Abstract
Did General Bernard Montgomery really intend to take Caen on D-Day? Was it realistic to expect that the town could be taken so quickly by the British Second Army and was the city even a worthwhile objective at that stage in the struggle to get ashore and stay ashore? These questions, and their resultant arguments, have absorbed not only generations of D-Day historians but also the fickle arena of popular memory. In general, Americans have used Caen as a cudgel to batter the reputation of Montgomery, an unlovable man whose popularity is anything but great in the Western hemisphere. Britons have tended to focus on the anatomy of Monty’s D-Day failure, sometimes pointing the finger of blame – quite wrongly – at the Canadian 3rd Division for its supposed failure to advance rapidly inland from Juno Beach. Actually, Allied planners tasked the 3rd Division with halting German armoured counterattacks against the fledgling beachhead and the Canadians succeeded mightily in this mission.
From any fair-minded viewpoint, the key to Caen lay through Sword Beach, the easternmost flank of the entire Normandy invasion area. And yet, oddly enough, the battle at Sword Beach has been relatively overlooked in D-Day historiography. In this well-researched volume, Andrew Stewart of the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, attempts to fill this void and shed new light on the 3rd British Infantry Division’s assault at Sword Beach. He bases his account on his own extensive experience as a battlefield guide in addition to impressive primary source research in such repositories as the Imperial War Museum, British and US. National Archives, the Staffordshire Yeomanry Archives, the National Army Museum in London, as well as several regimental archives from around the United Kingdom.
The book is divided into 12 chapters, including two about the preparation for the invasion of Sword Beach, one devoted to the German defences, one on the amphibious effort, and another on the British 6th Airborne Division’s drops inland from Sword. The next six describe the 3rd Division’s battle from early on 6 June until the end of the day. Finally, Stewart concludes his narrative with a discussion of the division’s failure to make it to Caen and the ensuing, long-enduring controversy. Excellent, accurate full-colour maps illustrate the volume. Stewart demonstrates a keen grasp of the terrain, the weaponry, and the considerable challenges confronting both sides at Sword Beach.
In popular memory of D-Day, there is a tendency to view the fight for the British beaches as something of a walkover, especially in comparison with the desperate, crisis-ridden struggle for Omaha Beach. Actually, as Stewart demonstrates, the 3rd Division experienced some very sharp fighting at Sword Beach on D-Day. To make this point, and explore the battle as a whole, he employs many first-hand accounts from British veterans, and their stories comprise the highlight of his narrative. The reader comes away with a good sense of the battle’s intensity though not always a firm understanding of how the various small-unit actions fit together in the larger effort to secure Sword Beach, link up with the 6th Airborne Division, and push for Caen. Stewart also describes the effort to take Pegasus Bridge, arguably the key objective of D-Day, at least for the British. And yet he often confusingly describes this mission as a ‘coup de main’ for the Caen Canal Bridge rather than the more understandable and better-known term Pegasus Bridge. Moreover, the chapters are marred by the author’s tendency to write in the passive voice and this robs the story of flow and colour, making some sections difficult to read. My main disappointment with the book, especially in view of the title, is the fact that Stewart did not advance any clear argument about the Caen controversy. His concluding chapter mainly recapitulates the arguments of other historians, with no apparent interpretations of his own. Given Stewart’s great expertise and impressive research on the topic, I believe this is a regrettable oversight and a real missed opportunity. In spite of this strange void, Caen Controversy comprises a nice addition to Normandy historiography and it will be a useful book for historians and buffs alike.