August 8 is a day of special importance in Canadian military history. On that date, in two separate years, Canadian forces in a major war had achieved a spectacular operational success and appeared to have opened the way to a potentially decisive breakthrough.
August 8, 1918 was the start of the Amiens offensive. As early as May 1918, Field Marshal Haig, commanding the British Expeditionary Force (which the Canadian Corps reported to) selected the Amiens sector as the area to launch an offensive and secure the railway lines running north from Paris. German attacks on the Marne in the summer delayed the British offensive.
The Allies prepared in secret, and the Canadian and Australian corps were given the burden of the initial attack. General Currie was given just three weeks notice of the actual date of the attack – then kept his own division commmanders in the dark until July 29, a day before the corps relocated. When the 100,000 men (and 20,000 horses) of the corps made the move, each man had a note pasted in his paybook
KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT
The enemy knew that where the Canadians appeared in the line, a major offensive was likely. As they had at Vimy, Hill 70 and Passchendaele, the Canadians got things done. To that end an elaborate deception plan fooled the Germans into thinking the Canadian part of the line was thinning out when in reality they were massing for attack. There would be no week-long preparatory barrage, as had been done at Vimy.
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| 8th August, 1918 A painting by Australian official war artist Will Longstaff, in oil on linen, painted in 1918-1919 on a 107cm x 274cm canvas. This painting depicts shows German prisoners heading back towards Amiens, visible in the distance, off to the west from the artist's viewpoint, while artillery advances after the Allied armies. |
At midnight on August 8, a pair of Canadian-flown bombers orbited the front, masking the sound of dozens of tanks getting into position - another reason not to shell the area in advance. All hopes were placed on the tanks getting forward with the infantry.
At Zero Hour on August 8, three divisions of Canadians attacked abreast behind a rolling barrage and into a heavy mist. There was little resistance at first, stiffening toward mid-morning. Four Victoria Crosses were awarded to Canadians for engaging enemy machine guns that day – three of them posthumously. Fourteen hours after the attack began, the Canadian Corps had advanced twelve kilometres and destroyed two German divisions, taking over 5,000 prisoners. The enemy would continue to resist until November, but for General Erich Ludendorff, their chief strategist, August 8 was “The Black Day of the German Army in the history of this war.”
It was the start of The Hundred Days, and coincidentally the last battle of the Canadian Corps as an all-volunteer force. Among the men replacing the 1036 killed, 2803 wounded and 29 taken prisoner on the first day of the battle were conscripts – the first time Canadians sent draftees into combat overseas.
Twenty-six years later, the 1st Canadian Army in Normandy, launching its first major offensive, won an equally impressive Canadian operational victory. After weeks of tough fighting south of Caen, in particular the heights of the Verrières Ridge on which German forces held out during many costly attacks, the Canadians planned to implement radical new tactics. Currie had been able to achieve surprise at Amiens. Lieutenant-General Simonds, commanding 2nd Canadian Corps, knew that he could not achieve surprise of time or location of his attack. Instead, he sought surprise by the method.
The Canadians (and British divisions attacking in concert) would attack at night, with tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Fully tracked APCs were created by stripping howitzers out of self-propelled guns. “Artificial moonlight” would be created by bouncing searchlight beams off low lying cloud. And armoured columns would find their way in the dark by using radio-navigation aids and watching streams of tracer fired by anti-aircraft guns for the purposes of navigation.
As at Amiens, the first attacks by the Canadians and neighbouring British divisions were a success. By noon on August 8, the Verrières Ridge, which had withstood numerous attacks, was finally in Allied hands. Only two weeks earlier, Canadian battalions had battered themselves in fruitless attacks – the destruction of the Black Watch on July 25, when about 320 men went up the heights and 300 became casualties, has become a thing of legend.
The late Brian Reid wrote of the moment of victory in his summary of the battle, NO HOLDING BACK. He noted that, as the motto of Britain’s Royal Tank Regiment states, the Canadian tanks had fought through mud and blood, and reached the green fields beyond. They had penetrated the mass of German tank forces that had barred their way since D-Day. The road to Falaise, that vital crossroads town, was wide open. The commander of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment – one of the many infantry regiments converted to armour during the war – stood atop the Verrières Ridge pleading with his brigadier to give the order to advance. The brigadier held firm, his orders were to open the way for a different division.
A sniper’s bullet ended the brigadier’s war. His 2nd Armoured Brigade held firm, and the 4th Canadian Division did not pass through the location for another ten hours. Simonds, in his command post further back, feared an enemy counter-attack – the standard German method of defence. What happened on August 8 has been debated ever since. Some have suggested August 8, 1944 could have been the second Black Day for the German Army, the beginning of an end similar to what happened at Amiens.
John English, in his history of the Normandy Campaign, lamented “the Black Day...visited upon the German Army on 8 August 1918...was not repeated in the half-forgotten summer of 1944. In the final analysis Operation Totalize was a failure.”
Brian Reid on the other hand said “one point...towers above all else: Operation Totalize was a successful operation of war.” But only as a limited breakthrough. It was not the beginning of the end – Reid says this did not happen for many reasons – indecision and hesitation, but also cumbersome doctrine, inferior equipment and an unwieldy plan, made worse by flawed commanders, over-promises by the air forces, and ultimately, luck. The Germans also had a say in what happened.
Had August 8, 1944 been the start of another Hundred Days, it would probably be as well remembered in the public consciousness today as the date June 6. Instead, total victory over Germany would require 273 more days, and August 8 is to most Canadians just another day.
