Nase noviny - The port of Dunkirk in WWII

Clearing the Channel Ports
Operation Wellhit - The Capture of Boulogne
Jan Hyrman

Delayed by unfavourable weather conditions, the assault on Boulogne started on 17th September 1944, just five days after the surrender of Le Havre and eleven days after first artillery shells were fired on the city.

Mont Lambert was assaulted by infantry mounting Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers supported by A.V's.R.E., followed by others riding in armoured half-tracks. Flame-throwing Universal Carriers (Wasps) as well as M-10 self-propelled guns were also involved in the operation. Within 45 minutes all objectives were reached, though advance had been slowed down by mud, bomb craters and mines. Fighting in the area did not stop till the following day.

The port of Boulogne was the next obvious feature demanding attention of the First Canadian Army, lying along its line of advance towards the Netherlands and the port of Antwerp. It was to prove an equally hard nut to crack.

Lying around the estuary of the River Liane, it had a defensive wall of high ground, partly fortified, partly provided with trenches and pillboxes. Boulogne was at the extreme left flank of the focal part of the Atlantic Wall, reaching to the north towards Cap Gris Nez and northwest towards Calais. The ports and strongpoints here were prepared for an all-round defence, mutually supporting each other, with both landward and seaward approches covered by artillery.

Two most dominant defensive features could be determined. The first was the height of Mont Lambert, a high hill to the east of Boulogne, overlooking the city. At first sight, it was the weaker point of the two, however, the defensive features included reinforced concrete gun emplacements, dug-outs and underground passages, casemated and disappearing guns. The other feature was Fort de la Creche, an old French fort. The Germans incorporated the fort into their defensive perimeter, adding concrete pillboxes, light guns of all calibres, including 240mm guns of 360 degrees traverse.

The town was heavily damaged during pre-invasion air bombardment, yet it was also prepared for defence. Roads were blocked, ambush points were pre-planned with machine gun emplacements and anti-tank guns. The garrison strength under the command of General-Lieutenant Ferdinand Heim was estimated between 5,500 and 7,000. Most of the troops belonged to the low value Fortress Machine Gun Battalion troops (former office clerks and older men), yet spirits were relatively high due to surrounding formidable defensive works.

Prior to the assault, large amounts of intelligence data were gathered by the Allies with the help of French patriots, the F.F.I., who provided them with estimates of garrison strengths and helped them locate the defensive emplacements and enemy dispositions. Information also came in through air reconnaissance and interrogations of captured German troops and 10,000 civilians, evacuated from Boulogne at the proposal of the German commander, concerned with their consumption of food and water, needed for the garrison.

Grave supply problems were encountered already at Boulogne. All ammunition for the operation still had to be brought via the Normandy beachheads and Dieppe, from where the roundtrip took 7 and 3 days respectively. Also, Percy Hobart's 79th Armoured Division, the "Hobart's Funnies", had to be moved over to Boulogne from Le Havre, where they were still being employed with clearing the area from mines.

Artillery formations were also lagging somewhat behind the first line troops, however, on 6th September first elements of Allied artillery were able to fire first rounds at the defenders, intending to deceive them with smoke screen shells into giving away the location of their batteries, the Germans, however, failed to eat the bait of the fake attack. Another trick employed with some success was the fire of moving artillery formations, causing the Germans to overestimate the Allied artillery strength. In the end, Allied artillery could hadly be overestimated. Sixteen infantry regiments fielded 368 guns involved in the operation, calibres reaching from the 86.1mm 25-pounders to the U.S made 155mm and British 7.2" howitzers.

Propaganda shoots were also used to exploit the presumably low German morale in the face of Allied superiority in both numbers and hardware, by means of nearly 500,000 leaflets. Loudspeakers mounted on White scout cars are officially credited with the surrender of 900 of their German listeners during the period between 19th and 22nd September.

Tactical air force as well as medium bombers spent the prelude to the assault bombing sites marked by 25-pounder red smoke shells, fired by the artillery at known targets within the perimeter. Accuracy was doubtful, though, an examination which followed the operation found out that the attacks caused little damage and that 4 guns were put out of action by 800 bombs and 200 rockets. Heavy bombers were included as well, perfoming 90 minutes' of continuous bombing across a quadrilateral 3 by 1 kilometre including all of the imporant defensive features, immediately followed by artillery fire to prolong the effect.

The plan was to brake into the perimeter from the east, while the northern and southern ends of the defensive horseshoe should be only contained for subduing later. Spectators stands were arranged on high ground off Neufchatel for onlookers from the ranks of the navy, the army and the air force as well as press correspondents.

At other areas fighting was equally fierce. The enemy was fighting hard to retain his positions, often using 20mm anti-aircraft cannon against the Allied troops. Mortars and heavy artillery fire was encountered at other points, feroucious close quarter combat ensued elsewhere.

Despite the gains of the initial attack, the result of the first day was disputable. The advance was slower, none of the positions had been captured and mopped up completely, with enemy presence within the areas captured or at points covering them. 

During the second day of the attack the area of Mont Lambert was finally completely subdued and its garrison captured. Bitter fighting continued in the streets of the city and for the bridges, all of which were eventually found destroyed or heavily damaged, although several of them were either passable to infantry or bridgeable by the engineers. In the evening the first troops moved across the bridges to the southwest bank of the River Liane, covered by all kinds of guns, including anti-tank guns and P's.I.A.T. (Projector, Infantry, Anti-tank). As soon as the river was crossed, advance continued to clear the southwest of the city of the enemy, while on the other side of the Liane the troops headed to assault Fort de la Creche.

By noon the third day, estimated 2,000 Germans were still reluctant to surrender, although their determination was often broken at the very moment of becoming a target of Allied fire. The advance of the Allies limited the enemy only to areas to the north and south of the city, around Fort de la Creche and Wimereux in the north and le Portel in the south, but the northern strongpoints were not reduced till the sixth day of the operation, on 22nd September 1944. Le Portel still refused to give up fighting and the last enemy outposts surrendered only after threats of assaulting the fortified positions with all means necessary in late afternoon of the day.

Only 600 Canadian casualties were involved in reducing the fortress of Boulogne, while the enemy lost about 10,000 men killed, wounded or captured. Despite thousands of tons of explosives dropped by the bombers and hurled onto the targets by the artillery, several of the gun emplacements were put out of action only by infantry attack or threat of flame-throwing tanks. According to the German officers captured and interrogated at Boulogne, about a half of the 90 artillery pieces had concrete gun emplacements, which were holding out outstandingly against the air and artillery bombardment.