Poking the hornet's nest... and trying not to get stung

The French countryside inland of the Normandy beaches provided some of the toughest fighting terrain of the entire war for the Allies. Hedges, lanes and orchards were all turned into brutal killing grounds by their German defenders

- By James Holland

At the end of June 1944, Lance Corporal Ken Tout was still waiting to be allocated a new Sherman tank. Part of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, he had arrived in Normandy in a 'Honey' a small, four-man US-built tank - but was now waiting to be put into a Sherman crew. Fortunately for Tout, this meant he'd missed the last few days of heavy fighting around Caen - a crucial Allied objective that the Germans were holding fast to.

The survivors had been pulled back out of the line and, on June 29, Tout chatted to one of his mates, a Sherman driver in 4 Troop called Michael Hunt.

"We got clobbered," Hunt told him. "It's the bocage, you see. The fields are so small. You go through one great hedge into a field and within 50 yards you have to cross through another hedge even thicker. And the orchards. And farm buildings. Ideal places for Jerry tanks to hide."

Hunt then reeled off a long list of those who had been killed or wounded. "And three of Frank's crew," he continued. "Brewed up. Didn't stand a chance. And Len Wright with a wound in his skull, and tanks going up on mines, and Jerry tanks with their guns waiting behind hedges."

So it went on. Tout, a gunner and later tank commander, was appalled, although the losses meant he was almost immediately assigned a crew in 3 Troop, part of C Squadron and soon facing exactly the same challenges.

Normandy was a brutal place in which to fight. There was no getting away from it. On the other hand, advancing was always dangerous and difficult, no matter where one found oneself fighting. There is a persistent myth that, because of the immense casualties on the Eastern Front scales that dwarfed those in Western Europe, somehow the fighting there was a lot harder.

This was most certainly not the case.