Word: caen
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...Eisenhower's deputy for ground forces in the invasion was to be British, and Churchill had picked Montgomery for the post. As he briefed the distinguished gathering, Montgomery tramped across a huge relief map of Normandy spread across the floor. He said he intended to capture the city of Caen, eight miles from the beaches, on the first day. He might even get to Falaise, 32 miles inland. He would "crack about and force the battle to swing...
...Montgomery did not get his troops well inland; in most places they advanced only four to six miles along the 60-mile beachhead. He did not seize Caen the first day; in fact, he did not occupy the whole city until July 20, after it had been pounded to rubble by Allied bombing. As men and supplies poured across the Channel, Montgomery could not seem to push through the German armored divisions blocking the road to Paris. American troops farther west were fighting their way very slowly through farming country lined with dense hedgerows -- tall earth embankments complete with trees...
...much larger American forces. Eisenhower did not trust Montgomery to carry out the kind of swift, dashing warfare he was promising; the British general had shown no flair for it in his slow but successful tracking of Rommel across North Africa or his long pause in front of Caen. Nor could Eisenhower have shut down the hard-charging U.S. First and Third Armies to let the senior British general on the Continent claim sole credit for taking Berlin...
...landed at Juno Beach with Canada's Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders. Their mission was to race 10 miles to Caen's airport on fold-up bicycles. Darling caught three bullets in the abdomen before the Canadians reached their objective...
...major, commanding a battalion of the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy on D-day that fought in vain for six weeks to contain the British beachhead north of Caen...