German Armor in Normandy [1 ed.] 9781612006437, 9781612006444

Table of contents :
Cover
Book Title
Contents
Timeline of Events
The “1944-Type” Panzer Division
The Panzers in Normandy
The Panzers in the Battles of June and July
Goodwood and Cobra: The Panzers Face Their Destiny
Afterword
Further Reading
Index
Back Cover

Citation preview

GERMAN ARMOR IN NORMANDY

GERMAN ARMOR IN NORMANDY

YVES BUFFETAUT

CIS0006 Print Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-6437 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-6444 This book is published in cooperation with and under license from Sophia Histoire & Collections. Originally published in French as Militaria Hors-Serie No 53 (revised edition of No 1), © Histoire & Collections 2004 Typeset, design and additional material © Casemate Publishers 2018 Translation by Hannah McAdams Design by Paul Hewitt, Battlefield Design Color artwork by Jean Restayn Photo retouching and separations by Remy Spezzano Printed and bound by Megaprint Additional text by Chris Cocks CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US) Telephone (610) 853-9131 Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] www.casematepublishers.com CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK) Telephone (01865) 241249 Fax (01865) 794449 Email: [email protected] www.casematepublishers.co.uk Title page: Two Jagdpanzer IVs from the 116th Panzer Division moving toward the Normandy front. (Bundesarchiv) Contents page: The Wespe, a self-propelled 10.5cm gun mounted on the chassis of a Panzer II, was used by two batteries of the motorized and armored battalions in the panzer division. Each battery had six of these guns. (ECPAD) Contents page map: Allied bomber offensive and German dispositions, June 6, 1944. (Dept of History, U.S. Military Academy) Note: vehicle illustrations and profiles are not to scale.

Contents Timeline From theof Creation Events .............................................6 of the SS Deutschland to Fall WeissDivision ........................... ThRegiment e “1944-Type” Panzer ...................87 Campaigns and Yugoslavia ...........15 The Panzersin inFrance Normandy ..............................17 1941 –1942: Th Das ReichofDivision in the The Panzers inethe Battles June and Soviet Union ................................................23 July.................................................................70

Th e 1943 Russian Campaign: Kharkov, Goodwood and Cobra: The Panzers Face Kursk, the Mius ...........................................35 Their Destiny..............................................104

1944–1945: The Years of Defeat .....................47 Afterword .......................................................124 Further Reading .............................................125 Index ...............................................................126

German Armor in Normandy

Timeline of Events From the invasion of Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944, the battle for Normandy raged for ten weeks until the Falaise Pocket was closed late in August. With only one panzer division near the coast on D-Day, the Germans found themselves rushing their armored divisions into Normandy, often piecemeal, to plug the gaps, and conducting frantic counteroffensives, often localized, as they desperately attempted to roll the Allies back into the sea.

June 6, 1944: Operation Overlord. 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment clashes with British paratroopers east of the Orne.

June 8, 1944: Panzer Lehr Division arrives at the front but surrenders Bayeux to the Canadians.

June 12, 1944: Allied forces link up near Carentan, forming a 50-mile front, with 326,000 men and 54,000 vehicles on the beachhead.

June 29, 1944: 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen leads massive German counterattack.

June 28, 1944: British troops take Hill 112, near Caen, but halted by II SS Panzer Corps.

JUNE June 7, 1944: 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend counterattacks from Caen but fails to reach the coast.

JULY June 25, 1944: Montgomery launches Operation Epsom with British Second Army in Caumont sector, to pre-empt German offensive.

June 13, 1944: British XXX Corps drives wedge between Panzer Lehr and 2nd SS Panzer (Das Reich) divisions in attempt to encircle Caen. 7th Armoured Division vanguard stopped dead by Wittmann’s 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. German counterattack at Carentan repulsed.

6

June 30, 1944: 10th SS Panzer Division recaptures Hill 112, but all panzer divisions then decimated by RAF heavy bombers.

July 8, 1944: British Operation Charnwood opens, aiming to take Caen. Against orders, Meyer withdraws 12th SS Panzer Division, saving it from certain annihilation.

Timeline of Events A superb photograph of a Panzer IV from 2nd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment. As the numbers on the turret indicate, it is the fifth tank of 2nd platoon of the 6th Company. The architecture of the house in the background is typical of Flanders, and confirms the location of the scene, photographed in early 1944. The infantry hitching a ride are not Waffen-SS. (Bundesarchiv)

July 19, 1944: Hitler authorizes 116th Panzer Division to reinforce LSSAH and Hitlerjugend at Caen.

July 25, 1944: U.S. Operation Cobra is launched. Panzergrenadier Regiment “H” and Hohenstaufen push Canadians back at the Orne but falter.

July 20, 1944: Caen falls. 21st Panzer Division reduced to 1 battalion, 16th Luftwaffe Field Division totally annihilated. Assassination attempt on Hitler. July 18, 1944: U.S. XIX Corps captures Saint-Lô. 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen and Panzer Lehr in retreat. British Operation Goodwood against Caen is launched.

July 28, 1944: American troops capture Coutances. Elements of seven panzer divisions trapped in the Roncey Pocket.

August 6, 1944: Operation Lüttich, launched to cut off Patton’s Third Army. It fails.

AUGUST

July 31, 1944: British VIII Corps drives panzers south toward Falaise– Argentan. U.S. 4th Armored Division captures Avranches. Panzer Group West collapses.

August 12–21, 1944: Battle of the Falaise Pocket.

7

German Armor in Normandy

The “1944-Type” Panzer Division Throughout World War II, the belligerents continuously modified the composition of their armored units, and, as a general rule, with tanks becoming more powerful, fewer troops were needed. Germany was no exception—in fact, panzers, by necessity, were at the forefront of design and modification—and the 1944 panzer division bore only a passing resemblance to its predecessors in Poland, during Barbarossa and in North Africa.

The Panzer Regiment The first changes took place before the 1940 invasion of France, when light divisions were “transformed” into armored divisions. The new units created were little more than tank regiments, except each regiment comprised three battalions, in place of the old structure of The Panther was usually the basic tank in the panzer regiment’s first battalion, though there were exceptions. (Bundesarchiv)

8

The “1944-Type” Panzer Division

Das Reich Panzer IVs in Normandy. The lead tank carries two supplementary fuel drums, in the Russian style. These were removed during operations. (Bundesarchiv)

two regiments with two battalions apiece. At the time of the invasion of France, therefore, there were two types of panzer divisions in action. During the preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the pre-1940 divisions were brought into line with the newer type, the second regiment in each instance serving as a base upon which to build a new panzer division. This is why, for example, the 4th Panzer Regiment was hived off from the 2nd Panzer Division on September 28, 1940, to form the nucleus of the 13th Panzer Division, training in Austria. The three tank battalions each had three companies. From the end of 1941, as many Panzer I and IIs as possible were replaced, the typical battalion composition thus became one company of 22 Panzer IVs and two companies of 22 Panzer IIIs. By the end of 1942, with increasing losses and the arrival of more up-to-date matériel, the structure of the panzer regiment changed once again. The 1943 panzer regiment had one battalion fewer, but the two that remained increased from three to four 22-tank companies. The next year, the companies were reduced to 17 tanks. In general—though, as we will see, this is somewhat arbitrary—the first battalion had four companies of Panthers, and the second battalion four companies of Panzer IVs, with a service company per battalion. At the head of each battalion was a headquarters company, composed in 1944 of two Panthers (first battalion) and three Panzer IVs (second battalion), as well as three Flak vehicles and five SdKfz 251 half-tracks.

9

German Armor in Normandy

Finally, the regimental HQ company usually consisted of five Panzer IVs, three Panthers and eight 3.7cm self-propelled Flak guns. The 1944 panzer regiment therefore comprised 160 tanks, 60 tracked vehicles, nearly 200 trucks, 70 cars, 60 motorcycles and 1,934 men. These figures are, however, purely theoretical; as can be seen in the photographs throughout this book, the panzer regiments used French, Italian and Russian matériel as well, of course, as German.

The Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion The panzer reconnaissance battalion, an armored sub-unit of the panzer division, was also subjected to huge variations between 1939 and 1945, one of which was the complete abandonment of the motorcycle companies. In 1944, a panzer reconnaissance battalion comprised: • Headquarters company: six platoons of three eight-wheeler armored cars (or sometimes the four-wheeled SdKfz 222), one close-support platoon (with three SdKfz 233s armed with 7.5cm short guns) and often an antitank platoon of three SdKfz 234/2s or 234/4s This SdKfz 250 is from the 12th SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, Hitlerjugend Division, as indicated by the insignia on its bonnet. (ECPAD)

10

The “1944-Type” Panzer Division

• Armored reconnaissance company: eight platoons of three SdKfz 250s (reconnaissance half-tracks) • Reconnaissance company: three platoons of three sections equipped with two SdKfz 250/1s and a heavy platoon with two sections: one with one 250/1 and two 250/8s (7.5cm short guns), the other with one SdKfz 250/1 and two 250/7s (8cm mortars) • Reconnaissance company: idem • Heavy panzer reconnaissance company: seven SdKfz 251/5s, six SdKfz 251/9s (7.5cm short howitzers) and six 251/2s (8cm mortars). In practice, all varieties of SdKfz 250 were also used in place of the SdKfz 251s • Logistics company

The tank destroyer units were not composed solely of self-propelled guns; they also employed Pak guns such as these which are being towed by RSOs (Raupenschlepper Ost, a fully tracked, lightweight vehicle). (Bundesarchiv)

11

German Armor in Normandy

SdKfz 251s from the 2nd Panzer Division. The foliage used for camouflage is tidily done, essential for daytime movement due to Allied air superiority. (ECPAD)

The Tank Destroyer Battalion The composition of a tank destroyer battalion was as follows: three or four companies, the first two comprising 14 Jagdpanzers, Hetzers or Jagdpanthers, and the third, 12 towed 7.5cm Pak 40s. In some cases, a fourth company of varied composition was also present. Note, however, that Hetzers were not used in the battle of Normandy.

The Panzergrenadier Brigade The panzergrenadier brigade was composed of two regiments of two battalions (three in the Waffen-SS units and certain elite Wehrmacht units). These battalions were four companies strong. In the best-case scenario, a battalion would be equipped entirely with SdKfz 251 halftracks, but in practice this was rare. Within the 9th SS Panzer Division, for example, of six battalions, only one was equipped with the SdKfz 251, the 2nd Battalion of the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment. The first three companies of the 1st Battalion comprised four heavy machine guns, 29 light machine guns, two 8cm mortars, two 7.5cm howitzers and two 2cm Flak guns. The fourth company was less endowed in terms of machine guns (six in total) but had four heavy 12cm mortars and six 7.5cm howitzers.

12

The “1944-Type” Panzer Division

In the second battalion, the first three companies had four heavy machine guns, 18 light machine guns and two 80mm mortars, while the fourth had six 20mm Flak guns, four heavy 12mm mortars and two light machine guns. As well as the eight panzergrenadier companies, a ninth had six 150mm self-propelled guns (SdKfz 138/1 Hummel). Finally, the 10th Pioneer Company (engineers) had on paper 24 flamethrowers, 30 heavy and light machine guns, and two 80mm mortars.

The Artillery Regiment Theoretically, the panzer artillery regiment was composed of one HQ Battery, without artillery; three battalions of which one was composed of two batteries with six Wespe 10.5cm guns and one with 15cm Hummels; one battalion composed of two batteries, each with six 10.5cm towed guns; one battalion composed of two batteries, each with six 15cm towed guns and one battalion composed of two batteries, and one battery with six 10cm (sometimes 15cm) towed guns. Some units also contained a battery of six 15cm Nebelwerfers. Each armored division had one Flak battalion of three batteries, armed with guns of varying calibers: 88mm, 37mm and 20mm. Seen here is the formidable Flakvierling, a carriage-mounted quadruple 20mm. (Bundesarchiv)

13

German Armor in Normandy

In Profile:

A Panzer Division in 1944 XX

Panzer Division III

II

III

II

III

II III

Pz. gren regt

T/destroyer regt

Pz. regt

Recon bn

Arty regt

II

Pioneer bn

Flak bn

*Pz.gren regt

Stab

14 x T/ destroyers

II STAB

V

12 x 75mm

II

Co. armored cars

Heavy Command co. co.

Recon co.

Combat co.

Armored Pontoon co builders

II.

I.

IV

V

2 x Panther 17 x Panther

IV II

3 x Panzer IV 17 x Panzer IV

II

(W-SS)

II

II I.

6 x 88mm, 6 x 20mm 3 x 20mm quadruple

II II.

II 9th co. 10th co. (arty) (engineers) Mot. infantry Mot. infantry co. co.

6x Hummel

6 x Wespe (105mm)

6 x 105mm

4 x 150mm

4 x 100mm

KEY XX Division III Regiment II Battalion Company or battery

* 1 motorized regiment 1 motorized and armored regiment In the panzer divisions of the Waffen-SS, the panzegrenadier regiments had three battalions instead of two. NB. The numbers shown refer to units per “box” (e.g. a tank battalion 4 x 17 tanks).

14

The “1944-Type” Panzer Division

Panzergrenadiers perched on a Panther during action in the Lorraine region, September 1944. They are armed with Panzerfausts, which were extremely effective in the Normandy bocage. A panzergrenadier brigade comprised two regiments of two battalions each (or three in the case of the Waffen-SS and some elite Wehrmacht divisions). (Bundesarchiv)

15

German Armor in Normandy

The Flak Battalion Sources differ considerably with regards to the composition of the antiaircraft artillery (AAA or Flak) battalion. Some authors, such as Bruce Quarrie, write of five batteries, others, like Jean-Paul Pallud, of three, and others still, like Herbert Fürbringer, of four. It is certain that at least two batteries—three in the case of the 9th SS Panzer Division—were equipped with six 8.8cm guns, one or two other batteries being armed with nine 3.7cm guns and either three towed quadruple 2cm guns or 12 3.7cm guns.

The Pioneer Battalion The engineers’ battalion is the last of the important fighting units within the panzer division. It had three combat companies (of which one was in SdKfz 251s) and one column of pontoon builders, equipped with Brückengerät Ks.

Other Units The panzer signals battalion was composed of one radio company, one telephone company and one service column. The five companies of the divisional train employed nearly 250 trucks, with a total capacity of 600 tonnes. Motor Maintenance was responsible for repairs. Their three companies with 60 trucks were essential for tank maintenance, especially since the Panthers proved fragile. The Replacement Battalion was responsible for taking fresh troops in hand and providing them with the necessary instruction. It was not a fighting unit, but for training purposes it had use of a 7.5cm Pak 40 gun, a 10.5cm gun, a 2cm Flak gun and diverse heavy infantry weaponry (mortars, machine guns, etc.). A brief mention must also be made of the postal unit, with its two trucks and single car, as well as the services battalion (catering etc.). Last but not least is the medical unit, with its two motorized companies and an automobile company. In all, it had over 100 vehicles, 45 of which were ambulances. The total strength of the theoretical type-’44 panzer division was therefore 14,000 men (including 480 officers), around 160 tanks, 28 tank destroyers, 30 self-propelled guns, nearly 300 armored half-tracks (mostly SdKfz 251s), 20 self-propelled Flak guns, 16 eightwheelers, and over 2,000 trucks and cars (two-thirds were trucks). In the field, reality was often very different, especially in Normandy. Finally, the SS divisions generally boasted a larger complement of troops, particularly panzergrenadiers.

16

The Panzers in Normandy

The Panzers in Normandy During the campaign in France of May/June 1940, the Germans had attacked with ten armored divisions and were victorious within six weeks. Coincidentally, ten armored divisions tried to repel the Allied invasion between June and August 1944 and were defeated within ten weeks. There the parallel ends. Indeed, in the two campaigns almost everything differed, starting with the composition of the armored divisions. The previous chapter outlined the theoretical composition of a model panzer division; this chapter will examine the reality of each panzer division engaged on the Normandy front, showing its exact composition at the time of the battle, including how many tanks were available to each. Rather than concentrating on combat, a brief history of each division focuses instead on the evolution of the unit in terms of its forces, its organization and its armor. The sequence of the divisions presented corresponds to the order of their engagement on the Normandy front. The heavy Tiger battalions are dealt with separately at the end of the chapter, as is the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen. A company of the 2nd Battalion, 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment, equipped with type-A Panthers, regroups, early June 1944. This photograph was surely taken before the landings as the tanks here would have been a prime target for Allied aircraft, and none of the men is looking skyward with any kind of concern. Moreover, the tanks are brand new, with complete schürzens. (Bundesarchiv)

17

German Armor in Normandy

The choice of photographs has been influenced by the following considerations: first, to showcase the matériel allocated to each division; second, to showcase such matériel in context in Normandy, or at least in France; and third, to showcase such matériel at the appropriate moment in time, i.e. on the eve of the Allied landings. For this reason, many photos taken after the battle have been deliberately excluded.

21st Panzer Division The 21st Panzer Division made a name for itself with the Afrika Korps in 1941/42. Surrounded in the Tunis Pocket alongside the 10th and 15th Panzer Divisions, it surrendered on May 12, 1943. Some months later, the division was recreated in France, out of the Schnelle Brigade 931 (or West), but it was a pale imitation of the old division that surrendered in Tunisia. The matériel, mostly French, was disparate in the extreme, allowing for many different interpretations of the allocation of equipment in its composite elements. It was the only division present on the front on the day of the landings.

A Somua S35 from either the 22nd or 100th Panzer Regiment: the name change occurred late, in May 1944. By June 6, 1944, the 21st Panzer Division had at least 23 of these tanks in its 2nd Panzer Battalion. The camouflage on this Somua is unusual, with clearly defined spots that stand out against its yellow background. (Bundesarchiv)

18

The Panzers in Normandy

Rommel in discussion with Lieutenant-General Edgar Feuchtinger, commander of the 21st Panzer Division, a few weeks before the landings. To Rommel’s right, slightly back, is Major Becker who is uninvolved in the discussion. Becker was the man behind hundreds of modifications to French tanks and armored vehicles that gave a new lease of life to otherwise obsolete matériel. (Bundesarchiv)

Creation and Evolution The new 21st Panzer Division was officially created on July 15, 1943. Schnelle Brigade 931/ West formed the core, comprising the 931st Panzergrenadier Regiment, two motorcycle companies and the armored artillery regiment of Colonel Feuchtinger, the future commander of the division. The 100th Panzer Regiment replaced the 5th Panzer Regiment that had been lost in Tunisia. Veterans of the North Africa campaign made up some of the manpower— only about 700 men had slipped the Allied net in Tunisia—with the rest comprising soldiers who had been sick or wounded at the time. Divisional staff came mostly from the HQ of Artillery Brigade West (931) and the 10th Panzer Brigade. It was therefore only natural that Feuchtinger be appointed commander of the division. The 433rd Panzergrenadier Regiment furnished the three battalions for the 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment. The second panzergrenadier regiment, the 192nd, was formed from elements of the 931st Panzergrenadier Regiment and diverse units from Oberbefehlshaber West (OB West or the German Army Command in the West).

19

German Armor in Normandy

In addition to artillery, a number of panzer artillery regiments possessed one or more batteries of self-propelled rocket launchers. This one, belonging to the 21st Panzer Division, was mounted onto a French Somua half-track chassis. This German copy of the famous “Stalin’s Organ” carried 24 ramps. (Bundesarchiv)

The reconnaissance unit, the 21st Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, received two motorcycle companies from 931st Brigade, before being reinforced toward the end of 1943 by the bulk of the motorized Panzer Lehr Reconnaissance Battalion. The 100th Panzer Regiment had been formed before the creation of the division, in January 1943, from the 81st and 82nd armored companies of the 223rd Panzer Battalion, Panzer Company “Paris” and companies of the 100th Panzer Replacement Battalion. Initially, all the regiment’s tanks were French, predominantly Hotchkiss H39s and Somuas that were totally outdated. Modernization was to begin in early 1944. In May 1944, the 100th Panzer Regiment became the 22nd Panzer Regiment.

Composition at June 6, 1944 On June 6, the 22nd Panzer Regiment was right in the middle of a refit, with between 110 and 121 available tanks, less than its usual complement. The HQ Company had five Panzer IV Hs and various command vehicles. The 1st Battalion’s four companies had their full complement of 17 Panzer IV Hs or Js. The 2nd Battalion had no Panthers, having been replaced in part by the Panzer IV Hs, five each in the 5th, 6th and 7th Companies.

20

The Panzers in Normandy

9th Company was the worst off, with six Panzer IV Bs or Cs (short gun). Between 32 and 35 Somua S35s made up the last four companies; not forgetting the presence of the 315th Funklenk Panzer Company, equipped with 10 StuG IIS and corresponding remotely operated explosive tracked devices. Antiaircraft defense comprised 12 self-propelled Flakpanzer 38s. According to Didier Lodieu, the composition of the 22nd Panzer Regiment on the eve of Operation Overlord was HQ Company (three Panzer IIIs, a command Panzer III and a platoon of Panzer IVs), 1st Battalion (17 Panzer IVs each in 1st, 2nd and 4th Companies and 13 in 3rd Company) and 2nd Battalion (22 Panzer IVs and 35 Somuas). The 200th Assault Gun Battalion was composed, according to Rolf Stoves, of five batteries equipped with six Pak 40s on Hotchkiss or Somua chassis and four 10.5cm howitzers on Lorraine chassis. According to other sources, there were only four batteries. As for the 10.5cm guns, it has been established that at least 12 of them were mounted on Hotchkiss H39 chassis. The composition of the Panzer Artillery Regiment, however, is somewhat more certain: • 1st Battalion: two batteries of four 12.2cm towed Yugoslav guns • 2nd Battalion: three batteries of six 10.5cm leFH 18/40s (light howitzers) on selfpropelled Geschützwagen 38H (f)s • 3rd Battalion: idem • 10th Rocket Battery: four batteries of multiple rocket launchers (“Stalin’s Organs”), each with 24 ramps, on modified French chassis. There is some uncertainty over the caliber of these guns: 2.1cm according to some, 8cm according to others, though admittedly it seems unlikely that a 2.1cm battery could support 24 ramps. • The 200th Tank Destroyer Battalion was unarmored, with three companies of eight 8.8cm towed guns, which gave it formidable firepower but little mobility.

XX 21st Panzer Division III

22nd Pz. Regt

II

200th T/Destroyer Bn

III

155th Pz. Arty Regt

II

21st Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

192nd Pz.gren Regt

125th Pz.gren Regt

II

200th Pioneer Bn

305th Flak Bn

200th A/Gun Bn

21

German Armor in Normandy

In Profile:

Somua and Flakpanzers A Somua S35 tank from the 1st Battalion, 22nd Panzer Regiment 21st Panzer Division.

A Flakpanzer 38 (t) from the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, armed with a 2cm gun.

A Flakpanzer IV Möbelwagen (lit. “box” wagon) armed with a 3.7cm gun.

22

The Panzers in Normandy

The images on this page and overleaf were taken at Saumont-Saint-Quentin, near Potigny, around ten kilometers north of Falaise. The two tanks are A-type Panthers from the 12th SS Panzer Regiment. The tank above is pictured in front of a farm belonging to M. Fernand Lefèvre, which marked the entrance to the village but which no longer exists. Each of the seven white rings near the muzzle of the gun represent a kill. The tank opposite in front of the church at Saumont-Saint-Quentin is a command tank, equipped with an umbrella antenna as well as the usual FuG 5 radio antenna. These two photographs were taken in the afternoon of August 14, 1944. For a more in-depth analysis of these two shots, see Jean-Luc Leleu’s Falaise (Editions Ysec). (ECPAD)

12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend Like the 21st Panzer Division, the Hitlerjugend Division was formed, during the summer of 1943, in Western Europe. It was also in Normandy at the time of the landings, and intervened on June 7. But that’s where the similarity ended: the 12th SS Panzer Division was an elite unit, certainly not a term that could be ascribed to the 21st Panzer Division (new).

Creation and Evolution At the outset, the Hitlerjugend Division was intended as a panzergrenadier division, like all the other Waffen-SS units at the time. The core of the division was formed from the ranks of the 1st SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), which

23

became an armored division in October 1943. It is interesting to note that not all officers were Waffen-SS but included veterans from the Wehrmacht and even the Luftwaffe. As for the soldiers, they were mostly young recruits born in 1926/27, therefore only 17 or 18 in 1944. It was on October 21, 1943 that the division was officially created as a panzer division, in the Turnhout area in Belgium. The 12th SS Panzer Regiment was created from the first battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment LSSAH during the summer of 1943. The Panther battalion was created in early 1944, at Mailly-le-Camp, with help from the 10th Panzer Brigade. The reconnaissance battalion was formed in September 1943 at Turnhout. At the same time, the 12th SS Panzer Artillery Regiment was created at Mol, in Belgium, with three battalions, including a heavy battalion that came directly out of the 1st SS Artillery School. The first 18 selfpropelled guns, Hummels and Wespes, arrived in Mourmelon in January 1944. The division also boasted a complete battalion of Nebelwerfers, with a strength of four motorized batteries.

Composition at June 6, 1944 The 12th SS Panzer Regiment had the normal allocation of matériel, with a battalion of Panthers and a battalion of Panzer IV Hs or Js. That said, in the detail, strength did not exactly match our theoretical model. Thus, in the 1st Battalion, the 1st and 2nd Companies had the standard allocation of 17 Panthers each, but the 3rd only had ten, and the 4th none at all, existing only on paper. In the 2nd Battalion, however, the numbers of Panzer IVs were comparable to those of a type-1943 panzer division: 22 tanks per company. The division therefore had 91 Panzer IVs and 48 Panthers on June 6, 1944, according to Stoves. Jentz disagrees, and gives the following figures: 98 Panzer IVs (long gun), 66 Panthers, 12 Flakpanzer 38s plus 13 Panthers sent from the rear on June 7.

The Panzers in Normandy

The 12th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion (self-propelled) comprised four companies of tank destroyers, including at least two equipped with 14 Jagdpanzer IVs each. The 25th and 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiments had three battalions each, as did all the armored SS divisions. Note that these two regiments also had four supplementary companies—the 25th comprised the 13th with 28 7.5cm Pak 40 guns, the 14th with 34 2cm Flak guns, the 15th, reconnaissance, and finally the 16th, engineers—while the 3rd Battalion was armored, with 26 SdKfz 251 half-tracks. The reconnaissance unit was unusually provided with two panzer spähwagen (armored car) companies instead of one, and three panzer reconnaissance companies instead of two. The 1st Battalion of the 12th SS Panzer Artillery Regiment was armed with 18 selfpropelled Wespe and Hummel guns, which was not the case for the other two, which were equipped with towed guns. This did match the theoretical allocation for 1944. As noted above, divisional artillery was reinforced by four batteries of nebelwerfers on self-propelling chassis. In its early days, most of the division’s non-armored vehicles were Italian-made. These were supposed to be replaced with German vehicles in early 1944, but it is impossible to know whether the division was entirely equipped with German matériel at the time of the landings. It appears unlikely. A final note: photographs of the Normandy campaign show Hitlerjugend grenadiers wearing various camouflage garments locally made from Italian tent section canvas.

XX 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend III

12th SS Pz. Regt

III

II

12th SS T/ Destroyer Bn

12th SS Pz. Arty Regt

II

12th SS Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

25th Pz.gren Regt

26th Pz.gren Regt

II

12th SS Pz. Pioneer Bn

12th SS Flak Bn

12th SS Rocket Bn

Panzer Lehr Division Like the previous two divisions, the Panzer Lehr was a newly formed unit. It was created on December 27, 1943, in the Verdun region, as well as Toul and Nancy. The origins of this division can be found in an older unit, the Panzer Lehr Regiment, formed in 1938. As its name indicates—lehr means “teach”—it was originally an instructional regiment for the armored arm. Of all the panzer units, the Panzer Lehr was arguably the most unorthodox, its composition at the end of 1940 being 1st Battalion (four companies of panzers), 2nd Battalion (four motorized infantry companies) and 3rd Battalion (four companies of tank destroyers).

25

German Armor in Normandy

In Profile:

Somua and Panzer IVs

Panzer IV H belonging to 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 130th Panzer Regiment, Panzer Lehr Division, with green camouflage on a sand base. The inset shows a detail from the mudguard, with the tactical insignia of the unit and the Panzer Lehr emblem. A Somua S35 from 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Panzer Regiment, 21st Panzer Division at the beginning of the Normandy campaign. The 2nd Battalion was supposed to be equipped with Panthers, but it only received a few and they were much delayed. Two companies were equipped with StuG III 40G self-propelled assault guns and the rest with Panzer IV Hs (see below).

A Panzer IV H from 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Panzer Regiment, 21st Panzer Division at Grandmesnil, near Caen, in mid-August 1944, with classic green-onsand camouflage painted on location, white stencilled numbers, and no German cross.

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The Panzers in Normandy

A broken-down Panzer IV from the 2nd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment being recovered by the British and evacuated to the rear. The numbers on the turret are the same style as those on the tank photographed in Flanders before the Normandy campaign. (IWM) A Panzer Lehr Panzer IV destroyed at Villers-Bocage on June 13, 1944, probably by British PIAT fire. (Bundesarchiv)

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A Panther from the 1st Battalion, 130th Panzer Regiment being helped by an s.Zgkw 18-ton type F3 Bergungsfahrzeug half-track. Another photograph from the same report shows that it took two of these vehicles (see photo on p.33) to move the tank. (Bundesarchiv)

Creation and Evolution Various elements of the regiment served on most fronts until the end of 1943. At that time, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, the German high command) decided to create a new armored division, with the troops and frameworks of the Bergen and Krampnitz Panzer Troop Schools (Panzertruppenschule I and II). Other units also contributed to the new division: part of the disbanded 137th Infantry Division and other units under OB West. The Panzer Lehr Regiment provided its staff and its first battalion (which became the second battalion of the new regiment) to form the core of the divisional tank regiment, the 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment. At this time, the division was based in Hungary, awaiting Operation Margarethe I, the formal occupation of this country. However, it did not participate in the operation, and returned to France in May 1944, in reserve for Army Group B. The Panzer Lehr was assigned to the Nogent-le-Rotrou region of Orléans, whence it left for the Normandy front on the evening of June 6.

Composition at June 6, 1944 Being an elite unit, the Panzer Lehr Division had access to more matériel than the other Wehrmacht divisions engaged in Normandy. As such it was the most powerful of all the Army divisions.

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The Panzers in Normandy

The 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment possessed two battalions but with an allocation closer to the 1943 standard than that of 1944. In the 1st Battalion, 1st and 2nd Companies had 20 Panthers instead of 17, while 3rd and 4th each had 19. In the 2nd Battalion, 5th and 6th Companies had 21 Panzer IV Hs or Js, while the 7th and 8th had 22. In total, with the HQ Companies, the division had 97 Panzer IVs, 86 Panthers, 7 StuGs and 8 Tigers on June 6. Jentz’s figures differ—organization tables differ according to where they were discovered: 101 Panzer IVs, 89 Panthers, 9 StuGs, 3 Tigers and 12 Flakpanzer 38s. The total number of remotely operated BIV tanks is unknown. Something that is less well known but nevertheless important is the presence of the 1st Battalion, 6th Panzer Regiment in the Panzer Lehr, from May to October 1944. It was equipped with Panthers and in fact belonged to the 3rd Panzer Division which was fighting on the Eastern Front. It would therefore be appropriate to add about 85 Panthers to the total. The StuGs and Tigers came from the 316th Funklenk Company, a unit of remotely operated BIV tanks, curious vehicles that carried a 450kg charge to their objectives before retreating— basically self-propelled demolition charges. In Normandy, in the purely defensive role of the Panzer Lehr, this type of vehicle was rarely used. As for the Tigers, they disappeared from July 1 on. The 901st and 902nd Panzergrenadier Regiments were fortunate, with four armored battalions and all equipped with SdKfz 251 half-tracks. In the 130th Lehr Tank Destroyer Battalion, all three companies were equipped with tank destroyers, which was also extremely unusual. The 130th Lehr Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion was of non-standard composition, with two armored car companies. The 130th Panzer Artillery Battalion boasted 15cm Hummel and 10.5cm Wespe self-propelled guns in its 2nd Battalion.

XX Panzer Lehr Division III

130th Pz. Lehr Regt

II

130th T/ Destroyer Bn

III

II

III

III

II

130th 130th Pz. Lehr Pz.Arty Regt Recon Bn

901st Lehr Pz.gren Regt

902nd Lehr Pz.gren Regt

130th Pz. Pioneer Bn

331st Pz. Flak Bn

1st Bn, 6th Pz. Lehr Regt

29

German Armor in Normandy

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The Panzers in Normandy

After Operation Cobra was unleashed, the Americans clashed with the 2nd Panzer Division in the Pontfarcy sector where several Panzer IVs were destroyed. This one is being examined by two G.I.s. (US National Archives)

31

Another 2nd Panzer Division Panzer IV destroyed in the ruins of Pontfarcy. This one belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Panzer Regiment that had started off with 21 Panzer IV Hs or Js per company. (DITE/USIS)

In Profile:

Panzergrenadiers

Panzergrenadier as a term was only adopted in 1942, introduced by Hitler to pay tribute to the Prussian grenadier regiments of Frederick the Great. In 1937, with the evolution of the panzer divisions, infantry in the tank divisions became known as schützen regiments, literally guarding or protection regiments, and, in some cases, developing into motorized infantry. Schützen regiments wore the same rose-pink piping on their uniforms as tank and anti-tank units—with an S cypher to distinguish them. Motorized infantry continued to wear the conventional white piping of the infantry. With Adolf Hitler’s 1942 decree, the panzergrenadier piping adopted was that of a meadow-green shade previously worn

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by motorcycle troops, though, to add to the confusion, many in the schützen regiments disregarded the new panzergrenadier piping and continued to wear the rose-pink until the end of the war. Although some panzergrenadier divisions were constituted from scratch, most evolved from original infantry units via motorized infantry before morphing into a full-fledged panzergrenadier unit. Some, however, grew exponentially from a single battalion or regiment, such as the Gross Deutschland that was continually being augmented with other sub-units. And then, taking it a stage further, several panzergrenadier divisions in both the Heer and Waffen-SS were upgraded to panzer-division status.

The Panzers in Normandy

The two Panzer Lehr recovery vehicles that were required to move the Panther. This photograph was taken in the La Manche department shortly before Operation Cobra. (Bundesarchiv)

2nd Panzer Division The 2nd Panzer Division was the oldest division engaged on the Normandy front. It was created under the command of Heinz Guderian himself, on October 15, 1935. Guderian established his HQ at Würzburg. The initial troops came from the Meiningen motorized infantry regiment, from the motorized Kraftfahr-Lehrkommando Ohrdruf, from the 12th Dresden Cavalry Regiment, and from a range of recruits from across southern Germany, such as the reservists of the motorized Bavarian police.

Creation The 3rd and 4th Panzer regiments were created out of 12th Dresden Cavalry Regiment and the Kraftfahr-Lehrkommandos of Zossen and Ohrdruf respectively. The 2nd Rifle Regiment came mostly from elements of the Meiningen Infantry Regiment. A motorcycle battalion was provided by the 2nd Battalion, 16th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Cavalry Division. Artillery came from the school of artillery in Ohrdruf. Other units joined the division: in 1936, the 20th Antitank Battalion and the 38 Naval Intelligence Battalion, followed by an engineers’ battalion in 1937. In March 1938, the division occupied Austria on the Anschluss and, by the autumn of that year, it was definitively established in the Vienna area. From that point onward, its recruits would be solely Austrian.

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German Armor in Normandy

In Profile:

Tiger Is

Tiger 312 belonged to the 3rd Company, 102nd SS Panzer Battalion.

Tiger 214.

Tiger 331 from the 3rd Company, 503rd Panzer Battalion, a unit that assisted the 21st Panzer Division on the right wing of the German front, against the British.

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The Panzers in Normandy

Evolution Like the first five armored divisions, the 2nd Panzer had two armored regiments of two battalions at the beginning of the war. It participated in the Polish campaign under Army Group South. In May 1940, within the Panzer Corps Guderian, it crossed the Semois, then the Meuse to the north of Sedan, before swooping on Saint-Quentin, Albert and Abbeville. It then returned to the coast and entered Boulogne-sur-Mer. In June, it penetrated the Weygand Line, took Châlons-sur-Marne, Vitry-le-François and continued its advance to Pontarlier and the Swiss frontier. On September 28, 1940, the 4th Panzer Regiment left the division to serve as the core of the 13th Panzer Division that was being formed. A new rifle regiment, the 304th, joined the 2nd Panzer Division at the same time. The artillery was considerably reinforced with the arrival of two new battalions. In April 1941, the division took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and fought the British and Greeks in the Lake Doiran sector, then against the Australians and New Zealanders near Mount Olympus. Kept in reserve at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the division spent July, August and September 1941 in the Niort-Bordeaux sector of France. It was at this time that the 2nd Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion was created from the 5th Motorized Reconnaissance Battalion and the 2nd Motorcycle Battalion. In October, the division was transferred to the Eastern Front, in time to participate in the battle of Moscow, arriving 25 kilometers northwest of the Soviet capital. It spent all of 1942 on the central sector of the Eastern Front and, in preparation for Operation Citadel (the battle of Kursk), it was issued new matériel. The 2nd Battalion and the regimental staff company of the 3rd Panzer Regiment received 95 Panzer IVs with lon-barreled guns. SdKfz 251s were delivered to the entire 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment and part of the 304th Rifle Battalion, the reconnaissance battalion and the engineers’ battalion. The artillery received 18 Wespes and Hummels. After the fighting at Orel, the division withdrew to Kiev and the Dnieper river. At the end of the year, it was deployed to the Arras–Cambrai sector in the west in January 1944, where, having been seriously depleted on the Eastern Front, the division received new matériel, notably Panthers.

XX 2nd Panzer Division III

3rd Pz. Regt

II

38th T/ Destroyer Bn

III

74th Pz. Arty Regt

II

2nd Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

II

2nd Pz.gren Regt

904th Pz.gren Regt

38th Pioneer Bn

273rd Flak Bn

Funklenk Pz. Bn

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German Armor in Normandy

Composition at June 6, 1944 The 1st Battalion, 3rd Panzer Regiment had received the normal allocation of 17 Panthers per company. The 2nd Battalion was slightly more powerful than usual, with 21 Panzer IV Hs or Js. In total, the division had 94 Panzer IVs (counting those in the HQ companies) and 67 Panthers, to which we can add 40 StuGs from the remotely operated-tank battalion. According to Lefèvre, there were four companies, each equipped with 10 StuG IIIs and 36 remotely operated BIV tanks, but Stoves insists a company of Goliaths was in the mix. Jentz gives the following figures: 98 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers and 12 Flakpanzer 38s. According to the same author, the division had only one Funklenk company, the 4th Company of the 301st Panzer Funklenk Battalion, with 10 StuG IIIs, only a quarter of the numbers quoted by Stoves and Lefèvre. Except for special matériel, the division had suffered a reduction in half-tracks from the previous year: only the 1st Battalion, 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment had any—the reconnaissance and engineering units. However, the artillery had received 18 new Wespes and Hummels.

2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich The Das Reich division was created in November 1942 in France out of a motorized SS infantry division. Originally formed as a panzergrenadier division, in October 1943 Das Reich was elevated to the superior status of a fully armored division.

Creation and Evolution The division has its origins in the SS Verfügungs Division (lit. “available” or “at disposal” division) that consolidated the militarized units of the SS. The “Deutschland” and “Der Führer” regiments fought in Poland, Holland, France and the Balkans, before moving to the Eastern Front, but it was in Normandy that the SS Panzergrenadier Division “Das Reich” was officially created, in November 1942. The 2nd SS Panzer Regiment Das Reich was formed in October 1942 from the core of the Panzer Battalion “Reich”, established in February of that year at Grafenwöhr and Wildflecken, and incorporating part of the 2nd SS Assault Gun Battalion. In the same way, this latter battalion had evolved from the growing “Reich” core of the division in autumn 1942. A year later, the battalion had three batteries. After its creation in France, in 1943 the division moved to the Eastern Front where it saw action at Kharkov, Belgorod and on the Donets. Next, it was defeat at Kursk, and the withdrawal to the Dnieper. Losses were so great that the division was withdrawn from the front to be reorganized in France. So, in May 1944, the division was once again in France, where it received the 1944 matériel allocation due a panzer division. The 2nd SS Panzer Regiment received Panthers, while various armored vehicles were delivered to the panzergrenadier units.

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The Panzers in Normandy

On June 9, the division was summoned to Normandy. The march to the front was slowed by French resistance, and several massacres were committed by the division in retaliation, notably at Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane. The division was finally concentrated south of Saint-Lô, on June 16/17. However, instead of being used whole, Das Reich fought as disparate elements in various sectors. Battered in the Roncey Pocket, it played a key role in the breakout at Chambois at the end of August 1944.

Composition at June 6, 1944 Contrary to popular belief, the 2nd SS Panzer Division did not have more men than the average division when it arrived in Normandy. On the contrary the tank regiments’ 2nd Battalion had only its 7th and 8th companies and no more than 44 Panzer IVs. The 1st Battalion was no better off, with only 25 Panthers and, it seems, 13 StuG IIIs to temporarily fill the gaps. The 1st Battalion, SS Panzer Artillery Regiment possessed 18 Hummels and Wespes to which a battery of Nebelwerfers can be added., as in the other three battalions. With four companies, the reconnaissance group was better equipped than the average. The division had a surfeit of SdKf 251s, as the entire 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was armored, as well as the Ist Battalion, 4th Regiment, and a company of engineers. The Flak Battalion had five batteries, of which three were “heavy,” equipped with 88mm guns. Finally, one might note the presence of three StuG III batteries, which apparently replaced the Panzerjägers of the 2nd SS Tank Destroyer Battalion. During the Normandy campaign, the two “missing” companies (the allocation shortfall) of Panzer IVs arrived on July 1, as well as some reinforcements in the way of Panthers, but of the theoretical allocation of 180 tanks for July 1, the Das Reich had only 76 (50 Panzer IVs and 26 Panthers). All the StuGs had been destroyed by then.

XX 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich III

2nd SS Pz. Regt

III

II

2nd SS T/ Destroyer Bn

2nd SS Pz. Arty Regt

II

2nd SS Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

II

3rd SS 4th SS Pz.gren Pz.gren Regt Regt “Der “Deutschland” Fuhrer”

2nd SS Pz. Pioneer Bn

2nd SS Flak Bn

2nd SS A/Gun Bn

37

German Armor in Normandy

A column of artillery from the 2nd SS Panzer Artillery Regiment, Das Reich Division destroyed in the Roncey sector, at the end of July 1944. A self-propelled 15cm Hummel can be seen, as can an SdKfz 251 D. The Das Reich division insignia is clearly visible on the latter, as it has been painted in bright yellow beneath the armored artillery tactical insignia. (US National Archives)

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The Panzers in Normandy

39

German Armor in Normandy

1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Like the other SS armored divisions, the Leibstandarte SS-Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) was a wellestablished unit that had been refitted in 1944 as a panzer division. It was first formed as a motorized brigade in 1940, then as a panzergrenadier division as of July 15, 1942, before finally becoming a panzer division on October 22, 1943.

Creation In April 1941, shortly before the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, the LSSAH Brigade was composed of three motorized infantry battalions, plus companies 13–18 (which included one company of engineers), two artillery battalions, one reconnaissance battalion, one motorized engineers’ battalion and one communications battalion. For the start of Operation Barbarossa, a fourth infantry battalion was added, as well as a heavy support battalion, plus the Schönberger Battalion (made up of one tank destroyer company and one assault gun company). Flak also joined the unit, with one battalion of three medium and light batteries and one heavy battery. The 1st SS Panzer Regiment appeared in October 1942, as did the 1st Assault Gun Battalion, three batteries strong. Finally, in April 1943, a set of Wespes and Hummels joined the 2nd Battalion, 1st Panzer Artillery Regiment.

An LSSAH Panther, just after its arrival in Normandy. “R02” indicates that the tank belongs to the deputy commander of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

In Profile:

Panzer IVs A Panzer IV H from the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. The tank is painted with a threecolor camouflage: green and red-brown on a sand base. The number on the turret is missing. This could be due to a lack of time, but tanks did bear fewer and fewer tactical symbols from the spring of 1944 onward, so it could equally be an intentional omission.

A Panzer IV H of the 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd SS Panzer Regiment, Das Reich in the Saint-Fromont– Saint-Lô sector in early July 1944. This tank also has a three-color camouflage.

A Panzer IV J from the 5th Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment, Hitlerjugend. This tank, the numbers of which have been painted on by hand for want of a stencil, is that of Technical Sergeant Willy Kretzschmer. Following mechanical problems, the tank was sabotaged by its crew on August 20, 1944, in the Falaise Pocket.

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German Armor in Normandy

A foliage-camouflaged StuG III moves up a road in plain sight. On the tank’s right mudguard, the LSSAH’s symbol—a key on an escutcheon—is just visible. The ambulance behind belongs to the Wehrmacht. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

43

An LSSAH Panther is deftly covered with branches to hide it from Allied aircraft. (Bundesarchiv)

Evolution In December 1941, the LSSAH (then just a single brigade) saw action near the Sea of Azov. In July, it left the Rostov-on-Don sector for France: at this point it was a panzergrenadier division. The LSSAH then received new matériel and new units, among which was the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. In February 1943, the division was urgently dispatched to the Voronezh sector, to combat the Soviet breakthrough there. In March, the LSSAH fought in the Kharkov area. Losses were heavy, and in May/June 1943, the division was refitted. The 2nd Battalion, 1st SS Panzer Regiment and the regimental staff received 100 Panzer IIIs and IVs (long gun). At the same time, the 1st Battalion left for Germany, where it was issued brand-new Panthers. In July, the division was launched into Operation Citadel in the Kursk salient. Then, in August, it was transported to northern Italy, to fight against the partisans. On November 7, 1943, the division returned to the Eastern Front, to the Brusilov sector, where it operated throughout the winter, and in May 1944, the LSSAH was transferred to Belgium.

Composition at July 1, 1944 The division was gradually engaged from July 1, 1944. In fact, it was only really involved in Operation Goodwood. By July 1, the division had still not completed its reorganization, the 1st SS Panzer Regiment was a long way from full strength: of the 182 tanks it should theoretically have had at its disposal, it had only 100. Some 16 Panthers in the 2nd Company, 11 in the 3rd and three in the command company brought the Panther total to 30. As for Panzer IVs, there were 19 in the 5th Company, 17 in the 6th, 21 in the 78th and three in the command company: 70 in total.

The Panzers in Normandy

The 2nd Battalion, 1st Panzer Artillery Regiment had received 18 new Hummels and Wespes, while a complete nebelwerfer battalion (of three batteries) had joined the division. The 1st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was armored in its entirety, equipped with SdKfz 251 half-tracks, as was the third company of the 2nd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment Like the Das Reich and the 21st Panzer Divisions, the LSSAH had both an assault gun battalion and a tank destroyer battalion.

XX 1st SS Panzer Division LSSAH III

1st SS Pz. Regt

II

1st SS T/ Destroyer Bn

III

1st SS Pz. Arty Regt

II

1st SS Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

II

1st SS Pz.gren 2nd SS Pz.gren 1st SS Regt Regt Pioneer Bn

1st SS Flak Bn

1st SS A/Gun Bn

9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen

Founded in January 1943 as a panzergrenadier division, the 9th SS Panzer Division, unlike most, did not have its origins in the Waffen-SS.

3rd Battery, 1st Battalion of the Hohenstaufen artillery regiment. These are Hummels, armed with long 15cm guns. This photograph is interesting as it also shows two Hummels without guns, in accordance with the theoretical allocation. The vehicle in the foreground is a Schwimmwagen. (Bundesarchiv)

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An Opel Blitz from the Hohenstaufen division during the battle of Normandy. This photograph was taken in the heat of battle. (ECPAD)

It was, in fact, an entirely new division, 70 percent formed of young recruits from the class of 1924–26.

Creation and Evolution Formed at Mailly-le-Camp, the division then received its communications/transmissions unit, the 9th SS Panzer Communications Battalion, which came from the Nuremberg Substitute Battalion. Next, it was the turn of the 9th SS Motorcycle Regiment, the 9th SS Assault Gun Battalion and the 9th Panzer Artillery. The 9th Panzer Battalion was also created in January 1943, at Bitche in Lorraine, with four tank companies. In October 1943, when the division became armored, this battalion seamlessly transformed into a regiment. Yet the terrible losses suffered on the Eastern Front meant that the regiment did not get its standard allocation of tanks. As a result, the assault gun battalion was disbanded and its StuGs used to replace the tanks in the 7th and 8th Companies, 2nd Battalion, 9th SS Panzer Regiment. As the division was brand new and its troops were mostly raw recruits, training took quite a long time. It wasn’t until March 27, 1943 that the division left for the front—Galicia, to be precise. Engaged on April 11 to clear the stronghold of Tarnopol, it suffered its first losses. On June 12, the Hohenstaufen received the order to leave for the Western Front and, on June 28, vanguard elements were engaged against the Allies. As far as strengths were concerned, the division never fulfilled the theoretical battle order. Even during the Galicia campaign, the 9th SS Panzer Regiment was generally understrength. Thus, on April 14, 1944, it only had 31 Panzer IVs and 27 StuGs in its inventory.

The Panzers in Normandy

Composition at July 1, 1944 The Panthers were delivered to the 9th SS Panzer Regiment in June 1944. On the evening of June 30, there were only 27 in the 1st Battalion. In terms of the Panzer IVs, which were usually supplied to two companies of the 2nd Battalion, the situation was much worse, with just nine available. Only the StuG IIIs were represented in half-decent numbers, with 22 of the theoretical 34 on the inventory. According to Fürbringer, the situation was even more dramatic for the SdKfz 251s: just six of the half-tracks were available, a mere 5 percent of the theoretical total. The 19th and 20th SS Panzergrenadier Regiments, like all the other SS divisions, had three battalions each, but almost all of these were only motorized instead of armored. As for the 9th SS Panzer Artillery Regiment, it seems that four battalions were present, with the fourth being purely temporary, according to Stoves. Fürbringer doesn’t mention this at all. Of these four units, only the first was equipped with self-propelled guns: 12 10.5cm Wespes and six 15cm Hummels. The other artillery pieces were towed. The 9th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion comprised three companies, according to Fürbringer, and four according to Stoves. In any case, the first two were equipped, at least theoretically, with 14 Jagdpanzer IVs apiece; the actual numbers as of June 30, 1944 are unknown. An SdKfz 251 D from the Hohenstaufen division in the Normandy bocage. Troops scan the sky for signs of Allied aircraft. (ECPAD)

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German Armor in Normandy

The Flak Battalion was allocated three heavy 8.8cm batteries and two medium batteries. Apart from the reconnaissance group that had a little more matériel than average (four companies instead of two), the Hohenstaufen was in no way more powerful than any other armored division, theoretical or otherwise.

XX 9th SS Panzer Division “Hohenstaufen” III

9th SS Pz. Regt

II

9th SS T/ Destroyer Bn

III

9th SS Pz. Arty Regt

II

9th SS Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

19th SS Pz.gren Regt

20th SS Pz.gren Regt

II

9th SS Pz. Pioneer Bn

9th SS Flak Bn

10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg The profile of the Frundsberg is almost identical to that of its sister division, the Hohenstaufen: in 1944 they were brought together to form the II SS Panzer Corps. The Frundsberg Division was created a month after its sister, in Bordeaux. Photos of the Frundsberg Division in Normandy are rare, and this shot, taken in Beauvais in February 1944, is of its sister division, the Hohenstaufen. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

Creation and Evolution The 10th SS Division appeared on the scene on February 1, 1943. Originally a panzergrenadier division dubbed the Karl der Grosse, in October 1943 it officially became the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. Like those of the Hohenstaufen, the men of the Frundsberg Division were essentially volunteers and conscripts born in 1925/26. Divisional structure came from other units of the Waffen-SS, while the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht contributed to the training of the new recruits. From the outset, its tank unit was the 10th SS Panzer Battalion, established at Bitche. At the start of 1944, this was transformed into a regiment, with two battalions of four Panzer IV companies. Once again, the allocation of tanks was much lower in reality than the numbers quoted in our theoretical division. As a result, the three batteries of the 10th Assault Gun Battalion were assigned to the 10th SS Panzer Regiment in February 1944. These tanks made up, albeit temporarily, the 1st Battalion’s strength, until it received its Panthers at Mailly-leCamp.

Composition at June 27, 1944 Unfortunately, the archives do not provide details of the composition of the division when it arrived on the Normandy front. Nevertheless, of one thing we can be sure: the 10th SS Panzer Division was engaged with just one panzer battalion, the 2nd. The 1st Battalion, at Mailly-le-Camp at the time of the landings, had received only 10 Panthers, but was forced to hand these over to the 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment. It was therefore unable to participate in the battle of Normandy. According to Jentz, the 2nd Battalion had 38 StuG IIIs and 39 Panzer IVs, as well as three Befehlpanzer IIIs (command tanks). The 10th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion seemed to have at least one company of tank destroyers, though what type exactly is unclear. One motorized company comprised several heavy 8.8cm guns. There was one battalion of self-propelled artillery (the 1st) with three other groups of towed guns, which was one above normal. The 10th SS Reconnaissance Battalion’s inventory was substantial, with one armored car company and four panzer reconnaissance battalions equipped with SdKfz 250s. The 21st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment consisted of one armored battalion (the 1st), with 21 SdKfz 251s. The 13th Company, 22nd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was committed to infantry support with its howitzers, while the 14th provided support to the Flak Battalion. This latter, within the 10th SS Flak Battalion, had three heavy 8.8cm batteries and a medium battery. Transferred on June 12 from Galicia to Normandy, the first divisional elements were engaged on June 28, with the Panzer IVs following the next day, in the sector of the famous Hill 112. Five weeks later, the Frundsberg Division could muster a mere eight tanks.

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German Armor in Normandy

XX 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg III

10th SS Pz. Regt

II

10th SS Pz. T/ Destroyer Bn

III

10th SS Pz. Arty Regt

II

10th SS Pz. Recon Bn

III

21st SS Pz.gren Regt

III

22nd SS Pz.gren Regt

II

10th SS Pz. Pioneer Bn

10th SS Pz Flak Bn

116th Panzer Division The youngest of the German armored divisions at the time of the Allied landings in Normandy, the 116th Panzer Division was officially created on May 15, 1944.

Creation and Evolution It was from the remnants of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division, defeated in Russia, that the 116th Panzer Division was created in early 1944, in France. The 16th Division having been almost annihilated, the core of the new armored division was made up of convalescents, A Jagdpanzer IV of the 116th Panzer Division. The tank has lost most of its schürzen but its camouflage is excellent. Held for a long time to the north of the Seine, the division only took part in the final phase of the battle of Normandy. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

soldiers on leave and the decimated unit command. This was not enough, however, so it was necessary to pull in elements of the 179th Reserve Panzer Division to make up the numbers. As such, the 81st Reserve Panzergrenadier Regiment formed the 60th Panzergrenadier Regiment, and the 29th Reserve Panzergrenadier Regiment, the 156th Panzergrenadier Regiment. In the same way, the 1st Reserve Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion formed the 116th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 9th Reserve Tank Destroyer Battalion became the 228th Tank Destroyer Battalion, while the 29th Reserve Artillery Battalion was henceforth the 146th Panzer Artillery Regiment. For the 16th Panzer Regiment, things were a little more complicated. The regimental staff was made up from the 69th Panzer Staff Regiment, while the 1st Reserve Panzer Battalion became the 2nd Battalion, 16th Panzer Regiment equipped with Panzer IVs. The 1st Battalion, 16th Panzer Regiment came directly out of the 116th Panzer Battalion, the organic tank battalion of the old 16th Panzergrenadier Division. It was not part of the division at the time of the landings, as since May it had been stationed at Grafenwöhr, Bavaria, where it received a shipment of Panthers. It only rejoined the division in October 1944, well after the battle of Normandy. According to Stoves, it was replaced in July 1944 by the 1st Battalion, 24th Panzer Regiment equipped with Panzer V Panthers. That said, this battalion does not appear on the divisional organogram for July 1, 1944 (which does not necessarily mean that it wasn’t present in Normandy).

Composition at July 1, 1944 The 16th Panzer Regiment was perfectly aligned to the theoretical model regarding its 2nd Battalion and its command company, with the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Companies each having 17 Panzer IV Hs or Js. But, as we have seen, the 1st Battalion was in Bavaria and was replaced by the 1st Battalion, 24th Panzer Regiment. According to Jentz, this armored battalion had 79 Panthers, but it is unclear whether this is the actual or theoretical figure. As well as the 68 operational Panzer IVs, there were two companies of 14 Jagdpanzer IVs in the 228th Tank Destroyer Battalion (the third company of this unit consisted of towed Pak 40 guns). Jentz also mentions the presence of six Panzer IIIs with long 5cm guns, but it is unclear to which unit these supposedly belonged, though possibly to the Staff of 16th Panzer Regiment. The 60th Panzergrenadier Regiment was completely armored, as was the 1st Battalion of the 156th Panzergrenadier Regiment—as mentioned, Wehrmacht armored divisions had only two battalions per panzergrenadier regiment, while the Waffen-SS had three. The 1st Battalion, 146th Panzer Artillery Regiment was composed of three selfpropelled artillery batteries, probably 12 Wespes and six Hummels apiece, as normal. The other two battalions used towed guns, in accordance with the theoretical model. The 116th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion had a somewhat unorthodox composition, with four panzer reconnaissance companies but no armored car companies. Just two of the companies were equipped with SdKfz 250s, which supports the theory that the others were motorcycle units—something of an anachronism in 1944.

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German Armor in Normandy

In Profile:

Tiger II and Panthers A Tiger II from the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion, the only unit of this type equipped with this tank.

A Panther from the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.

A Panther from the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Panzer Regiment, 2nd Panzer Division.

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The Panzers in Normandy

The rest of the division was unremarkable. The Flak was consolidated in the 281st Motorized Flak Battalion, which had two heavy 8.8cm batteries and one medium 3.7cm battery. The 116th Panzer Division, held in reserve between Rouen and the Somme, was not committed to battle until after the American breakthrough during Operation Cobra, which was considered too late an intervention. Some suggest that Rommel deliberately arranged this to keep one armored division intact for political reasons, in anticipation of the consequences of the planned assassination of Hitler on July 20, 1944. At least, that’s what von Schwerin, divisional commander at the time, believed. Whether it was true or not, the late arrival of the division did at least mean that it was more or less intact at the time of the Seventh Army’s collapse, continuing the fight almost alone and allowing thousands of German soldiers to escape eastward.

XX 116th Panzer Division III

16th Pz. Regt

II

228th Pz. T/ Destroyer Regt

III

146th Pz. Arty Regt

II

116th Pz. Recon Bn

III

III

II

156th Pz.gren Regt

60th Pz.gren Regt

675th Pz. Pioneer Bn

281st Flak Bn

In Profile:

Gerhard von Schwerin Schwerin was born to Prussian aristocracy in 1899. As a company commander, still in his teens, he saw action in the Great War on both the Eastern and Western fronts; he was wounded in action and awarded the Iron Cross for gallantry (2nd Class and 1st Class). During the interwar years, as a professional soldier, he rose through the ranks, reaching major just prior to the outbreak of World War II, having attended the General Staff course at the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin in 1935. He saw action with the Grossdeutschland during the invasion of France, followed by service with the Afrika Korps under Rommel in the Western Desert in 1941, before returning to Germany to take part in Operation Barbarossa.

He saw action around Stalingrad, being awarded the Knight’s Cross. In March 1944, promoted to lieutenant general, he assumed command of the formidable 116th Panzer Division. Under severe censure from Hitler for his role at Aachen, in September 1944—he declared it an open city—he was saved from the firing squad by Rundstedt and Model and dispatched to the Italian front as a general of panzer troops. Captured by British troops in April 1945, he was released from custody in late 1947.

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German Armor in Normandy The last to intervene in the Normandy campaign, the 9th Panzer Division fought outside the Falaise Pocket. The 2nd Battalion—equipped with Panthers, contrary to the theoretical model—was only engaged in mid-August, at Mayenne, then on the Argentan sector. Here, we see part of the battalion, entrained, leaving Mailly-le-Camp, where it received its Panthers. The tanks are covered in branches, but the black smoke of the locomotive would have been clearly visible from the air. (Bundesarchiv)

A 116th Panzer Division column makes its way toward the front. The Jagdpanzer IV’s divisional insignia—a greyhound jumping over a hedge—is clearly visible. Below that, the tactical symbol of a tank destroyer company is also very distinct. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signs the German surrender, May 8, 1945. It didn’t save his neck: he was hanged at Nuremberg on October 16, 1946. (U.S. Army / Lt. Moore)

General Alfred Jodl (with dog), Oberstleutnant Liebig (left), and an unnamed SS-Obersturmbannführer during the Norway campaign. Like Keitel, Jodl was a serial sycophant; he was also hanged at Nuremberg. (National Archives of Norway)

In Profile:

OKW and OKH The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) was the High Command of the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of Nazi Germany. Set up in 1938, the OKW retained supposed command of the army, navy, and air force (Heer, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe); however, intense rivalry with the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH)—deliberately engineered by Hitler in an effort to divide and rule, so that he might maintain ultimate military power—effectively prevented the OKW, or the OKH for that matter, becoming a unified, focused command along the lines of SHAEF, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, for example. As it was, the OKW was subordinate to the Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht—Adolf Hitler. In official terms, the OKW served as the military general staff for the Third Reich, directing the operations of the German Armed Forces. However, in real terms the OKW was simply Hitler’s

personal military staff, converting his ideas into military orders, and issuing them to the various branches of service. On a daily basis, Hitler would convene an OKW lagevorträge, a situation conference, with Generals Keitel (the nominal commander of OKW) and Jodl, and Hitler’s adjutant in attendance. Situation reports from the various fronts and operational theaters would be discussed, with Hitler then issuing his operational directives, which Jodl would then relay as orders back to the appropriate commanders. Because of such a system, as the war developed and with more and more direct military involvement by Hitler, the bizarre situation evolved whereby the OKW held ultimate control of the Western Front, while the OKH maintained command of the Eastern Front. This was the status quo until April 28, 1945 when Hitler placed OKH under command of OKW, giving OKW “control” of the Eastern Front—by that stage merely a few blocks from the Reichstag.

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German Armor in Normandy

9th Panzer Division Formed on January 3, 1940 from the 4th Light Division, the 9th Panzer Division was one of the oldest units to fight in Normandy. Its composition in 1940 was completely different to that in 1944, though there were some constants, like the 33rd Panzer Regiment and the two motorized infantry units, the 10th and 11th Panzergrenadier Regiments, originally riflemen (Schützen) before being rejigged as panzergrenadiers. The 1st Battalion, 33rd Panzer Regiment started out as the 33rd Panzer Regiment in the old 4th Light Division, while the 2nd Battalion was formed by Wündorf ’s Panzer Lehr Battalion. Otherwise, the division was typical of a panzer division created in the winter of 1939/40.

Evolution On May 10, 1940, the 9th Panzer Division took part in the attack on the Netherlands, then participated in the reduction of the Dunkirk Pocket. During the battle for France, it broke through the Weygand Line at Clermont-sur-Seine, and then took Nevers and Roanne before veering off to the west and ending the campaign in the Poitiers area. The division underwent its first modifications during the winter of 1940/41. The 9th Reconnaissance Regiment was disbanded, the 59th Motorcycle Battalion became independent, and reconnaissance was allocated to the 9th Reconnaissance Battalion, the regiment’s old second battalion. At the same time, the artillery was reinforced with a third battalion. The 3rd Company, Engineers’ Battalion converted to armor, with two platoons equipped with Panzer Is and IIs, two platoons with light half-tracks and finally six platoons with SdKfz 251s equipped with 15cm rocket launchers. In 1941, the division took part in the Balkans campaign, then in Operation Barbarossa. It broke through the Stalin Line south of Kiev, before moving on to the Dnieper, where it spent the winter of 1941/42 on the central front in the Kursk sector.

XX 9th Panzer Division

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III

II

33rd Pz. Regt

50th T/ Destroyer Bn

III

102nd Pz. Arty Regt

II

9th Pz. Recon Bn

III

10th Pz.gren Regt

III

11th Pz.gren Regt

II

66th Pz. Pioneer Bn

287th Flak Bn

The Panzers in Normandy

In Profile:

Tiger Is

A Tiger I E from the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. This tank, 007, is that in which Captain Michael Wittmann and his crew were killed on August 8, 1944, a kilometer north of Cintheaux. Wittmann’s Tiger, like many others, was destroyed that day by the Sherman Fireflies of A Squadron, 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry.

A Tiger I belonging to the 3rd Company, 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion in the Caen region, August 1944. This tank can be seen alongside Panther “308” from the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend in a photo showing matériel captured by the British.

A Tiger belonging to the 2nd Company, 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, tank commander Ustuf Walter Schroif in Normandy, August 1944. Under the command of Major Weiz, the battalion destroyed more than 227 tanks, 28 antitank guns, 19 heavy armored vehicles, four armored reconnaissance vehicles and 35 trucks.

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This Panther from the 9th Panzer Division was photographed on the D221 road between Villainesla-Juhel and Saint-Pierre-des-Nids. It belongs to the 6th Company and is heading for Argentan, according to Lodieu (D’Argentan à la Seine, Editions Ysec, 2003). (Bundesarchiv)

The Panzers in Normandy

In April/May 1942, losses from the previous campaign were partly filled with the arrival of 85 SdKfz 251s for the 1st Battalion, 10th Panzergrenadier Regiment, while the panzer regiment received a third battalion from the 39th Panzer Regiment. The division spent most of 1942 in the Voronezh sector, then at Rzhev, on the central sector of the front. In May 1943, in preparation for Operation Citadel, the division received new equipment. The 2nd Battalion, 102nd Panzer Artillery Regiment received 12 Hummels and Wespes, the 287th Flak Battalion was issued 12 8.8cm guns, and the 33rd Panzer Regiment’s 2nd Battalion and staff company benefited from 85 Panzer IVs with long guns. The Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion now had two companies in SdKfz 250s and several sections equipped with Schwimmwagen and Kübelwagen, and several with selfpropelled tank destroyers. The division suffered greatly at Orel, before retreating southwest, then south. It ended its campaign on the Eastern Front in March 1944, at Odessa, before being sent to France to be refitted, notably with the bulk of the 155th Reserve Panzer Division.

Composition at July 1, 1944 The 9th Panzer Division was still not up to full strength when the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. Its 2nd Battalion, 33rd Panzer Regiment was not available: it had gone to pick up its Panthers at Mailly-le-Camp and didn’t arrive at the Normandy front until midAugust. Later, it fought from Argentan to the Seine, after several detours in Mayenne. It had 60 Panthers when the battle began. As for the 1st Battalion, 33rd Panzer Regiment, with its normal allocation of 17 Panzer IV Hs or Js per company, it was launched into battle at the end of July when the Americans had already broken through. Powerless to stop them, the division was forced to retreat eastward via the Chemin des Dames and Verdun. In September, it was reduced to three companies of panzergrenadiers, one of tanks, two batteries of the 102nd Panzer Artillery Regiment and 10 Panthers belonging to the 105th Panzer Regiment.

Heavy Tiger Battalions With the exception of the Panzer Lehr Division, none of the German armored divisions had any Tigers among their organic units; these tanks were organized in separate battalions. Three of these heavy battalions participated in the battle of Normandy: from the Wehrmacht, the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion, and from the Waffen-SS, the 101st and 102nd Heavy SS Panzer Battalions.

503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion Formed at Neuruppin in May 1942, the 503rd did not receive its allocation of Tigers at the outset, as the tanks only started leaving the factories that August. While waiting for the Tigers, the battalion made use of Panzer III Ns. It eventually received its Tigers in April 1943

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Two views of a Tiger from the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion on the Odon front, where the battalion fought the British. (ECPAD)

The Panzers in Normandy

while serving on the Eastern Front, where it had been since December 1942. With their new tanks, they fought at Kursk and won a number of stunning victories, destroying some 500 Soviet tanks in the process (bearing in mind the theoretical inventory for a heavy battalion was 45 Tigers). In spring 1944, the battalion was transferred to Ohrdruf to be replenished. This was only due for completion on June 19, but on June 11, it was engaged in Normandy, attached to the 21st Panzer Division sector. Here, it clashed with the Allies during Operation Goodwood, on July 18. The 1st Company was equipped with Tiger IIs, the only Tiger IIs to fight in Normandy. 3rd Company was partly refitted with these tanks in mid-August, did not have time to return with them to Normandy, later losing all its tanks near Amiens.

101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion This tank unit is probably the best known of those which fought in Normandy, as this was Michael Wittmann’s battalion. Wittmann was the panzer ace who stopped the British 7th Armoured Division at Villers-Bocage on June 13, 1944. The 101st was the organic heavy battalion of the I SS Panzer Corps established in 1943 at Mailly-le-Camp, apparently from the 13th Company, 1st SS Panzer Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. It served exclusively on the Western Front. It was located in the Beauvais sector when the Allies landed in Normandy, and arrived at the front on June 12, in the Villers-Bocage region. On June 6, 1944, it probably boasted its full theoretical strength of 14 Tigers per company, although some sources indicate 37 tanks instead of forty-five.

102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion This unit was the organic heavy battalion of the II SS Panzer Corps, composed of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. It was newer than the 101st, having been formed at the beginning of 1944, and, coincidently, it received its Tigers on June 6. It can be assumed that the battalion had its complete allocation of 45 Tigers more or less at the time of the landings. On June 6, the unit was in Wezep, Holland. On June 13, it was transferred to Pasde-Calais, where the Germans had feared the main Allied landing would take place. Two days later, the battalion left for the Paris region, and spent the rest of the month under camouflage foliage in the gardens at the Palace of Versailles, hidden from Allied aircraft. Leaving Versailles on July 1 under their own power, the tanks were in a sorry state when they arrived at Thury-Harcourt four days later. It was July 9 when they entered the crucible that was Hill 112.

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Servicing a Tiger from 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. The unit arrived in Normandy at the beginning of July 1944 but did not participate in Operation Goodwood, which was playing out in the east of its sector. (ECPAD)

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The Panzers in Normandy

Composition of the Battalions The diagram below shows the theoretical composition of these units, but, in practice, none of the three heavy battalions engaged in the Normandy campaign was at full strength. Other than the probable lack of tanks in the front-line companies, both the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion and the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion lacked service companies, while the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion had no antiaircraft section. (Flak sections usually comprised three quadruple 2cm half-track carriages, or Flakpanzer IVs on Panzer IV chassis.)

II S

Stab Staff Co. 3 Tigers

Heavy Panzer Battalion

IV 14 Tigers per co.

Flak

Service co.

Repairs co.

A StuG 40 G carefully sheltered in a forest. It is covered in branches, like the passing Peugeot 202. (Bundesarchiv)

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Other Armored Units 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen This panzergrenadier division boasted the 17th Panzer Battalion, with three armored companies equipped with StuG IIIs and IVs, according to Stoves. Lefèvre indicates 37 StuGs as of June 1, 1944. It also had a company of Jagdpanzers in the 17th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion (self-propelled). Jentz suggests that there were 42 Stug IIIs, with three Panzerbefehls and 12 Flakpanzer 38s in the division from June 17. The division arrived at the front a week after the landings, and was stationed at Thouars. However, the 17th SS Panzer Regiment was kept back in the rear, while the division was fragmented into a number of battle groups. It was not until July that the armored elements intervened in the battle. From July 18 onward, the American breakthrough pushed the division back incrementally to Falaise and its pocket.

11th Panzer Division Some sources, notably Jentz, posit that the 1st Battalion, 15th Panzer Regiment, equipped with Panthers, intervened in Normandy in August 1944. This is based on Fifteenth Army reports expressing a desire for the unit’s intervention in order to expedite an orderly withdrawal to the Seine. However, the only unit to intervene was the 205th Panzer Battalion, equipped with French tanks.

Assault Gun Brigades The presence of three independent brigades of self-propelled assault guns (StuGs) in Normandy is little known, as is their fate. However, some details are available. Each brigade was composed of three batteries and a command battery, the latter equipped with three StuGs. Each battery proper had 14 StuGs, as follows: two to command, two platoons of four StuG 111s with 7.5cm guns, and one platoon (the 2nd) of four Sturmhaubitzen (or StuHs, a StuG variant armed with a 10.5cm howitzer).

X Assault Gun Brigade 1./ STAB Staff

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14 StuH 105s

2./ 3./ 14 StuG IIIs

Flak

The Panzers in Normandy

In Profile:

Sturmgeschützen (StuGs) A StuG III from the 716th Infantry Division.

A StuG III, with Saukopf gun mantlet, on the Normandy front.

This StuG IV, built on the chassis of a Panzer IV, is rare. It belonged to the 17th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion, 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen.

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German Armor in Normandy

12th Assault Gun Brigade This Fallschirmjäger (paratroop) brigade was in Normandy at the time of the landings. It fought at the intersection of British and American forces, in the zone between Saint-Lô, Vire and Bayeux. It was an efficient unit that caused considerable losses in the Allied forces, and produced an ace, Staff Sergeant Grünwald, who destroyed more than 20 enemy tanks. It lost only 40 percent of its strength in the Normandy campaign, which represents a certain prowess as well as showing that the unit was not surrounded in the Falaise Pocket in August 1944.

341st Assault Gun Brigade This brigade entered the fray on July 27, in the Avranches sector, in an attempt to stop the American breakthrough following Operation Cobra. Hounded westward into Brittany, it lost all its matériel in combat, its personnel retreating to the Atlantic pockets: Lorient, SaintNazaire, and Brest.

A Wehrmacht StuG III during the battle of Normandy, with camouflage hindering unit identification. (Bundesarchiv)

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The Panzers in Normandy

394th Assault Gun Brigade Stationed at Azay-le-Rideau on June 6, 1944, this brigade stayed in the sector until the end of July, when the urgency of the situation in Normandy compelled it to intervene. It fought in the Vire sector and reported some reasonable successes. On August 6, 3rd Battery claimed the destruction of 26 Shermans. However, the brigade was trapped in the Falaise Pocket and only a few elements managed to escape.

217th Storm Panzer Battalion This little-known unit arrived in Normandy in July 1944 with 45 Sturmpanzers (15cm. howitzers on Panzer IV chassis). Allied photographs show a destroyed Sturmpanzer near Mont Pinçon, on the road to Falaise. It is doubtful that any Sturmpanzers crossed the Seine.

1000th Sturmmörser Company The Sturmmörser was an enormous howitzer on a Tiger chassis. Only a few examples were ever built, so details of their deployments are negligible. It seems that just one of these vehicles served in Normandy, belonging to 1st Platoon, 1000th Sturmmörser Company, arriving at the front in August 1944. No photographs of it exist in either German or Allied collections.

“Local Defense” Armored Units These were units of mediocre value in regard to their matériel but many of their crews had advanced training. Some sources indicate that these units were eliminated in a matter of days, but this is not necessarily true.

206th Panzer Battalion Formed in Versailles-Satory in November 1941, this battalion served as a reserve unit for the Seventh Army. At the beginning of 1944, it had two companies, each with 10 H39s and four Somua S35s, and a command company with six French Char B1 (bis) heavy tanks (including three flamethrowers), two S35s and two R35s. It was in the Cotentin Peninsula at the time of the landings, and was annihilated in the Cherbourg Pocket.

100th Panzer Replacement & Training Battalion This was intended as a training unit for new recruits. Based first at Satory, it was sent to the Carentan region in May 1944. Its strength was particularly meager, with a command company of five Renault R35s, 1st Company also of five R35s, and 2nd Company that

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German Armor in Normandy

A 217th Storm Panzer Battalion tank destroyed by the British near Mont Pinçon, between Caen and Falaise. (IWM B 8738)

Bocage, a word derived from the Old Norman boscage—the root being the old French bosc, meaning “wood” and the suffix age, meaning “a general thing”—came to have a significant meaning during the Normandy campaign, being the rural patchwork of hedges and lanes sunken from centuries of usage that proved major obstacles during the Allied offensive. (The bocage country of Normandy is not dissimilar to that of Devon or the Peak District in England.) The hedges—known descriptively as “hedgerows” by the Americans—were, and are, so tightly bound and intertwined as to prove almost impossible to penetrate, even at times by armor and certainly rarely by infantry. Such was the challenge that the Allies developed the Rhino tank to hack its way through with a forward-mounted attachment not unlike a No. 4 “foot” on an electric hair trimmer. Added to the hedges was the fact that the Germans often used the sunken lanes as defensive strongpoints.

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A Hotchkiss H39 from an unidentified battalion playing the role of Stuka zu Fuss, or “Stuka on foot,” alongside a 28cm rocket launcher. (Bundesarchiv)

comprised of a platoon on four R35s and a Somua, a platoon of four H39s and a Char B1 (bis), and a final platoon of four H39s and a Panzer III. 3rd Company only had three R35s. This unit was in the DZ where the American paratroops landed on the night of June 5/6 1944. Numerous American reports mention counterattacks by Renault tanks, notably in the Fière sector. The unit survived the first few days of the invasion, and fought until the fall of Cherbourg. Reports state that it was responsible for the destruction of 30 Sherman tanks, a significant achievement given the paucity and age of its matériel. After the destruction of its tanks, battalion personnel were split up into other units and continued to fight until the retreat to the Seine.

205th Panzer Battalion This unit was created in France in March 1944, with French matériel. Jentz indicates that the battalion boasted 46 beutepanzer (captured tanks), without giving details, though they were likely Hotchkiss H39s and Somua S35s. The battalion was in garrison in the Pays de Caux, Seine-Inférieure department, on D-Day, where it remained throughout the Normandy campaign until August 20, when it was attached to the 18th Air Landing Division, deployed between the Seine and the Falaise Pocket to create an RV stop line for the retreating troops. It was clearly a very difficult mission, with evidence of the bitter fighting found on the Dreux–Evreux road. The unit was annihilated in a matter of days.

The Germans were not averse to utilizing beutepanzer (captured tanks) on the Western Front, though, curiously, they were extremely slow on the uptake on the Eastern Front, taking them an inordinate amount of time to appreciate the qualities of the Soviet T-34. One French tank that was to prove a German success story was the Hotchkiss H39, an improved variant of the H35, or Char léger modèle 1935 H, a French cavalry tank developed prior to World War II.

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The Panzers in the Battles of June and July When Hitler abandoned Operation See Löwe (Sealion) at the end of 1940, Germany lost the strategic initiative on the Western Front. All eyes turned to the East, and the Mediterranean basin. In the West, a “wait-and-see” policy prevailed, while the Dieppe raid only reinforced German military passivity: since invading Britain was out of the question, the OBW preferred to wait for the Allies to land in France so they could push them back into sea. Over time, shortcomings in this overly simplistic policy were exposed, especially from the summer 1943, when setbacks in the East showed just how badly Germany was suffering from a lack of manpower. In these conditions, the Atlantic Wall risked becoming nothing more than a façade. How would they be able to vanquish the Allied forces who would inevitably land on French shores? Opinions on the matter varied wildly in the OKW, not helped by Hitler’s unrealistic intransigence. This divergence would have serious consequences for the battles waged by the panzer divisions in Normandy.

A Panzer IV of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend on the lookout. (ECPAD)

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The Panzers in the Battles of June and July

In Profile:

Panther Gs A Panther G from the 3rd Company, 12th SS Panzer Regiment, Hitlerjugend Division, captured in the Caen region.

A Panther G from the 1st Company, 12th SS Panzer Regiment, Hitlerjugend Division, This tank, commanded by Platoon Leader Dittrich, was hit during an attack on Bretteville on June 9, 1944.

A Panther G from the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd SS Panzer Regiment, Das Reich Division, as seen in the Falaise Pocket. All its schürzen have been removed, only the mountings remain.

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German Armor in Normandy

One of Major Becker’s self-propelled howitzers on an armored flatbed. (DR)

Searching for a Strategy At the turn of 1944, German command was split across Western Europe. At its head was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander-in-chief of western operations. His deputy was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, head of Army Group B. Finally, General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg commanded Panzer Group West, created in December 1943. The tactical tendencies of these three men were difficult to reconcile. For Geyr, panzer divisions should be kept in the rear, far from the coast in the numerous forests surrounding Paris. From there, they could intervene after the landings and in open country, where German superiority in mobile warfare would assure a decisive victory—like that of May 1940, or the encirclements of Operation Barbarossa. Von Rundstedt’s ideas were slightly different, but he also believed the panzer divisions should be kept in reserve—for several reasons, but first and foremost due to the loss of the strategic initiative: it was the Allies who would attack, and no one knew where. The German counterattack, which needed to be significant, would have to be launched against the Allied bridgehead before it was consolidated. As a result, the panzer divisions could not be too far from the coast—no more than 100 kilometers, for example. All the German commanders, at least at the end of April, agreed that the landings would take place north of the Seine. Rommel did not agree with the others. For him, because of the Allied superiority, victory in the West could only be achieved in the earliest hours of an attack, if a landing was repelled immediately. For this reason, the panzer divisions had to be deployed at the coast, where they could intervene as soon as possible. There was one arbitrator to reconcile these divergent theories: Hitler and the OKW (High Command of the Armed Forces). For several months, the three commanders of the Western Front put their cases to the Führer, one after the other, with disastrous consequences for their individual camps.

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The Panzers in the Battles of June and July

Rommel during an inspection of the 21st Panzer Division, observing rockets being fired on the beach at Luc-sur-Mer. (EPCAD) During a 21st Panzer Division training exercise, grenadiers armed with an MG 42 machine gun learn to fight alongside tank support. The tank here is a Somua S35 from the 100th Panzer Regiment. (Bundesarchiv)

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When interrogating senior German officers in captivity in the immediate postwar period, Basil Liddell Hart, in his remarkable study of World War II, The Other Side of the Hill, highlighted the controversies between the generals on the Western Front. Guderian’s testimony reveals the prevailing mentality of Hitler and the German high command. In March 1944, after visiting Geyr in France, he spoke to Hitler about the defensive measures taken by Rommel and told him that it was dangerous to place the armored divisions so close to the coast, as they would lose their mobility. Hitler was not convinced, but asked Guderian to return to France to discuss the matter with Rommel himself. This he did at the end of April, at Rommel’s HQ in La Roche-Guyon. The visit yielded no result. He saw Hitler again at the beginning of May and again discussed the matter, but with no further success. Guderian shared von Rundstedt’s views, but Rommel had found in Hitler an attentive audience. The Führer, who had already sacked von Rundstedt once, in December 1941, was more inclined to listen to Rommel whom he greatly admired. That said, Geyr von Schweppenburg was not discouraged and, despite the successive failures of Guderian and von Rundstedt, decided to go to Rastenburg himself to plead his case. This was in early May 1944, and by this point Hitler had probably had enough of such discussions, as the threat of an Allied landing was becoming more and more acute. He took drastic action and ordered a compromise, with serious consequences for the subsequent operations: of the ten panzer divisions present in the West, four would be placed under Rommel’s direct command, to create a strategic reserve. This reserve would not take orders from von Rundstedt, but from the OKW itself—meaning, ultimately, Hitler. At Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay, an Opel Blitz from the 21st Panzer Division is stationary as a group of cyclists, probably from one of the division’s panzergrenadier regiments, pass by. (Bundesarchiv)

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This short-gunned Panzer IV, abandoned in August 1944, can only belong to the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Panzer Regiment. It had 21 of these on June 6, as well as Somua S35s. (IWM B9707)

And this was how the German army went into battle in June 1944. Of the 59 divisions in the West at that time (of which eight were in Belgium and the Netherlands), just 27 were normal divisions, the others being coastal defense units or training units. Of these 27, ten were armored. This was by no means a negligible force, yet they were, at the same time, both too concentrated and too widely dispersed: the four in reserve were unavailable to von Rundstedt. With the remaining six it would be impossible for Rommel to sufficiently secure the shoreline against an enemy landing, and he would be unable to repel any invasion in the first few hours. Hitler’s hybrid solution was, as history relates, disastrous, but was there any chance of a German victory anyway?

June 6, 1944 The landings began on June 6, 1944 at 0015 hours, with an aerial assault. Three hours later, the first panzer division came into contact with the invaders: the 2nd Battalion 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment deployed a battle group that clashed with British paratroopers east of the Orne. This was a unilateral decision made by General Feuchtinger, head of the 21st Panzer Division; it wasn’t until 0700 that the division was placed under the direct command of General Erich Marcks, commander of LXXXIV Corps. Hesitancy was evident at every level of command. Rommel had been absent since the day before, and at von Rundstedt’s general headquarters, uncertainty reigned. Of course, it

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In Profile:

Self-propelled Artillery

A self-propelled 10.5cm gun on a Hotchkiss H39 chassis, belonging to the 21st Panzer Division’s artillery regiment.

A self-propelled 10.5cm gun, the FH 18-4 auf Geschützwagen Lorraine-S(f). This was a modification made by Baukommando Becker for the 21st Panzer Division.

This armored howizter Panzerhaubitze 18 Wespe auf FG II belonged to the 3rd Battery of an artillery regiment.

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was obvious that the Allies had landed on the continent—but was this the principal attack or just a diversion? Von Rundstedt, who had always believed the main attack would come from north of the Somme, was little inclined to believe that a huge landing was taking place in Normandy. Yet all the reports, and critically those from Marcks, who commanded the army corps directly involved in the action, pointed toward a massive Allied assault. As a result, von Rundstedt put Panzer Group West—comprising 1st SS Panzer Division, 12th SS Division, 17th SS Division, and the Panzer Lehr Division—on alert and, on his own initiative, ordered the 12th SS Division to leave the Evreux region for Lisieux, ready to intervene when the OKW gave the order. Elsewhere, General Hans Speidel, who was temporarily in command of Army Group B (until Rommel returned that night), ordered the 116th Panzer Division to deploy to the Channel coast north of the Seine: there was still much OKW suspicion that the Normandy landings were merely a feint. Finally, in the early afternoon, the OKW authorized the deployment of two armored divisions to the Seventh Army front in Normandy: the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and the Panzer Lehr Division. The former could only intervene the next day, the latter within 48 hours at the earliest—all much too late, in Rommel’s view. However, there was one armored division already present at the front.

21st Panzer Division Fighting on All Fronts The 21st Panzer Division had been put on alert at around midnight. At 0120, the head of the 716th Infantry Division asked Feuchtinger, commander of the division, to help repulse the increasing numbers of paratroopers landing, but Feuchtinger did not want to engage his tanks without an order from the army group. Nevertheless, he deployed the 2nd Battalion, 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment and, from 0330, the first elements of the battalion were in action, fighting to retake the Bénouville bridge. According to Carell, the panzergrenadiers were supported by three 7.5cm self-propelled guns on French chassis (probably H39s), but they were still unable to recapture the bridge, and were forced into a rough-andready defensive position. Carell also recounts a fight between a light Tetrarch tank and a Panzerjäger, probably the first “tank battle” of the landings. The advantage turned to the German tank destroyers, but without changing the outcome. The 22nd Panzer Regiment, meanwhile, had been considerably delayed by orders and counter-orders. Its 2nd Battalion had been preparing to leave on a nighttime exercise when it was put on alert. Hours passed without any orders and without any indication of what was happening. Finally, at 0600, the news came: the invasion had begun. Half an hour later, the regiment was deployed northeast from its base near Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. At 0900, it was the turn of the 2nd Battalion but, having already passed Caen, the order was countermanded: all armored units, except 4th Company, had to make their way south. This U-turn cost the regiment a considerable amount of time, the troops none the wiser as to what was happening. In fact, it was General Marcks himself who had made the decision, his initial order aimed at neutralizing the paratroop threat east of the Orne, but the threat posed by the British and Canadian troops on the Sword and Juno beaches must have been deemed more serious.

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A Panzer IV from an unidentified unit in the Normandy bocage. The deployment of the panzer divisions in the first few days of the invasion was rapid, but the German command seemed incapable of taking the strategic initiative. (Bundesarchiv)

It was not until 1600 that the two battle groups set up by Feuchtinger reached the beaches. The 1st Battalion, 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment succeeded, by pure chance, in reaching the coastline between Sword and Juno, between the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 3rd British Infantry Divsision. The villages of Lion-sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer were consolidated by the panzergrenadiers, aided by the remnants of the 716th Infantry Division. The 21st Panzer Division was waiting for the tanks of the 22nd Panzer Regiment to arrive so they could directly counterattack the Sword bridgehead. But the tanks never came: they had been destroyed by the antitank artillery of the Staffordshire Yeomanry, outside Biéville and Périers. The British had established an excellent defensive position and caused heavy losses among the assailants, who were now facing a grave dilemma: continue the attack and be massacred, or abandon the tanks. It was effectively impossible to disengage: the tanks had no infantry support, and if they retreated they would be abandoning a significant sector of the front, opening a large breach dangerously close to Caen. Colonel von Oppeln-Bronikowski decided to abandon his panzers, and in doing so block the road to the Norman capital.

Another beutepanzer (captured tank) adopted by the Germans on the Western Front was the Char léger Modèle 1935 R or R35, a French light infantry tank. Produced from 1936 onward, the light infantry-support tank was well armored but fitted with only a short 3.7cm gun. From April 1940, it was produced with a longer gun and became the R40. By June 1940, some 1,685 vehicles of both types, R35/40, had been produced. Several Panzer units were created with captured—and sometimes modified—French tanks.

The fallout of this defeat was significant. First, the division had proved incapable of completing the mission given to it by Rommel: pushing the invaders back into the sea. Yet they had been far too late to have stood any chance of doing so, mostly due to the inadequacy of the chain of command on the Western Front. Second, the attack had been poorly coordinated, the panzergrenadiers leaving their start line ahead of the tanks and thus finding themselves isolated. Finally, the abandonment of the panzers was manifestly

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playing against type. From the evening of June 6, the only German armored division on the front had lost its panzer regiment, and was thus reduced to the role of antitank artillery. The bulk of the most powerful and mobile element of the division was frozen on the defensive. The 21st Panzer Division had lost, on the first evening of the invasion, the tactical initiative. Now it would pay the price. However, there was a silver lining for the Germans. Von Oppeln-Bronkowski’s decision had prevented the British and Canadians from seizing Caen on D-Day as they had planned. It would take several weeks of fighting for the British to reach the city. That said, the division’s role had been to repulse the invader, not delay him. On the evening of June 6, the British extensively reinforced the 6th Airborne Division. Feuchtinger decided not to leave his panzergrenadiers out on a limb, ordering them to

A Panzer IV destroyed by the Durham Light Infantry, 7th Armoured Division, on June 10, near Bayeux. The men who destroyed the enemy tank with a 6-pounder gun look over their victim. From this angle, no insignia is visible, but this tank possibly belonged to the Panzer Lehr Division. (IWM B5375)

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A Waffen-SS motorized column. The first SS unit engaged, on June 7, was the Hitlerjugend. (Bundesarchiv)

withdraw to the 22nd Panzer Regiment’s defensive line. The counterattack would resume in the morning, with the assistance of the 12th SS Panzer Division. East of the Orne, von Luck’s 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment, supported by the 200th Assault Gun Battalion and the reconnaissance regiment, attempted to reduce—or at least contain—the drop zones held by the British paratroopers. The front in this sector remained relatively stable until Operation Goodwood, on June 18.

The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend Makes Contact At 0300 on June 6, the Hitlerjugend discovered something was happening in Normandy. The 711th Infantry Division, which held the sector between the Seine and the Orne, sent the message: “Enemy paratroopers have landed behind our left flank.” The division was immediately placed on alert, yet no deployment order came. The 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment resorted on its own initiative to sending out a reconnaissance party to Caen. Finally, after a series of orders and counter-orders, the division was deployed to Caen in the early afternoon. It was therefore unable to intervene on the 6th. During the night of June 6/7, it was deployed around the Carpiquet aerodrome, whence it would attack the next day alongside the 21st Panzer Division. Not all units were present: the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was late, as was the 12th SS Panzer Regiment which had run out of fuel at the Orne, with its Panthers in tow.

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In the morning of June 7, preparations for the counterattack intensified. Major-General Fritz Witt, head of the Hitlerjugend, met with Feuchtinger to work out the details. The two officers applied little finesse to their tactics, though there is some elegance in the simplicity of the final plan: the two divisions would attack head-on and push the enemy back off the beaches into the sea. Time was running out, the enemy’s exact position was as yet unknown and— importantly—his bridgehead was not as yet too deep. The attack, scheduled for midday, did not happen. A Canadian vanguard had attacked the front line of the Hitlerjugend Division, without suspecting that it was an armored SS division they were assaulting. The Germans allowed the Canadians to approach before opening fire at point-blank range. The 1st Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment then advanced with its Panzer IVs and annihilated the Shermans of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. Taken totally by surprise, the Canadians reported immediate losses, and the supporting infantry, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, retreated north, while 28 Shermans burned. Taking advantage of their success, the 12th SS advanced, but, after capturing Franqueville and Authie, they were forced to stop, first by ferocious fire from British artillery, and second, because the Panzer IVs of the 22nd Panzer Regiment had not emerged from their shelters. Worse still, the Hitlerjugend’s flanks were under threat from elements of the 7th Canadian Armoured Brigade. To regain control over the situation, the Germans had to persist with their counterattack. Panzer IV no. 536 of the Hitlerjugend in the afternoon of June 6, part of a column heading for the Allied bridgehead. The weather was bad, and all Allied aircraft were otherwise occupied over the beaches. The tank commander is Uscha W. Kretschmar. (ECPAD)

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In Profile:

Tiger I and Tiger IIs A Tiger I E of the 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. Commanded by Sergeant Sachs, Tiger “313” played a role in the destruction of 11 Shermans and five antitank guns on July 11, 1944, during a counterattack north of Colombelles. However, on July 18, during the terrific bombardment preceding Operation Goodwood, the tank overturned, killing two of its crew.

A Tiger II of the 1st Company, 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion. These “Koenigstigers”— “Bengal tigers,” the nickname attributed to these tanks—were the only ones to fight in Normandy. Inset is a detail from the panel behind the turret, with the tank’s number. A Tiger II of the 3rd Company, 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion. The company was attacked by five Thunderbolts between Sézanne and Esternay on August 12, en route to Normandy via Paris. One of the five Tiger IIs in the convoy, “311” belonging to Lieutenant von Rosen, was abandoned. The company was later annihilated, the last tank being scuttled in the Amiens region.

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When night fell the 12th SS had barely advanced to the coast. It had lost six Panzer IVs and nearly 400 men but had destroyed 28 Shermans. Much like the 21st Panzer Division the previous day, it had halted the Canadian advance toward Caen and Carpiquet but had lost the tactical initiative to the Allies. With the arrival of the Panzer Lehr and its formidable forces in the sector the next day, June 8, would the Germans be able to regain control?

The Panzer Lehr Division Arrives The first two German armored divisions arrived at the front without being harassed by enemy aircraft, as they had set out in dreadful weather on a day—D-Day, in fact—when the Allied air forces were engaged over the landing beaches. For the Panzer Lehr, coming from the Mans region, the journey was much longer and more dangerous. At 0230 on June 6, the division was put on alert. It was in the middle of a transfer, its Panther battalion and remotely operated (Funklenk) tank unit (also equipped with Tigers) preparing to leave for Poland and the Eastern Front. This order was, understandably, quashed, but the tanks had already been entrained and so these two sub-units lagged significantly behind the rest of the division. But it had not moved anyway: General Fritz Bayerlein, its commander, was summoned to Le Mans, the Seventh Army command post, in whose sector the landings had taken place. General Friedrich Dollmann ordered him to A 6-ton Alfa Romeo RE truck heading for the front. It likely belonged to the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, which was for the most part equipped with Italian matériel. (Bundesarchiv)

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This armored half-track armed with a 3.7cm gun has three kills on its gunshield. (Bundesarchiv)

deploy toward Caen at 1700 hours. Bayerlein protested against executing such a maneuver in broad daylight, but Dollmann was adamant: the urgency of the situation necessitated an immediate departure. Bayerlein later recounted how he called in the Panzer Lehr cavalry. Here are some excerpts that describe how his forces arrived at the front. Spotted by the enemy at dusk, the Panzer Lehr became the target of continuous attacks that went on well into the night: “At around 2 a.m., we approached the town of Argentan. We could see it as well as if it had been broad daylight, as the fires and explosions illuminated the landscape … The town shook under the bombardment. We had arrived in the southern suburbs, but it was impossible to go any further. Argentan was like an enormous brazier. How could we leave that devil’s cauldron? We didn’t know which way to go in all that smoke and ash. Sparks were spraying on our vehicles from all directions. Burning beams, whole houses collapsing onto the roads … we had to try to find a way on foot.” Alexander Hartdegen, Bayerlein’s aide-de-camp, left another eyewitness account: “At around 2200 hours we joined our command post at Proussy. The road we took must have been the same one the previous units had travelled down. Dozens of burned-out vehicles, now just iron skeletons still glowing red from the heat, lay along the roadside. The stretch of road between Caumont and Villers-Bocage was truly frightful. The remains of burned trucks—our trucks—now smouldering and smoking, illuminated the corpses strewn alongside them. Unless a man has experienced these Jabo [fighter-bomber] attacks, he cannot say he truly understands what the battle of Normandy was like … There you are,

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defenseless, in some narrow ditch, or in a furrow in a field, or under a hedge. Your face is pressed into the mud and you pray that the ground will just swallow you whole.” In spite of everything, on the morning of June 8, the Panzer Lehr Division arrived in the Brouay sector, to the west of Caen, and began the significant counteroffensive orchestrated by Sepp Dietrich, head of I SS Panzer Corps. But the next day, the British took Bayeux and in doing so cut off German access to Caen. This was a serious loss. Rommel immediately ordered the Panzer Lehr to counterattack and retake the town. As a result, the division was unable to participate in the counterattack led by Geyr and Dietrich.

Failure at Bayeux To properly understand the difficulties encountered by the Germans in mounting a counterattack, one must remember that they were fighting not only against the clock—the Allies grew stronger with every passing day—but against the omnipresent Allied air forces, an adversary that seemed able to strike at will and that, moreover, seemed able to literally read German orders in advance, as we will see later on. On June 9, Bayerlein launched his attack on Bayeux, with the help of the 901st and 902nd Panzergrenadier Regiments. The assault started well, and, despite the intensity of The effects of the Allied air attacks were devastating for the German tanks, like this Panther from an unidentified unit, flipped over by the explosive force of a bomb or rocket. This picture was taken by an RAF photographer, so one can safely assume that the tank was destroyed by aircraft rather than artillery. (IWM CL398)

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A Panzerjäger tank destroyer built by Major Becker on the chassis of a Lorraine tankette and attached to the 200th Assault Gun Battalion, 21st Panzer Division. (Tank Museum, Bovingdon)

the British artillery fire, the vanguard reached Arganchy, five kilometers from Bayeux. But Allied aircraft soon got involved, and a Canadian counterattack drove a wedge between the Panzer Lehr and the Hitlerjugend. To combat this, the Germans had to call off the advance on Bayeux, primarily because of a shortage of infantry. For Geyr von Schweppenburg, it was clear that this battle of attrition could not continue. Only one massive counterattack with the three armored divisions on the ground had any chance of forcing the Allies back, if not to the sea, then at least enough to give the German defense a breathing space. He and his staff set to work preparing an attack somewhat more elaborate Thanks to Allied code-breaking in terms of the tactics employed on June 6/7. courtesy of Bletchley Park, the attack against La Caine— carried out in three waves by 40 rocket-armed Typhoons of 124 Wing and 61 B-25 Mitchells of 137 Wing (No. 226 Squadron) and 139 Wing with 500lb (230kg) bombs—destroyed the only German army facility on the Western Front able to control large volumes of mobile divisions; 18 personnel were killed and the survivors were forced to relocate to Paris and were unable to resume operations until June 28.

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However, on June 10, Geyr’s headquarters was bombed by Allied aircraft. Its location near ThuryHarcourt had been gleaned from intercepted reports, whose codes the British had broken for some time. With this information, the Allies were then able to triangulate the exact position of the HQ at La Caine Château, which was utterly destroyed. The chief of staff and 12 officers were killed. Geyr himself miraculously escaped. The three-division attack was thus suspended, then abandoned as the situation developed and the panzer divisions switched to the defensive. They would only emerge again for Operation Lüttich.

The Panzers in the Battles of June and July Carefully hugging the line of houses along the street did not save these two German tanks traveling through a village when they were put out of action. The Panther’s tracks have come off, while the Marder tank destroyer in the foreground has been blown up. We can recognize the latter thanks to its remaining wheel, which belongs to a Panzer 38(t), the chassis of which served as a base for some Marders. (IWM CL397)

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In Profile:

Panther, Jagdpanther and Jagdpanzer A Panther from the 1st Battalion, 9th SS Panzer Regiment, 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. This division had more tanks left than most at the end of the battle of Normandy, around 20 at the time it counterattacked on the rim of the Falaise Pocket to maintain an open passage.

A Jagdpanther from the 654th Panzer Battalion, a unit responsible for many Allied losses. The few Jagdpanzers that reached the Seine were unable to cross it.

A Jagdpanzer IV from the 116th Panzer Division. The unit was sent late to Normandy, but took part in Operation Lüttich, the German counterattack on Mortain.

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The Götz von Berlichingen Division arrives at the Front On June 8, 1944, two Russian osttruppen—“eastern troops” fighting for the Germans— found a landing barge on a beach near Isigny. Inside were several dead American officers and various confidential documents, which turned out to be the complete operational plans for the U.S. VII Corps. Copies of these documents were immediately sent to Rommel and von Rundstedt, who learned that the Americans wanted to make Carentan the nerve center for their army in La Manche department. Carentan was, moreover, at the junction of the two Allied bridgeheads. This was a hugely important discovery that certainly played some part in the transfer of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division from Poitiers to Carentan. From there, on June 11, the division attempted to come to the aid of the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment defending Carentan in the hopes of preventing the two Allied bridgeheads from joining up. But the brigade’s self-propelled assault guns had not yet arrived, and Carentan could not be cleared. The Americans finally seized the town on June 12, as focus shifted to the west and the north of the Cotentin Peninsula. Indeed, hostilities in the Carentan region did not resume until June 30 when, with the problem of Cherbourg settled, the Americans turned their attention on Saint-Lô. It was here that the Götz von Berlichingen would prove formidable in defense. Two Tigers from the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. The I SS Panzer Corps insignia is clearly visible. (Bundesarchiv)

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June 13, 1944: The Battle of Villers-Bocage Even before the destruction of Geyr’s HQ, the panzers were being positioned in strictly defensive roles, in preparation for a carefully crafted counteroffensive. The quick reestablishment of a homogenous front was of the utmost importance, to avoid multiple breakthroughs that would prevent the Germans from carrying out a coherent stratagem. On the evening of June 12, the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion arrived in the Villers-Bocage sector with 37 operational Tigers. The battalion had suffered on its way to the front, both from enemy aircraft attack and the hardships of the long journey from Beauvais. Most of the tanks were being serviced on the morning of June 13 when Captain Michael Wittmann, an old LSSAH ace with 119 victories on the Eastern Front, left on a reconnaissance mission. From the top of Hill 213, Wittmann spotted with his binoculars a long column of British tanks that appeared to be coming straight for him. He called the tanks of his own company (the 2nd) to the rescue, and quickly left to meet the British who, incidentally, were completely oblivious to his presence. Since the Panzer Lehr Division had entrenched itself at Tilly-sur-Seulles, the British XXX Corps had failed in all its attempts to break through to Caen. General Bernard Montgomery therefore ordered Lieutenant-General Gerard Bucknall, commander of XXX Corps, to cease his frontal assaults against the Panzer Lehr and attempt to encircle Caen, via Villers-Bocage, before turning back on the city from the south, while I Corps launched the other half of the pincer attack from the northeast. XXX Corps soon managed to find a breach between the Panzer Lehr and the 2nd SS Panzer Division, which was just starting out on its deployment. The speed of the advance was astonishing; however, in a twist of fate, the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion had arrived in the Villers-Bocage sector the day before. The British vanguard, composed of the 22nd Armoured Brigade, 7th Armoured Division, unexpectedly encountered Wittmann’s lone Tiger (yet to be reinforced by his other tanks). The story is often romanticized, with frequent retelling based on Carell’s account tending toward the heroic. Here, the facts will be presented as clearly as possible. The British were advancing along the N175, near Montebroque, with few precautions taken. When Wittmann opened fire at around 0800, it took them totally by surprise. Having destroyed the lead vehicle, it seems he then tried to take out the last one in the column. Whatever the situation, the British tanks could not reverse or turn round. As if on a training exercise, Wittmann and his gunner began the massacre. Several tanks were destroyed at point-blank range, and the Bren carriers were strafed. By the end of the morning, Wittmann, with the help of four recently arrived Tigers from his own company, had managed to destroy eight Cromwells and four Sherman Fireflies, as well as several armored vehicles and Jeeps. The 4th County of London Yeomanry’s A Company was annihilated, with 15 officers and 176 men killed or wounded. The encirclement maneuver by XXX Corps was stopped utterly in its tracks. Several factors contributed to Wittmann’s success: his own courage, of course, but also the quality of his matériel, and the distinctive landscape, for without the cover of the bocage and its hedges, and without the craggy terrain that made it impossible for the British tanks to turn about, the contest would never have been possible.

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A Tiger belonging to Captain Michael Wittmann’s unit, the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, being camouflaged. Only the end of the barrel has been left uncovered. The Tiger proved itself equal to its moniker in Normandy, where it excelled in a defensive role. (Bundesarchiv)

Subsequent operations were quite different. No doubt to crown his success, Wittmann, with eight further Tigers from the 1st Company, entered Villers-Bocage in an attempt to retake the town from the British. But this time they were ready for him. In the street fighting that followed, the British enjoyed a not insignificant superiority: on foot, they were able to fight from the shelter of houses, firing their PIATs (Projector, Infantry, Antitank, the British equivalent of the Panzerfaust) from the windows. Without infantry support, the Germans suffered considerable losses. Photos taken at the conclusion of the fight show at least four destroyed Tigers. Wittmann’s own tank was immobilized and he had to flee Villers“For Christ’s sake get a move on! Bocage on foot when it became evident There’s a Tiger running alongside that the town could not be taken without us fifty yards away!” said Sergeant infantry support. In the end it was a Panzer O’Connor, 1st Rifle Brigade. Still Lehr battle group that recaptured Villerscontroversial today, the battle of Bocage from the British, though several Villers-Bocage marked the end of the Panzer IVs were lost in the process. Wittmann’s success was to pour cold water on what would have been a brilliant pincer movement by Montgomery. Without his intervention, the Panzer Lehr Division would most likely have found itself virtually surrounded, being forced to retreat eastward and opening a breach so large that the Germans would have been forced to abandon Caen by June 14/15.

breakout from the bridgehead and the commencement of the attritional battle for Caen. The British have been marked down alternately as inadequate for the task and lacking in numbers rather than fighting strength of the German army. However, from both sides’ perspectives, Wittmann’s remarkable feat has tended to cloud the reality of events on the ground.

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A scene of desolation near Villers-Bocage, where Wittmann and four other Tiger commanders tore apart the A Company of 4th County London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), destroying 20 Cromwell tanks, four Sherman Fireflies, artillery pieces (like the 6-pounder in the background) and carriers, putting an end to the British XXX Corps’ encirclement attempt. (Bundesarchiv)

The War of Attrition Begins June 13 coincided with the arrival of the first elements of the 2nd Panzer Division on the front; its panzer regiment, however, would only be available from about June 18. It was also the end of the first week of the invasion, during which the Allies had landed no fewer than 326,000 men, 54,186 vehicles and 104,428 tons of provisions in Normandy. To face this continuous influx, Rommel engaged the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich and the last elements of the 2nd Panzer Division, while waiting for the arrival of the II SS Panzer Corps, urgently recalled from the Eastern Front in an attempt to regain the tactical initiative for the Wehrmacht that had otherwise failed to push the enemy back into sea. While waiting for these reinforcements, the Das Reich was clumsily employed, dispersed in multiple battle groups, thus diluting its strike power: the Allied advance was relentless and had to be checked, even if that meant fragmenting the armored divisions. On June 17, Hitler visited Margival, near Soissons, to discuss operations with Rommel and von Rundstedt. Nothing concrete came of the meeting, except for the confirmation that the II SS Panzer Corps was well on its way to Normandy, as was the 1st SS Panzer Division “LSSAH.” In Rommel’s hands, the armored force appeared more and more formidable and, looking at his correspondence from the period, it seemed that he had renewed hope. In a letter dated June 18, he wrote: “Now, for the most part, the situation has stabilized, and I look towards the future with much less anxiety than I did a week ago … There is no longer any fear that the enemy will attempt a rapid dash towards Paris, and we have

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received reinforcements. The Führer is in excellent humour and proves very amiable, though he understands the gravity of the situation.” Encouraged by this new confidence, the German staff planned a massive counterattack for the beginning of July. It would strike at the center of the front, in the Caumont sector. From there, the armored divisions would move on Bayeux, then engage in an encirclement by falling back along the coastline. According to how the situation developed, the encirclement maneuver would be aimed at one or both of the enemy’s flanks. By June 24, plans were far enough advanced that Dietrich, General Paul Hausser and General Hans von Funck, commanders of the three armored corps engaged, had agreed on their start lines, fronts and boundaries for each corps, as well as resupply during battle. The offensive would commence at night to maximize the element of surprise. But the Allies knew all about the offensive. For British intelligence was, after all, able to decode intercepted German messages with relative ease. As a result, Montgomery decided to accelerate his own plans for an offensive. On June 25, he launched Operation Epsom, to surround Caen from the west, striking between Tilly and Carpiquet. It was not the most original maneuver, but his goal was, above all, to draw the bulk of the German armored forces to Caen; the best way of achieving this was to attack—shades of Douglas Haig in 1917. The 49th Infantry Division began the operation, by advancing in the direction of Rauray, at the junction of the Panzer Lehr and the Hitlerjugend. The principal offensive was then launched by VII Corps on the 26th, with the 11th Armoured and the 15th Scottish divisions taking the lead. After a massive bombardment courtesy of HMS Rodney and the This British 6-pounder could not stop the German advance. One of the crew lies alongside the gun. (Bundesarchiv)

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A Sherman observation post destroyed in the streets of Villers-Bocage. The fake wooden barrel lies beside the tank, some of its armor has also fallen off. The impact of 8.8cm shells is clearly visible, especially to the left of the turret. Note the insignia of the 7th Armoured Division, a jerboa, above the machine gun. Below that, the number “33” inside a yellow circle is the bridge classification number, indicating the weight of the tank to ensure it does not cross any bridge not strong enough to hold it. On the front of the tank, the marking “3517/ LCT” indicates the number and type of landing barge used to carry it. As for the number “16030” painted by hand in white, this is the mobilization number, applied to tanks transferred overseas. (Bundesarchiv)

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monitors Erebus and Roberts, the British assault began according to plan. Around Cheux, however, the fighting was particularly bitter, especially between the Shermans of the 29th Brigade and the Panthers of the 1st Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment. On June 27, the British continued to make progress, albeit with difficulty, and managed to seize a bridge over the Odon at Tourville. The threat to the Hitlerjugend became so acute that the 2nd Panzer Division had to lend the SS division its tanks. On June 28, the British reached the summit of Hill 112, but could go no further. They were now faced with an almost insurmountable obstacle: the 1st Battalion, 3rd Panzer Regiment on loan from the 2nd Panzer Division a battle group each from the Das Reich and LSSAH Divisions and another from the 21st Panzer Division, plus 300 tanks from the II SS Panzer Corps that had just arrived from Poland. Together, this was the greatest threat to Montgomery since the invasion had begun. On June 29, the good weather that had been so elusive since D-Day returned. For the British, it was too late to resume the offensive, but they still had to halt the German counterattack. Aerial raids began at 1030, targeting the II SS Panzer Corps, but did not prevent the Germans from unleashing their own assault, which they did at 1400, led by a large battle group from the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, comprised of the 19th and 20th SS Panzergrenadier Regiments and the 9th SS Panzer Regiment. It was this formidable force that retook Grainville before advancing on Cheux. While the Tigers were responsible for stopping the 7th Armoured Division outside Villers-Bocage, they suffered once in the town. Wittmann himself lost his tank fighting in these streets. (Bundesarchiv)

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To deal with the Allied air threat, German armored units, like the infantry, had only Flak guns available. The Luftwaffe, very inferior in numbers, only ever managed to attack at night, and the Allied fighter-bombers enjoyed total aerial superiority. However, Flak could prove a powerful weapon. Here, three heavy trucks protect a convoy of Waffen-SS vehicles. Each truck is armed with a 3.7cm piece. (Bundesarchiv)

It was then stopped dead in its tracks by a deluge of fire and iron: artillery, both land and naval, and the might of the Allied air forces. Some sources mention a raid by 100 Lancasters, but this is erroneous: the strategic bombers did attack in this sector, but not until the following night. (During the early hours of June 30, 151 Lancasters, 105 Halifaxes, and 10 Mosquitos, carrying a total of 1,100 tons of bombs, attacked the sector, with the loss of just two aircraft.) The fact remains that while the losses sustained by the Hohenstaufen were not catastrophic— barely more than 150 men and five Panthers—it was unable to seize Cheux. Farther south, the 10th SS Panzer Division recaptured Gavrus and Hill 112, only to lose them again after a few hours. To the northeast of the battlefield, a mixed battle group composed of elements from the Hitlerjugend and the 21st Panzer Divisions was pinned down by Second Tactical Air Force Hawker Typhoons. For the Germans, the pocket formed by the British between the Odon river and the N13 highway—where over 87,000 Allied troops men were entrenched, supported by formidable artillery and aircraft cover—was proving impossible to reclaim, The German armored divisions were stretched to breaking and battle ended on the evening of July 1 when they abandoned their unsustainable attacks. From a purely tactical point of view, the British failed; after all, the main goal of Operation Epsom was to break through the enemy lines and take Caen. Neither part of this double objective was achieved. Strategically, however, Epsom’s results were immense. First of all, the British assault had caught the Germans short and had stopped them from

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launching their own counteroffensive. Secondly, as Benamou remarks, Epsom literally bled the German armored forces dry. The battle had engaged over 1,000 tanks (approximately 600 British and 400 German), and while, at the conclusion of the fighting, Allied losses were heavier than the Germans’, proportionately the German losses were more devastating. By July 1, the German divisions directly involved in Epsom had no more than 302 tanks to hand: 56 in the Hitlerjugend, 61 in the 21st Panzer Division, 68 in the Panzer Lehr, 103 in the Das Reich and 11 in the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. The 300 tanks that had just arrived in Normandy with the II SS Panzer Corps—which in itself lost 40 tanks—could not replace the 350 tanks that had been lost since June 6. In short, the Germans’ last chance to regain the tactical initiative had disappeared.

The Fight for Caen One of the consequences of the operations in the Odon valley was the complete overhaul of the German command. On June 29, Hausser replaced Dollmann at the head of the Seventh Army, after the latter apparently committed suicide. On July 3, the head of the Panzer Group West, Geyr von Schweppenburg, and that of the OB West, von Rundstedt himself, were both fired, the former for requesting that he withdraw beyond range of the naval artillery, the latter for considering negotiating a peace with the Allies. Rommel was not under review, as he had stuck faithfully to his own opinions, notably that it was superior Allied aviation that had decimated the panzer divisions, and retreating a few dozen kilometers would only aggravate the disorder and eventual losses. Geyr was replaced by General Heinrich Eberbach and Rundstedt by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. Other changes had taken place at the front, principally the fall of Cherbourg on June 30, which had freed up all the American forces for a southerly offensive. This did not really affect German planning, being fully preoccupied as they were with the British thrust into the Caen sector. Nevertheless, the Panzer Lehr was sent west to support the Götz von Berlichingen, and the Das Reich was placed in reserve in the Périers sector, whence it could dispatch battle groups into areas under American threat. But it was in the east where the bulk of the German armored forces was fixed by a series of British offensives. The first was Operation Windsor, which sought to drive the Hitlerjugend out of Carpiquet. Launched on July 4, it succeeded in forcing the SS stormtroopers from the town, but the ousted troops then looped round to the aerodrome and the British were forced to renew their offensive to again dislodge them. They accomplished this on July 8 with Operation Charnwood, which began with a sizable aerial bombardment: 283 Lancasters, 164 Halifaxes and 20 Mosquitos dropped over 2,200 tons of bombs beyond the German front lines, so as not to hit any friendly forces. The raid ravaged the northernmost part of Caen and the rear of the Hitlerjugend but left intact the latter’s front lines and panzers. The Germans were, however, severely shaken. Most of the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, which had just arrived at the front, lost any semblance of control. At Carpiquet, the 1st Battalion, 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment took the aerodrome with around 200 grenadiers and an 8.8cm battery. These few men fought the Canadian 3rd Division for several hours, before being decimated by Churchill Crocodiles (flamethrowers).

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In Profile:

Panthers and Jagdpanther A Panther A from the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Panzer Regiment. Originally from the 3rd Panzer Division, this battalion was attached to the Panzer Lehr on January 22, 1944.

A Jagdpanther from the 2nd Company, 654th Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion, the only company equipped with this type—12 examples—on the Normandy front. On June 27, 1944, the 2nd Battalion, 654th Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion, was under command of the Weidinger Group, Panzer Lehr Division in the Mondrainville–Grainvillle– Rauray region.

A Panther G from the 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 9th SS Panzer Regiment, Hohenstaufen Division. This tank was destroyed at Saint-André-sur-Orne on July 22, 1944.

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A Tiger I from the 3rd Company of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion captured by the British in August 1944, south of Caen. (IWM B6140)

Meanwhile, to the northeast of the town, the Panthers of the 1st Battalion, 12th Panzer Regiment stepped into the vacuum left by the annihilated Luftwaffe division to face the British 3rd Division. But the situation quickly became untenable, mostly due to the pincerformation advance of the 3rd Canadian and 3rd British Divisions. The 1st Battalion, 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment, now greatly weakened, did manage some staunch resistance against the 59th Division, but the flanks collapsed, with the entire 12th SS Panzer Division facing annihilation. Disregarding orders, Kurt Meyer decided to withdraw his division to the right bank of the Orne. On July 9, Canadian and Irish troops entered the ruins of Caen. The Hitlerjugend lasted another two days on the right bank before withdrawing. The division made an attempt at regrouping in the Falaise region. It now had just 25 Panthers, 19 Panzer IVs and a few Flak pieces. Its respite was a short one. While the battle at Caen was playing out, the British once again attacked in the Hill 112 sector, with the 43rd Infantry Division and two armored brigades. The assault, Operation Jupiter, began at 0500 on July 10, against the II SS Panzer Corps front. Initially, the Frundsberg division was forced back, losing Baron and Château-de-Fontaine.

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A Panzer IV carefully camouflaged next to a hedge. Its unit is unknown. There were 759 Panzer IVs on the Western Front on May 15; by September 15, only 133 remained, and not all of them were operational. These figures take into account reinforcements, notably the panzer brigades, which arrived in the West in early September, mainly in Lorraine. (Bundesarchiv)

With the 130th Armoured Brigade closing in on Hill 112, the Germans sent in the Hohenstaufen’s StuG assault guns and Tigers of the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion; the battle lasted all day, and while the British managed to gain a foothold just north of the hill, neither they nor the Germans could lay claim to the summit. It quickly became a terrifying no-man’s land, pockmarked with shells and strewn with uprooted trees, wrecked tanks and corpses. The fighting continued for another week, fixing the II SS Panzer Corps and preventing it from withdrawing at the crucial moment when Caen had just collapsed, in order to assist the Panzer Lehr that was seeking to regain the initiative over the Americans to the west.

The Panzer Lehr Attacks On July 5, the Panzer Lehr Division left the Tilly sector to reinforce the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen that was grappling with Bradley’s U.S. First Army. Since the fall of Cherbourg, the Germans had feared an American offensive from the south—and with good reason. Bayerlein’s mission was to launch an immediate preventative attack, a prelude to a much grander offensive. The Panzer Lehr, despite the losses it had suffered, was still the most powerful armored division in Normandy at the time.

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On July 8, it clashed with the American vanguard at Pont-Hébert, giving the defense at Saint-Lô a breathing space. The capital of La Manche, increasingly the “capital of ruins,” was in effect the American prize before they launched their big offensive to the south. But General Eugen Meindl’s II Fallschirmjäger Corps, alongside the Götz von Berlichingen, fought relentlessly—though weakening—to deny the Americans. Bayerlein’s preliminary assault, which hit the lead elements of the 3rd Armored Division, was therefore very welcome. It was backed up by a similar assault by a Das Reich battle group on Le Dézert. Bayerlein’s main offensive was for July 11. His goal was to reach the Vire–Taute canal and to establish a defensive position between Graignes and Airel, via Saint-Jean-de-Daye, an advance ten kilometers deep and 19 wide. To this end, he assembled a grand force: two battle groups provided by the 901st and 902nd Panzergrenadier Regiments, each with five or six companies supported by 60 Panzer IVs and Panthers; in addition, the Das Reich provided support in the form of elements of its 3rd Battalion, Deutschland Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 2nd SS Panzer Regiment; the 14th Fallschirmjäger Regiment also contributed a battle group. The attack began on July 11—immediate successes were reported, particularly from Le Dézert—but the assault was halted after five kilometers without reaching Saint-Jeande-Daye, let alone the Vire–Taute canal. With overwhelming air support, the Americans counterattacked, and the Panzer Lehr Division was forced to cede ground, losing 10 Panthers of the 901st Panzergrenadier Regiment surrounded to the north of Le Dézert.

In Profile:

Gerd von Rundstedt Like most of the German officer corps, Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was born to Prussian aristocracy, in 1875. He was to prove one of Hitler’s ablest military leaders, in spite of his ongoing shabby treatment by the Führer. During the Great War, he was chief of staff of an army corps and worked with the Turkish general staff, assisting in their reorganization. He retired in 1938, but came out of retirement to command an army group in the Polish campaign. In 1940, as head of Army Group B, he was to lead the breakthrough into France. During Operation Barbarossa, he commanded Army Group South that overran Ukraine. He was then fired by Hitler when the Soviets counterattacked.

In July 1942, he was back in favor as the CIC Western Europe but was yet again fired, in July Oberbefehlshaber West von Rundstedt (left) chats with Erwin 1944, because Rommel at the George V Hotel of his failure in Paris, December 19, 1943. to drive the (Bundesarchiv) Allies out of Normandy. Recalled three months later for the Ardennes offensive, he was again relieved of his duties in March 1945 before being captured by the Allies in May; he was soon released because of ill health.

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In Profile:

Panzer IVs A Panzer IV from the 33rd Panzer Regiment, 9th Panzer Division, the last unit to intervene in Normandy, in August.

A Panzer IV from the 1st Battalion, 1st SS Panzer Regiment, 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Like all Panzer IVs engaged in Normandy, it has had schürzen added to its turret. The side skirts of the hull have disappeared.

A Panzer IV from the 1st Company, 22nd Panzer Regiment, 21st Panzer Division. The schürzen’s hook system is clearly visible.

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This Panzer IV, or the mangled shell of it, belonged to the Panzer Lehr Division, whose insignia can be seen alongside the number “532” on the turret schürzen. Photographed on July 26, 1944, in front of the Saint-Gilles church, near Saint-Lô. (IWM AP30914)

The War of Attrition Continues With his attack having failed, Bayerlein was forced to return to the defensive. During the week that followed, the Americans intensified their pressure and, little by little, the Germans were chased from Pont-Hébert, and then from Saint-Lô, which fell on July 18. The losses suffered by the Americans were terrible, but on the German side, things were getting desperate. The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division was down to less than 40 percent of its theoretical strength. In the case of the Panzer Lehr, it was even worse with barely 30 percent. There were just 25 Panzer IVs and 20 Panthers in the 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment. It is assumed that the 1st Battalion, 6th Panzer Regiment, attached to the division fared no better. As for the Das Reich, it was holding the Périers sector with depleted resources: the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Panzer Regiment, the 2nd SS Rocket Battalion and the 41st Battalion, 2nd SS Panzer Artillery Regiment. Panzergrenadiers were dispersed hither and thither, having already suffered horrific losses, exacerbated by the fact that that some of their number was still languishing in the south of France. By July 18, the division could boast fewer than 70 tanks out of an on-paper inventory of 180. A lull seemed to fall on the western invasion front, while to the east, in the Caen sector, Montgomery was about to trigger the infamous Operation Goodwood. This would help the Americans in their final preparations for Operation Cobra, the operation that would finally allow them to break through the German front and leave behind the bocage that was so poorly suited to mobile warfare.

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Goodwood and Cobra: The Panzers Face Their Destiny Operation Goodwood was an impressive offensive. It aimed to liberate Caen once and for all, and to seize Bourguebus Ridge, the ideal departure point for a later operation. This, in the case of a rupture in the German front, would be engaged immediately and it is likely that Montgomery sincerely believed that such a breakthrough was coming. But this did not obviate the other objective of Operation Goodwood, as in previous operations: to fix the bulk of German forces in the sector, allowing the Americans to penetrate the front to the west, in accordance with the Allied plan put in place even before the landings. G.I.s examine a detracked Panther and an SdKfz 251 (foreground) destroyed by the aerial bombing of July 25, 1944. (U.S. National Archives)

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A Panzer IV from the 21st Panzer Division taken out by the aerial bombardment preceding Operation Goodwood, near Emiéville. (IWM B8028)

Montgomery’s primary offensive, accompanied by significant air raids, would emanate from the 6th Airborne bridgehead, with three armored divisions and joint assaults with the Canadians on Vaucelles (Operation Atlantic), and with the British I Corps to the west of Caen. The offensive was very well prepared, so well prepared in fact that the Germans saw it coming and in the days preceding the attack, they set up a particularly robust defense in depth. The first line was held by two infantry divisions, the 272nd Infantry Division and the 16th Air Landing Division, entrenched in the villages. 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment reinforced the Luftwaffe division that had been so severely mauled during Operation Charnwood. Their immediate neighbor was the 21st Panzer Division with just 60 Panzer IVs left. The division had, on Colonel Hans von Luck’s orders, formed a surprisingly formidable battle group that employed, alongside the 60 Panzer IVs, the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion and its Tigers, as well as several tank destroyers on French Hotchkiss H39 chassis plus other self-propelled 10.5cm guns on the same bases. Flak also played a key role, with nearly 90 8.8cm guns in one Luftwaffe AAA regiment, divided up between points of high tactical value to create a spider’s web in which the British tanks would struggle to find a blind spot. Cagny, on the N13 road, was such a trap. Elsewhere, a “mobile” defense was provided by the LSSAH and, to a certain extent, by the Hitlerjugend, placed in reserve at the rear. More so than they had been since the landings, the Germans were ready for the British attack. Montgomery could not benefit from the element of surprise; in fact, the only thing Rommel did not know about was the massive air raid that would be delivered by the Allies.

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A Panzerjäger on an H39 chassis, belonging to the 200th Assault Gun Battalion, 21st Panzer Division, which has been blown up in a street in Mondeville. The Pak 40 has been broken in two by the force of the explosion. (IWM B7752)

Goodwood: The Fight Returning from a meeting with the I SS Panzer Corps on July 17, Rommel was the victim of a serious car accident, the result of a Spitfire attack by 602 Squadron, RAF on his convoy at Sainte-Foy-de-Montgomery. Evacuated first to Bernay and then back to Germany, Rommel never returned to Normandy. He was replaced by von Kluge, who had previously held two key positions in OB West. This would, perhaps, have had its advantages had events not suddenly accelerated at dawn on July 18, with the first air raid of Operation Goodwood. The bombing, carried out by 667 Lancasters, 260 Halifaxes, 15 Mosquitos and 571 B-24 Liberators, surpassed in its intensity every tactical bombing that had come before. It involved twice as many aircraft as would be used later in the destruction of Dresden in February 1945. The devastating effects of the bombings are well known: pulverized villages, flattened tanks, traumatized soldiers and civilians. The 11th Armoured Division advanced without opposition: everything had been levelled by the air raid. The division quickly reached and then crossed the N13. The 16th Luftwaffe Field Division was annihilated, the dazed survivors allowing themselves to be captured without a fight.

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But the units advancing near Cagny were taken to task by the 8.8cm guns, and British losses grew steadily. A violent clash pitted the surviving tanks of the 21st Panzer Division and the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion against the Shermans of the 29th Armoured Brigade. Outclassed in range as well as firepower, the British tanks took a battering from the Tigers and Flak guns. Soon, more than 40 tank carcasses littered the plains of the Cagny sector. For the Shermans that managed to reach the crest of Bourguebus Ridge, the situation was little better: the panzers of the LSSAH entered the action in a battle group commanded by Joachim Peiper. Between the fighting at Cagny and that at Bourguebus the 11th Armored Division lost 126 tanks. This seemingly impressive number should be reviewed in context: the British remained masters of the battlefield and managed to salvage 86 of the tanks lost. It is also interesting to note the case of one British tank battalion that lost 41 tanks but only 17 dead and 39 wounded. The losses suffered by the LSSAH, qualified as “terrible” by the SS themselves, did not exceed a dozen tanks by the end of the day on June 18. The experiences of the soldiers of the 1944 elite, whether German or Allied, were far removed from those of their 1914–18 predecessors, not to mention the Eastern Front. A 7.5cm Pak 40, towed by an SdKfz 251 D, travels through the Normandy bocage. It belongs to the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, one of the most efficient German armored divisions in Normandy. Alongside the Das Reich, it helped to keep the Falaise Pocket open for some time. (ECPAD)

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In Profile:

Self-propelled Assault Guns A StuG III 40 from the 341st Assault Gun Brigade, whose first engagement was on July 31 in the Avranches– Brécey region. Twice reconstituted, the brigade lost all its guns in the Allied aerial attacks toward the end of the Normandy campaign. On the model shown here, the lateral anterior armor plate has been scavenged.

A StuG III 40 of the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Panzer Regiment, 21st Panzer Division. During the fighting in the Grainville–Marcelet– Mouen sector on June 26, 1944, two assault gun companies were engaged alongside the panzers of 1st and 2nd Battalions, Hitlerjugend.

A StuH 42 (SdKfz 142/2) from the 2nd Company 394th Assault Gun Brigade, during the fighting in the Vire region. The vehicle is armed with a 10.5cm L28 howitzer.

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That said, on the evening of July 18, the territorial gains made by the British were significant: Caen had been largely cleared and the troops had reached Bourguebus Ridge. But losses of matériel were heavy in places, and the British could not as yet boast a decisive victory: despite their advances, they had not yet penetrated the German front. And the German reserves were no longer engaged in battle. The massive air raid, in wiping out the front, had perhaps caused more harm than good, making the terrain difficult to cross with the resultant traffic jams so bad that the tanks had to attack alone, without the artillery support that could have cleared the hedgehog defenses like those of Cagny. Finally, it is worth noting that, during the night of July 18/19, the Luftwaffe effectively intervened, hitting a significant number of targets given the concentration of the British troops.

Goodwood: The Final Operation On July 19, the British renewed their assaults against both Bourguebus and Cagny. The Guards Division seized the latter, suffering only light losses: artillery support and aircraft support proved key in achieving this. In Cagny, which the Germans were forced to abandon, the British discovered a large number of sabotaged and abandoned Flak pieces, which the 21st Panzer Division had been unable to evacuate. The Guards’ armored vehicles were, however, stopped by the 21st Panzer Division’s Panzer IVs outside Vimont. Farther east, the initial Canadian successes at Vaucelles compelled the German command to engage the 9th SS Hohenstaufen to the east of the Orne, farther away from the American sector. As at July 19, the division had 17 StuG IIIs, 22 Panzer IVs and 24 Panthers—40-percent strength. But during the night, the order came to detach the Panther battalion, the reconnaissance battalion and an artillery battalion to the I SS Panzer Corps that was under great pressure: the Hitlerjugend had replaced the 21st Panzer Division at the front and the LSSAH was suffering in a “terrible” engagement. On July 19, Hitler finally authorized the use of the 116th Panzer Division. On July 20, the date on which the assassination attempt on Hitler—orchestrated by a number of senior army officers—failed, the battle on the ground continued with somewhat less intensity. In the western sector of the newly conquered front, the British gave up on their assault. To the south, in contrast, the Canadians captured Saint-André-sur-Orne, threatening to drive a wedge between the two armored SS corps. However, the thrust ran out of steam and that evening the Canadian VIII Corps was withdrawn from the front to be refitted. It had lost 350 tanks, but, like the British, they were able to retrieve a good number of them: 160 at least. On the German side, the British assault had been resisted, albeit with some loss of ground, yet it was not catastrophic. On the other hand, the fighting had been very costly in terms of matériel and men: some 3,000 troops had been killed or wounded and 2,000 taken prisoner. Three divisions had been ripped to shreds: the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division had simply ceased to exist, the 272nd Infantry Division had been reduced to a single battle group serving with the I SS Panzer Corps, and the 21st Panzer Division, already depleted by five

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weeks of bitter fighting, was reduced to a single battalion and was never able to recover its strength. Panzer losses had been heavy: around 130 for the three armored divisions and the one heavy battalion engaged. This was about three times less than the British, but for the Germans these were basically irreplaceable, as the only reinforcements would come from the 2nd Battalion, 1st SS Panzer Regiment plus a few Panthers from the Hohenstaufen that was reduced to 45 tanks by July 23.

The Hohenstaufen Counterattacks On July 25, as the Americans were unleashing their formidable offensive toward the south, a rare German counterattack was unfolding south of Caen. This was, of course, totally eclipsed by the events on the Cotentin, but it merits a mention here. It showed that, in the face on a tenacious defense, the assailants—German or Allied—always suffered significant losses. On the same day, the 5th and 6th Canadian Brigades continued their advance along the right bank of the Orne, clearing the remnants of the 272nd Infantry Division. To face this threat, the Hohenstaufen launched a large-scale counterattack, with the principal objective of reestablishing the front and regaining the ground lost by the infantry division, and, if the opportunity presented itself, to again reach Caen. In the afternoon of the 25th, the Germans left their start lines. The losses of the preceding days had forced them to merge the two panzergrenadier regiments into one, the Panzergrenadier Regiment “H,” under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Emil Zollhöfer. Thanks to the return of the Panthers it had previously loaned out, the division now had 58 tanks, of which 23 were Panthers, 21 were Panzer IVs and 14 were StuGs. The Germans pushed along the right bank of the Orne, the panzergrenadiers to the left and Panzer Group Meyer on the right flank. Leaving the hills south of Clinchamps, H Regiment overwhelmed the village, which the Canadians were yet to reach, before seizing May-sur-Orne. The panzers, to their right, had arrived in the hills above Fontenay-leMarmion, but were unable to pass Hill 88, behind which the Canadians had established a line of deadly antitank artillery. By nightfall, the front had been secured along this line. German raids on Verrières continued throughout the night, but the village did not fall. At dawn on July 26, Panzergrenadier Regiment H resumed the assault and progressed well, taking the twin towns of Saint-André and Saint-Martin in quick succession. To clear these two agglomerations, the Germans had to capture Hill 67, which dominated the sector, on the road to Caen. Support from the 8th Rocket Brigade was therefore paramount, and the Canadians were forced to retreat north, under a storm of steel. When the stormtroopers of the Hohenstaufen reached Hill 67, they caught sight of the ruins of Caen, just six kilometers away. But to the right, the panzers seemed incapable of forcing the Canadian antitank defenses. In addition, the German tanks were subject to continuous aerial attack. At the end of the day, the division had lost 11 panzers, around a fifth of its total strength. The Canadians, on the other hand, had lost just three.

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The situation was now untenable for the Germans. No reinforcements were available, as the Americans were causing havoc elsewhere and the 2nd Panzer Division, which had had to loan out some of its subunits, was swiftly transferred south of Saint-Lô. Over the following days, the Hohenstaufen clung to its territorial gains, while its repair workshops incrementally rebuilt the 9th SS Panzer Regiment’s offensive strength. By July 31, the division had been restored to a not insignificant strength: 29 Panthers, 22 Panzer IVs and 27 StuG IIIs, to be engaged in the new Caumont sector, with the onset of the British Second Army’s Operation Bluecoat. As for the village of May-sur-Orne, it was only recaptured by the Allies on August 8, after intense fighting. The localized German success on the right bank of the Orne brought an abrupt and premature end to the Canadian II Corps’ Operation Spring and caused heavy losses among the Canadian forces (1,500 dead and wounded). However, Montgomery had once again succeeded in fixing the bulk of the German armored forces in the Caen sector, and at the most decisive moment. A StuG III 40 destroyed by the Americans in the Périers sector. This shot is dated July 24, 1944, the date of Cobra’s false start. From the sector that the photo was taken in, we can surmise that this vehicle belonged to the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen. (US National Archives)

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In Profile:

Tank Destroyers and Self-propelled Gun A self-propelled 15cm Hummel (“bumblebee”) howitzer belonging to the artillery regiment of an armored division. Note the armored artillery’s tactical mark on the front of the casemate.

A Marder III M tank destroyer on a Czech Panzer 38 (t) chassis.

A Panzerjäger 7.5cm Pak 40 on an H 39 chassis from the 200th Assault Gun Battalion.

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Cobra: Allied and German Forces To definitively break through the German front, Bradley pulled out all the stops, engaging a large force that included three army corps (VII, VIII and XIX), each 14 divisions strong, of which two were armored and one motorized. It was Major General J. Lawton Collins’s VII Corps that had the task of penetrating the front, following a massive bombardment from the Eighth Air Force. Three infantry divisions captured the German lines, opening the way for the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions and the 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”) to exploit the breakthrough. On the German side, the front extended from Lessay in the west to the southern outskirts of Saint-Lô, before reaching due east toward Caumont. From the coast to SaintLô, the front was under control of von Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps. The defense of the sector lay in the hands of three elite divisions: the Panzer Lehr to the west of Saint-Lô, the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen in the hills above Marchésieux, where it benefited from an excellent defensive position, and finally the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, around Périers. These three units had already suffered significant matériel losses prior to Operation Cobra. The Panzer Lehr was still the most powerful: its 130th Panzer Regiment This photograph was taken on July 9, 1944, at Saint-Fromond, in La Manche. These two Panzer IVs from the 6th Company, 2nd SS Panzer Regiment were destroyed during Battle Group (Kampfgruppe) Wisliceny’s abortive counterattack on the American bridgehead at Le Dézert. The lead tank was hit several times, including once in the center of the front shield and once on the left of the turret. (US National Archives)

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still had around 40 Panzer IVs and Panthers, while its 1st had 40 Panthers: a total of 80 tanks. The Das Reich only had about 50 panzers left. As for the armored battalion of the 17th SS Panzer Regiment, its forces are largely unknown, save for the presence of around 20 StuG IIIs. The Germans therefore had around 150 tanks at their disposal. As far as the infantry was concerned, the situation was even worse: the divisions were exhausted and depleted from the hedgerow warfare, and no replacements had been forthcoming. The 353rd Infantry Division was probably the least affected, with only around 1,500 troops. The 243rd Infantry Division was reduced to a single battle group of 700 men. Nor had the paratroopers been spared: the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment had just 100 men left. The preliminary American aerial assault struck the Panzer Lehr vanguard. This was established along a serious of pressure points, of which the most important was Hébécrevon that overlooked the Vire valley to the west of Saint-Lô. This village and its neighboring localities were held by the 902nd Panzergrenadier Regiment and the 1st Battalion, 6th Panzergrenadier Regiment. At La Chapelle-en-Juger, the 901st Panzergrenadier Regiment was supported by one of the division’s tank destroyer battalion equipped with Marder IIs with 7.5cm guns. As for the Flak, it maintain a position behind the front, ready to stop an American breakthrough. On July 24, the Eighth Air Force was dispatched to the Cotentin, but weather conditions were so bad that the operation was called off. Hundreds of bombers still carried out their attack, in some cases with tragic consequences for their own troops. This abortive attack had other consequences: the Germans had seen the Americans leaving their start lines and used the fiasco to their advantage, infiltrating the American positions. In parts of the front, it took the entire afternoon to chase them out again.

This SdKfz 251 was hit hard by an antitank shell that split its armor and set it on fire. German matériel losses were immense, but more than 25,000 light vehicles still managed to cross the Seine. (DITE/USIS)

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Cobra: The Offensive Begins On July 25, the weather was much improved, and, at 0900, the raid was renewed, this time with devastating effect on the German lines. Once again, several errant bombings caused fatalities in the American lines: 12 B-24s dropped 470 50kg bombs on their own positions, followed soon after by 11 Liberators that dropped 352 125kg fragmentation bombs on the same sector: 102 G.I.s were killed and 380 wounded. Assuming that the Germans were attacked by 1,563 of the 1,586 bombers, the losses must have been considerable. The Panzer Lehr’s front line was obliterated, but the division was not annihilated, and its losses over the duration of the Normandy campaign were no greater than those of the other panzer divisions. All the same, the destruction of the front and a large part of the 130th Panzer Regiment left Bayerlein with no option but to counterattack. His 15 surviving Panzer IVs came to the aid of the pockets of resistance that had were frustrating the American advance. The Panzer Lehr survivors fought on for an entire day before surrendering. All along the front, the Americans were launching diversionary assaults that, though not “successful” in their own context, effectively prevented the Das Reich and 17th SS Panzer divisions from coming to Bayerlein’s aid. On July 26, the Americans began reaping the benefits of their previous day’s breakthrough. The Panzer Lehr front finally collapsed, and the American vanguard advanced to the Marigny–Canisy–Saint-Samson line. This latter village was located in the hills above Coutances, which meant that the bulk of the Das Reich found itself 20 kilometers north of the most extreme flank of the American advance. All units situated to the west of Saint-Lô therefore had to abandon their positions and move south, as far as the Bréhal–Gavray–Percy axis, where a line of resistance would be established—if they had enough time. As it was, time was very much against the Germans. For want of reserves, the Bréhal– Percy line had to be held by the 2nd SS and the 17th SS Panzer divisions, but they were already at risk of being encircled. To reach this hypothetical line of defense, they first had to extricate themselves and break through to the south. Suffice to say, this was totally impractical. On July 27 and 28, the Fritz Langanke, a commander in battle developed chaotically across the western sector the Das Reich, in an interview with south of Coutances, near Roncey. Elements of seven Historynet, recalled: “I set up a divisions were surrounded here, including the two SS march formation. First my tank with divisions, and the 91st, 243rd, 275th and 353rd Infantry grenadiers on the left and about 50 Divisions, not to mention the paratroopers. On July to 60 paratroopers on the right side 29, von Choltitz ordered an attempted breakout. For as a safeguard against close combat this, all the heavy matériel was abandoned, including, fighters with bazookas. Then the two notably, the artillery. Thanks to the help of the surviving assault guns, the wheeled vehicles of tanks of the Das Reich and a handful of StuGs from the our task force, various stragglers, selfGötz von Berlichingen, a sizable number of troops from propelled infantry guns and mobile the two divisions managed to escape south. The others flak followed. The rear was brought failed, the U.S. 2nd Armored Division managing to up by the Panzer IV and my second inflict some 5,500 German casualties. With some American units left behind to clear the Roncey Pocket, the remainder pushed south, and, on July 31, liberated the town of Avranches. Patton’s tanks, which the following day crossed the Sélune at Pontaubault, were thus able to spread out across western France.

Panther … and at 2200 hours we started.” Langanke was awarded the Knight’s Cross for ensuring hundreds of soldiers and their matériel escaped the Roncey pocket.

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The First German Counterattacks The Mortain counteroffensive, or Operation Lüttich, von Kluge’s attempt to cut the American lines, is the best known German counterattack. Yet, on July 29, Eberbach deployed units from his Panzer Group West. On the 27th, he had ordered the 2nd Panzer Division to move west then, on the 28th, he ordered the 116th Panzer Division to do likewise. On the 29th, the 2nd Panzer Division, which had been deployed the previous day at Tessy, assaulted at Villebaudon in an effort to help the units surrounded at Roncey escape. The attempt failed. That same day, the 2nd Battalion, 116th Panzer Regiment launched an attack in the same direction and suffered a similar fate under fire from Major General Charles H. Corlett’s U.S. XIX Corps. From this date forward, the German armored units in this sector were on the defensive, to prevent the Americans from widening the corridor to the south at all costs. As long as the corridor remained narrow enough, there was still a chance that the Germans could sever it—if they were able to regroup enough of their forces to do so. If not, the battle would be lost. It was therefore with renewed energy that the elements of the five remaining German armored divisions resisted the three American infantry divisions—which still managed to capture Tessy on August 1. These five divisions—2nd Panzer, 116th Panzer, Panzer Lehr, 2nd SS Panzer and 17th SS Panzer—regrouped under the umbrella of von Funck’s XXXVII Panzer Corps. Although these divisions had spent weeks in action and had lost a great many tanks, they were still strong enough to present a major threat to the Allies.

The End of Panzer Group West While the German front at Avranches was collapsing, the British launched Operation Bluecoat on July 27, with Montgomery unleashing a fresh assault, this time at the junction of the Seventh Army and the Panzer Group West, in the Caumont–l’Eventé sector. On July 30, the British VIII Corps attacked, the objective being the town of Vire. Elsewhere the Americans were in sight of Avranches, while at the same time, the British XXX Corps was attacking in the direction of Mont-Pinçon. Montgomery’s initial phase went according to plan, the 326th Infantry Division being incapable of resisting such a powerful British offensive. Realizing this, von Kluge sent reinforcements in the form of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions from the II SS Panzer Corps, as well as Feuchtinger’s 21st Panzer Division that was the first to arrive on the scene. This division, cut to the quick during Operation Goodwood, had been able to restore some of its strength, and now had some 40 Panzer IVs. Its main strike force, however, was the 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion, attached to the division since its arrival at the front. It only had 13 tanks as at August 1, but these tanks were all Tigers, including some Tiger IIs. That said, the British attacked with six divisions, three of which were armored. To stop them, a counterattack would have to be a powerful one. It was delivered by the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, the 21st Panzer Division, and the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion, plus even a Hitlerjugend reconnaissance battalion battle

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group. The assault struck between Montchauvet to the north and Chênedollé to the south. Though it was unable to repel Dempsey’s Second Army, nor save Vire in the long run—it eventually fell to the Americans on August 6—the attack did halt the British offensive and allowed the Germans to reestablish the front. Following the fall of Vire on the 6th, all German eyes turned to Operation Lüttich, the final attempt to reverse the course of the battle of Normandy. Its success or failure would decide the fate of the campaign in the West.

Hitler Orders a Counterattack As Patton’s troops spread through Brittany and the Maine region, it became clear to von Kluge that clinging on to Normandy was no longer practical or logical. Only a retreat over the Seine would save the Seventh Army and Panzer Group West (which became the Fifth Panzer Army on August 5). However, on August 2, Hitler, far removed from the front in eastern Prussia, meddled with another plan.

The hulk of a Panther from the 9th Panzer Division on rue de la Poterie, in Argentan. The tank was positioned here as the street sloped and provided a good position from which to fire on the Americans. The latter retaliated with artillery, which used the bell tower of the Saint-Germain church as a reference point. The shells destroyed many houses and took out the Panther. (DITE/USIS)

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In Profile:

Tank Destroyers and Assault Gun A Jagdpanzer IV F (SdKfz 162) from the 1st Company, 12th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion during fighting in the Cagny–Virmont sector on July 17/18. Under the command of Lieutenant Georg Hurdelbrink, the 1st Company had just arrived in theater, the 2nd and 3rd only joining them later. On August 10, on Hill 111 northwest of Rouvres, Hurdelbrink destroyed 11 tanks on his own, while one of his subordinates, Technical Sergeant Rudolf Roy, destroyed a further seven.

A Jagdpanzer IV from the 3rd Company of the 228th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 116th Panzer Division. The vehicle, originally painted in sand, was repainted in a single greenish layer, the yellow being too distinct against the Norman greenery.

A Sturmgeschütz IV from the 394th Assault Gun Brigade in the Vire region. On August 6, 1944, its 3rd battery destroyed 26 Shermans and liberated an infantry battalion that had just been taken prisoner.

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On paper, it was indeed tempting to believe that a powerful counteroffensive, launched from Mortain towards Avranches, could cut Patton’s lines of communication and isolate his Third Army from the rest of the Allies. After all, the distance between Mortain and the sea was just 30 kilometers; a massive attack by all available armored units would cut it off. Furthermore, a wildly audacious attack would take the Allies by surprise. But for von Kluge, implementing such an offensive was a nightmare. Where would he find the tanks? The troops? There were no reserves. As for the armored divisions, they were for the most part engaged at Caen. To regroup sufficient means for the attack, Kluge decided to shorten the front against the British and to relieve some of the panzer divisions with infantry units. This only allowed him to bring together four armored divisions, regrouped within the XLVII Panzer Corps. And again, these troops were exhausted: only the 116th Panzer Division, which had just arrived on the front was still fresh. But it was without its 1st Panzer Battalion and only had around 60 tanks. The 2nd Panzer Division, also with 60 tanks, was still a considerable force, as were the LSSAH and Das Reich Divisions, aided by a battle group from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division. Most sources agree that between 120 and 150 panzers participated in the counteroffensive, which suggests that not all available tanks took part. If they had, the sum would have been closer to 250. Tactically, the German plan was simple: to attack from both sides of Mortain and charge on Avranches, with the support of around 300 fighter aircraft. Once the breakthrough was complete and the troops reached the sea, a solid front would be established to the north. To this effect, two fresh infantry divisions would be drawn from the Fifteenth Army that held the sector around Pas-de-Calais. Zero hour was set at 0100 hours on August 7, 1944.

The Secret Uncovered On the eve of the attack, Allied intelligence services intercepted coded messages sent by the 1st SS Panzer Division. Immediately deciphered by Ultra, they outlined the objectives for the aerial support that would cover the divisions over the Mortain region the next day. The Americans took immediate action. It was too late to change the plan for the 30th Division that held the Mortain sector, but they warned the Allied air forces, who instantly launched raids against the aerodromes around Paris, to deprive the Germans of their aerial support. When the panzer divisions attacked on August 7, they advanced under the cover of darkness, without difficulty. The 30th Division’s defense was “elastic,” the Americans preferring to form hedgehogs at certain tactically important points than to be eliminated defending a rigid front. The ease of movement over the first few hours instilled the Germans with confidence, and they advanced several kilometers: the Das Reich traveled along the Sélune, through Milly, Poirier, and Fontenay. The 2nd Panzer Division did slightly better by advancing as far as Le Mesnil-Adelée. However, to its right, the 116th Panzer Division was not making much headway, and, to its left, the LSSAH’s progress north of Mortain was painfully slow. It should be noted that the terrain was particularly ill-suited to tanks, favoring a static defense.

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By late morning, the fog that covered the hillsides had dissipated and brilliant sunlight marked an end to the first phase of the offensive. Allied aircraft attacked in force, while the Luftwaffe, grounded in the Paris region or engaged in aerial combat away from the front, was powerless to intervene. Over a few hours, the German attack foundered under wave upon wave of Hawker Typhoons and P-47 Thunderbolts. This is widely acknowledged as the first time an offensive was halted by the force of aviation alone. Forced to hide out in groves of trees, behind hedges and along sunken roads, the panzers were unable to progress. The panzergrenadiers were no better off, of course. By the end of the day, Allied pilots had destroyed 116 tanks and as many armored vehicles. These figures are probably exaggerated, but they do give an approximation of German losses. Despite this reversal, Hitler ordered that the offensive be resumed, this time with a larger force. The same day, the 9th Panzer Division arrived at Alençon, but it was far from enough to kindle even a glimmer of hope in von Kluge. Patton had arrived at Le Mans, with two-thirds of Brittany already liberated. The more time passed, the more irrelevant Operation Lüttich became. It was fast becoming clear that the American XV Corps had begun an envelopment maneuver around the bulk of the German forces in Normandy. On August 8, the panzer attack came to a complete halt. Four companies of the U.S. 102nd Infantry Regiment held Hill 307 to the east of Mortain, significantly hindering the movement of German troops in the sector. The Das Reich could not dislodge them. Elsewhere, the 2nd Panzer Division was the only armored division to attempt to continue its advance; it was quickly stopped by Allied aircraft. On August 24, 1944, a group of SdKfz 251s continue their retreat through a raindrenched Brionne. The lead vehicle has stopped, and it appears that one of its crew has dismounted to read a series of marker signs. The Germans rarely put the names of towns on these small panels, favoring instead the names of officers or tactical badges. (ECPAD)

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It was also on August 8 that the Allies decided to take advantage of Patton’s unstoppable advance to try to encircle the Seventh and the Fifth Panzer Armies in Normandy. For von Kluge, it was a sombre moment: he notified OKW of his wish to renew Operation Lüttich on August 10, with the help of the II SS Panzer Corps, but German intelligence warned him of the danger of the situation. The American XV Corps was moving on Alençon, and it was clear that it was going to try to encircle Army Group B. The attack on Avranches was therefore suspended. Eberbach would have to counterattack toward Alençon to avoid being trapped by the southern arm of the looming pincers.

The Canadians on the Northern Arm On August 8, the Canadians launched Operation Totalize straddling the Caen–Falaise road. Despite a massive bombardment and two armored divisions attacking, progress was slow. The remainder of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, well supported by the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion’s Tiger tanks, conducted a formidable defense. The initial blow fell on Cintheaux, on the Caen–Falaise road, where Wittmann, the hero of Villers-Bocage, was killed. The fighting that followed in the wake of his death was of an unparalleled violence, and culminated on August 10, when the Germans counterattacked to dislodge the Canadians from Hill 140 dominating the Laison valley. The Hitlerjugend had been reinforced by Peiper’s 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, detached from the II SS Panzer Corps which did not need it in its own counterattack against the Americans, the Tigers being ill-suited to the offensive. When the battle ended in the evening of August 10, the Germans were in control. They had destroyed 47 Canadian tanks, but at a heavy cost: they now had just 17 Panzer IVs, 11 Tigers, seven Panthers and a dozen Jagdpanzer IVs to fend off the eventual reprise of the Allied offensive. On August 12, Patton’s forces seized Alençon before Eberbach had time to regroup. If Argentan fell, the Seventh Army’s escape route out of the pocket forming around them would shrink to just 20 kilometers.

The Falaise Pocket To deal with the threat of encirclement, Hitler ordered an attack against XV Corps, utilizing both divisions situated outside the pocket—the 116th and 9th Panzer Divisions—and the II SS Panzer Corps inside the pocket. The two arms of the pincer would link up at Sées, between Argentan and Alençon. At the same time, however, the Anglo-Canadians reached Falaise on August 15, the day of the landings in Provence. On August 16, Hitler ordered the abandonment of the south of France and the retreat of Army Group B to the Seine. On the 19th, the Americans of the 90th Division rendezvoused with the 1st Polish Armored Division at Chambois. This did not prevent the Germans from fleeing eastward on the 20th, when, in the ensuing confusion, an operation by the II SS Panzer Corps allowed some units to escape the pocket.

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A scene of utter mayhem in the “Corridor of Death.” The car in the foreground has almost fallen into the Moissy river. (DITE/USIS)

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It was on the evening of the 19th that two large columns attempted to break out: to the north, via Saint-Lambert, Meindl’s II Fallschirmjäger Corps attacked on foot, led by the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division alongside a few survivors from the Hitlerjugend. To the south, the strike-point chosen by the second column was Chambois. This column was by far the largest of the two, and the only one to still have tanks. The LSSAH led the charge, ahead of elements from the 116th Panzer Division and the Hitlerjugend. The fighting that followed that night was chaotic. The Polish held Montormel and Hill 262, where they effectively massacred any Germans they encountered. Meindl’s paratroopers were blocked for many hours before they were able to exfiltrate east in small groups. At Chambois, the larger German column failed to take the village. All its vehicles were abandoned alongside the Dives, while the men crossed on foot and scattered east. Without the help of II SS Panzer Corps attacking from outside the pocket, it would have been total calamity for the Germans. But, as it was, Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Corps troops attacked with an energy bred of desperation and enabled the Das Reich to isolate the Poles on their various hills, thus making contact with fugitives from the pocket. Farther north, the Hohenstaufen lost its last tanks in a vain attempt to drive out the Poles. The Das Reich held the corridor open until around 1600 on August 21, allowing around 20,000 men to escape the Falaise Pocket. The Allies captured some 40,000 German troops and killed another 10,000. It was not quite a “Stalingrad,” but its consequences were almost as significant.

An Assessment of the Falaise Pocket First of all, it is important to note that the battle of the Falaise Pocket was not the finale of the battle for Normandy. Next, it is also notable that a large part of Army Group B managed to escape capture in the pocket. An article by Michel Dufresne that appeared in the Revue Historique des Armées (issue 3, 1987) provides some interesting details on the subject: of the 371,000 Germans troops who fought in Normandy, 165,300 made it across the Seine. Just over 200,000 were therefore killed, wounded or captured. For those who managed to escape, it would be foolish to believe that distinct units still existed. There was utter disorder among most of the divisions and leaving the Dives sector hardly put an end to their ordeal. They still had to cross the Seine, then endure the Picardie retreat, where a number of men were captured, including Kurt Meyer, head of the Hitlerjugend, near Amiens, and Eberbach himself, at Albert. Finally, the number of tanks that escaped the Basse-Normandie battlefield was pitifully low: 100 in total from across the ten divisions. This means the tank losses were, proportionately, three times worse than those at Stalingrad. For the Allies, there was still a major strategic possibility on the cards: to surround the German troops south of the Seine. This would require improved coordination between the British and Americans—especially since the German retreat accelerated from August 22.

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Afterword If the Germans were overwhelmed by Stalin’s millions on the Eastern Front, aided by thousands upon thousands of T-34s, it was the West’s, notably the Americans’, vast industrial power base that oversaw their collapse in Normandy. However, it was Hitler, the common denominator on both fronts, who single-handedly conspired against his own generals to engineer the German defeats in the East and in the West. In Normandy, German strategy was dictated by Hitler’s micro-managerial interference and almost suicidal intransigence. This was demonstrated firstly, in his hybrid solutions prior to Operation Overlord as to where to position the ten available panzer divisions—at the coast, near the coast or 100 kilometers from the coast—and then, secondly, splitting command of the panzers in a convoluted and ultimately disastrous arrangement: four divisions would be placed as a strategic reserve under Rommel that would only take instruction from OKW itself, in other words, Hitler. As such these four divisions were unavailable to von Rundstedt, and, perversely, not immediately available to Rommel. Hitler’s pathological obsession with counterattack—conversely, any form of withdrawal or retreat was anathema to him—proved not only strategically damaging and wasteful in terms of losses, such as Kluge’s calamitous Operation Lüttich, but ultimately set the panzers up for annihilation, which is precisely what happened in the Falaise Pocket. Hitler’s penchant for sowing discord and mistrust among his high command was no different in Normandy, with both Gerd von Rundstedt and Friedrich Dollmann—the Seventh Army commander—relieved of command for the fall of Cherbourg. Dollmann reputedly committed suicide two days later, on June 29. Implicated in the July 20 assassination attempt on Hitler, Rommel too committed suicide. German field marshals and generals were apparently no less expendable than Waffen-SS stormtroopers. It’s a moot point as to whether the Germans might have won the Normandy campaign, or, at the very least, pushed the Allies back onto the English Channel. Tank numbers tell one part of the story: fewer than 100 panzers from across ten divisions crossed the Seine after the retreat from Falaise. Proportionately, during the Normandy campaign, Allied tank losses were higher than the Germans’, but replacement Shermans simply kept rolling off the production lines ad nauseam. Aircraft tell the other part of the story: the Allied air forces had complete mastery of the skies—the sorely depleted, almost non-existent, Luftwaffe was confined to aerodromes around Paris—and the Thunderbolts and Typhoons proved that when the weather was good they could utterly obliterate a panzer offensive without any assistance from ground forces. At his own peril, Hitler had disastrously underestimated the juggernaut of Western industrialization. And at any rate, the Normandy campaign was doomed three years earlier, on June 22, 1941, when he launched Operation Barbarossa.

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Further Reading

Further Reading Beevor, Anthony, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, Viking, New York 2009. Buffetaut, Yves, Allied Armor in Normandy (Casemate Illustrated), Casemate, Oxford 2018. Buffetaut, Yves, The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich (Casemate Illustrated), Casemate, Oxford 2018. Guderian, Heinz, Panzer Leader, E.P. Dutton & Co., New York 1952. Hastings, Max, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, Simon & Schuster, New York 1984. Jentz, Thomas, Panzer Truppen: 1943–1945, Schiffer Publishing Ltd (U.S.), Atglen 1998. Keegan, John, Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris, June 6th– August 25th, 1944, Pimlico, London 2004. Lefèvre, Eric, Panzers in Normandy: Then and Now, After the Battle, Old Harlow 1983. Leleu, Jean-Luc, The Canadians at Falaise, 16/17 August 1944, Ysec, Paris 2007. Lodieu, Didier, Normandy 1944: Operation Goodwood (Men and Battles) (Vols 1 & 2), Histoire et Collections, Paris 2008. Lucas, James, Das Reich: The Military Role of the 2nd SS Division 1941–45, Arms & Armour Press, London 1991. Mattson, Gregory L., SS-Das Reich: The History of the Second SS Division 1941–45, Amber Books, London 2002. Mellenthin, F. W. von, Panzer Battles: A Study of Employment of Armor in the Second World War, University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma 1956.

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Index Alençon, 120, 121 Argentan, 7, 54, 58, 59, 84, 117, 121 Avranches, 7, 66, 108, 115, 116, 119, 121

Dempsey, Gen Miles, 117 Dietrich, Gen Sepp, 85, 93 Dollmann, Gen Friedrich, 83, 84, 97, 124

Bayerlein, Gen Fritz, 83, 84, 85, 100, 101, 103, 115 Bayeux, 6, 66, 79, 85, 86, 93 Becker, Maj, 19, 72, 76, 86 Bénouville, 77 Bittrich, Lt-Gen Wilhelm, 123 Bourguebus Ridge, 104, 107, 109 Bradley, Gen Omar, 100, 113 British forces I Corps, 90, 105 VII Corps, 89, 93, 113 VIII Corps, 7, 109, 116 XIX Corps, 7, 116 XXX Corps, 6, 90, 92, 116 divisions 3rd Infantry Division, 78 6th Airborne Division, 79 7th Armoured Division (“Desert Rats”), 6, 61, 79, 90, 94, 95 11th Armoured Division, 93, 106 15th Scottish Infantry Division, 93 independent brigades 130th Armoured Brigade, 100 29th Armoured Brigade, 107 Staffordshire Yeomanry, 78 Bucknall, Lt-Gen Gerard, 90

Eberbach, Gen Heinrich, 97, 116, 121, 123 Eighth Air Force (U. S.), 113, 114

Caen, battle of, 7, 26, 57, 68, 77, 97, 99 Cagny, 105, 107, 109 Canadian forces 2nd Armoured Brigade, 90 North Nova Scotia Highlanders, 81 7th Armoured Brigade, 81 3rd Infantry Division, 78 Carentan, 6, 67, 89 Carpiquet, 80, 83, 93, 97 Caumont, 6, 84, 93, 111, 113, 116 Chambois, 37, 121, 123 Cherbourg, 67, 69, 89, 97, 100, 124 Cheux, 95, 96 Corlett, Maj Gen Charles H., 116 Cotentin Peninsula, 67, 114 Coutances, 7, 115

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Falaise Pocket, 6, 7, 41, 54, 66, 67, 69, 71, 88, 107, 121–124 Feuchtinger, Lt-Gen Edgar, 19, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 116 Funck, Gen Hans von, 93 German forces, 104, 113–114, 120 OB West see Oberbefehlshaber West Oberbefehlshaber West (OB West), 19, 101 Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), 55 Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), 28, 55 OKH see Oberkommando des Heeres OKW see Oberkommando der Wehrmacht army groups and armies Army Group B, 28, 72, 77, 101, 121, 123 Army Group South, 35, 101 Panzer Group Meyer, 110 Panzer Group West see also Fifth Panzer Army Fifth Panzer Army (form. Panzer Group West), 7, 72, 77, 97, 116–117 Seventh Army, 53, 67, 77, 83, 97, 116, 117, 121, 124 Fifteenth Army, 64, 119 corps I SS Panzer Corps, 61, 85, 89, 106, 109 II SS Panzer Corps, 6, 48, 61, 92, 95, 97, 99, 100, 116, 121, 123 Afrika Korps, 18, 53 II Fallschirmjäger Corps, 101, 123 XXXVII Panzer Corps, 116 XLVII Panzer Corps, 119 LXXXIV Corps, 75, 113 divisions 1st SS Panzer Division (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), 40–45, 77, 92, 102, 119 1st SS Panzer Regiment, 24, 40, 44, 61, 102, 110 2nd SS Panzer Division (Das Reich), 36– 39, 90, 92, 113

Index

2nd SS Panzer Regiment, 36, 41, 71, 101, 113 9th Panzer Division, 54, 56–59, 102, 117, 120, 121 102nd Panzer Artillery Regiment, 59 9th SS Panzer Division (Hohenstaufen), 6, 12, 16, 41, 45–48, 88, 95, 107 9th SS Panzer Regiment, 46, 47, 95, 98, 111 10th Panzer Division, 6, 61, 96, 116 10th SS Panzer Division (Frundsberg), 48–50 11th Panzer Division, 64 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitlerjugend) 12th SS Panzer Artillery Regiment, 24, 25 12th SS Panzer Regiment, 7, 23, 24, 27, 41, 52, 71, 80, 81, 95 26th SS Panzer grenadier Regiment, 12, 25, 80 13th Panzer Division, 9, 35 15th Panzer Division, 18 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, 7, 97, 106, 109 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division (Götz von Berlichingen), 17, 64, 65, 89, 100, 103, 111, 113, 119 18th Air Landing Division, 69 21st Panzer Division, 7, 18–23, 26, 34, 45, 61, 73–80, 83, 86, 95, 96, 97, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 116 22nd Panzer Regiment, 20–22, 26, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 102, 108 116th Panzer Division 16th Panzer Regiment, 51, 116 24th Panzer Regiment, 51 146th Panzer Artillery Regiment, 51 155th Reserve Panzer Division, 21, 59 179th Reserve Panzer Division, 51 243rd Infantry Division, 114, 115 272nd Infantry Division, 105, 109, 110 353rd Infantry Division, 114, 115 716th Infantry Division, 65, 77, 78 Panzer Lehr Division 6th Panzer Regiment, 29, 98, 103 130th Panzer Lehr Regiment, 17, 28, 29, 49, 103 brigades 10th Panzer Brigade, 19, 24 12th Assault Gun Brigade, 66 341st Assault Gun Brigade, 66, 108 394th Assault Gun Brigade, 67, 108, 118 Artillery Brigade West (931), 19 Schnelle Brigade 931/ West

22nd Panzer Regiment, 18 100th Panzer Regiment (form.), 18, 19 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment, 19 931st Panzergrenadier Regiment, 19 independent battalions 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion, 57, 61, 63, 89, 90, 91, 99, 121 102nd SS Heavy Tank Battalion, 57, 60–63, 97, 100, 116, 121 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion, 52, 59–61, 63, 82, 105, 107, 116 Geyr von Schweppenburg, Gen Leo, 72, 74, 86, 97 Grainville, 95, 108 Guderian, Gen Heinz, 33, 35, 74 Hartdegen, Alexander, 84 Hausser, Gen Paul, 93, 97 Hitler, Adolf, 23, 32, 40–45, 53, 55, 61, 70, 72, 74, 75, 92, 101, 102, 109, 117, 120, 121, 124 Jodl, Gen Alfred, 55 Keitel, FM Wilhelm, 55 Kluge, FM Günther von, 97, 106, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 124 La Caine Château, 86 La Manche, 33, 89, 101, 113 Langanke, Fritz, 115 Luck, Col Hans von, 80, 105 Luftwaffe, 7, 24, 49, 55, 96, 97, 99, 105, 106, 109, 120, 124 Marcks, Gen Erich, 75, 77 Meindl, Gen Eugen, 101, 123 Meyer, Kurt, 7, 99, 110, 123 Montgomery, Gen Bernard, 6, 90, 91, 93, 95, 103, 104, 105, 106, 111, 116 operations Atlantic, 66, 70, 105 Barbarossa, 9, 35, 40, 53, 56, 72, 101, 124 Blue Coat, 111, 116 Charnwood, 7, 97, 105 Citadel, 35, 44, 59 Cobra, 7, 31, 33, 53, 66, 103, 104, 111, 113, 115 Epsom, 6, 93, 96, 97 Goodwood, 7, 44, 61, 62, 80, 82, 103–106, 109–110, 116

127

German Armor in Normandy

Jupiter, 99 Lüttich, 7, 86, 88, 116, 117, 120, 121, 124 Margarethe I, 28 Overlord, 6, 21, 124 Spring, 111 Totalize, 121 Windsor, 97 Oppeln-Bronikowski, Col von, 78 Oradour-sur-Glane, massacre at, 37 Orne river, 75, 77, 80, 99, 109, 110, 111 Paris, 20, 61, 72, 82, 86, 92, 101, 119, 120, 124 Patton, Gen George S., 7, 115, 117, 119, 120, 121 Peiper, Joachim, 107, 121 Poitiers, 56, 89 Rauray, 93, 98 Rommel, FM Erwin, 19, 53, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 85, 89, 92, 97, 101, 105, 106, 124 Roncey Pocket, 7, 37, 115 Royal Air Force (RAF), 6, 85, 106 Second Tactical Air Force, 96 Rundstedt, FM Gerd von, 53, 72, 74, 75, 77, 89, 92, 97, 101 Saint-Lô, 7, 37, 41, 66, 89, 101, 103, 111, 113, 114, 115 Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, 77

128

Schwerin, Lt-Gen Gerhard von, 53 Seine river, 50, 58, 59, 64, 67, 69, 72, 77, 80, 88, 114, 117, 121, 123, 124 Somme, river, 53, 77 Tilly, 90, 93, 100 U. S. forces First Army, 100 VII Corps, 89 XIX Corps, 7, 116 XV Corps, 120, 121 1st Infantry Division, 113 1st Polish Armored Division, 121 2nd Armored Division, 115 3rd Armored Division, 101, 113 90th Division, 121 Villers-Bocage, battle of, 61, 84, 90–92, 94, 95, 121 Vire, 66, 67, 108, 114, 116, 117, 118 Vire–Taute canal, 101 Witt, Maj-Gen Fritz, 81 Wittmann, Capt Michael, 57, 61, 90, 91, 95 Zollhöfer, Lt-Col Emil, 110