command decisions of the Canadians in the Normandy campaign. Relations between Simonds and Crerar, were very poor as Crerar had attempted to sack Simonds as commander of the 5th Canadian Division in December 1943. However, Simonds was a favorite of Bernard Law Montgomery, who viewed Simonds as the most talented Canadian general in the entire war, and Montgomery blocked Crerar's attempts to send Simonds back to Canada. Once II Corps was activated, Simonds would direct four major attacks during the Battle of Normandy in five weeks: Operations Atlantic (the Canadian part of Operation Goodwood), Spring, Totalize and Tractable. After Operation Spring, Simonds tried to sack Foulkes as commander of 2nd Canadian Division, writing that Foulkes "did not [show] the right qualities to command 2nd Division", but was blocked by Crerar, who kept Foulkes on to nettle Simonds. Simonds has often been criticized for his reliance on heavy bombers to "blast" open a way for Operation Totalize, but the Canadian historian Jody Perrun argued that the marked inferiority of the Sherman tanks to the Panther and Tiger tanks of the Germans meant that Simonds had no other choice, but to use air power to even the odds given that both the Panthers and Tigers had more powerful guns and heavier armor than the Shermans. Perrun has charged too many historians have taken at face value the disparaging remarks about Simonds's command by SS-Brigadeführer Kurt "Panzer" Meyer, the commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, who spoke as if the Sherman tanks were the equal of the Tiger and Panther tanks, and charged that the Canadians were insufficiently aggressive in armored operations and too reliant upon air support. A principal problem for Simonds was that his tank crews were loath to face the Panthers and Tigers on open ground given their guns could not knock either type of tank except at very close range while the guns of the Panthers and Tigers could knock a Sherman at long range. Perrun argued that Meyer's claims that Simonds lacked aggression failed to take into account the weaknesses of the Sherman tanks, and Simonds designed his operations with the aim of counter-acting the flaws of the Shermans by providing for air and artillery support to even the odds. For Totalize (beginning August 7, 1944), which involved a night attack, numerous navigation aids were devised, along with heavy bomber support. Having learned from Operation Spring,