by Mark Zuehlke
82nd Airborne, 22
101st Airborne, 22
BATTALIONS/REGIMENTS
116th Regiment, 22
GERMAN
Air Force
Luflotte 3, 38, 45
Army
II Parachute Corps, 266
XXIV Corps, 39
LXXXIV Corps, 39, 41
1st SS Panzer Corps, 42–43, 95, 148, 265–66, 288, 290, 292–93
Army Group B, 37–38, 41, 288, 294
Panzer Group West, 39–40, 230, 265, 291
Seventh Army, 27, 41–43, 149, 266, 291
Fifteenth Army, 36, 265
DIVISIONS
1st SS Panzer, 40, 42
3rd Panzer, 39
7th Panzer, 37 12th SS (Hitlerjugend) Panzer, 17, 40, 42, 44, 86, 93, 117, 125–27, 148–50, 156, 164, 173, 193–94, 216, 230–31, 250, 258, 260, 264, 287–88, 292, 294, 301–02, 314, 319, 344, 348, 350, 359, 362–63
organization, 94–100
13th SS Panzer Grenadier, 226
17th SS Panzer Grenadier, 41
21st Panzer, 28, 30, 41–42, 44, 79, 89, 123, 147–49, 230–31, 255, 260, 266–67, 273, 288, 347
346th Grenadier, 131–32, 266, 273, 283
711th Infantry, 266
716th Infantry, 33, 42–43, 127, 148–50, 162, 164, 167, 194, 230–31, 288, 348
Panzer Lehr, 41–43, 127, 148–50, 162, 164, 167, 194, 230–31, 288, 348
REGIMENTS
12th SS Panzer, 96, 98, 149, 194, 231, 248, 301
22nd Panzer, 267
25th SS Panzer Grenadier, 44, 96, 100, 117, 123, 126, 149, 194, 258, 288, 294
26th SS Panzer Grenadier, 97, 100, 123, 127, 154, 161, 173, 175, 193–94, 196–97, 207, 211, 231, 235, 248, 288, 301, 312, 315, 320, 347
attack Royal Winnipeg Rifles, 165–73
125th Panzer Grenadier, 41
126th SS Panzer Artillery, 98
192nd Panzer Grenadier, 33, 44, 79
857th Grenadier, 131, 267
858th Grenadier, 131, 267
BATTALIONS
I Battalion, 12th SS Panzer, 98, 149, 194
I Battalion, 25th SS Panzer Grenadier, 96, 100
I Battalion, 26th SS Panzer Grenadier, 150, 154–55, 161, 231–32, 234
II Battalion, 12th SS Panzer, 98, 323, 333
II Battalion, 25th SS Panzer Grenadier, 100, 106
II Battalion, 26th SS Panzer Grenadier, 150, 161, 165, 168, 173, 176, 320, 328, 344
III Artillery, 126th SS Panzer Artillery, 301
III Battalion, 25th SS Panzer Grenadier, 100, 109, 117, 124–25
III Battalion, 26th SS Panzer Grenadier, 150, 167–68, 173
12th SS Panzerpionier, 288–89, 315, 320
12th SS Panzer Reconnaissance, 98, 127, 173
21st Panzer Reconnaissance, 267
101st SS Panzer, 98
200th Assault Gun, 267
220th Assault Gun, 267
Navy
Navy. See also General Index, ships by names
Marinegruppe West, 38, 48
FLOTILLAS
2nd MTB, 48
4th MTB, 48
5th MTB, 48
8th MTB, 48
8th Zerstörerflotille, 220
9th MTB, 48
Landwirte Group, 49
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK ZUEHLKE’s critically acclaimed Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day Victory: June 6, 1944, and trilogy about Canada’s World War II Italian Campaign—Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battle, The Liri Valley: Canada’s World War II Breakthrough to Rome, and The Gothic Line: Canada’s Month of Hell in World War II Italy—have established him as the nation’s leading writer of popular military history. He is also the author of The Canadian Military Atlas: The Nation’s Battlefields from the French and Indian Wars to Kosovo, The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, and Scoundrels, Dreamers, and Second Sons: British Remittance Men in the Canadian West. Juno Beach and Holding Juno are the first two volumes in a series that will trace the Canadian role throughout the Normandy Campaign.
Also a novelist, he is the author of the popular Elias McCann series, which follows the misadventures and investigations of a community coroner in Tofino, British Columbia. The first in this series, Hands Like Clouds, won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. It was followed by Carry Tiger to Mountain and, most recently, Sweep Lotus.
Zuehlke lives in Victoria, British Columbia, where, when not writing, he enjoys backpacking, cycling, kayaking, cooking Italian food, and gardening.
EXTRA
* * * * * * * *
ABOUT THE BOOK
Interview with Mark Zuehlke
READ ON
An Excerpt from Mark Zuehlke’s
Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day
Victory: June 6, 1944
* * * * * * * *
INTERVIEW WITH MARKZUEHLKE
author of HOLDING JUNO
Q: You are the author of a previous book entitled Juno Beach . How does Holding Juno relate to that book, and why did you find it necessary to write a second volume?
A: Juno Beach covers D-Day, June 6, 1944, that fateful single day during which the Allies established a tenuous foothold on the European continent against determined resistance. Originally, I envisioned that the book would detail the invasion story through to the point on June 12 when the beaches could be declared relatively secure from overrun by German counterattacks. Delving further into the research, however, it became clear that the story of the Canadian landings on Juno Beach had never been thoroughly related. There was enough material to break the first book into three roughly equal parts examining the preparations for the invasion, the actual landing and fight for the Normandy beaches, and the long and bloody Canadian advance six miles inland, a part of the story that had gone largely unmentioned in previous histories.
Holding Juno came about when I realized that the horrendously costly and pivotal battle from June 7 through June 12 had been equally ignored or downplayed in earlier accounts. The second book, therefore, deals explicitly with those days. Taken together, the two books draw attention to the fact that simply gaining the beach on the morning of June 6 did not mean the battle to secure the invasion was won. Most of those killed and wounded fell pushing inland and then repelling the counterattacks.
Q: Why is it important to remember D-Day?
A: For Canadians, D-Day and the six days that followed it constituted the seminal event of World War II. The Canadian army, navy, and air force contributed far more to the invasion than the nation’s resources or population should ordinarily have supported. Britain and the United States were the only other Allied nations really involved in the Normandy landings and they brought to the effort roughly only twice the numbers, despite having significantly larger populations. D-Day has come to symbolize the heroism and sacrifice of the Canadians who fought at Juno Beach during that crucial week and it provides a focus for the nation’s remembrance of all who served during World War II.
Q: What were the challenges of writing Holding Juno?
A: As with each book I write on World War II, the greatest challenge was gathering enough detail to recreate the events so the reader can visualize them with almost cinematic intensity. I seek to take the reader right into the midst of the horror, the noise, the stench, and the chaotic confusion of battle to provide a taste of what those fighting experienced. At the same time, I try to set that close-up battle in the context of the larger events that define the purpose of the campaign and its development. To do so I need to gather not only veteran remembrances of the fighting but also material that will fill in that context.
I spend hundreds of hours tracking down Operational Orders, after-action reports, regimental war diaries and histories, technical reports and weather predictions, all the details that, collectively, determine how the battle came together. There is also the growing challenge of finding enough veterans to interview or sufficient diaries, reports, and other material that was produced in
the wake of the battle to recreate accurately the fighting on an hour-by-hour basis at the sharp end. Once the research is complete, of course, there remains the challenge of stringing it all together in a way that makes for a compelling, understandable read. That’s as difficult a process as the research.
Q: How do you decide what to write about?
A: I am drawn to write about World War II events that have been largely neglected, which is what led me to embark on the trilogy covering the Italian campaign. The first of those books was Ortona, a battle that was epic in nature and yet had entirely dropped off the radar screen for most Canadians. At the time, I little imagined that it would be so successful as to make possible the development of an entire series (The Liri Valley and The Gothic Line) on Canadians in Italy in World War II. From Italy I shifted to D-Day when I realized the Canadian role in this important battle had largely been given short shrift, even in Canada.
Q: Any comments on Canada’s role in World War II?
A: What astounds me most was the size of Canada’s role relative to its population at the time, not just at Juno Beach but throughout the entire war. Of roughly 11 million Canadians, just over a million—9.5 per cent—saw active service. And that’s not even beginning to examine the number of people and the extent of the resources committed to the war industry, or the 12,000 mariners who served in the merchant marine which, by war’s end, was the world’s fourth largest. Canada committed itself to fighting a total war and, arguably, without that determined contribution in the years before the United States entered the war in 1942, Britain could not have stood alone against Germany. Therefore the outcome of the war might have been entirely different.
Q: What is your next book?
A: Currently I am researching a book on Canadian First Army and the Battle of the Scheldt Estuary, which took place during October and November 1944 to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping. This is another battle that was central to determining the course of the war and yet has been little explored. After that book, I hope to return to Normandy for possibly two books that will detail the rest of the Normandy Campaign. The first will focus on the battle for Caen, the second for Falaise.
Q: Your books make graphic use of veteran accounts. Is that a voice that will soon be lost?
A: The rate at which World War II veterans are passing away is naturally accelerating as their average age increases. So it is becoming more difficult to find veterans who can fill in the gaps in our historical knowledge. Anyone can help by taking the time to interview people they know about their experiences living through or serving in World War II, and by either taping or writing down their answers and making the material available for public use.
I find the best way to interview veterans is to have them tell their story of the war chronologically, from when they enlisted to when the war ended. Often they tend to want to skip over the times of combat, but if I encourage them to talk about the specifics of time, place, and what happened there, most are genuinely forthcoming. I find the experience of talking with veterans, particularly in the form of an interview, very moving. In most cases, too, the veterans truly appreciate that people are interested enough to take the time and make the effort to listen to and record their stories. So it’s a good experience for all concerned.
Q: How can people contact you with stories or for more information?
A: The best way to reach me is by e-mail at [email protected], but all my contact information is posted on my website: www.zuehlke.ca.
Excerpt from
JUNO BEACH
CANADA'S D-DAY VICTORY: JUNE 6, 1944
CHAPTER 1
Maximum Force Needed
STANDING IN A Normandy pasture with no other Allied troops at hand other than his five anxious Canadian paratroopers, Lieutenant John Madden had legitimate cause for concern. But not that the invasion of Normandy had been cancelled, as Operation Overlord was very definitely proceeding and the next twenty-four hours would prove the most decisive of the war. The invasion was a winner-take-all game with the jackpot to be won or lost on a single roll of dice. The Western Allies were gambling that they could win and hold a beachhead in France from which they could drive to the Rhineland and into Germany’s heart—the most direct route to bring the war to a rapid conclusion. This was not, however, an impulsive or rash crapshoot. No previous military operation had been more carefully planned, more meticulously scripted in the form of time-tables and deployments, more intensely trained for, and more methodically launched.
Even as the last British troops had evacuated the beaches of Dunkirk on June 14, 1940, Britain’s War Office had been considering how continental Europe could be reinvaded and liberated from the German conquerors. This despite the fear of imminent invasion by Adolf Hitler’s triumphant divisions massing on the opposite side of the English Channel. That threat had not yet slackened when the British Joint Planning Sub-Committee of the Chiefs of Staff presented Prime Minister Winston Churchill with a report on October 5, 1940 that outlined the challenges Commonwealth forces would face in launching a cross-channel invasion. The prospects, the report stated, were bleak for the Commonwealth stood alone. Even should America weigh in against Germany, the logistical complexities involved in deploying modern armies meant “we can never hope to build up a very large force on the Continent.”1 Any landing was likely to be swept back into the sea by rapid deployment of nearby German divisions that would quickly outnumber and outgun the invaders. Hitler’s Fortress Europe appeared unassailable.
Consequently, when the 15,911 men of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division arrived in Britain that December nobody was thinking of offensive operations. The immediate task was to transform an ill-trained and badly equipped volunteer civilian force leavened with a cluster of pre-war Permanent Force soldiers into an effective fighting division; one capable of defending Britain’s shores from an invasion expected with the spring.
Germany’s Luftwaffe, however, failed to gain air superiority over British skies during the aerial battle that raged from August 1940 to May 1941—a necessary precursor to any invasion. Then, on June 22, Hitler unleashed three million men against the Soviet Union on a front extending 1,300 miles from Finland to the Black Sea. Now the British planning staff considered a more favourable situation. Despite the stunning initial victories, those millions of German troops advancing into Russia were moving ever farther away from Fortress Europe’s western flank and would not be easily recalled.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth continued to strengthen and modernize its armies, navies, and air forces. By 1942, 500,000 Canadian soldiers were in Britain—a stunning achievement in mobilization by a nation of only 11.5 million souls. By then, too, American troops were starting to arrive. Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor had at last provoked the United States to declare war on fascism. On January 14, 1942, the British and American governments quickly agreed that “only the minimum of force necessary for the safeguarding of vital interests in other theatres should be diverted from operations against Germany.”2 The first priority for the Western Allies would be to defeat Hitler, with the war on Japan secondary.
But where should the first blow be struck? Although the British Joint Planning Staff had an operational plan called Roundup that envisioned six armoured and six infantry divisions assaulting the French coast somewhere between Dieppe and Deauville, the defending German forces were judged far too strong. Merely drafting the plan had convinced the British that such an invasion could only be delivered as part of “the final phase” of the war on Germany.3 First the Third Reich’s military machine must be greatly diminished through attritional battles fought elsewhere. Those other fronts, Churchill believed, were to be found in northern Africa and the Mediterranean. Only there did the British have sufficient military strength to quickly launch operations. And with the Russian army reeling in disarray back on Moscow, time was of the essence. If Russia capitulated, the Western Allies would face a potentially unwinnable war.
Furthermore, Ame
rica’s military might was still nothing more than potential. Like Canada, the U.S. had gutted its military during the inter-war years and had not seriously started mobilizing despite the gathering war clouds until Japanese bombers pounced on Pearl Harbor. Even the world’s most industrialized nation could not whip into existence overnight a military force capable of the kind of amphibious invasion necessary to successfully breach the German defences on coastal Europe.
Curiously, this fact seemed to elude American military planners. While Churchill and his generals cautioned that an immediate invasion of France would be premature and destined to end in disaster, General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, recommended to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the “first great offensive” be directed at northwest Europe.4 Marshall wanted the quick, decisive results he thought could be achieved by a frontal attack across the English Channel—the shortest route to Germany—employing maximum strength and accepting the severe casualties that such a strategy would undoubtedly incur. If this invasion could not be immediately mounted, and Marshall recognized this was the case, then a series of limited cross-channel assaults should be undertaken in 1942. The Americans designated this strategy Operation Sledgehammer.
Meanwhile, Premier Joseph Stalin was demanding that his Western Allies do something besides talk and bluster. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union had committed Hitler to a war on two fronts—always risky because it forced a division of strength and attention—but there was little happening on the western front to distract or weaken German operations against Russia. Northern Africa presented the most immediate front that could be opened against Germany with the military strength, resources, and capability that the Allies could rapidly assemble.