My Dad didn't talk much about his experiences. When he saw that I was reading some books on World War II, we talked a little more. He said that one of his most horrific memories was the Falaise gap - the sights and the smell. It was his most graphic description and helped explain some of the nightmares I had heard on occassion as I grew up. Years later after he was gone, I read the trilogy by George Blackburn of the experiences of a Canadian artillery regiment from England throught VE-Day.

From George G. Blackburn’s book The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier’s Eye View, France 1944 :

“Officially the Falaise Pocket was closed two days ago, on August 19, when units of the Canadian Army reputedly linked up with the Americans at Chambois. However, groups of determined Germans, riding on tanks or in half-tracks, or moving with a single self-propelled gun, are still roaming just outside the pocket – either escapees from the trap or holdovers from 15th Army units rushed down here from the Calais area to help keep escape routes open. Whoever, they are, they may be encountered in varying numbers on any road leading east. To inhibit their escape to the Seine, 2nd Division units are sent wheeling east on August 21, crossing behind the last bitter struggle by 4th Division and the Polish Division to seal off the pocket about Chambois, Trun, and St. Lambert.

That night 4th Field recce parties, laying out gun positions within a mile of Vimoutiers to support the infantry engaged in shutting off the Trun-Vimoutiers-Orbec road, the main German escape route, begin to have serious doubts as to who is in possession of what. Sporadic bursts of Schmeisser fire near the lonely positions keep them alert and standing-to most of the night, until the guns move up.

And when the Regiment moves again at midday the next day, it is along a sunken road that only a short time before was plugged solid with smashed German vehicles, dead horses, and dead men. Bulldozers have been used very recently to push everything helter-skelter up onto the banks on both sides of the road, and some wagons and motor vehicles still smoke and smoulder and flame up as you pass through mile after mile of awesome refuse. All along there are dead horses, torn and bloody, still harnessed to wagons with broken wheels, for the long column of transport, caught in this deeply sunken road and unable to scatter from the fighter-bombers, was largely horsedrawn.

Still amongst the horses are broken half-tracks, self-propelled guns, towed guns, staff cars, civilian cars, lorries, and at least two Red Cross ambulances overturned at the roadside. Bodies of men are everywhere, some spilling out of vehicles, and some half-covered with refuse as though tossed onto a garbage dump. And overall is the stench of death.

Passage along the road, which, as you proceed, looks increasingly like a refuse-strewn trench, is very slow, with drivers having to thread their way between derelict vehicles. And so you are able to take in every detail of a scene the like of which you never expected to encounter and never expect to see again, except in a nightmare: a pageant of destruction beyond anything imagined by the most extravagant film director looking for a way to make still another statement against war. ”

Michelle