Fire from the British lines ceased almost immediately as another 800mm shell landed some distance away, on the opposite side of Grosvenor’s pit, leaving a similar amount of death and devastation in its wake. Gustav was now targeting the southern sections of the defences, heading down toward the A20 and beyond, while Dora continued to walk its fire slowly northward. The excruciatingly long wait between each impact as the guns reloaded only served to increase the terror and tension, as the SS units on the far side of the field waited implacably for the bombardment to do its work.
It was a full thirty minutes before the barrage finally lifted, and the destruction it had wrought on the lines became more obvious as the thick clouds of black smoke and dust began to clear. Many of 7RTR’s Matildas to the north had been destroyed in their pits by the huge shells, blasted into oblivion or buried with their crews beneath tonnes of earth, and those few left in operable condition were confronted by the sight of a massed assault rumbling across the open field before them at high speed, two platoons of main battle tanks at its head as Schmidt and the rest of the 3rd SS wasted no time in calling the advance.
“Heavy tank… three hundred yards…!” Davids called instantly, picking out one of the leading Panthers.
“On target…!”
“Fire… hit… no damage!”
“Loaded…!”
“Fire… hit… no damage! Fuck…!” Both rounds had shattered uselessly on the advancing enemies’ glacis plate. As Thorne had already warned, their 2-pdr simply wasn’t powerful enough to have any effect, and Davids made his next decision in an instant. “Angus! Get us out of here! Full reverse… we’re heading for our fall back positions at Smeeth!” Grosvenor’s diesels were already idling, and plumes of exhaust billowed into the air as Connolly immediately threw the tank into reverse and powered backward out of the pit.
The Panther they’d fired on quickly picked out the sudden movement, and a huge cloud of flame burst from its muzzle as it fired on the retreating Matilda, the first shot missing by several metres and blowing a nearby tree to pieces at its base. Grosvenor’s crew were jarred savagely seconds later as the tank slammed its rear into another tree nearby and came to a sudden halt, Angus changed gears frantically and slewing the vehicle sideways as a second round also missed but nevertheless exploded much closer. Earth sprayed skyward from its tracks as Grosvenor turned on the spot, Angus finally finding some visibility in the right direction, and he picked out a clear path of retreat. The Matilda lurched forward once more after a moment’s pause, Davids taking the opportunity to fire one last shot of his own in their enemy’s direction before they were on the move again, lumbering off through the trees.
That last round again hit its target, this time low on one of the oncoming panzer’s tracks, and the two-pound slug of solid shot was easily powerful enough to at least shatter those tracks and damage the forward idler wheel on its left side. Already travelling at high speed, Panther-321’s driver had no time to react as the left track stripped from beneath its wheels and piled onto the grass behind. As the tank powered on, its bare road wheels bit into the earth and dragged the vehicle sharply the left, bringing it to a complete and sudden halt.
“Missed…!” Schmidt howled in adrenaline-laced anger as the unexpected movement threw out the aim of his third shot on the retreating Matilda. “Load wolfram…!”
“Wolfram loaded!” Loewe advised, his words accompanied by the reassuring rattle of the breech slamming home on a tungsten-cored, armour-piercing shell.
“Still tracking target…” Wisch reassured, also clearly annoyed by his own inability to hit the relatively slow-moving infantry tank. In deference to the Matilda’s superior frontal armour, they’d already wasted several of their precious, high-velocity tungsten rounds rather than the standard armour-piercing or HEAT rounds, but Panther-321 was now completely stationary, and that made targeting much easier. He could see the enemy tank clearly as it slowly threaded its way through the distant trees, and at a distance of just three hundred metres or so, he didn’t have to ‘lead’ it a great deal in his sights, as the flight time between the two vehicles would be just a fraction of a second.
“Fire…!” Schmidt snarled angrily, following the fleeing green tank through his own optics, and the immobilised Panther lurched as its 88mm gun fired again. “Hit…!” He crowed triumphantly a second later, and only then did Schmidt think to send a call through to one of their engineer recovery units at the rear of the advance. They continued to scan the battle area for more targets, providing covering fire as the rest of the advancing tanks and troops passed them by and eventually reached the shattered defensive line. Panther-321 could afford the luxury of waiting for help now, and with any luck, the damage to the panzer’s tracks would be minor and easily fixed to get them back into action.
In the years to come, Jimmy Davids would never be able to fully remember what had happened. His first recollection was of regaining consciousness after what must only have been seconds, vision blurred and blood streaming freely down the left side of his face from his head being slammed against the side of his own commander’s cupola. He struggled for a few moments, trying to stand upright before finally realising it wasn’t his balance that was the problem: instead, the whole tank was actually tilted and lying almost on its side
“Angus… Gerry…” he called out groggily, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. The tank was darker than it should’ve been, and he found that it was full of smoke, something that cleared his mind far more quickly and got him moving. He eventually managed to push his hatch open, the smoke clearing quickly into the open air, and although he was reassured there was no fire, the sight that met his eyes then made him wish he’d never opened them.
Gerry Gawler lay beside him and was rather obviously dead, the mass of blood and flesh stuck to the side of the 2-pdr’s breech evidence enough of what he’d smashed his skull against. His eyes were wide and lifeless, and the back of his head a strange, moist shape. Hodges was gone too, his body almost cut in half below the level of the turret ring, and Davids wasn’t sorry he couldn’t see anything below the man’s waist. One of the Matilda’s AEC diesels wasn’t in the hull behind them where it should’ve been — instead it’d been rammed forward into the crew space and had smashed through the rear of the turret basket, taking his loader’s lower half with it and pinning the man fatally against the main gun and the forward part of the turret ring. Davids couldn’t see what had happened below in the forward hull, or whether or not Angus was still there or even alive, but he could still hear explosions and gunfire raging nearby, and he knew he couldn’t stay in that dark, steel coffin any longer.
Pain seared across the side of his face and in both of his legs as he struggled to drag himself out through the turret hatch, but everything seemed to work for all that, leaving him to assume whatever injuries he’d suffered probably weren’t permanent or immediately life-threatening. None of that was helped of course by him falling from the tank’s turret roof and landing heavily on the ground beside it, at the same time discovering why he’d felt off-balance. Grosvenor had obviously been hit by an enemy tank gun, and the impact had been powerful enough to literally push the Matilda sideways into a long slit trench beside the shattered bulk of an abandoned 3.7-inch AA gun. The width of the trench had been sufficient to jam the left side of its body and tracks in the opening, which at least provided Davids with some shelter from small arms fire as the fighting continued to the north, although it seemed to be drawing closer.