14th June 1944 - General de Gaulle lands on Juno Beach and is acclaimed in Bayeux by an immense crowd singing the Marseilleise. The new government of the French Republic is installed in Bayeux.
US VII Corps begin to advance north to take the critical port of Cherbourg.
British 8th Army capture Orvieto, Terni and Todi in central Italy, north of Rome.
American B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Yawata in Japan, flying from China.
XXX Corps launched a new series of attacks by 50th Division, supported by fighter-bombers planes, against the Panzergrenadiers in Tilly-sur-Seule. The Germans held their ground and 7th Armoured Division’s position to the west of Villers-Bocage was threatened by encirclement – they withdrew overnight to the Caumont-L’Éventé area.
“The debacle at Villers-Bocage marked, for the British, the end of the scramble for ground that had continued since D-Day. The Germans had plugged the last vital hole in their line. Henceforth, for almost all the men who fought in Normandy, the principal memory would be of hard, painful fighting over narrow strips of wood and meadow; of weeks on end when they contested the same battered grid squares, the same ruined villages; of a battle of attrition which was at last to break down Rommel’s divisions, but which seemed at the time to be causing equal loss and grief to the men of Dempsey’s and Bradley’s armies*.”
“The close country overwhelmingly favoured defence.” (Extracts from ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition)
*Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Second Army (British and Canadian) and Lieutenant-General Omar Bradley was Commanding General of the United States Twelfth Army.
“In the morning at dawn we went back to the beach, found the regimental signs and made our way to a wood outside Bayeux where the squadron was, having their breakfast.
After breakfast we all moved up to the front line and that’s where we pretty well stayed until we got through Caen.” (From Anthony Rampling’s account of 61st Recce - pers comm.)
Sandy Handley explains:
“In the initial part of the landing we were only half up to strength, that is only 2 armoured cars instead of 4 in a full troop, so for the first couple of weeks we couldn’t play a major role of reconnaissance work. However, we’d gained a little battle experience and seen some nasty things.
At last our reinforcements came and we met. By that time we had been landed for three weeks (?) or so and felt quite like veterans compared with the new arrivals.” (From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)
Eric Brewer’s diary for 14th June reads: “Still some (same?) place. Carrin caught it. Done recce on enemy held positions.” (From Eric Brewer’s Diary by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family)
He wrote to his family on 14th June:
TPT Brewer 14631319
13 Troop B Squadron
61st Recce RAC c/o APO England
14th June 1944 11 o’clock
Dear Mum Dad and all
“.......Remember when you used to read in the papers how Gerry was treating the French and you used to say it must be exaggerated? Well the things I have seen and heard they have done to the French make you think they underestimated his treatment. They go barmy out here for a packet of army biscuits and you know what they are like…. We were near a village yesterday and saw combs which cost 60 Franks, which is 6 shillings…Outside one of the shops was painted in French with tar “la boch” which means she is a Bosh traitor, with a picture of Hitler looking towards the shop. “
“We shifted from one place yesterday and went through a large town about as big as Chelmsford… there were flags out and the occupants were moving back into their houses and … filling our water bottles up with cider; that is about the only thing they have plenty of. Cigarettes were rationed to three a day for those who worked. Gerry also made the civvies dig slit trenches etc for 3 days a week and if they refused they were sent to prison........”
(Extract copyright of Derek Brewer and reproduced here by kind permission of Derek and his family.)
After Bayeux 61st Reconnaissance Regiment HQ appears to have moved south to St Paul du Vernay (Regimental HQ location list on re-union dinner menu 1946).
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