Product Description

The fierce battle to capture the French village of Tilly-la-Campagne was an exceptionally bloody episode in the story of the allied breakout from Normandy in the summer of 1944. Lying to the South of the city of Caen, Tilly was one of a number of stone-built villages that had been fortified by the Germans to hold up the Allied advance, and it saw what was probably the worst of the infantry fighting following D-Day. The Canadian 3rd Division made five attempts to capture the village and lost well over half its fighting men within a month. This work focuses on the infantry travail around the fortified villages south of Caen. It draws on eyewitness accounts to give a portrayal of the battle and a fitting tribute to the youth of Canada and Britain who fought, and the many who died, during the breakout from Normandy in the last summer of the war in Europe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #697558 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Customer Reviews

Required reading for Americans!!!
American historians (the critically acclaimed Carlo D'este aside) have always been utterly disparaging about Montgomery and the British/Canadian contribution to the events in Normandy and beyond, mistaking the fact that Montgomery possessed a vainglorious and difficult personality as meaning that therefore his skills as a general were negligible. Montgomery was always clear that the British and Canadians and their armoured divisions were to act as an anvil for the German panzer corps to smash themselves against, thus fatally weakening them and eventually allowing the American right flank to advance through the weakened German lines. Even while the battle was raging American commentators concentrated on the American advance and wanted to know "why don't the British do some fighting?" The British and Canadians were fighting. And this book - written by an author who took part in the battle - provides the proof. It describes a little known and primarily Canadian battle (with British support) and details many of the savage hand to hand combats that took place against some of the best trained and equipped troops that Hitler's Germany ever produced. The next time an American historian feels like criticizing the British and Canadians perhaps he'd do well to read this book first.

A good detailed account
This book is a detailed narrative of one of the most exasperating and costly battles in Normandy in 1944. One that took two weeks to achieve its objective using tactical methods of both defence and attack that would have been very much at home on the Western Front during the First World War. Indeed there was concern amongst some soldiers that trench warfare could evolve, so difficult was the capture of the Verrieres-Bourguebus ridge on which sat the village of Tilly la Campagne, its principal fortress.

Operation Spring barely gets a mention in the official history, however for Canadians it marks a controversy that remains to this day. The battle plan created by the Canadian commander Lt-General Simonds was unusual, given the preponderance of Allied armour, to use infantry to force the Verrieres-Bourguebus ridge just South of Caen. The consequences were serious for the Canadian command and to this day Simonds is a character evoking strong opinions. The author examines in detail the evolution of the attack and uses numerous personal sources to support the narrative. There is much good information concerning the German side and is therefore a balanced account.

The graphic descriptions of ground and the progress of the several assaults are excellent but the absence of good maps is a serious shortfall to what is otherwise an excellent explanation of the battle. The single very poor map is totally inadequate and really inhibits the narrative. A great shame as it is an otherwise excellent book. I used it (together with good IGN maps) to tour the battlefield in detail with a group of Canadian veterans and this book added greatly to the tour content and quality.

Mike Mccarthy
Editor, 'The Battle Guide'
Guild of Battlefield Guides