The attacks on Cristot (10th to 17th June 1944)

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The 11th June attack on Cristot/Point 102
Probably reinventing the wheel (in which case apologies) but I wonder if anybody still watching this thread could challenge the attached map - I am trying to locate the Sunken lane using 1944 contemporary aerial photographs & 1:25000 WO maps, Google Earth and accounts such as those of Cecil Newton (4/7 DG) & Lt Col Hastings/CSM Stan Hollis (6 GH) and its proving more difficult than I imagined it would be. Perhaps this is not the best underlying map for the job, or it is inaccurate?

There are some quite specific navigation instructions in the 1980 book "Brightly shone the dawn" by Garry Johnson & Christopher Dunphie, but that was over 40 years ago and does not seen to match Google Earth.
Ian

 

The track you have arrowed as "sunken Lane" is where I understand was the centre of advance for the 6th Yorkshires. The tracks E & W of the N/S road do meet up. See Google maps for the location
It is where we took the Junior Soldiers of the Army Foundation College for ten years to tell the story of Stan Hollis throwing his socks and a grenade with the pin still in it at the Germans. The man who took me there was the chief guide for the Royal British Legion, the late Colonel Christopher Newbould who had been taken there on the Staff College Battlefield Tour in the 1970s by Lt Col Robin Hastings the CO of 6 Yorks in 1944. This is where the British Army thinks the Sunken Road is.

Dunphie's Brightly Shon the Dawn draws heavily on the veterans who participated in the Bottlefield tours.

 

The contours on the old ww2 maps are definitely hard to align with the modern gps'd heights in Google maps.

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THE SUNKEN LANE, CRISTOT - 11 JUNE, D+5 - Normandy: Gold Beach - Inland from King, June 1944

Search Results for Query: "Les Hauts Vents" | WW2Talk

The attacks on Cristot (10th to 17th June 1944)

The guns were to fire on known enemy targets and one hedge ahead of the advance. In this thick country a lane passing through a farm called Les Hauts Vents was chosen as the Bn axis.

 

Thanks Sheldrake

By the way earlier on in this thread (I think it was this one) you mentioned the transcript and recording of Stan Hollis from that Battlefield Tour but the 6GH museum no longer give access to it. This is from the Collections Manager there
"Historically the audio collections were the ‘pet project’ for want of a better term of one of the regiment’s veterans during the 1980s and therefore fell by the wayside when they passed away. One of our volunteers is currently working on our audio collections, ensuring they are catalogued, digitised and transcribed however, as I hope you can appreciate, it is not a quick process. The recording of Stan Hollis has not yet been entered onto the museum catalogue so at the present time I can’t confirm if we do have the recording. I recommend contacting the museum in autumn 2023 by which point we hope to have at least a simple record of each recording. Please accept my apologies that I can’t be more helpful at this time. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch"
This is a shame.

Getting back to the location of the Sunken Lane. Garry Johnson & Christopher Dunphie's "Brightly shone the dawn" gives directions to the Sunken Lane as follows:
"... the road (D172) comes to a T-Junction (with Les Hauts Vent marked with a Le Relais cafe on your Google map) faced by a house with white shutters. Turn right. Very shortly the road turns sharply to the left again and starts to drop downwards. On your right is the hill which was the objective of the 6th Green Howards and Cristot lies in the valley ahead. Two hundred yards after the corner a line of trees jpins the road from the left. Pull in on the right here and you will find yourself at the bottom of the sunken lane which marked the centre-line of the attack"

I measured the book's 200 yards to arrive at the spot on your Google Map (above), and if this is right my annotated WO map in the post above is incorrect.

If you take a crop of an aerial photo from 12 June 1944, the day after the unsuccessful attack, it shows what looks like tank tracks across the fields, left and right of an axis of advance which leads to the path junction consistent with my annotated WO maps in the post above. But this is north of the "sunken lane" suggested by Dunphie & Johnson shown on the Google image above, and hence my confusion.. The conical field to the right of the D172 remains in both views and helps with orientation.

I am visiting there in September so will be able to see for myself!
Ian

 

Ramiles
The diagram from the Sunken Lane Chapter of "Gold Beach - Inland from King" is clear but I dont think helps place the spot on 1944 WO or Google Maps


Yes the farm at Les Hauts Vents was quoted as the start of the centre-line which is one of the reasons I settled on the axis annotated on my WO maps in the post above, which still seems the most likely despite the navigation aid in "Brightly shone the dawn". You can see the farm in the 1944 photo above

WRT the support from the Guns I found that comment elusive because there was no time to produce a fireplan, and they were unlikely to have identified "known enemy targets" from the rudimentary reconnaissance earlier in the day, especially as the Germans were reinforcing there after that recon.. 4/7 DG were ahead of the infantry and they were supported by FOOs from 147 Fd (probably from 431 Battery based at Pt 103) whereas I think the GH had 90 Fd in support.

Interestingly in this attack one of the RA Nets being used by 90 Fd was "hacked"!

(extract from the 90 Fd official history - the WD makes plain this was in fact the 11 June
Ian

 

Coming back to the Artillery support provided to the attack on Cristot on 11 June

I am very happy to be corrected but I can find no corroborating evidence for the creeping barrage (no matter how limited), suggested by Lt Col Hastings comment that "The guns were to fire on known enemy targets and one hedge ahead of the advance". There was no time to produce a fireplan and no "known targets" at the outset so I think its more likely that his comments relate to tactical support arranged by 90 Fd and 147 Fd FOOs from their positions up with the advancing 6GH infantry and 4/7 DG tanks resp. Captain Smedley of 90 Fd was awarded an MC for doing precisely that, on foot with the 6 GH in the face of constant enemy fire. And the EY Museum has a Nazi Snipers telescopic sight from a rifle recovered after an airburst round dislodged Snipers from trees there.
Ian


I presume the date is a typo and should be 11 June as 90 Fd supporting 231 Bde on 11/7

 

I included this story in Gunners in Normandy. Post war, Smedley was a proto Brexiteer who objected to plans for Britian to enter the Common Market he was also an enemy of the Egg and Milk Marketing boards. He went into the pirate radio station busdiness and was aquitted of murdering Screaming Lord Sutch's agent. He did it , but successfully claimed self defence.

 

Thanks Sheldrake
Endlessly fascinating when you drill down like that. I was a R London fan myself but do remember that incident.
WRT suppirt from 90 Fd, as far as I can tell their Battery Gun positions were situated around Vaux/Martragny on the 11/6, which is roughly 7 Kms north of Cristot. Would Capt Smedley have used them for the shoots (his own was Battery 358) or would he have been on the RA net and used 147 Fd at Pt 103, perhaps via Lt Col Phayre?
Ian

 

Just notices that Garry Johnson/Christopher Dunphie updated their navigation aid in their later book "Gold Beach - inland from King" and the Sunken Lane is now 300 yards after the corner so the last map in post 85 is definitely right.
Ian