Thread by @WW2Explorer

#DDay77 - #OTD Mon 12 June 1944 - the Breville Gap was finally closed, helping to secure the Allied left flank. The village of Breville had been a constant thorn in General Gale’s side, with the Germans launching repeated attacks through this gap in the line…

One attempt to try and capture the village had already been repulsed, it proved a costly failure for the men of the 5th Black Watch. On the night of 12th June, the men of the 12th Parachute Bn and D Coy 12 Devons were handed the unenviable task of taking Breville….

Forming up in the village of Amfreville, the men of the 12th Parachute Bn had been briefed in the village’s church before moving up to the assault start-line. And as the Devons joined them, the shelling commenced…

It proved a ominous start to the assault, as outside this farmhouse in Amfreville during an O Group, Brigadiers Lord Lovat and Hugh Kindersley were wounded by the same shell….

Then on the start-line disaster struck with 12th Parachute Bn CO, his 2IC, adjutant, RSM and the CO of D Coy’s 12 Devons all being killed. However the airborne troops supported by Sherman tanks of 13/18 Hussars pressed ahead with the assault regardless only to be treated with…

heavy fire which erupted from the German positions. After a short, but intense and close quarter battle, Breville was secured. However that was not to be the end of that night’s bloodshed. As the airborne troops dug in, Allied artillery due to miscommunication/misunderstanding…

shelled the village again inflicting further casualties on their own side. One of those caught up in this ferocious engagement that night was Len Mann. Len, a part of 12 Devon’s D Coy had witnessed his CO, Major John Bampfylde killed by enemy fire, before attacking Breville…

with his comrades. Miraculously he escaped unharmed despite the shrapnel hitting his pack. A friend of Len’s who was beside him during this attack and paid the ultimate sacrifice that night was Sgt Herbert Walters. Today laid to rest at Ranville @CWGC…

A permanent reminder of this fierce fighting that dark day is the haunting skeletal remains of Breville’s original church. Used by the Germans as an ammunition dump, it had caught fire during the shelling and burnt all night, the organ pipes emitting an eerie high pitched screech

Gale would describe this as the turning point in the battle for the Orne bridgehead. But it came it a high price of over 160 officers and men. We shall never forget. #NeverForget

📷: IWM B 5103, H 22583, H 36441, B 5472, B 5473, B 5471, B 5470, B 5352, Paradata, Back to Normandy.