Operation Jupiter (1944)

Operation Jupiter
Part of the Battle for Caen
Memorial to the 43rd (Wessex) Division on Hill 112.
Date 10–11 July 1944 Location West of Caen, Normandy, France 49°7′25″N 0°27′36″W / 49.12361°N 0.46000°W / 49.12361; -0.46000 Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Richard O'Connor	Wilhelm Bittrich
Units involved
VIII Corps 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division 4th Armoured Brigade	II SS Panzer Corps 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion
Casualties and losses
c. 2,000 casualties (43rd Division only) 58 tanks[1]

Operation Jupiter was an offensive by VIII Corps of the British Second Army from 10 to 11 July 1944. The operation took place during the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. The objective of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division (Major-General Ivor Thomas) was to capture the villages of Baron-sur-Odon, Fontaine-Étoupefour, Château de Fontaine-Étoupefour and to recapture Hill 112. An attached brigade of the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division would take Éterville, Maltot and the ground up to the River Orne and then the tanks of the 4th Armoured Brigade, supported by infantry, would advance through the captured ground and secure several villages to the west of the River Orne. It was hoped that the initial objectives could be captured by 9:00 a.m., after which the 4th Armoured Brigade would exploit the success.

The British advance went well at first but fighting for Hill 112 took all day and Maltot changed hands several times. On 11 July, counter-attacks by the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg and the schwere-SS Panzer Bataillon 102 (102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion) in the afternoon, forced the British off the top of Hill 112 to positions on the north-facing slope.^[2] The operation was a tactical failure for VIII Corps but a strategic success for the Allies, attrition having reduced the II SS Panzer Corps to a condition from which it never recovered. British operations of the Second Battle of the Odon conducted in the Odon valley continued in July and the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division occupied Hill 112 almost unopposed on 4 August, after the Germans withdrew during Operation Cobra and Operation Bluecoat further west. A stone memorial to the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division was built on the hill in the late 1940s.