Operation Windsor was a Canadian offensive launched as part of the Battle of Normandy during the Second World War. Taking place on 4–5 July 1944, the attack was undertaken by the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division in an attempt to capture the Norman town of Carpiquet and the adjacent airfield from German forces. The attack was originally intended to take place during the later stages of Operation Epsom, as a means of protecting the eastern flank of the main assault. It was postponed and launched the following week.
On 4 July 1944, four battalions of the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division attacked Carpiquet in conjunction with flanking attacks by armoured regiments of the Canadian 2nd Armoured Brigade. Although the Canadian 8th Infantry Brigade succeeded in capturing Carpiquet by mid-afternoon, German resistance to the south prevented the airfield from being captured—despite significant Allied armour and air support. The following day, Canadian forces defeated German counterattacks and succeeded in holding Carpiquet in preparation for British attacks on Caen as part of Operation Charnwood.
Read more about Operation Windsor: Background, Aftermath, Notes
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“An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.”
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941)