by Mark Zuehlke
The grave manpower shortages plaguing the German army by 1944 had no effect on the 12th SS Division’s total numbers, which on June 1 were actually larger than its mandated strength, with 20,540 officers, NCOS, and men.9 Where the shortages seriously compromised combat effectiveness was in leadership, for the division was short 144 officers and 2,192 NCOS. This meant that inexperienced young soldiers would go into combat without a sufficient balance of veteran leaders to curb rash behaviour under fire.
About 12,000 troops served directly in the division’s combat elements, while the rest provided support services. Each of the division’s Panzer Grenadier regiments numbered 3,500 men, with roughly 500 of the men allocated to the four regimental support companies. These consisted of an infantry gun company armed with six 150-millimetre self-propelled guns, a flak company equipped with twelve 20-millimetre towed anti-aircraft guns, a reconnaissance company mounted on motorcycles, and a pioneer company to carry out engineering task. The remaining 3,000 were divided equally into three battalions.
Most of the division’s remaining manpower was concentrated in the ranks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, which was divided into two battalions. I Battalion was equipped with the division’s Panthers and II Battalion with Mark IVS. Rounding out the division’s ranks was the 12th SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, the 126th SS Panzer Artillery Regiment, and the division’s inherent support companies that provided additional artillery and engineering ability, as well as medical, vehicle repair, supply, and administrative capability.10
Compared to 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, the 12th SS fielded much more overall fighting power. While the Canadian division’s full strength was 18,000 men, fewer than 8,000 actually served in the nine rifle battalions, divided equally into three brigades. Another 2,400 manned the artillery and antitank guns of the four artillery regiments and single antitank regiment. Each infantry battalion had four rifle companies divided into three platoons and one 200-man support company. The support company was broken into an anti-tank platoon, armed with six carrier-towed six-pounders, a platoon outfitted with six three-inch mortars, and a carrier platoon fielding thirteen Bren carriers that could provide fire support by moving quickly to wherever the battalion was hotly engaged.11
Lacking tanks of its own, the division was augmented by 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, which consisted of about 3,400 men of all ranks equipped with 190 tanks and 33 light tanks (Honeys). The fighting teeth of this armoured formation was provided by three regiments, each mustering about 800 men and 60 tanks, of which 10 were Honeys and the rest Shermans.12
Like all Panzer divisions, the 12th SS was powerfully equipped with weaponry, including 175 tanks. Seventy-nine of these were Panther VS and ninety-six Mark IVS. The division had none of the monstrous fifty-seven-ton Tiger I models that were equipped with an 88-millimetre gun and 100-millimetre frontal armour. Only I SS Panzer Corps’s 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion was equipped with Tigers, and this battalion was still grinding slowly towards the fighting on June 7. The Panther VS, however, posed a deadly threat to the Sherman M4s of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. Mounting a high-velocity 75-millimetre main gun and three 7.92-millimetre machine guns, the Panther weighed forty-five tons and boasted 120-millimetre-thick frontal armour that made it almost impervious to fire from Shermans. While the Tiger could easily punch a hole in a Sherman’s comparatively thin 75-millimetre-thick armoured front at a range of three thousand yards, the Panther’s lighter gun could still penetrate a Sherman at one thousand yards. A Sherman gunner might get lucky and pierce either German tank’s armour at five hundred yards, if he lived long enough to close to that range. Despite the Panther’s greater weight, at thirty-four miles per hour, it could out-pace the Sherman’s twenty-nine miles per hour top speed.
Fortunately, on June 7 most of the German tanks the Canadians saw forming up on their left flank were Mark IVS, although the Canadian tankers were quick to imagine they were seeing Panthers and to the infantry every tank looked to be a Tiger on the loose. Weighing twenty-four tons, mounting a 75-millimetre high-velocity gun and two 7.92-millimetre machine guns with 50-millimetre-thick armour, the Mark IV had a top speed of twenty-four miles per hour. Although lighter skinned than the Sherman, its main gun was superior to the Allied tank’s standard short-barrelled 75-millimetre. Recognizing this deficiency, however, the British had introduced a variation to the Sherman for the D-Day invasion, dubbed the Firefly. This tank was fitted with a 17-pounder that gave it superior firepower to the Mark IV and was a close match to the Panther v, but only four tanks in each squadron were so armed. The rest were standard-issue Shermans.
While 2 CAB enjoyed slight supremacy in the number of tanks it brought to the field, the Panzer Grenadiers grossly outgunned the Canadian infantry in terms of heavy and light machine guns—859 compared to just 305. There was also no questioning that the most common of the German guns, the 7.92-millimetre MG 42, with its shrieking 1,200-round-a-minute rate of fire, was a superior weapon to the methodical Bren gun that chugged out only 500 rounds per minute of .303-calibre ammunition. In addition to their greater numbers of light and heavy machine guns, the Hitler Youth carried a huge number of submachine guns—two variants of Schmeissers that fired 9-millimetre bullets from a 32-shot detachable magazine. While the Canadians were also equipped with a 9-millimetre submachine gun, the Sten was less reliable than the Schmeisser and generally issued only to officers and NCOS.13
ON JUNE 7, the SS officer responsible for masterminding the counterattack on the Canadian flank was Kurt Meyer. His 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was in position to strike the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s advance column on its badly exposed left flank. Witt trusted Meyer completely, considering him a de facto divisional second-in-command who could be entirely relied upon. With some of his units still just arriving in the area, Meyer worked frantically to tee up a coherent counterattack that would be strong enough to rout the Canadians and ready to strike at the scheduled divisional jumping off time of 1600 hours. Meyer ordered two of his three Panzer Grenadier battalions to attack on line, with the third staggered to the left rear. Advancing on the left would be I Battalion, which assembled between Epron and la Folie, while the right flank of the attack would be carried out by II Battalion from a position near Bitot. III Battalion, meanwhile, would form up southeast of Franqueville, concealed from view of the enemy by a low ridge south of the Caen-Bayeux highway. Each battalion had a platoon of heavy infantry guns and a platoon of light anti-aircraft guns. The entire Pionier Kompanie was assigned to supporting I Battalion, which Meyer anticipated faced the hardest fighting. A battery of heavy field howitzers was also dedicated to each battalion and Wünsche’s Panzers were to be heavily committed to supporting the infantry.14
No sooner had Meyer manoeuvred his battalions into their forward positions than the North Novas and Sherbrooke Fusiliers appeared on the march from Buron to Authie. From his vantage in the tower, Meyer could barely believe the catch being passed his way: “My God! What an opportunity! The tanks are driving right across II Battalion’s front! The unit is showing its unprotected flank. I give orders to all battalions, the artillery and the available tanks. ‘Do not shoot! Open fire on my orders only!’”15
To Meyer, it seemed the Canadian tankers were oblivious to the presence of his Panzers and grenadiers, not attempting to break past them to the airport. He was momentarily nonplussed by the boldness or foolishness of the action, whatever the case might be, aware also that the Canadians were throwing his entire divisional attack schedule into disarray. There was no way he could wait until 1600 hours to strike. The time for action was now, despite the fact that the entire 12th SS was not ready. The 26th Panzer Regiment was still east of the River Orne, moving towards its positions to the west of the River Mue, and the Panzer regiment equipped with Panthers was stalled nineteen miles east of the Orne awaiting fuel to fill its dry tanks.
Meyer decided that when the leading Canadian tanks passed by Franqueville, II Battalion would strike, wi
th the available Panzers holding on the reverse slope south of the Caen-Bayeux highway in support. Once this battalion rolled the Canadians back and reached Authie, he would unleash his other battalions. “The objective: The coast.”16
Minutes later, the first Sherbrooke tanks of ‘A’ Squadron went past Franqueville and started crawling up onto the highway. Meyer signalled for the attack to begin, calling for Wünsche to get his Panzers moving. With satisfaction, he heard the Panzer commander instantly shout into his radio, “Achtung! Panzer marsch!”17
The response was immediate, and at 1410 hours, Meyer saw “cracks and flashes near Franqueville. The enemy tank at the head of the spearhead smokes and I watch the crew bailing out. More tanks are torn to pieces with loud explosions. Suddenly, one Panzer [Mark] IV starts to burn, a blast of flame shoots out of the hatches.”18
While the German and Canadian tanks engaged in a fierce brawl near Franqueville, all the way back along the left flank to Buron and St.-Contest, the Panzer Grenadier battalions launched an assault towards Authie. A bloody melee ensued that left tankers and infantry on both sides dazed by its intensity.
At the same time as ‘A’ Squadron was ambushed, wrote the Sherbrookes’ regimental historian, “the Panzer force on the left rushed forward and entered the engagement. Most of the Regiment was thus involved at once in the pitched battle, metal monsters lurking in the orchards, shouldering through hedgerows or lurching across the fields of grain, dodging [while] at the same time seeking out their opponents. Suddenly ribbons of tracer fire would lance forward across the open spaces as the monsters barked and sometimes in the shadows or in the open, stationary tanks would burst into flames. Meanwhile the chatter and rip of the enemy machine guns were answered by the drumming of our own gunfire as a group of infantry ran at the crouch from one hedgerow to the next.”19
Captain Merritt Hayes Bateman, the second-in-command of ‘B’ Squadron, could see the hangars and runway of Carpiquet airport to the south of the Caen-Bayeux highway and railway. Barely a mile away, the D-Day objective was enticingly close. Then he glanced to his left towards the rising ground there and saw “what looked to be one hundred bloody German tanks and they were flanking us.”20
Major George Mahon had been leading the squadron towards the very height of ground from which the Panzers started descending because he “couldn’t see how we could ignore going for the commanding ground with or without infantry.”21 Sergeant A.J. Parsons was a passenger inside Mahon’s Sherman, along for the ride to provide a wireless liaison link between the tankers and the infantry in order to leave the major free to run his squadron. He was squeezed into a cramped space beside the driver, next to the wireless set.
Mahon was champing at the bit to get ‘B’ Squadron through to the airport once he cleared this ridge and was pressing the driver, Trooper “Dusty” Rhodes, “to forge ahead.” As the tank pulled ahead of the rest of the Shermans, an armour-piercing shell belted into its side. The round scored a direct hit on a useless pistol port welded shut to prevent its being forced open by enemy infantry and knocked the lid off. Parsons “looked up and saw a square hole and my first thought was that we were goners. It had smashed the CO’s [Mahon’s] arm between the elbow and shoulder and killed Lance Corporal John Kachor and slightly wounded the radio operator Corporal Gordon Drodge in the back. It took the major’s arm out from the elbow to the shoulder. I got a piece of shrapnel in the left hand that was not serious.
“We hauled the major out of the tank and put him on the back. I applied a tourniquet on the arm to keep the bones from breaking out. We buried Corporal John Kachor.”22 Mahon handed command of the squadron to Bateman, then he and the other four men who had survived the destruction of the Sherman headed off on foot towards the rear. As he walked away, the major thought “it was hell to have committed them there and then not be able to finish the job.” It would take Mahon’s badly mangled left arm almost two years to mend properly.23
With the situation becoming more chaotic by the moment, Bateman tried desperately to restore order to his badly shot-up squadron. Suddenly, there “was a hell of an explosion. First thing I knew I found myself on the ground. Whether I was blown out of the tank or jumped or whatever I just sort of realized I was on the ground and my tank was an inferno.” His driver and co-driver had escaped, but the loader and gunner perished inside the fiery tomb.24
Racing to a nearby tank, Bateman ordered its crew commander out and got back to trying to extract the battered squadron from the trap. He also wanted to support the North Novas in Authie, who were visibly taking a beating from massed infantry attacks. Withdrawing to a low rise, Bateman discovered that the squadron was down to ten tanks. He quickly reorganized these into two troops, with the remnants of No. 2 and No. 3 Troops under command of Lieutenant Norman Davies and No. 1 and No. 4 Troops under Lieutenant K.L. Steeves. Davies, with six tanks, was to lead the advance while Steeves covered his left flank with the remainder.
Davies had gone only a short distance under intense antitank and artillery fire when, looking over his shoulder, he realized his tank was all alone “with about seven or eight enemy tanks at 1,000 yards on my left. I halted, stopped two of them with the 17 [pounder gun], advanced, halted and fired again scoring another hit, then all hell seemed to break loose. There were tanks coming up at full speed to my rear (our own), tanks to my left firing at us, antitank blazing away from our left and rear, and tracer and 75-[millimetre] gun flashes all over the place. I moved forward again, apparently to a hull down [position] which turned out to be a bottleneck, as it was practically a tank trap in an orchard, huge logs barred our way. Tanks were hit and burning all around us by then, and it was impossible to keep track of who was who. One was hit directly in front of me, one right beside me, tracer was cutting down trees all over the place, so I decided to withdraw with what was left of 2nd and 3rd Troops. 1st Troop had meanwhile stood to and covered our flank but had left themselves open by doing so and Lieutenant Steeves’ tank went up in flames a couple of hundred yards away.”25
With his wireless knocked out, Davies threw open his turret cover and waved frantically to three other Shermans in view, signalling them to withdraw to high ground to the immediate rear of the North Novas to await orders from brigade. Finally reaching a safe position, he held up, counted noses, and found only five of ‘B’ Squadron’s tanks present.26
Sergeant T.C. Reid of ‘C’ Squadron’s No. 2 Troop had been working over German infantry fleeing Authie and thinking everything was “a breeze” when “suddenly out of the blue we got it. I… felt a jolt in my tank, looked back and found my blanket box shot through. The next shot unseated [loader/operator] Trooper Gailey, and then I saw what was hitting me. There were 18 hornets [Panzers] lined up in hull down about 2,500 yards away and they had us cold; their third round went through my engine and quickly after that they struck Lieutenant MacLean’s and Lieutenant Steeves’ almost simultaneously. They both burned up and then I saw Mr. Steeves and his gunner both frantically struggling to get out of the turret. Mr. Steeves fell back in and the gunner fell out. Mr. Steeves then reappeared and he was pretty badly burnt, also his co-driver whose hatch was caught by the gun being traversed over it.”27
The tank battle was no less confusing or terrible for the SS tankers. Gunner Sturmann Hans Fenn was in Oberscharführer Helmut Esser’s Panzer, which was at the rear of a five-tank platoon commanded by Obersturmführer Albert Gasch, advancing through gently rolling terrain. In a matter of seconds, the four Mark IVS ahead of Esser’s tank erupted in flames. Attempting to escape the kill zone, Esser swung the tank around, only to have an armour-piercing shell penetrate the hull. One of Esser’s legs was sliced clean off, but the crew commander managed to lever himself out of the turret as the tank brewed up. When Fenn tried to shove the gunner’s hatch open, he found the rubber cover charred, jamming the lid closed.
Barely conscious due to smoke inhalation and burns, Fenn managed to crawl through the flaming chamber of the tank and escape from the l
oader’s hatch. Suffering third-degree burns, Fenn stumbled back to the rear. Passing some grenadiers, he noticed that they “stared at me as if I was a ghost.”28
BACK IN BURON, Major Learment was trying to organize carriers to race out to Authie and extract ‘C’ Company and the other elements dug in there before the Germans cut them off from the rest of the battalion and supporting units. As he was talking to Captain Fraser, who was preparing to make a last stand if the transport failed to get through, Learment saw a Cameron Highlander Bren carrier approaching. Standing in the middle of the carrier, as if at attention, was a badly wounded Sherbrooke officer. Every stitch of clothing had been burned off the man and his skin was black “from head to toe. His tank had gone off like a lighter.”29
Despite their losses, the surviving Sherbrooke tanks were still in the fight, being reorganized by Lieutenant Colonel Mel Gordon to the rear of Buron in order to cover the infantry dug in there and at Authie. Born in Dixie, Ontario in 1905, Melville Kennedy Burgoyne Gordon had combined a career in law with a simultaneous one in the militia during the interwar years. Posted to command of ‘B’ Squadron of the Three Rivers Regiment in May 1941, he went overseas to England as a major. In January 1943, Gordon was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.30 A popular officer, he was proving remarkably unflappable in the face of battle. Even as his beloved regiment was shredded, Gordon focussed on how he could either blunt or stop the German armoured juggernaut and screen the North Novas should a retreat from Authie and Buron become necessary.