Commes (Calvados)
The cities of Normandy during the 1944 battles
- Liberation: 7 June 1944
- Deployed units:
No. 47 Royal Marine Commando, 50th Infantry Division
2nd Battalion Cheshire Regiment, 50th Infantry Division
1/Grenadier-Regiment 726, 716. Infanterie-Division
- History:
During the preparations for the Normandy landings, the Allies planned to liberate the commune of Commes as British forces moved from Gold Beach towards Port-en-Bessin, where they were to link up with American forces coming from Omaha Beach.
But on 6 June 1944, the British commandos of No. 47 Royal Marine Commando fell well behind schedule, mainly because of heavy German resistance in the area. It was not until the afternoon of 7 June that they reached Mont Cavalier (also known as the Butte d’Escure), a steep limestone spur overlooking the Aure valley and the communes of Commes and Port-en-Bessin. The Allies named this land movement ‘hill 72’ because of its map reference. The Germans of the 1st Company of Grenadier-Regiment 726 (716. Infantry-Division) withdrew to Port-en-Bessin, leaving only in Commes the ‘bell-ringers’ responsible for providing information on the Allied axes of advance.
The British were looking for favourable positions from which to observe the outskirts and centre of Port-en-Bessin, so they passed through Commes several times without settling there for long. At around 3pm on 7 June, the mayor of the village came to meet Captain Terence Cousins (he would be killed a few hours later in a heroic assault on the summit of Mount Cavalier): a wounded British pilot was being hidden by the villagers in one of the village houses and he asked for the airman to be evacuated by the British. Cousins immediately ordered commandos Greenough and Brown to transport the wounded man towards the Château du Bosq, escorted by Lance Corporal Thornton (medical auxiliary) and Corporal Terry. On the way, they came across eight Germans who immediately surrendered. The airman was then evacuated in an ambulance towards Longues-sur-Mer.
During the night of 7 to 8 June 1944, units from both sides infiltrated, taking advantage of the wooded areas on the outskirts of Commes. Nearly three hundred German prisoners were guarded in the area after being dislodged by Captain Cousins. In the early hours of 8 June, a large number of mortar shells fell on the outskirts of the commune, most of them fired by the Germans who had set up camp to the west of Port-en-Bessin. A British tank was destroyed by one of these shells to the west of the village, killing all occupants. After seizing the heights to the west of Port-en-Bessin, the mortar fire gradually ceased: the British had definitively taken control of Commes.
At midday on 9 June, the village of Commes was used as a rear base by the 17 officers and 259 surviving commandos of No. 47 Royal Marine Commando: the unit had suffered 46 killed and 70 wounded between 6 and 9 June 1944.
Map of Commes :
