Caen 1944: Montgomery’s break-out attempt (Campaign) Paperback – August 20, 2004

The French city of Caen was a D-Day objective for British forces landing in Normandy on 06 June, 1944. Instead, Caen became the objective of a series of costly British-Canadian offensives through June and July. Ken Ford's superb account summarizes the series of battles for the city, but leaves in question whether events really did play out as General Montgomery, the overall ground commander, intended, or whether the so-called Caen meat grinder was the consequence of faulty planning and/or execution.

"Caen 1944" is an Osprey Campaign Series entry. Author Ken Ford has good background on the Normandy campaign, with several related Osprey titles to his credit. That background shows in his sure handling of the narrative, which describes the events of D-Day and the subsequent Operations Epsom, Charnwood, and Goodwood. Included is a very decent introduction into the opposing sides and their leaders and respective plans. The text is nicely supported by an excellent selection of period and modern photographs, maps, battle diagrams, and illustrations. The narrative tone is even-handed even as it honors the horrific sacrifices of British and Canadian troops. An afterword notes the locations of the very few monuments to these troops in the area where they fought.

Ford's summary captures the link between the Battle of Caen and the breakout of U.S. forces through Operation Cobra that ended the Normandy campaign. Indeed, "Caen 1944" can be profitably read in conjunction with "Operation Cobra 1944" for a broader introduction into the subject of the Normandy breakout. Recommended.

Mr Ford has written a number of Osprey books on Normandy and North Africa but this is my favorite and probably his best. The summary is good but could be better if the author had a few more pages to use. (Osprey's arbitrary limit of 96 pages or less is silly. There are numerous books in the series that if it had 4 or 5 more pages would have been much better. This is one of them)
With that in mind the first five sections in the book, except the Chronology which was good covering June 6th to July 20th, in the traditional Osprey format are pretty good but could have been better with greater detail, a few more pages. The sections in question are Origins, Opposing Commanders, Opposing Armies and Opposing Plans. I also feel Mr Ford was not critical enough on Montgomery or his commanders in the first few days of the invasion. Their plans and execution of those plans in capturing Caen, knowing how important it was, was dismal. I know it wasn't an easy assignment but thoughts of Anzio in the recent past should have spurred them on with greater intent and resources. I also wish Mr Ford had discussed more fully the interaction of Montgomery and Eisenhower and Montgomery's reasoning (or excuse) for staying in place in the Caen sector to anchor the Germans from moving west toward Bradley.
I thought the author did a good job in describing the initial attack on D-Day toward Caen and the Canal and the subsequent attacks towards or near Caen. (Operations: Epsom, Charnwood, Jupiter and Goodwood.) Mr ford devotes 59 pages to the battle action.
The author includes four 2-D maps and three 3-D maps; I thought all of them were very good except the one 3-D map of the assault on Hill 112. Most of the action is right in the crease and makes following the action more difficult. The map could have been rearranged quite easily to avoid that but it didn't happen. The other maps, especially the 2-D maps are excellent. The 2-D maps include the initial Allied attacks inland after the landing, then Operations Epsom, Charnwood and Goodwood. The other two 3-D maps are the counterattack of 12th SS on June 7th and Operation Goodwood. There are illustrations and a number of good photos that add to the narrative and a Order of Battle toward the end. The author uses two precious pages on "The Battlefield Today". One page would have been sufficient, allowing another map or a little more battle action. The book is still good and I recommend it.

With Osprey's Campaign #143,Caen 1944, Ken Ford follows-up his two earlier volumes in the series on the British D-Day beachheads. As usual, Ford's narrative is solid and well supported by graphics and data. Ford covers the five frustrating British offensives in June-July 1944 that ultimately captured the vital city of Caen but failed to achieve the desired breakout from the beachheads. However, readers should keep in mind that another recent series - Pen & Sword's Battleground Europe series - has titles that cover the same ground, usually in greater detail. While it is unfair to make a direct comparison between the 96-page Osprey format and the 192-page Pen & Sword Format, readers should be aware that Ford did not incorporate some of the material that makes the P&S volumes on Epsom, Hill 112 and Goodwood more original in content. On the other hand, Ford summarizes five battles (Epsom, Windsor, Charnwood, Jupiter and Goodwood) in 96 pages that P&S did in almost 600 pages, so readers seeking an overview of the campaign would be better advised to stick to the Osprey version.

The introductory sections in Caen 1944 are a bit too superficial, with little effort to provide insightful analysis on the strength and weaknesses of both sides. For example, Ford makes little comment on the limited extent of combined arms training in the British armor units prior to D-Day, but this clearly had an impact upon their early performance in Normandy. On the other hand, the desperate German shortage of decent infantry forced them to commit virtually all their armor to defensive missions, thereby robbing them of the initiative. It is noteworthy that no German army infantry divisions played any major role in the five offensives around Caen, which is a telling indictment of where the German army was going in late 1944 (a handful of powerful, high-quality divisions and a bunch of low-quality, odds-and-ends cannon fodder divisions). Ford's discussion of the operational-level issues hews to the company-line that Montgomery's intent always was to fix the German armor in the east while the Yanks broke out in the west, but ignores the facts that Montgomery failed to weight his main effort toward seizing Caen on D-Day and then dilly-dallied in the immediate 4-5 days after D-Day when the German defense around the city was still incomplete. In fact, the Caen campaign bears a lot of similarities to Montgomery's later Operation Market-Garden in that he planned an operation that required considerable risk and boldness, then executed the plan in a very slow and cautious manner that resulted in high loss and failure. Graphically, this volume is excellent. The author provides four 2-D maps (first Allied moves on Caen; Operation Epsom; Operation Charnwood and the Operation Goodwood plan), three 3-D maps (counterattack by 12th SS Panzer on 7 June; Operation Jupiter and Operation Goodwood). Osprey has improved the 3-D maps by adding 1-kilometer gridlines and moving all the text over to one side in sequence (it was always very frustrating to read the previous format, with events thrown helter-skelter all over the page), but at the cost of removing most of the 3-D effect and the elevation now seems pretty flat. The three battle scenes by Peter Dennis (the Regina Rifles street fighting in Caen; 5th Wiltshires attack on Hill 112; Luftwaffe 88mm guns engaging British armor) are excellent.

Ford's account of the initial British moves on Caen in the period 7-13 June 1944 in the critical week after D-Day are surprisingly brief. While his discussion of the 12th SS Panzer counterattack that stopped the Canadians from taking Carpiquet airfield on 7 June is excellent, he gives few details and no maps to display the 7th Armored Division drive to Villers Bocage or the 51st Highland attack east of the Orne. Indeed, the two weeks after D-Day around Caen rate only a few short pages. Instead, Ford focuses most of his intention on the big set-piece battles to get around Caen, which began with Operation Epsom on 24-30 June. Ford admits Epsom achieved little, but he opines that "it did frustrate German plans to push the Allies back into the sea" but by this point everyone on the German side but Hitler realized that the best that could be hoped for was a stalemate. Ford's description of the next offensive - Operation Windsor to seize Carpiquet airfield - is very interesting; the Canadians committed a very reinforced brigade, complete with battleship support, to seize a small area held by only 150 Germans. Amazingly, the Canadians failed to seize the entire airfield and suffered 4-1 casualties. The next two battles, Jupiter and Charnwood, resulted in capture of part of Caen, but at the cost of over 5,000 casualties.

The climax of the Caen campaign was Operation Goodwood, which was either intended as a breakout or a battle of attrition. Ford's account of Goodwood is marred by inadequate research; for example, he claims that "the Germans had been able to pull their panzers out of the frontline" but in fact the 22nd Panzer Regiment and other 21st Panzer units were on the FEBA. By missing this fact, Ford omits mention that the Allied carpet bombing clobbered quite a few German tanks, including several Tiger tanks. There doesn't seem to be much analysis here why Goodwood failed and the key question of whether the gains justified the losses remains unasked. However, Ford does mention that the Germans lost over 100 tanks on the first day of Goodwood (he may be counting assault guns and SP howitzers, too), which if true, means the Montgomery did succeed in whittling down some of the German armor. Overall, Ford's volume is quite good and one of the better Osprey volumes in awhile, but readers interested in greater detail would be advised to read the recent Pen & Sword volumes as well.

An excellent inroduction to the campaign.