The Falaise Gap (part 2) - Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives 

Recent subscriber and thoroughly enjoying this channel. 27yr Canadian Air Force ground engineer (retired) with a keen interest in military history thanks to my father. He fought in Italy and Holland with the Lord Strathcona's Horse armoured regiment, was wounded in Orsogna, Italy (near Ortona) and finished the war without any further physical injuries, returning to Canada in 1946. My Dad took 100+ photographs 1941-1946, many/most of which were incorporated into a book called "PUSH ON" A Photographic History of Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) 1936-46. I also had a great uncle who was killed in the First World War, 1916 at Mount Sorrel when he was serving with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles (Saskatchewan Regt.) In addition, my sister-in-law's uncle, Rifleman Henry Rodgers was one of the Canadians soldiers killed by the SS at Château d’Audrieu, 8 June 1944 and I visited his grave in Normandy in 1997. So I have the military history bug and have it bad! :) As many viewers do, I was researching online during the presentation and found the following website which has a very good closeup of the German officer in the famous picture you were discussing. canadianfilmandphotounit.ca/2021/02/16/valour-in-saint-lambert-sur-dives-by-ben-moogk/ If you have already seen this then sorry for the duplication and if you haven't seen it - enjoy! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us as you shatter some myths and just try to shed some light on the truth of what happened. I was lucky enough to do military aircraft accident investigation for 4 years and quickly learned to throw all assumptions and biases out the window, or at least try to and start from scratch with the facts on hand. The conclusions were not always well received but the facts were the facts.

THE young man talking to Major Currie is my father SGT Garth Leavitt Woolf of the SOUTH Alberta Regiment 29 armoured reconnaissance Regiment.AT that moment my father was showing Major CURRIE A WATCH Taken off a german soldier...Just a few min after the picture or filming was done the german officer was shot dead as he was responsible for sniping some of our boys as they tried to sleep the evening before their capture.MY father greatly admired Major Currie and was awarded the MM medal for his contribution to the Falaise Gap and the Brugge Ghent battles ,this is also corroborated in the Donald Graves book SOUTH ALBERTAS A CANADIAN REGIMENT AT WAR.I tried to include a copy of his citation from King George for outstanding gallantry and devotion to duty during thr battle of Falaise GAP. THANK YOU FOR TAKING ME ON THIS JOURNEY..GOD BLESS. Katherine

I thought David was superb and I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Many insights, mobile warfare, Allies were reactive for the first time, the Germans not a stranger to being surrounded because of Eastern front experience. I loved the overall terrain assessment, limited line of sight, and then zooming into the bridges and fords. And the photo archeology, for lack of a better word -- the Dives bridge, the armored wreckage at the church, the famous surrender photo. Magali and Duncan were very diligent about finding the exact spots! All backed up by maps and diagrams. Very well put together. Brilliant episode.

Great well put together ! I went through the area 15 years ago and across the Normandy alps a hilly moor like terrain .. there were many signs of the fighting on buildings and some were still not repaired. Beautiful hamlets leading along the corridor of death to Montormel hill where the Polish regiment fought until all their tanks were knocked out and ammunition finished they fought with bayonets against German paratroopers. The nights on that hill were constant action and screams. The Polish blocked the way.

Another great show. The work Magali and Duncan do showing the various battle sites you cover in these programs adds a whole new dimension that isn't available anywhere else that I'm aware of. Brilliant.

Looking back at older episodes. Always interested in Canadian content. Hopefully this helps the algorithm a bit.

My father-in-law was directly behind the photographer when this famous picture was taken. He was a trooper (gunner/radio operator) in a tank belonging to "B" Squadron of the South Alberta Regiment. who somehow was place under Currie's command (Currie was the Major in charge of "C" Squadron). At any rate, one of his assignments was to escort the prisoners back and away from the action, as having the prisoners close-by in this very fluid situation could have provided forces to the Germans if they had overrun Canadian positions. Anyway, as to what happened to this German Officer. The Poles were waiting in positions just northeast of Currie's force, and at this point had little to do. However, they were chomping at the bit to get revenge on the Germans for the well-known massacre of Polish civilians in Warsaw. So when my father-in-law escorted the prisoners away from their point of capture, he ran into some of these Polish troops. The Polish soldiers volunteered to take the prisoners off his hands, so he could return to the action he had just left, and help Currie with his battle. He was only to glad to be relieved of this responsibility, and wheeled his tank around and returned. However, he told me that as soon as he drove over a hill and lost sight of the prisoners, he heard several long blasts of machine gun fire, the Poles had exacted their revenge, finally!!! As far as he learned, these prisoners never reached the impoundment areas! I have many other insights into his experience in these 3 days, as well as his participation in Operation Tractable, which I would love to share and exchange in order to complete his life story. My father-in-law, passed away in 2014, i was able to get some idea of his war experiences before he passed, but he was very reluctant to share. I really do not believe Mitchel shot him, as very soon after this picture was taken, there was a huge surge of Germans from East to West through St.Lambert, and he would not have had time to waste with this fellow - my bet is that the Poles clobbered him. The sad part of my story is that it was only after my father-in-law passed that I researched the stories he did tell me, and as a result, would never show him the films and photos to describe what was going on and the people involved. My wife and myself travelled his entire war route in June 2018, it was fascinating, want to do it again!! Any interest in exchanging information would be very, very welcome, so I can provide an accurate account for his grandchildren, as if I don't, it will be lost forever!! . My father-in-law fought with the SAR's until he was injured at the start of Operation Elephant, specifically in the final round of The Battle of Kapelsche Veer on the Maas River just outside Capelle, Netherlands. He was a wonderful, gentle person, who lost many good friends in the war, was not prepared for the reality & horrors of war, and it affected him for the rest of his life! Text me anytime at 780-881-6814

thanks for this will be having a look around this battlefield next time I am near and use this excellent information

Good stuff

very good indeed guys!!

Brilliant video, really, really interesting.

My uncle was a navigator on a Lancaster with the RCAF 419 Moose Squadron (Canadian) and some of his first flights after his training were in mid-August over Faliase. Does anyone know if there's history material available specific to the bombing raids with this initiative? It would be a nice addition to our family history tree.

Fun fact the current SAR regiment (South Alberta light horse now a reserve unit in Alberta Canada) managed to track down and recover and restore the command M3 half track that was used during the campaign and its currently stored in our armoury and is still running and used for special events. Also I have talked to several vets and people who talked to the troops who were there and they all agree that the German officer in that photo was being a “arrogant prick” and the Sgtmaj was not having it so he took the officer away and shot him in a ditch.

Donald Graves has a book on the history of the South Albertas. Not sure how available it is now.

My dad who was a sargeant, in one of the few times he spoke of his war experience, said he went into Falaise with 50 men and went out with 4 and his right arm half shot off (it was saved). I really resent commentators who say that the Canadians weren`t energetic enough at Falaise. Would they prefer they were all killed

Very good. Thanks Paul, Mags, Duncan, Jonathon, David for all the work doing this. Suggestion: might be useful when using google maps to make use of the terrain layer - shows contours and relief, roads more clearly. could be quite helpful to paint the picture. Listened to this once and then watched it again, following along on google maps - including street view which covers most except for the ford. Struck by how being able to make river or obstacle crossings aught to be part of anyone's retreat plan - and equipment. If it were the British retreating they might have had Valentine AVLB's with 30 ton capacity for smaller vehicles and/or Churchill Fascine AVRE's - - and tank bulldozers that might have made short work of the Dives as an obstacle. A key thing Peter Caddick-Adams laid out in his Snow and Steel was that the SS Panzer Divisions had come up and gotten their experience retreating in Russia and were weak at using Engineers and Recon - tended to use them as just another maneuver unit. Seems like a big shortcoming also for the Germans was not developing bulldozer tanks or specialist engineering vehicles like the W.Allies - other than the flamethrower and demolition vehicles (Goliath, Borgward B IV). Don't know how much the recon-engineers short-comings apply to the Wehrmacht Panzer and Infantry units - fingertip comments notwithstanding. On Currie and blocking or destroying the bridge think its a matter of prior planning and training - imagination-foresight-creativity - you're going to fight how you trained and planned - very hard and rare for anyone to just think and decide under stress of combat combined with exhaustion. Another thing that stood out was the reference to this is the first time things have been this fluid in Normandy - - like it commonly was on the Eastern Front, and while it doesn't diminish my regard for W. Allied effort and sacrifice, it does increase my respect for Soviet ability at this kind of warfare - they were better at it by this time than the west, at least on the ground, but they'd certainly paid for that too. From reading done on Cobra and knowing what heritage a lot of U.S. Armor leaders were coming from the particular character of their cavalry backgrounds probably helped out a good deal. From one the other vids about Patton have to wonder how the Falaise Pocket closure might have gone if it had been the 9th instead of the 90th Infantry Division there - might have made a huge difference. Have read much also about the 90th's problems. One of my questions in David's commentary would be about which bridges count as the one's at Trun - there's a significant one at Magny just East of Trun and looks like 1 or 2 depending on the map just south of it. From some brief look on internet sources, looks like Germans were attacking in this 19-21.August time frame there too.

Very well done... Can anyone confirm that Heer troops surrendering to Currie are from 2.Pz.Div.?

FYI Canadian armour divisions never used Cromwell . Would have been Sherman’s and Stuart’s. Stuart’s for rece.

Check out the 7th Brigade show, we cover that story

(1:04:17) I suppose you could ask the same question about why 2TAF didn't bomb that key bridge before Currie and his task force even got into the village. A few well-placed 500 lb bombs would probably have made it unpassable. Could it be that the High Command wanted it preserved and left open?

on the topic of Blue-on-Blue, the Poles took shots from the US army on the ground at Chambois so even the linkup was fraught with danger.

Recon by fire I think its called. Go in with all guns blazing and see what pops out of the hedgerows, then react to that.

It was a great Allied victory. After which the Generals bickered, blamed, and pointed fingers. Historians picked up the arguments and it’s never ended

I don't see the point of the live shots.

Were not the Pols technically out of the war at that point , I would suspect that would attract some rough treatment .

Surrendering to the enemy on the battlefield is dangerous! You’re getting in their way. Plus the Canadien Army knew the SS had murdered Canadien POWs

I will add this to my list of rubbish!

I will be brutally honest this extremely hard to watch you spend too much time messing around with obvious poor camera feeds & not enough time with David o Keefe. I don't understand after you have so many Brits who barely mention any other allies involved( who you allow to talk without interruption) when you get a incredible canadian historian like David on you won't let him talk?? Please give credit to those brave Canadians & other nations,without the too typical common & frustrating arrogant Brits who give ZERO credit to Candians & others who fought as equals not subordinates. Also save me the typical excuses because when you don't credit all nations who fought that terrible conflict you dishonor all! Tks from a vet!