The Fighting Grenadiers
Operation Goodwood 18 to 21 July 1944
The fighting throughout the day was extremely confused
and it is not easy to give a coherent account of it. Each
battalion of the armoured brigade had a motor company of
the 1st Grenadier Guards under command, in accordance with
the then commonly accepted organisation for battle
The Story of the Guards Armoured Division.

Tank Museum photo No. 2985/B/1
The remainder of the 1st Battalion, operating with the
2nd Battalion Irish Guards and the 1st Battalion Coldstream
Guards, still farther back, spent an equally frustrating
afternoon. They were able to send out small parties into
the cornfields to collect prisoners, but they had no opportunity
of taking a direct part in the action.
They were mortared all afternoon
As soon as Cagny
was captured two companies of the 1st Battalion took part
in small attacks designed to carry the advance beyond the
village. With 2nd Battalion Irish Guards , No. 2 Company
pushed south-west down the Caen - Paris highway; but the
open country on either side was too well defended by enemy
anti-tank guns for the 2nd Irish to go far and, although
the Company managed to reach a cross-roads about half-way
between Cagny and Vimont, it was dark by the time they got
there and they were ordered to return.
No. 4 Company patrolled down the side of a large wood
directly south of Cagny, and, having reached the railway
running north of the village of Le Poirier, remained there
until relieved by the 32nd Brigade the next morning.
The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939-1945.

Tank Museum photo No. 2985/C/5
The Advance to the Seine
The distance from the fields near Flers, where 1st and
2nd Battalions were situated, to the River Seine is about
ninety miles as the crow flies, and in peace time, in a
civilian car whose driver has only his private responsibility,
such a journey would have been neither remarkable nor difficult.
But the movement of soldiers had never been a simple operation
and never more complicated than in the case of a modern
armoured division.
The 1st and 2nd Battalions' move to the Seine was made
against time and in pouring rain, over roads that had been
pummelled both by the retreating Germans and the British
advance guards following on their heels.

Tank Museum photo No. 2985/B/6
Supply points and staging areas had to be arranged,
advance parties had to be briefed, road pickets detailed
and, motor-cyclists sent forward. The huge assortment of
vehicles had to be marshalled according to their purpose
and kind; three-ton lorries and Bren carriers, half-tracks
and cooking trucks, company vehicles and Jeeps, water trucks,
ambulances and the vehicles mounted for anti-aircraft defence.
The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939-1945.
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