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Operation Goodwood was an Allied military operation of World War II from July 18 to 20 July 1944 taking place in Normandy some weeks following D-Day . Controversy has surrounded this operation almost from the moment it ended. The controversy is largely based on disputes over the objective of the operation. It was variously claimed that the operation had a limited objective of pinning German units in the east so that they could not disengage and join the counterattack against the US Operation Cobra , and that the objective was nothing less than a full breakout from the Normandy bridgehead. BACKGROUND After the early successes of the Battle Of Normandy the Allied advance had come very nearly to a halt by early July. The key town of Caen was not taken on the first day as planned and over a month later it was still in German hands. Pre-invasion planning had proposed taking Caen and holding a front east of the Orne river as the pivot point of the Allied advance. Possession of Caen would give the British Second Army a strong piece of defensive terrain and would provide several bridges over the Orne river and Caen Canal. Also, the Colombelles steel works at Caen included several high towers that provided direct observation of much of the area. Whoever held the steelworks could observe ground (and thus direct artillery fire) for many miles around. The British 3rd Infantry Division attempt to take Caen on D-Day was abandoned before it really got started. The Division could not both take Caen and protect the Orne bridgehead initially secured by the British 6th Airborne Division . Several subsequent attempts to take Caen and break out to the east were mounted, such as Operation Charnwood . None were successful. The '' Bocage '' landscape of Normandy was a serious impediment to attacking units, but the bocage was mostly located in sectors held by the US First Army . Clearer land to the east, between Caen and Vimont , looked more promising. Here the wider-open, dry ground of the Caen-Falaise plain would allow faster offensive operations led by armored units. Since the Allied forces greatly outnumbered the Germans in tanks and mechanized units, transforming the battle into a more fluid fast-moving battle was to their advantage. German defense of the area included strong armored units as well as the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division . Numerous towed Antitank Gun s and heavy Flak guns were dug in on the Bourgebus ridge overlooking the area, and in small villages dotting the landscape. PLANNING At a meeting with General Montgomery on July 10th, the Second Army commander, General Miles Dempsey proposed the Goodwood plan. This was the same day Montgomery approved Operation Cobra . Goodwood's starting point was the inescapable fact that the British Army was incapable of replacing its high Infantry losses at the rate they were taking casualties in Normandy. On the other hand, the Second Army had three armored divisions ashore (the 7th Armoured Division , Guards Armoured Division , and 11th Armoured Division with a surplus of tanks. By mid-July the British had 2,250 medium tanks and 400 light tanks in the bridgehead in their three armored divisions and numerous independent tank brigades. Starting with the premise that the Second Army could afford to lose tanks, but not men, a plan was devised to break through the German positions east of the Orne and north of Caen. Goodwood would be the largest armoured assault yet seen in western Europe. The operation was planned to begin July 18, two days before the planned start of Operation Cobra . In contrast to the plan, Cobra did not in fact begin until July 25. Though it was expected to be costly in terms of tanks and crews, Dempsey had high hopes of a breakthrough. The main force would be the armoured divisions of the British and the Guards. The 11th's targets were Bras , Hubert-Folie , Verrieres , and Fontenay ; the 7th's Garcelles-Secqueville ; and the Guards would push through around Cagny and Vimont . The target was to push the Germans from the higher ground of the Bourguebus Ridge . A Canadian force would cover the east flank and British infantry the west flank. Artillery support would come from over 700 tubes firing over 250,000 rounds. The Allied attack had several major planning flaws: First, to mount the attack all three armored divisions had to cross two water obstacles and a minefield prior to crossing the start line. The Orne River and the Caen Canal ran laterally across the British front, directly in the path of the armored divisions. Six small bridges were available to move over 8,000 vehicles, including tanks, artillery, mechanized Infantry, Engineers, and support vehicles such as ammunition and fuel supply vehicles, medical units, and so forth. It was obvious that a traffic control problem would ensue. Dempsey's proposed solution was disastrous - he directed his Corps Commander (O'Connor) to move the tanks ahead, leaving behind everything else including Infantry, Engineers, Artillery etc until all the tanks were across. Thus the British combined-arms team was broken up before the Germans fired a shot. Having crossed over the bridges, a British Minefield laid only days before by the 51st Highland Division had to be traversed. The minefield was a mix of antitank and antipersonnel mines. This obstacle could have been overcome by strong engineer support prior to the battle. However, because the Germans had the minefield under observation from the steelworks, a major mineclearing operation would have alerted them to the attack. In the event, several one-tank wide gaps were cleared in the minefield at night. It was known that this would further constrain the movement of Corps vehicles. Second, the issue of tactical surprise was mishandled. Moving the armored units to their attack positions too early, or gapping the minefield too early, would alert the Germans to the attack. In hindsight we can see that the armor moved too late: the hundreds of tanks were horribly slowed by the bottle-neck of the bridges and minefield. Again, to preserve surprise, artillery units were not moved forward to support the attack. However, Ultra decrypts of German signals, as well as the Second Army's own intelligence estimates, revealed that by July 15th the Germans were well aware of the time and place of the attack and were reinforcing their defenses. At this point, since tactical surprise had been lost, the minefields could have been more thoroughly cleared and units moved up into attack positions without ill effects - but this was not done. Third, the 11th Armored Division was over-tasked. Although the lead unit in the attack, the Division was also given the mission of clearing the front-line villages of Cuverville and Demouville. These should have been bypassed by the lead units and left for following units - virtually a standard tactic in any army by 1944. Instead, while the Division's tank battalions attacked Bourgebus ridge, the Infantry battalions were clearing villages. This slowed down both attacks and further broke up combined-arms integrity. Fourth, fire support planning was poor. Artillery units were left west of the Orne, placing the main German defensive position on Bourgebus ridge out of their range. Coordination between field artillery and tanks was poor. Finally, the terrain was poorly chosen. The area was filled with small villages, each of which had a small German garrison of infantry, armour and artillery connected by tunnels. The area was thus divided into a series of strongpoints overlooking the intended Allied line of advance. The high ground of the Bourgebus ridge, with numerous dug-in German heavy weapons, overlooked a clear field of fire into the path of the intended advance. These problems were apparent in the planning stage. EXECUTION Preparatory fire support was provided spectacularly by almost 1,000 heavy and medium bombers dropping over 15,000 bombs. The German positions to the east of Caen were Carpet-bombed and many of the villages were reduced to rubble, disrupting the German defenses. The shock value of the intense, short bombardment was high. However, the German artillery on the Bourgebus ridge, Cagny, and Emieville was not hit by any of the air or artillery prep fire. These sites had clear fields of fire into the path of the British advance. Engineers of the 51st Highland Division cleared 17 one-tank-wide gaps in their minefield in the two nights prior to the attack. Early advances by the Allied armour were taken under a creeping barrage but were slow, despite encountering little resistance. This was primarily due to the traffic congestion noted above. But by noon the 11th Armored Division's 29th Armored Brigade had gained almost 12,000 yards. By the time the Caen-Vimont railway was reached the Germans had recovered from the shock of the bombardment. The was usually sufficient to reduce it to a burning wreck. The Allies slowly pushed through and crossed the railway line to approach the German-held ridge at Bourgebus, where they encountered elements of the 21st Panzer Division, the Panther battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Division, and numerous towed guns. For most of the day, only the 29th Armored Brigade of the 11th Armored Division was attacking. The Infantry brigade was held up clearing two villages behind the tank brigade. Self-propelled artillery did not accompany the tank attack. Finally, the remaining two armored divisions were still negotiating the river crossings and minefield. The Guards Armoured Division took all day to clear the defenders from Cagny, and when they had done so, attacked in a divergent direction towards Vimont to the south east. Unscathed defenders with well dug in anti-tank guns halted them and knocked out 60 tanks. By dusk only a single tank battalion of the 7th Armored Division was in action; most of the Division did not finish crossing the Orne until 10pm on the 18th and could not add its weight to the attack. Thus the 11th Armored Division was carrying the whole attack by itself most of the day. The British armor, constrained by the constricted terrain behind the start line, committed the same error that had characterized it in the desert. Individual tank battalions fought unsupported and in succession, rather than fighting together as part of all-arms battlegroups. Unsupported tank units could not easily root out dug-in towed guns, although a combined-arms team of tanks, infantry and self-propelled artillery might have had much better luck. Virtually all the ground gained was won on the morning of the 18th. The German armour counter-attacked late in the afternoon and fighting continued along the high ground and around Hubert-Folie on the 19th and 20th, by which time any chance of a breakthrough was lost. The British attack, over unfavorable ground, did not have sufficient weight to break through. It is estimated that about 400 tanks were lost, including about half the tanks in the 29th Armored Brigade. Infantry casualties were nearly as high as in previous operations; total casualties were approximately 5,500 British and Canadian soldiers. EFFECTS Goodwood yielded some terrain gain as the bridgehead over the Orne was expanded; in a few areas the depth of penetration was 12,000 yards, but much of the gain was lateral, southward across the British front rather than eastwards into the depth of the German position. Goodwood was launched at a time of high frustration in the upper command levels of the Allies in Normandy, and this contributed to the controversy surrounding the operation. The Allied bridgehead in Normandy was not expanding at the pace expected, and there was some fear of a return to a slogging, WW1-type stalemate. Allied commanders were not able to exploit their potentially-decisive advantages in mobility during June and early July 1944. They were looking for a decisive breakthrough of the German defensive front. In the planning stage of Goodwood, General Montgomery seemed to promise that the attack would be the breakthrough the Allies were looking for. When the British VIII Corps failed to achieve a penetration, by some accounts Eisenhower felt he had been misled. Irregular communications within Montgomery's headquarters contributed to this feeling. Montgomery had promised a breakthrough to his commanders, yet gave orders to his subordinates that tended to play down the chances of a breakthrough. For example, copies of orders forwarded to SHAEF called for an armored division to take Falaise, a town far in the German rear. Yet three days prior to the attack Montgomery revised these orders, eliminating Falaise as an objective, and failed to send copies of the revision up to SHAEF. This left Eisenhower in the dark about the more conservative revised orders. On the tactical level, Goodwood was a German defensive success. They held their main positions and, although giving up some ground, prevented an Allied breakthrough into the operational depth. In all the Allies had extended their control over an extra seven miles to the east of Caen and destroyed over 109 German tanks, for the loss of 413 tanks and over 5,500 men. On the strategic level, however, the outcome was more balanced. The loss of German men and material could not be made up, unlike the Allies. Goodwood was one more nail in the coffin that was the German position in France. The lost British tanks were easily replaced, and crew losses were not severe. Probably the biggest post-Goodwood claim of success was that the attack reinforced the German view (already held) that the British and Canadian forces on the Allied eastern flank were the most dangerous enemy. They maintained their highest-quality mechanized units in the British sector, away from the US 1st Army in the west. To some extent this is a specious argument. It is unquestionably true that Goodwood gave the US operation codenamed '' Cobra '' a greater chance of success. Once Cobra breached the thin German defensive 'crust' in the west, few German mechanized units were available to counterattack. They were committed to the eastern sector. However, the Germans really had no choice. In the face of Allied air power, even if they had intended to move most of their armor to the US front, they could not have intervened in time to affect Cobra (this was correctly guessed by U.S. First Army intelligence). Also, had the Germans weakened the British front to face the Americans, the British Second Army front might have broken through as planned. Combined with the Germans' belief, fostered by Operation Fortitude , that the Allies would coduct a second landing in the Calais area, they never considered moving their armor west. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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