A personal account of a WD flail in Normandy & an upcoming exhibition
I am writing on behalf of Mr. Mikael Berthaud, a Warrant Officer in the French National Gendarmerie in Normandy. He reached out about his grandfathers experience of a WD flail in his village and subsequent exhibition he's setting up.
Mikael grew up with his grandparents in the village of Asnelles, their house in located in Le Hamel. His grandfathers recollections and diary talks about June 6th 1944 whereby a Sherman Crab Flail 'No.44' was destroyed in front of their house by a few German soldiers.
"I go out with my nephew and we see tank no. 44, which was behind the house, on the other side facing German post no. 38. We see three Germans going towards the minefield to hide in the individual holes. The tank goes up the field alongside the house and the garden to reach the "chemin des Magasins" towards the road to St Côme, following the minefield, stopping every twenty meters. About 30 m from the garden, his anti-mine roller gets caught in the minefield fence, which jams his anti-mine roller. He continues his journey over open ground. At 08.40 AM, 50 meters from German post No. 38, on the border of St Côme de Fresné and Asnelles sur mer, the tank stopped just in front of the holes where the three Germans had hidden and which it hadn't seen. Taking advantage of this stop, the Germans placed an anti-tank disc under the driving track, when the tank started again the disc burst and smoke came out of the tank; the Germans want to fall back and throw their grenades towards the turret of the machine which was open; at this moment the crew of the tank came out, the first was in his underwear and certainly seriously injured because he fell over the edge, the four occupants quickly took the direction of St Côme while inside, the ammunition exploded. Five minutes after the extermination of the tank, the English planes swooped down to machine-gun the Germans who were heading towards post no. 38, then several English bombers launched their bombs on the blockhouse which was about two hundred meters from our shelter, which forces us to return to our shelter to wait for the bombardment to end, marine shells surround our shelter and one of them falls less than two meters away."
He believes the tank was commanded by Sgt Lindsay as B Sqn was supporting the 1st Hampshire of the 231st brigade as they attempted to liberate Le Hamel-West and open the road to Arromanches. This is according to the book "The Story of 79th Armoured Division".
Exhibition
Mikael is preparing an exhibition on the story of his grandfather at the D-Day Museum in Arromanches for the 80th anniversary of June 6, 1944. Several Westminster Dragoons objects from his collection will be exhibited there and will be available to visit from mid-march 2024 until 31st December 2024. Attached is an image of the Crab wreckage.
If anyone has any information that could support or shed more light on this story then please comment below. !
Reading 'The Westminster Dragoons in North West Europe', it mentions Sgt Lindsays tank brewing up in vicinity of Le Hamel, however this was to an 88mm: "Sgt Lindsay reached the lateral road and turned right to report to the H. Q. of the Hamps which should have been in LE HAMEL. The infantry were having a bad time on the beach and held up by determined fire from this village. Capt Taylor tried to contact Sgt Lindsay by wireless to tell him that LE HAMEL was still held by the enemy. The wireless had been thrown off net when the tank struck the mine. The last seen of Sgt Lindsay that day was the solitary tank gathering speed as it charged towards the village held by two platoons of infantry. Sgt Lindsay on entering the village proceeded calmly to the Rendezvous where he should , have joined up with the infantry. As of course no infantry were about he proceeded to his second task, clearing the road leading from the western end of the village. This was blocked by steel rails planted in the road and Sgt Lindsay was unable to carry out this task. He could not get off the road inland owing to the Anti-Tank ditch and turning the tank round rattled back into the village to find a crossing of the ditch elsewhere. He managed to do this and began his third task of flailing a lane through a minefield lying beyond the ditch. The tank had just started its slow flog forward when it received two hits from an 88 mih on the cliffs at ARROMANCHES. On the second hit the tank brewed up. During the whole of this time the tank was of course alone in this enemy held village and accounted for a number of their infantry with its guns, baling out of the burning tank, and suffering from hums, the crew split into two and endeavoured to evade detection by crawling into a cornfield nearby." This could be the same tank.