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From D-Day to V-Day

October 1944

October 19, 1944 - D-Day + 135

A new player appeared on the European battlefield: the British 52nd Infantry Division, which was assigned to the First Canadian Army’s II Canadian Corps. After arriving on the front, the division took over the zone from the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division on the bridgehead over the Leopold Canal. The 3rd Canadian Infantry the continued to close the enemy pocket around Breskens.

In the operational zone of the US VII Corps, German resistance slowly subsided in Aachen. The enemy’s efforts to break through the encirclement ended in fiasco, but the fortifications within the city continued to stand and resist American tanks and cannons. The 3rd Battalion from the 1st Infantry Division’s 26th Infantry Regiment continued with mopping up operations in the city, and in the end also took control of Salvator Hill. The tanks and infantry from Task Force Hogan reached the Lousberg hill and then received an order to block the main road between Aachen and Laurensberg. Units from the 30th Infantry Division occupied Lousberg.

The 36th Infantry Division from the Seventh Army’s VI Corps completely occupied Bruyéres. This was a unit whose blood was spilled at the Battle of Monte Cassino and on the Rapido River, both in Italy, in early 1944. In May of that year, the division was part of the legendary landing at Anzio. Four months later, the men with a letter “T” for “Texas” on their shoulder sleeves took part in Operation Dragoon – the landing in southern France. The number of those who served under Major General F. L. Walker and J. E. Dahlquist and fell in battle corresponded to all of this action. Injured troops alone totaled over 13,000 in the course of the entire war. The 3rd Infantry Division, currently without the 30th Infantry Regiment under Col Lionel C. McGarr which remained in the Le Tholy area, convoyed to the assembly area behind the 45th Infantry Division and prepared to advance towards St Dié.

The almost daily fighting between the enemy and the Czechoslovaks serving in the Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade flared up once again. There was a relatively large skirmish on the western perimeter, in the section of the 1st Tank Battalion and its assigned 7th Battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment. While General Liška’s men held their positions, in the section held by the 7th Battalion the enemy penetrated through to an area where two farms were located. After the attack, the British counted two fallen soldiers in its ranks. The Germans retreated from the occupied farms a little later.

The British 7th Battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment was equipped with legendary Churchill tanks – fierce fighting machines that made their debut on the battlefield in the course of Operation Jubilee in August of 1942. The tanks also fought in Northern Africa, Italy and in the West. Churchill tanks came equipped standard with 75mm Mk.V. cannons. The chassis of the Churchill tank served as the basis for the development of many special-purpose engineering corps vehicles – such as the Petard machine gun tank, which had a 290 mm machine gun in place of a cannon. In the area where the British forces landed on June 6, 1944, several of these remarkable machines have been preserved and can now be seen in Bayeux in front of the Musée de la bataille de Normandie, in Graye-sur-Mer or at the legendary Hill 112 near Caen.

The No. 312 Squadron RAF welcomed a former member of the No. 310 Squadron, Josef Prokopec, to its ranks. After many months of fighting in the No. 310 Squadron (which had also taken part in D-Day and Operation Market Garden), this one-time pilot in the West Bohemian Air Club decided to transfer to its sister squadron, the No. 312. Staff regulations permitted transfers, and many Czechoslovaks took advantage of this. “I followed the 312 even during the post-war era in České Budějovice,” Josef Prokopec explained his transfer from the No. 310 to the 312 Squadron. “My career also ended in this now legendary unit. The No. 312 Squadron was a military formation full of Czechoslovaks, my acquaintances and friends. I quickly became part of the group, and actually there were no issues at all. Essentially nothing changed for me, only the command was different and our aircraft had different call signs on the side. The peacock-like RAF roundels were always where they were supposed to be, though – on the wings of the Spitfires,” Prokopec added.