the failure of the objectives of Totalize also allowed nearly half to escape before the pocket at Falaise closed up.

Typical of this series, the author covers the military situation prior to the launch of the operation. Totalize was in two parts and so the book covers each of those in a similar manner. We get a look at those in command on both sides as well as how each side was positioned prior to the start. The book is greatly enhanced by period photos as well as the artwork of Johnny Shumate, and several well done maps and charts. It allows us to get a real sense of how the operation unfolded and highlights several of the more important aspects of it. It is a great look at what worked and what can happen in the fog of war. A great read that I can easily recommend to you.

23 May 2016

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