Talk:Operation Totalize

"Totalize", 7-8/8/1944.

Never was a battle so badly summarised.

The "Night March" deserves better. Also, it was not just a Canadian/Polish effort, the 51 Highland Division were supported by 33 Amd Bd. on the left wing, and did much to defeat the 12SS counter-attack.

They comprised 50% of the initial attack, and were competely successful. Bad tactics by the Polish commnders in their first battle enabled the Germans to stop the advance; temporarily (See Tractable)

rich tea man- it must also be notd that it is here where michael wittman met his end. at the hands of eother the british or canadian forces.

needs to be added

I'll add this in later, because I think it needs to be addressed.

• The reason that Operation Totalize required a follow-up operation was because of bad communication between Crerar and Simonds. In it's American equivalent, Operation Cobra, things went differently. When Bradley realized that his army had broken through, his Corps commanders were ordered to ignore original instructions, and advance as far as possible as fast as possible. When the Canadians attacked in Totalize, they managed to break through, but no such order was given. Had Crerar been a more experienced commander, he might have. I'll add that in later.

Cam 19:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Falaise

Just to note, the city of Falaise was not the objective of Totalise, the high ground before the city was. The article does not currently reflect this.

I have been wondering if this should be added in earlier but never got around to it, practically the entire set of orders etc for the operation is published within No Holding Back - should we post large ammounts of this text or just referance to it?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If you cite it page for page, by all means. I don't personally possess that book (although it's on the "to buy" list), so you'd have to add that stuff in on your own. and yes, you are partially correct in that the high-ground before the city was. However, given the overwhelming advantages that Canadian Infantry possessed on the morning of August 8, they could have easily captured Falaise. It was the ultimate goal of all offensives in the area, so I will definitely add in that the high ground near Hill 195 was the objective of the offensive, with the hope that Falaise could be rapidly captured afterwards. Alas, it was not. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 06:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

That seems on par :) Ill add in some citations n stuff some time :) I also highly recommend the book, real good read! --EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we've almost got this thing up to B-Class. I need to flesh out the "Aftermath" section and rewrite a few things in the "German Counterattacks" bit. Other than that, I think the lead needs a bit of expansion. Once we've got that down, we should be good. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 05:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC) (oh, and I added your name to the "maintainer" box, hope that's ok)

No prob at all :)--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

1st Canadian Army orders/plans etc

am a slow coach when it comes to adding these things, so here they are:

No Holding Back, Brian Reid

Page 71-78 Simond's Appreciation

1. Object - To break through the German positions astride the road Caen-Falaise
2. The Germans have formed prepared defensive position with its Forward Defended Locality on the general line May Sur Orne 0259 - Tilly La Campagne 0760 -La Hogue 0960 and a rearward partially prepared position on the general line Hautmesnil 0852 - St Sykvain 1354 The high ground point 122 in 0756 is the key to the first and the high ground about Hautmesnil 0852 the key to the second. Both are obvious objectives and ones for which the Germans will fight very hard.
3.The positions are manned by as good troops as the German Army possesses. The area is the pivot, which, from the German point of view must be held as long as they fight West of the River Orne. The position is presently manned by 1 SS Right and 9 SS Left. Available information indicates that each division has one infantry regiment forward, supported by all available tanks and SPs, whislt the other infantry regiment works on the rear position, and is available to form the nucleus of a defence in the event of a "break in" forward. The Germans apparently rely on being able to get tanks and SPs back, but ensure that some infantry will be available in the rearward positions from the onset, in the event of forward positions being over-run. Two "break in" operations are required to penetrate the German defence. 12 SS Div may be regarded as in close reserve opposite our front and counterattack against our East flank must be expected.
4. The ground is ideally suited to full exploitation by the enemy of the characteristics of his weapons. It is open, giving little cover to either infantry or tanks and the long range of his anti-tank guns and more tars, firing from carefully prepared positions, provides a very strong defence in depth. This defence will be most handicapped in bad visibility - smoke, fog or darkness, when the advantage of long range is minimized. The attack should therefore be made under such conditions.
5. During the last few days we have attacked, and done everything posible to indicate that we intend to contuine attacking, the positions opposite us. Tactical surprise in respect to objectives or directions of attack is therfore impossible. Tactical surprise is still possible in respect to time and method, but very heavy fighting must be expected. 6. If all available air support is used for the first "break in" there will be nothing for the second except diminished gun support, unless a long pause is made with resultant loss of speed. If on the other hand the first "brak in" is based upon limited air support (heavy night bombers), all available gun support and novelty of method, the heavy ay bombers and medium bombers will be available for the second "break in" at a time when gun support begins to decrease, and it should be able to maintain a high tmep to the operation.
7. In essence, the problem is how to get armour through the enemy gun screen to sufficient depth to disrupt the German anti-tank gun and mortar defence, in country highly suited to the tactics of the latter combination. It can be done by:-
(a)Overwhelming air support to destroy or neutralize enemy tanks, anti-tank guns and mortars.
(b)Infiltrating through the screen in bad visibility to a sufficient depth to disrupt the anti-tank gun and mortar defences.
It requires practically the whole day bomber lift to effect (a) and if two defence zones are to be penetrated, a pause with loss of speed and momentim must be accepted. It is considered that this may be avoided if the firs zone is penetrated by infiltration at night but this can only be attempted with careful preparations by troops who are to do the operation.
8. The plan is ubmitted on the assumption that the Right Wing of SEcond Army has secured, or imminently threatens to secure, a bridgehead East of the River ORNE, thus loosening the grip on the enemys northern pivto.

Page 79

The plan (in Reids own words based off the appreciation, simmonds supporting docs of an outlined plan, a summary of what he would need to achieve it and marked maps):

Phase 1: Two infantry divisions, each supported by an armoured brigade would "break in" through the forward German defence line and capture the ground around Point 122 at the rear of the position to form a firm base for the second phase. The divisions would also mop up bypasssed German positions.
Phase 2: One armouerd and a fresh infantry division would "break in" the second defence line. Simonds saw the initial attack mounted by the armoued division while the infantry division would follow along and widen the area of the penetration of the defensive position.
Phase 3: Havingpenetrated the German defences, the attackers would exploit towards Falaise. The Phase 2 armoured division (my note: the 4th Canadian Armoured Division) would capture the high ground west of Quesnay village that dominated the axis of advance while a fresh armoured division (my note: the Poles) would advance along the Caen-Falaise road past the heights sough of the river Laison and seize the high ground northeast of the city. The infantry divisions would follow on and occupy the ground vacated by the armoured divisions.

Pages 93

Montys directive to the Canadian Army

Task of First Canadian Army
8) To launch a heavy attack from the Caen sector in the direction of Falaise.
9)Object of the operation:
(a) To break htrough the enemy positions to the south and south-east of Caen, and to gan such ground in the direction of Falaise as will cut off the enemy forces now facing Second Army and render their withdrawing eastwards difficult - if not impossible.
(b)Generally to destroy enemy equipment and personnel, as a perliminary to a possible wide exploitation of success.
10) The attack to be launched as early as possible and in any case not later than 8 August - dependent on good weather for air support. Every day counts, and speed is preparing and launching the attack is very neccessary.
Every endeavour will be made ot launch the attack on 7 August if this is in any way possible.

Page 97-98

General Crerar echoed Monty when he wrote to his Corps commanders that the operation was to attack in the direction of Falaise to help make the German retreat more difficlt if not impossible.

Page 97onwards

Intel picked up suggests the frontline has been weakened and the second line has been reinforced. Air plan reminds the same however the ground plan changes. Phase One reminds the same however Phase two now sees all 3 Infantry Divisions advancing, with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division being pushed all the way towards Pt 140 and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division being concetrated around Pt 195 and Pt 206 instead of being spread out towards Pt 140.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 09:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. This will come in handy. If I haven't worked this into the "offensive plan" by tomorrow (being the end of Saturday, April 19, 2008), feel free to do so yourself. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 06:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Right oh, will give it a shot.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 09:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

I regret that I have seen fit to put this tag at the front of the article. My reasons are: lack of coherent timeline; inconsistency in formations involved and their compositions; poor grammar, too much passive voice. Rather than rewrite it all myself (which I would do by reverting to the version as of November 7, 2007, I'll let someone else (Canadian?) have a go. HLGallon (talk) 20:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I'll do that ASAP (as soon as the A-Class on another article I'm working on is complete). Cheers! Cam (Chat) 18:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with HLGallion, unfortunately. I'm trying to clean up some of the grammar & stuff, but there is a major inconsistency in the "Background" section. The strength of the Cdn forces is listed as "2 Infantry Divisions and 2 Armoured Divisions", and this jives with neither the Campaign box (listing 3 Inf Divs, 2 Arm'd Divs and 2 Arm'd Brigades), nor with the Order of Battle (OoB) listed under 1st Canadian Army, which lists 3 Inf Divs, 3 Arm'd Divs (including the Polish), and 2 Arm'd Brigades. As well, neither the box nor the text include the British 51st Inf. Div.! Should the box and text be modified to read "4 Infantry Divs (3 Canuck + 1 Brit), 3 Armoured Divs (2 Canuck + 1 Polish), and 2 (Cdn) Armoured Brigades? I have no idea. If all of the formations of the 1st Cdn Army were not involved, it would be incorrect to state that this was the first operation where the 1st Cdn Army fought as a unit. Help us out here, Cam. Esseh (talk) 20:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute - just found the Brit 33rd Arm'd Brigade in the offensive - yet it is not mentioned in the Box, nor in the earlier text. This is added strength, and should be included. Esseh (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

On another note, the map has to go. First, standard battle maps show "friendly" forces in blue, not gawdawful pink, and enemy forces are always shown in red. Second, everything is listed as "British" assaults, even though this was (was it?) primarily a Cdn operation. Third, where the heck is the armour? The map makes it look like the infantry did everything alone! As a former "zipperhead", I take umbrage at being left out again! (and I'll say it in Polish and Cockney, too!) ;-) Esseh (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)