I've just finished reading the second book in the George Blackburn trilogy, The Guns of Normandy. It remains, in my view, one of the very best eye witness accounts and battlefield narratives. Along with Terry Copp, Blackburn is one of those who offer credible evidence to challenge the long held opinions on the performance of the Allied armies in Normandy. He wastes no time in his introduction to forcefully criticize the status quo. If you have not had the pleasure of reading Blackburn, I've copied some of that material below and would be interested in your reaction: George Blackburn The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier's Eye View, France 1944 Introduction "However, locating material describing what it was like at the cutting edge of 1st Canadian Army from the middle of July until the end of August - in effect the fighting from Caen to Falaise that entrapped the German armies in Normandy - was very difficult. No one has succeeded in accurately describing the ferocity of the battles for Verriere Ridge and beyond. And perhaps no one ever will, for few who served with the rifle companies of the infantry battalions, including artillery F.O.O’s and their crews, managed to survive more than a few days. Some were casualties within hours of joining units, and, of the few who survived to see it through all the way with a rifle company, none seemingly have been able or willing to write of it....I discovered that for those who had survived the worst of it, memories of Normandy were blurred and disordered bits and pieces....Obviously the same combination of exhaustion and terror that makes it difficult to think or see clearly in the shattering confusion and roar of battle (when a man functions only from habit, drill, and discipline), makes it equally difficult to retain coherent, detailed memories, in much the same way the conscious mind is able to recall only a few disconnected details and a general impression of horror on waking up from a nightmare. And so I could only piece together a composite picture, made up of the fragmentary memories of some who survived in humble thankfulness those awful days, and place these back to back with the frightful casualty statistics. The official record-keepers of those times were of no help; they seem to have been entirely disinterested in recording such matters. Beyond brief references to the weather, there is little recognition of the conditions under which the fighting soldier existed, which, more often than not, were dreadful. While extremely useful in authenticating personal notes and diaries, none of the sparse unit diaries or post-battle intelligence reports make any serious attempt to describe what was entailed in simply staying alive during those terrible days and nights. This deficiency in the material set down at the time by those responsible for preserving historical records (on which all official and unofficial histories would be based) has led to inaccurate, irresponsible conclusions bordering on outright dishonesty - even in the works of our own official historians - regarding the training and fighting qualities of Canadian officers and men in World War II. And these inaccuracies - insulting to the memory of all those Canadians who died facing the enemy while the official record-keepers sheltered miles to the rear - are being perpetuated by British and American writers and even built upon by some domestic revisionists. Far from accurately portraying the ferocity of the deadly clashes in battles of attrition reminiscent of World War I, the war historians tend to give the impression that it was some sort of game, played out by cunning generals, with the outcome hinging on the level of "aggressiveness" shown by one side or the other - most particularly on that of the "junior commanders." "It is irritating to the point of enraging to read critical analyses of the shortcomings of men and officers engaged at the spearhead of operations by critics with not a single day of frontline experience. Well-rested, well-fed, safe and secure, writing within the relaxed atmosphere of their homes or offices, with no responsibility for men's lives resting on their decisions...Clearly, when all the sinister mystery is removed from any battlefield as to what the enemy has over there beyond those trees, or among the silent rubbles of that village, or in the dead ground just over that ridge, any fool can decide what should have been done and the best way of doing it. And there is something particularly obscene about the works of historians who conduct coldblooded analyses and write without emotion of the accomplishments of units and the "fighting qualities" of men while never giving any indication they recognized and understand the frailty of the human spirit and the resolve of all men, regardless of training and background, when forced to live for days without end in a continuing agony of fear, made manageable only by the numbing effects of extreme fatigue.
Part 2 I think I would have keeled over in shock had I come across one historian, purporting to describe the battles on the road to Falaise, who once acknowledged that those battles (like those in every major operation extending over several weeks) were not fought by alert, well-rested, well-fed, healthy men, but by men suffering utter exhaustion, from heat and dysentery and the never ending itching induced by lice and sand fleas, from never being allowed to stretch out and get a night's sleep, and from continuously living with grinding tensions from the irrepressible dread of being blown to pieces or being left mangled and crippled. Everyone tends to forget just how awful some aspects were. I had to be reminded of my bout with disturbed bowels by an ex major of the Royal Regiment of Canada. His recall of one man's dysentery-induced expulsion aroused my own memories of the convulsive cramps and feverish, shuddering ague brought on by that damnable scourge that struck the Canadian Army around Verrieres before the drive down the Falaise road began, which worsened as time went on to the point where it came close to putting some units out of action when supplies of medicine to treat it ran out. Yet dysentery, if mentioned at all by historians, is touched on only in passing, as though of no more consequence than some minor irritating inconvenience like lice or mosquitoes. What a hellish nightmare it must have been for foot-soldiers with dysentery just to drag themselves over hill and dale, let alone dash here and there for cover when on the attack, and then dig in on the objective to meet the inevitable counter-attack. I wondered then and I wonder still how men found the will to move out from cover and risk death and crippling wounds day after day until they were wounded or killed. I saw them do it when they were so stunned by fatigue they scarcely flinched when an 88-mm whacked an airburst above them. And I saw them do it shortly after some opening rounds of a fire plan fell short, causing a few, overwrought with tension, to cry like babies. Armchair strategists writing of those days - whether British, American, or Canadian - have all spent too much time wondering why they were so slow getting down past Falaise to meet up with the Americans. They should have spent more time wondering how men ever summoned up the necessary moral courage and physical stamina to get there at all. Those base-wallahs who since the war have dared to criticize the Canadians for not closing the Falaise Gap sooner - inferring from what seems to have been slow daily progress a general lack of aggressiveness - were obviously not around at the time to see and experience what it was like for the troops at the cutting edge of the Canadian army. And while lack of first-hand experience in a writer may be forgiven, no such tolerance can be extended to those pretending to be historians who purposely ignore the evidence provided by the awful casualty rate among the Canadian divisions, which on the road to Falaise and beyond rose to twice the American rate and two and a half times the British rate (a rate the British considered unsustainable, causing them to set up a new category, 'Double Intense,' for measuring the intensity of battle). By mid-August the nine 2nd Cdn Division infantry battalions were 1,900 short of establishment in their fighting strength of 5,040. "As in World War I, some staff officers and field commanders, to escape criticism, blamed the fighting men for failures. Thus we have the ridiculous declaration by Lt-General Charles Foulkes, CO of 2nd Division, that "at Falaise and Caen, we found that when we bumped into battle-experienced German troops, we were no match for them." "Bumped into"? Foulkes infantry brigades were never out of contact with the best troops...from when 2nd Division entered battle, south of Caen, to Falaise and beyond. And it was the German elite SS units that were shredded, defeated, and herded to their destruction in the Falaise pocket - not the other way around! But historians have lent status to such myths, thus guaranteeing their perpetuation by writers following behind, while largely ignoring the fact that the greatest failure in Normandy was the tanks, not the heroes who manned them....Every man in every armoured division, from the Officers Commanding down to the lowliest driver, within hours of arriving in Normandy, was aware that in any confrontation with German tanks, few Allied tanks would live to fight another day....Suppression of the facts may have been justified at the time to prevent demoralization of the Allied armies, but the irrefutable fact that our tankmen were equipped with grossly inferior weapons which which to push through the German Panthers and Tigers on the road to Falaise should not have been ignored by our historians. To have done so is inexcusable."
Book Excerpt: http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%205/Issue%201/(Book%20Excerpt)%20Blackburn%20-%20The%20Guns%20of%20Normandy%20-%20A%20Soldier's%20Eye%20View%20of%20France.pdf
Canuck Can hardly agree with these excerpts below 100,000,000% - they should try a bout of Gastro - Enteritis while in training for the Gothic Line battle - the male nurses at the Bde Aid Post put my litter next to the latrine- saved a lot of time and energy - which I didn't have after two days but it dragged on for three weeks...lost a lot of weight in that time and energy finally came back ..just in time to start fighting... Cheers
