Battle for Caen

The battle for Caen was preceded by a savage bombardment as 467 bombers dumped 2,651 tons of explosive on the stricken city convinced nervous soldiers that their battle was half-won. In fact, few Germans were in Caen, and fewer of them were among the 400 dead or the thousands injured. 

Germans in the fortified villages outside Caen were also outside the bomb line. In hindsight, the bombing of Caen was a hideous, futile tragedy of war. Not bombers but artillery assisted the assaulting divisions forward. Every gun in General Dempsey's Second British Army and many of those off shore joined the barrage. For assault troops of the 3rd Canadian Division, some of the objectives were painfully familiar. So was the enemy: Meyer's 12th SS. At Buron, the Highland Light Infantry, unbloodied in the month since D-Day, lost 262 men and their colonel in a day-long battle. 

By then, the North Novas had come back to Authie where so many had died on D-Day-plus-1. As the 9th Brigade pushed south at Keller's urging, Brigadier Harry Foster's 7th Brigade headed for Cussy and the Abbey of Ardenne, Meyer's headquarters. Long past nightfall, the Regina Rifles and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers struggled against Meyer's men. Lurid flames from burning Canadian and German tanks lit the sky.

By dawn, Meyer and his men were gone. The German front might have held but, far to the right, a raw division formed from surplus Luftwaffe men had collapsed before the regulars of the 3rd British Division. On July 9, men of Brigadier Dan Cunningham's Highland Brigade worked their way cautiously into Caen. Snipers, mines and booby traps slowed their progress. Reconnaissance units, urged forward to seize bridges over the Orne, were halted by rubble-choked streets, another cost of the bombing.

Canadians had paid a price fro Caen's liberation. Casualties - 330 dead, 864 wounded - were heavier than D-Day. And, as usual, the victory seemed incomplete. Even the miraculous escape of the church of St. Etienne and the thousands of refugees it sheltered only underlined the needless destruction of the city and its university. At Carpiquet, the Queen's Own had won a bloodless victory five days late but retreating Germans had safely crossed the Orne and savage fights remained. 

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