NOTE 2: Copp, p.67: "'Spring' was supposed to involve four divisions but most of the troops were assigned to the later phases. The night attack involved just three battalions, each committing between 300 and 350 men to the assault. This meant that 272nd Division and the Panzer battle groups, who were well dug-in with carefully prepared interlocking fields of fire, outnumbered the attackers by a considerable margin. The Corps Commander counted on darkness and the artillery to overcome these odds and get his troops forward."
ATTACK - Copp, p.80: "Captain John Taylor described the advance in a letter to his father dated August 15, 1944: 'To begin with I might say that you never need be ashamed of having belonged to the Black Watch. We started across country at 0900 hours. By then the Jerries were thoroughly awake as to what was going on and from the start we had trouble from very heavy machine-gunning from the flanks, mortars and artillery fire. The troops were steady as a rock and we kept going. I was the left forward company and on my right was B company, then commanded by Sergeant Foam, all the officers having been knocked out. We overran two strong points, then I got hit so I can't be accurate as to the rest of the story but I understand they got their objective.'"
NOTE 3: Copp, pp.80-82: "The Black Watch suffered 307 casualties on July 25th. Five officers and 118 other ranks were killed or died of wounds, 101 were wounded and of the 83 taken prisoner, 21 were wounded. As the official historian has noted, 'Except for the Dieppe operation there is no other instance in the Second World War when a Canadian battalion had so many casualties in a single day.'"
GRIFFIN: After the battle Major Griffin's body was found laying with those of the men who had followed him.
