The sappers looked around the boat, examining equipment, searching for ammunition and guns. One ofthem^a 19-year-old named Ramsey, found a bottle of brandy and stuck it in his battle smock. His commander, Jock Neilson, noticed the bulge and asked what it was. The sapper showed him and Neilson took it, saying, ‘You are not old enough for that’. The sapper complains, ‘I never saw a drop of that bloody brandy’.
Near Caen, von Luck was close to despair. The naval bombardment raining down on Caen was the most tremendous he had seen in all his years at war. Although his assembly point was camouflaged and so far untouched, he knew that when he started to move – when he finally got the order to go – he would be spotted immediately by the Allied reconnaissance aircraft overhead, his position reported to the big ships out in the Channel, and a torrent of shells would come down on his head.
Under the circumstances, he doubted that he could get through the 6th Airborne and recapture the bridges. His superiors agreed with him, and they decided that they would destroy the bridges and thus isolate the 6th Airborne. They began to organise a gun-boat packed with infantry, meanwhile sending out frogmen and a fighter-bomber from Caen to destroy the bridge.
At about 1000, the German fighter-bomber came flying directly out of the sun, over the river bridge, skimming along just above the trees lining the road, obviously headed for the canal bridge. Howard dived into his pillbox; his men dived into trenches. They poked their heads out to watch as the pilot dropped his bomb. It was a direct hit on the bridge tower, but it did not explode. Instead it clanged onto the bridge and then dropped into the canal. It was a dud.
Howard comments, ‘What a bit of luck that was… and what a wonderful shot by that German pilot’. The dent is there on the bridge to this day.
The two frogmen were easily disposed of by riflemen along the banks of the canal. On the ground, however, the Germans were pushing the British back. Nigel Taylor’s was the only company of 7th Battalion in Benouville. It was desperately understrength and very hard pressed by the increasingly powerful German counter -attacks. The two companies in Le Port were similarly situated and, like Taylor, were having to give up some ground.
As the Germans moved forward, they began putting some of their SPVs into action. These vehicles belonged to von Luck’s regiment, but were attached to forward companies that were expected to act on their own initiative rather than report back to the regimental assembly area. The British called the rocket launchers on the SPVs ‘Moaning Minnies’. What they remember most about them, Howard says, ‘apart from the frightful noise, was the tremendous accuracy’. He was sure the Germans were directing their fire from the top of the chateau, but he could do nothing about it.
Between explosions, Wally Parr dashed across the road to see Howard. ‘I got a feeling’, he panted, ‘that there is somebody up there on that water tower, spotting for the Minnies’. He explained that the water tower, located near the maternity hospital, had a ladder up to the top, and that he could see something up there. Wouldn’t Howard please give him permission to have a go at it? Howard agreed. ‘And you couldn’t see Wally’s arse for dust’, as Parr dashed back across the road to his gun.
Parr bellowed out, ‘NUMBER ONE GUN!’ As he did so, there was one of those strange lulls that occur in so many battles. In the silence Parr’s booming voice carried across the battlefield, from Le Port to Benouville, from the canal to the river. Now, as Howard points out, there only was one gun; as Parr rejoins, it was the only substantial gun they had around the bridges at the time, so it really was the number one gun. Parr then put his crew through a drill that constituted a proper artilleryman’s fire order. ‘700, One Round. Right 5 degrees’, and so on, all orders proceeded by ‘NUMBER ONE GUN’. Finally, ‘PREPARE TO FIRE.’ All around him, the soldiers -German as well as British – were fascinated spectators. ‘FIRE!’