s of defence. The leading armoured division became entangled amid the village strongholds—instead of bypassing them. The others were delayed by traffic congestion, in getting out of the narrow bridgehead and the spearhead had come to a halt before they came on the scene. By the afternoon the great opportunity had slipped away.
This miscarriage has long been enshrouded in mystery. Eisenhower in his report spoke of it as an intended ‘breakthrough’, and as a ‘drive . . . exploiting in the direction of the Seine basin and Paris’. But all the British histories written after the war declare that it had no far-reaching aims, and that no breakthrough on this flank was ever contemplated.
They follow Montgomery’s own account, which insisted that this operation was merely ‘a battle of position’, designed to create a ‘threat’ in aid of the coming American break-out blow and secondly to secure ground on which major forces could be poised ready to strike out to the south and south-east, when the American break-out forces thrust eastwards to meet them’.
Eisenhower in his post-war memoirs tactfully glides over the matter by avoiding any mention of this battle, while Churchill makes only the barest reference to it. Yet anyone behind the scenes at the time was acutely aware of the violent storm that blew up. The air chiefs were very angry, especially Tedder. The state of temper is revealed in the diary of Captain Butcher, Eisenhower’s naval aide. ‘Around evening Tedder called Ike and said Monty had, in effect stopped his armour from going further. Ike was mad.’ According to Butcher, Tedder next day telephoned Eisenhower from London and conveyed that the British Chiefs of Staffs were ready to sack Montgomery if requested, although this is denied by Tedder in his own account of the affair.
It was thus natural that on Montgomery’s side the immediate reaction to such complaints should have been to assert that the idea of a break-out on this flank had never been in mind. That assertion soon became an article of belief, and has since come up to be accepted, without question by military chroniclers. Yet it did not tally with the racy note of the codename given to this attack—‘Operation Goodwood’, after the English racecourse. Nor with the term ‘broke through’ that Montgomery first used in his first announcement of the attack on the 18th. Moreover his remark that he was ‘well satisfied with the progress made’ on the first day seemed hard to reconcile with the absence of a renewed effort of similar scale on the second day. That infuriated the air chiefs, who would not have agreed to divert the heavy bomber armada to the aid of a ground operation had they not believed that the aim of ‘Goodwood’ was a mass break-out. Montgomery’s later assertion was a half-truth, and did himself an injustice. He had not planned to break-out on this flank, and was not banking on it. But he would have been foolish not to reckon with the possibility of a German collapse, under this massive blow, and exploit it if it occurred.
Dempsey, who commanded the Second Army, thought a speedy collapse was likely, and had up himself to the armoured corps H.Q. so as to be ready to exploit it: ’What I had in mind was to seize all the crossings of the Orne from Caen to Argentan’—that would establish a barricade across the German’s rear and trap them more effectively than any American break-out on the Western flank could do. Dempsey’s hope of a complete break-through was very close to fulfilment at midday on July 18. In view of his revelation of what he had in mind, it is amusing to note the many assertions that there was no idea of trying to reach Falaise—for Argentan, his prospective goal, was nearly twice as far. Dempsey, too, was shrewd enough to realise that the disappointment of his hopes might be turned to compensating advantage. When one of his staff urged him to protest against press criticism of the failure of ‘Goodwood’, he replied: ’Don’t worry—it will aid our purpose, and act as the best possible cover-plan.’ The American break-out on the opposite flank certainly owed muc