by Mark Zuehlke
Although stripped of his desired airborne division, Montgomery remained confident of success. He just had to beat the Germans off the mark.
Montgomery clearly grasped German intentions, but it was the plan of Panzer Group West commander, General der Panzertruppen Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg, that he was in a race to forestall rather than Rommel’s. The tank general had little respect for Montgomery, and expected him to dally before launching any major offensive until he had enough strength on the ground that he could attack across a broad front. Rather than passively await the inevitable, von Schweppenburg planned to strike first.
By June 9, he had a battered but still formidable Panzergruppe in Normandy that consisted of three Panzer divisions—the 21st, the 12th, and Panzer Lehr. Driving to the Abbaye d’Ardenne, the veteran tanker ascended the tower that served as Standartenführer Kurt Meyer’s observation post and the two men discussed the situation. He worried that Panzer Lehr’s left flank might be exposed to attack by the Americans, but there was nothing that could be done to alleviate this threat. If he were to gain the initiative, a coordinated attack by all three divisions was absolutely necessary. On the night of June 10, he warned Meyer, all three divisions must press north on a front extending from Gold Beach through Juno to just west of Sword. The focal point of the attack would be along either side of the rail spur running from immediately west of Caen to Luc-sur-Mer on the coast.5
A fundamental weak link in the British Second Army line still existed here, where the opposing flanks of 3rd British Division and 3rd Canadian Division had not been tightly married. 21st Panzer Division had failed due to a lack of strength and determination to break through to the beachhead on the night of June 6. With three divisions applying overwhelming pressure across a wider front, von Schweppenburg believed he could succeed where one division had met frustration.
To narrow the breadth of the front the divisions must attack, von Schweppenburg ordered Panzer Lehr to shift slightly eastwards and assume responsibility for the ground west of the River Mue—essentially the entire front facing 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s battalions at Putot-en-Bessin and Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse. This would enable the 12th SS’s 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment to hand off responsibility for le Mesnil-Patry and Cristot, and move east of the River Mue to fill the gap between its lines and Meyer’s, which ran from the bank of the Mue east to Franqueville. The 21st Panzer Division’s boundary with the 12th Division’s right flank would remain the Caen–Luc-sur-Mer rail line.6
Even as von Schweppenburg decided his final deployments, he expressed concern that Norrey-en-Bessin remained in Canadian hands—jutting dagger-like into the belly of the German lines. He and Meyer agreed that Norrey must be recaptured before any future counterattack could be launched in that area.7
MEYER, STILL SMARTING from the defeat handed him by the Regina Rifles, intended to eliminate the nuisance of Norrey with typical decisive, bold action. Just that morning, the 12th Panzer Regiment’s No. 3 Company, consisting of twelve Panther VS, had arrived in the area of Rots as part of the division’s ongoing deployment to the area. Meyer ordered the tanks to attack the village immediately. Lacking any infantry to support the tankers, he promised that the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment’s I Battalion would carry out a simultaneous assault from the southwest. Both units were to cross their start lines at 1300 hours.
Obersturmführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop, son of the Reich’s Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, commanded No. 3 Company, but was unable this day to lead his tanks into action due to a wound inflicted by a strafing Allied fighter-bomber earlier. Although the Knight’s Cross holder had since discharged himself from hospital without permission to rejoin the company, his arm was swathed in splints and commanding a tank was simply impossible. Instead, Hauptmann Lüddemann, the company’s second-in-command, took charge and von Ribbentrop was left to fret on the sidelines.8 Standing beside von Ribbentrop, as the company commander quickly briefed Lüddemann on how to carry out the assault, was 12th Panzer Regiment leader Obersturmbannführer Max Wünsche. Both officers urged Lüddemann to advance at top speed, the Panzers pausing only to fire their 75-millimetre main guns—highly inaccurate when fired on the move—at tactically important targets.
The attack was scheduled for 1300 hours for a reason. German intelligence had noted an almost clockwork pattern to Allied fighter-bomber operations over Normandy, whereby the pilots stood down around noon for a couple of hours. It was as if pilots all took a break for lunch and a quick nap. Whatever its cause, the regular respite opened a window during daylight hours—normally suicidal for movement without overhanging trees to camouflage vehicles—when tanks could roam freely. No. 3 Company used this opening to jump off from close by la Villeneuve towards Norrey, following the Caen-Bayeux railway. For the first five hundred yards, the ground rose gently, then they passed onto a wide expanse of perfectly level meadows and fields. In the middle of this open ground stood the smoking ruin of Norrey. The only cover for the tanks consisted of a hedge that might mask their approach to the village.
Lüddemann knew the company’s only chance was to break into Norrey with lightning speed, allowing no time for the Canadians there to react in a coordinated manner. Drivers slammed accelerators to the limit and the tanks plunged forward and spread out on a broad front, with orders to stop for nothing.
The moment the tanks entered the open plain, the Reginas in Norrey spotted them, but the infantrymen of ‘C’ Company neither panicked nor scrambled to meet the onslaught headed in their direction. Instead, Major Stu Tubb and his men settled back to confidently watch events develop, for at 0515 hours that morning they had been reinforced by an ad hoc force of nine Shermans from the 1st Hussars. These tanks were positioned outside the village on the eastern flank behind a low ridge that screened their presence from the charging Panthers. In fact, as the Germans closed on Norrey, Lüddemann ordered a leftward swing towards the railroad station on the village’s outskirts that brought the tank company to within a thousand yards of the hidden Shermans.
Several of the Canadian tanks were of the Firefly variety. And looking through the aiming sight of Lieutenant G.K. Henry’s Firefly was crack gunner Trooper A. Chapman. When six Panthers bore across his front, Chapman coolly held fire until they lined up like ducks in a row. “Then with Trooper ‘Sass’ Seaman slapping the rounds into the 17-pounder, he fired five times. Five rounds—five Panthers. Before he got to the sixth one another ‘C’ Squadron tank, commanded by Sergeant Boyle, had accounted for it.”9 While the 17-pounders tore into the sides of the Panthers with armour-piercing rounds, the Shermans mounting standard 75-millimetre guns hurled down a heavy, disorienting rain of high-explosive shells that tore up great gouts of earth around the German tanks.
Unterscharführer Alois Morawetz, commanding a lead Panther, heard a muffled bang on the outside of the turret and then the tank swayed as if it had lost a track to an exploding mine. Glancing out of the cupola, he saw an explosion rip the turret off another Panzer. Suddenly, the MG 42 ammunition inside his tank began cooking off and a fire broke out. Morawetz looked down into the main compartment to see that his gunner had been rendered helpless by steel splinter wounds. With flames engulfing the tank’s interior, Morawetz frantically wrenched the turret hatch open, bailed out, fell onto the rear engine compartment, and briefly lost consciousness. When he awoke, smoke and fire poured out of the turret hatch. Several other Panzers burned nearby. Morawetz and the other survivors from the tanks, many badly wounded with severe burns, headed back on foot towards the attack starting point. As he set out for the rear, the officer saw five Panthers withdrawing at speed, firing rapidly as they fled. No. 3 Company’s attack had ended almost as abruptly as it had started. Of the thirty-five crewmen in the seven Panthers that had been knocked out in a matter of seconds, the 12th SS would record two killed, two officers, four NCOS, and eleven men wounded, and one officer, two NCOS, and eleven trooopers missing. The missing were probably immolated in the tanks.10
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From near la Villeneuve, Wünsche had watched the Panthers burst into flames and later wrote: “I could have cried with rage and sorrow.”11 Among the wounded was Lüddemann, who was evacuated to hospital and never returned to active duty.12 As for the Panzer Grenadiers of the 26th’s I Battalion that Meyer had promised would attack at the same time, they never appeared. The tanks had fought alone and been dealt a stunning defeat.
Not only had No. 3 Company utterly failed, but the rapidity of their defeat greatly bolstered the morale of the 1st Hussars. Until now, the Canadian tankers had dreaded the inevitable day they would encounter Panthers instead of the Mark IVS against which they were more evenly matched. Thirty-two-year-old Sergeant Léo Gariépy figured that “such scores made the enemy hesitate about forcing the issue, and boosted our morale as well as that of the infantry. We found our Shermans were much more maneuverable than their clumsy, low-slung tanks, and we could traverse and fire with much greater rapidity. True, they could out-range us by far, but if you were fortunate enough to see him before he saw you, you could easily work circles round him. We could fire three rounds to his one, and in any given position, stopped or going full speed, forward or in reverse; but he apparently had trouble to fire on the run. We saw that we could not only take it, but dish it out, and this we did that day with gusto.”13
WHILE THE 1ST HUSSARS had been shooting up No. 3 Company, the 26th Panzer Grenadiers had been about a mile to the west busily launching a series of determined counterattacks against the Canadian Scottish at Putot-en-Bessin. Meyer’s orders that this regiment support the armour were never acknowledged by Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke and, given the communication gaps between the two 12th SS regiments and the 26th commander’s unsteady leadership the day before, may not have reached Mohnke.
At first light on June 9, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Cabeldu had walked through the positions established during the previous night’s fierce fighting. Across the Caen-Bayeux railway cutting, the Germans were heavily dug in and likely to counterattack at any moment. Facing the Germans, in front of the bridge crossing the railroad west of Putot, were the remnants of ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies. ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies were positioned out on either side but back of the two forward companies, so they could both guard the flanks and serve as a reserve. The battalion perimeter looked much like an arrowhead. It was an uninvitingly grey, drizzly morning, and the men shivered from the combined effects of cold, damp, fatigue, and hunger.
Cabeldu considered the merits of pulling the two forward companies out of the front and replacing them with those in reserve, but decided a switch now would just create disorganization. If the Germans counterattacked before the switch was complete, disaster was assured. Also he “was anxious to hold a strong counterattack force in hand, and therefore reluctant to use either of my reserve companies to reinforce them at this time.”14 Instead, he told Major Arthur Plows, still commanding both forward companies, that there was to be no retreat. They were to fight in place to the last man. He positioned the antitank, mortar, and carrier platoons where they could give the two rifle companies supporting fire.15
In his slit trench in ‘D’ Company’s small perimeter, Private R.H. Tutte found “our position in daylight made me wonder a bit. Our whole position took in no more than a piece of ground on the left of the bridge about 200-feet square. Most of our defensive position was in a small orchard between a thick hedge and up to within a few feet of the bridge, this small area under the eye of Lieutenant Butters of 17 Platoon. On the other side of the hedge (away from the bridge) was Coy HQ and most of the remainder of 18 Platoon under Mr. Peck, this all facing the railroad over an open field. Our rear being covered by a few men under Mr. Mollison of 16 Platoon.”16
Smack in the centre of the orchard stood a disabled German half-track with a heavy gun mounted in its troop compartment. The gun’s barrel still covered the road up which Tutte had driven the Bren carrier during the night counterattack. On seeing it, he “wondered how I had ever reached the bridge at all in the carrier.”17
While ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies took stock of their situation, Private Joe Rumney led a patrol through the wreckage of Putot itself and found that the villagers had abandoned the place. As he led the patrol out of a small orchard, a large force of Panzer Grenadiers came through a hedge on the opposite side. The two startled groups of soldiers immediately opened fire and Rumney pulled his men back on the run, managing to effect a hasty escape without loss except for the wounding of one soldier in the foot. Private G.A. Percival, mindful of his hunger, managed to somehow scoop up two chickens as he dashed through a large flock and quickly broke their necks while on the run.18
The patrol had no sooner returned to the battalion perimeter than heavy mortar fire slammed down on ‘D’ Company. From his slit trench, Tutte saw Panzer Grenadiers—many armed with light machine guns—approaching under the covering fire’s protection. ‘D’ Company quickly slashed into the Germans and the attack dissolved in the face of this fire, aided by “a bit of fast action from our own 3-inch mortar.”
At 0900 hours, Tutte spotted German tanks prowling behind a hedgerow south of the railroad and Plows was alerted.19 A few minutes later, the tanks closed to hull-down positions across the tracks and soon “fire from [the] tanks, infantry and artillery [was] brought to bear. Our position was unquestionably critical, the enemy infantry and armour being only 100 to 150 yards away, but the conduct of the men was as usual exemplary and unquenchable. Several times the enemy attempted to launch an attack and each time were forced to retire under the fierce onslaught from our troops small-arms fire. No. 7 Platoon with Sandy Clark was particularly excellent in this regard answering the enemy shot for shot… The position held firm despite a terrific pounding.”20
Although the tanks kept hammering ‘D’ and ‘A’ companies from the other side of the rail cutting, they were unable to cross it and appeared hesitant to try using the bridge. From behind the forward companies, the battalion’s six-pound antitank guns and three-inch mortars replied with rapid fire that succeeded in repeatedly breaking up attacks by the Panzer Grenadiers every time they attempted to cross the cutting.
Just before noon, a shell from one German tank plowed into the knocked-out half-track in the middle of the orchard and set it alight. The vehicle proved to be heavily loaded with ammunition of every conceivable type—possibly including some 88-millimetre rounds—which all started cooking off in spectacular explosions. Machine-gun rounds whipped through the air, tracer bullets sizzled brightly overhead, and shrapnel from high-explosive shells sprayed the nearby slit trenches. Whenever a heavy shell detonated, the carrier skittered back about two feet on its rear tracks. Tutte watched in astonishment as the half-track lurched towards a slit trench occupied by two ‘D’ Company soldiers. The men seemed frozen, unsure whether to risk exposing themselves to all the shrapnel flying about or staying in place and facing the probability of being run over by the vehicle’s steel tracks. Finally, as an explosion chugged the half-track to within a foot of the trench, they broke cover and sprinted to safety just before another shell cooked off and the tracks obliterated their slit trench.21
Major Plows, meanwhile, had been calling down artillery fire from 12th Field Regiment to help keep the Germans at bay. Suddenly, his radio ceased operating and, lacking grid coordinates, the guns fell silent. Plows looked over to his second-in-command, Captain W.H.V. Matthews, recovered from the effects of a shell blast that had badly dazed him during the night attack, and held up a coin. When the toss went against Matthews, the captain jumped into ‘A’ Company’s Bren carrier and with Private Hank Morrison at the controls raced through intense fire to reach battalion headquarters and re-establish a link to the artillery regiment.22
The heavy fire ripping into the company perimeter hit No. 9 Platoon particularly hard, as Lieutenant Bernard Clarke and Sergeant W.A. Paterson were both badly wounded. Then, in the midst of the fury, Private Percival was seen dodging from one slit trench to another, paus
ing at each hole and “inquiring if anyone had any salt for the chicken he had procured earlier.” None of the other soldiers ever knew if he managed to find the precious condiment.23
When a tank shell exploded practically on top of one of the two six-pound antitank guns firing briskly from behind ‘D’ Company, shrapnel wounded the entire crew, but the men on the other gun split up in order to keep both in action. Finally, the German fire slackened, soon slowing to nothing more than intermittent machine-gun bursts from concealed gun positions and desultory sniping by Panzer Grenadiers who had managed to infiltrate nearby hedgerows.24
Tutte was kept busy during the fight helping the ever mounting numbers of wounded caught in the front-line position. He even managed to whip up a pot of tea and serve it to two casualties in an attempt to bolster their spirits, because the intense fire made it impossible for him to evacuate them in the still operational Bren carrier. When the main attack petered out, he and some other men hurriedly loaded the wounded and Tutte drove them back to the battalion’s aid post. “Some of these wounded men,” he noted, “had been lying out since midnight previous, that they were hard hit was evident though they all took it without a murmur.”25