Falaise was unforgettable for all of 61st Recce.
Don Aiken takes up the tale: “22nd August - Falaise.
The American Army had now fully broken out of their less defended sector of the front, almost all the German tank forces having been thrown against the pivot point of Caen. This allowed them to partly encircle the German army from the South and a simultaneous pincer movement by our troops from the North entrapped thousands of enemy troops who were trying to flee through the only gap left at a village called Falaise.
This now became a killing field, with all the Allied gun-fire and the concentrated attacks by our rocket-firing dive-bombers (Typhoons) being rained down on the fleeing Germans. Thousands of the enemy were killed and, as we passed through the devastated area in pursuit of those who had managed to escape, I remember seeing bodies piled on top of bodies to a height of several feet.” (Extract republished from ‘Establishing a Foothold in Normandy’ by kind permission of Don Aiken)
Eric Postles writes “… after the capture of Falaise on 23 August the gap was finally sealed but some German tanks and troops escaped to the river Seine. All the time the Germans were being attacked from all sides by RAF rocket firing Typhoons…
The scenes of destruction were unbelievable. Tanks were blown off the roads turretless, hundreds of vehicles were wrecked, dead bloated horses were everywhere, often still in the shafts and dead soldiers littered the area. It was the first time that we realised how much the Germans used horse-drawn equipment. Prisoners wandered aimlessly waiting to be rounded up. This ended the Normandy campaign which had been costly to the Allies but more so for the Germans whose forces were shattered including Field Marshall Rommel, who was badly wounded by RAF planes.” (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)
Sandy Handley said “After the Falaise Gap episode….. We wondered if the Germans had got any army left.”
Anthony Rampling remembers:
“When we got to Falaise this area was surrounded by the British, Americans and Polish and they encircled a German Army and they were bombed from overhead, shelled from all round and there were a massive amount killed and over 100,000 prisoners taken...The roads were full of dead bodies, dead horses (dead horses in their harness). Very difficult to get through the roads for the chaos.” From Anthony Rampling’s account of 61st Recce (pers comm).
Anthony told me that even the planes going overhead at 10,000 feet above the Falaise Gap could smell the dead.
Eric Brewer wrote for 22nd August - “FALAISE. In different harbour. Slept with two Gerry prisoners*: one Pole, the other German, age 20. He says his father is fighting. Also that he has had nothing to eat. The Pole says he was forced by Gerry prisoner to fight - would have nothing to do with him. Name is Joseph. Gerry's name is Karl. We fed them in the morning and you would think they had nothing to eat for weeks." (From Eric Brewer’s Diary by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)
*Lt-General Dempsey later told 61st Recce that they’d taken 2,000 prisoners in the Falaise Gap (See Eric Brewer’s diary for 19th September)
50th Division had now moved up to the Gap and was centred between Argentan and Trun.
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