The Charging Bull

After the capture of Caen on July 10, Montgomery aimed to deliver a major blow to his enemies with the help of the 2nd British Army. This Operation, code-named Goodwood, would launch three armored divisions of VIIIth Army Corps east …

1944-07-18

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After the capture of Caen on July 10, Montgomery aimed to deliver a major blow to his enemies with the help of the 2nd British Army. This Operation, code-named Goodwood, would launch three armored divisions of VIIIth Army Corps east of Caen. Their objective: to engage and destroy the German Panzer divisions, neutralize any threat of attack and give Montgomery and his men some breathing room by enlarging the British bridgehead East of the Orne river. In the meantime the 2nd Canadian Corps was to seize the suburbs of Vaucelles and Mondeville, south of the Orne. On July 18, after a relentless carpet bombing that annihilated the Germans' first line (units of the 16.Luftwaffe Feld Division), the tanks of the 11th Armored Division rolled into the plain, south-east of Caen. They ran into the Germans' second line of defense composed of 88mm guns and infantry entrenched in the villages, and lost many tanks. The next day, the Guards Armored Division managed to break the Germans' second line of defense at Cagny and Bourguébus before getting bogged down and progressing no further; the offensive was halted. Even though Montgomery had managed to seize the land south of Caen, the breakthrough he was hoping for had failed.

Bourguébus, France

Operation Goodwood was a British offensive in the Second World War, that took place between 18 and 20 July 1944 as part of the battle for Caen in Normandy, France. The objective of the operation was a limited attack to the south, from the Orne bridgehead, to capture the rest of Caen and the Bourguébus Ridge beyond. At least one historian has called the operation the largest tank battle that the British Army has ever fought. Goodwood was preceded by Operations Greenline and Pomegranate in the Second Battle of the Odon west of Caen, to divert German attention from the area east of Caen. Goodwood began when the British VIII Corps, with three armoured divisions, attacked to seize the German-held Bourguébus Ridge, the area between Bretteville-sur-Laize and Vimont and to inflict maximum casualties on the Germans. On 18 July, the British I Corps conducted an attack to secure a series of villages to the east of VIII Corps; to the west, the II Canadian Corps launched Operation Atlantic, synchronized with Goodwood, to capture the Caen suburbs south of the Orne River. When the operation ended on 20 July, the armoured divisions had broken through the outer German defenses and advanced 7 mi (11 km) but had been stopped short of Bourguébus Ridge, only armoured cars having penetrated further south and beyond the ridge.

Wikipedia: Operation Goodwood

German

British

Game Type: Breakthrough

Board Type: Countryside

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