11 November 2020, I make a little pilgrimage to visit a Tank Landing Craft (LCT) in Portsmouth, England, which had recently been put on display and was the type my father, Hugh Buckley (Photo 1), had sailed in with the 27th Armoured Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment. Hugh served with SFR for Le Debarquement, as the French prefer to call it for the Liberation of France. He was plucked from the 'field' at Falaise and sent to England for Officers' Training, thereafter joining the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Black Devils, at Brugge for the march into Northern Germany. I cycled 130 kilometres to Portsmouth and back by bicycle, from home, in Sussex, where I now live to complete my exercise as well as make a poignant pilgrimage to the newly refurbished Tank Landing Craft, number HLCT 7074 (Photo 2), on display outside the D-Day Experience museum. The museum was closed but I managed a close up look to satisfy my curiosity to realize a Tank Landing Craft larger than I had thought.
Dad would have enjoyed the experience had the LCT been refurbished before he passed away in January 2020, because the overnight crossing for D-Day had the most vivid and shared memories that he shared with his family. The tank crews spent three nights on board under camouflage and heavy air protection, sleeping on their tanks. The rough crossing involved rough seas and much seasickness with water sloshing around the tanks mixed with oil and sick which evidently impacted on many memories. . He had guessed they were heading for the beaches of Caen because as a school boy in Wiltshire, in earshot of tanks practising on Salisbury Plain, they had debated the likely plans for 'an invasion' and where it would be. As the LCT sailed from Southampton, Hugh said the envelope with their orders was finally opened and they cheered with the certainty they were headed for sands of Juno Beach.
"Leave the house on Juno Beach to your right" were the orders for the Stuart Tanks. In the subsequent analysis it appears they actually left the house on their left, but what is significant was the 'only house on their beach' and it is now the Maison des Canadiens as promoted by the Hoffer Family who still own it and first named by the Queen's Own Rifles of Toronto and Le Regiment de la Chaudière du Quebec who landed about 2 hours before the tanks.
After the SFR tanks landed at Maison des Canadiens, the armoured vehicles crowded the narrow lanes of Bernières-sur-Mer to create a noisy smelly traffic jam. The walled streets are comprised of houses and the enclosed orchards of the local chateau, and formed both a protection and a barrier to the advancement inland toward Caen. To this day the curb stones have serrated edges caused by the tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusilier and others and they are not replaced as a commemoration of the liberation of '6 Juin'. (Photo 3)
A landing craft with 25 Pounder Guns landed unexpectedly at Bernières-sur-Mer amid the traffic Jam. They were Artillery from the Ox and Bucks Regiment who were meant to land, with the Winnipeg Rifles further along the beach. Their landing craft skipper was not yet skilled enough to deal with the drift from the cross-currents and Gunnery Sergeant Tom Cave told his story of 'disappointment' about being dropped off in the traffic jam at Bernières-sur-Mer. With nobody to take orders from Tom and his comrades simply drove onto the railway tracks and drove west to rejoin the Little Black Devils, all the while taking shots from an enemy, while they were exposed on the railway, from an 88 mm gun located near what is now the Canadian War Graves Cemetry. Tom made it all the way to the Rhineland after D-Day, and survived various direct hits and I became friends with him before he died a few years before Dad.
12 hours after 'landing', the tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusilier came to a halt for the night near Villons-les-Buissons with most of the skirmishes taking place on their left flank for the Fort Gary Horse and North Shore Regiment. The nine recces which had survived, bedded down at the crossroads of the Route de Caen, guarding a corner of the intersection. At first light of June 7, they advanced on Carpiquet Airport "to secure a harbour for the tanks" as Dad would say. Their objective was to report back to High Command, the conditions at the airfield, and as it happened there were no planes and little artillery. What they could see was the windsock and little else, but unfortunately their radios had failed only minutes earlier from the rough drive. I say minutes earlier, only because walking the fields with Dad helped to piece together the jumble of events in his mind. He remembers very well; Squadron Commander Lt. Kraus had transmitted, only a kilometre before their objective; “88 at two o’clock we’re going in”. Lieutenant Kraus had not hope of taking on the German 88, but equally he had no choice, but to do so. The enemy gun was located south of Authie and brewed up Kraus's tank and likely a few others. Kraus somehow survived and was eventually evacuated to hospital in England (this story is from Dad’s perspective).
The Navy records indicate that HMS Belfast assisted the Sherbrooke Fusilier at the Battle of Buron until the break-out in July. The recce tanks had driven across fields near Authie and Buron as that battle began against SS Panzer Regiments for the next month. The Panzer crews of the Hitler Youth were particularly fanatical, as they demonstrated by their various executions of prisoners, some who were SFR troops of a Firefly Sherman tank. The surviving recce tanks returned to the main squadron at Villons-les-Buissons driving past Hells Corner, along the road which is now Rue des Sherbrooke Fusiliers. As a squadron they became, 'the squadron who disappeared over the hill’ which was a surprise to Dad but understandable since only three survived of the nine that set out that morning. On the return from their airport observation Dad’s tank leader Cpl Paul Fountain shouted down 'stop; Hugh load HE, traverse left, 88 at nine o'clock". These are words I remember well because Dad remembered it vividly. They managed to take out an anti-tank gun and crew with their little 37 mm gun firing High Explosive charges from the Stuart. Had Corporal Paul not spotted that gun in the trees, I would not be writing this letter. They were very lucky as a crew, because they were in visual range of Nazi Colonel Kurt in the tower of the Abbaye Ardenne, a kilometre away, but perhaps protected by a stand of poplar trees which still stand high above sites line from the Abbaye.
The executions of Canadians at the Abbaye and in Authie are shared with the local French who similarly lost comrades of La Resistance. The annual ceremony at the Abbaye and the naming of 'Place de 37-Canadiens' in Authie bear witness to that shared tragedy which was particularly brutal with the Hitler Youth Crew being so irreverent as to drive over the bodies of those they executed in Authie. Such is war. Without our shared visits to the 'battle field' Hugh's story would have remained, ‘our tanks landed, we drove all day and all night, we spied the airport, the radios failed, and we escaped enemy fire on our return to the Regiment’...the end. In fact it is evident that those 72 hours, of 19-year-old trooper Hugh, influenced the rest of his life.
Corporal Paul Fountain, Hugh's tank leader, shouted down from the turret as they made their way north Carpiquet: "Stop! 88 at nine o’clock. Hugh traverse load HE, traverse left.” Those are words that were engrained in Hugh’s memory as a huge mark of respect for Paul's awareness to take in the big picture. Paul died shortly after that success, and his headstone in Bény-sur-Mer says: He knew not what for? As an indication how his family feel about his loss. (photo 4) I pass that on because Hugh never was able to make contact with Paul’s family to pass along his respects and his gratitude for tactical wisdom.
After the War Hugh took on the role of counselling comrades suffering from post-war stress. His Faith kept him sane through all that, and his duty to his community reflected that. As an engineer in B.C. and Ethiopia he involved himself with issues of water and town planning. He took care of our mum through interminable Alzheimer's and it seemed he simply took on the philosophy that he had seen worse things. At age 80 Hugh took to the ’roughest streets’ of Vancouver as part of the Agape Street Ministries, a Catholic Christian Street Outreach Ministry started reaching out to the women involved in prostitution of the downtown eastside area of Hastings and Cordova in Vancouver to deal with drug addicts who turned to prostitution. It would be a thankless task except for the fact that he saw a street full of souls, who could at least be consoled if they could not be cured. Having walked with Hugh across those fields of battle, I am fairly sure his resolve came from those salient moments in Normandy.
Mr. Peter Buckley
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