The following day the bombing cost the division 1,000 men and numerous vehicles caught near the St Lô-Périers road; in particular, a number of Panther tanks were lost. Ironically, the Americans inflicted more casualties on their own men when the bombers dropped their payloads short. Many of Panzer Lehr’s casualties, though, are assessed to have been missing or captured rather than dead. The Allied bombers also cut Choltitz’s communications with Bayerlein, so he sent a runner but received no reply.
Nonetheless, the preceding fighting had proved a heavy drain on Panzer Lehr’s manpower and during June and July they lost almost 6,000 men; replacements numbered less than 2,500. Lacking infantry, it meant Panzer Lehr had to increasingly rely on its tanks and artillery, but this became increasingly difficult in the face of ammunition and fuel shortages. Bayerlein’s men were in no condition to withstand the American onslaught about to be unleashed on them.
By the end of the 25th Bayerlein stoically recalled:
I don’t believe hell could be as bad as what we experienced. Luckily, the regimental reserves in the main defence line were still in good shape and were committed at once. They had done most of the day’s fighting for the division and to their credit slowed the 9th Infantry Division’s advance considerably.
On the 26th, four Panzer IVs and an assault gun attempted to hold the road junction at St Gilles against elements of the US 2nd Armored Division. In response an Allied air strike claimed two tanks and the American armoured column took out the rest. The Americans penetrated seven miles (11km) with the loss of just three tanks. Panzer Artillery Regiment 130 lost its guns northwest of Marigny, which lay between Coutances and St Lô, to the US 3rd Armored Division. Just two days after the American attack opened, Bayerlein had to abandon almost thirty panzers at the repair facility at Cerisy-le-Selle.
Fighting withdrawal
Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps, in danger of being enveloped, attempted to retreat toward Coutances with the US 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions pressing on its heels. With the American forces driving on Avranches, Panzer Lehr was subordinated to General Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps.
On the 27th Bayerlein set up a command post at Dangy, south of Marigny. All that remained of his division was a small kampfgruppe with some engineers and anti-aircraft guns deployed at Pont-Brocard. The rest of his men, numbering some 2,300 with Panzergrenadier Regiment 901, twelve tanks and six self-propelled guns, had retreated south to Villedieu-les-Poeles south west of Percy. Suddenly, tanks of the US 2nd Armored Division swept round his command post, driving off those Panzer Lehr units still at Pont-Brocard.
By the afternoon, Bayerlein found his command reduced to seven Officers and fourteen enlisted men, gathered in a farmhouse outside Percy. The arrival of American tanks at dusk, which began to shell the building, meant it was every man for himself. Bayerlein, narrowly missing being blown to smithereens, was the last to leave and in the gathering darkness found himself alone, heading toward Percy. He reached the town at midnight and, finding a radio, reported the loss of his division.
In the meantime, following the failure to hold Cobra, Kluge ordered the dismissal of von Choltitz and 7th Army’s Chief of Staff, General Max Pemsel. The latter was replaced by Oberst Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, who was to later conduct himself with some valour in the Falaise pocket. Choltitz’s poor handling of Panzer Lehr and LXXXIV Corps not only saw him lose his command, but also gain the poison chalice that was the post of military governor of Paris. Generalleutnant Otto Elfeldt commanding the 47th Infantry Division in the Calais-Boulogne area replaced von Choltitz as LXXXIV Corps commander.
By 1 August Bayerlein could muster just over 11,000 men with thirty-three panzers and Sturmgeschütz, although another forty-four were under repair, and just nine howitzers. The only good news was that the division could still field almost 400 armoured half-tracks. In light of the condition of Panzer Lehr, which urgently needed refitting, four days later Kampfgruppe von Hauser was put together with a company of Panzer IVs and a mixed artillery battalion and subordinated to Meindl’s II Parachute Corps. Panzer Lehr now found itself under LVIII Panzer Corps.
General der Panzertruppen Walter Krüger and his LVIII Reserve Panzer Corps staff (von Schweppenburg’s old command) stationed in Toulouse, were ordered to Le Mans to help direct the fight against the Americans. Created in France in 1943, the Corps was transferred from Rambouillet to Müdling, Austria, before taking part in the occupation of Hungary in March 1944. The following month it returned to France, this time to Toulouse, coming under General Blaskowitz’s Army Group G. From mid July1941 to the beginning of January 1944 Krüger had been in command of the 1st Panzer Division.
His new command dropped its reserve designation on 6 July and departed on the 27th, joining Panzergruppe West two days later, though it was subsequently subordinated to 7th Army and Panzergruppe Eberbach. It formed the southern flank of the counterattack near Avranches with responsibility for elements of Panzer Lehr and the 17th SS. Amongst Krüger’s corps assets in Normandy were thirty-eight wholly inadequate Panzer Is.
Krüger and his HQ thus avoided the liberation of Toulouse on 19 August, following the Allied landings in southern France. Only two days earlier, Blaskowitz had been ordered to abandon the city and start withdrawing north. General Ferdinand Neuling’s LXII Corps at Draguignan, a few miles northwest of Le Muy were not so lucky and found themselves surrounded, his two infantry divisions lost in Marseilles and Toulon.
The rest of Bayerlein’s forces were instructed to move to Alençon to refit between the 9th Panzer Division and 708th Infantry Division by 9 August. From these units another kampfgruppe was formed, including panzergrenadiers from 9th Panzer, and deployed between Joblains and Conlie. By 11 August, 7 Army’s tactical headquarters was at St André, the subordinate II Parachute Corps comprising the 3rd Parachute Division supported by a kampfgruppe from Panzer Lehr was holding a line from Chênedollé to Vire.
Final days
By the 12th, Kampfgruppe von Hausser was retiring eastward toward Fontainbleau. The following day Bayerlein ordered the rest of the division to follow and it was soon east of Argentan, thereby missing the chaos of the developing Falaise pocket.
Panzer Lehr saw action again in the Nonant-le-Pin-St Lombard area, but on the 17th was relieved by the 344th Infantry Division and was able to continue on its way to Fontainbleau and safety. Only Kampfgruppe Kuhnow remained and on the night of 16/17 August it crossed the Orne at Mensil-Jean to join the battered 12th SS.
Chapter 5
Fanatical Nazi Teenagers – 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
Along with the 21st Panzer Division, the 12th SS Hitlerjugend was the nearest armoured division to the Normandy beaches. On 7 June the division counterattacked the Canadian Army but, despite inflicting heavy losses, crucially failed to breakthrough to the beachhead. Seven days later a British naval barrage killed their divisional commander. Thirty-three year old SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer took command, becoming the youngest divisional commander on both sides.
By 9 July the battered division had suffered a staggering 12,000 casualties and was forced to withdraw south of Caen. The 12th SS had little rest, resisting Operations Goodwood, Totalise and Tractable. The survivors fought in some cases to the very last to keep the Falaise pocket open, allowing thousands of survivors to escape.
Combat experience
The idea to create a Hitler Youth or Hitlerjugend division was initially raised with Hitler by Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger in early 1943. His plan envisaged drafting all Hitler Youth members born in 1926 and assigning them to a combat formation. Hitler liked the proposal and ordered Berger to commence organizing a division and the official order was issued on 10 February 1943. Berger nominated himself to be the first divisional commander, but Himmler gave that duty to a former Hitler Youth member, Oberführer Fritz Witt, instead, as he had been commanding one of the 1st SS Panzer Division’s panzergrenadier regiments.
Witt had won the Iron Cross and Knight’s Cr
oss in Poland and France respectively. In the Balkans his men from the 1st SS were instrumental in opening the Klidi Pass, the heart of Greece; during the fighting there, Witt’s younger brother, Franz, had been killed. He then fought in Russia, seeing action at Rostov and Kharkov.
Hitler signed off on a number of additional decrees in April 1943 relating to the formation of the Hitlerjugend Panzergrenadier Division. On 1 May the first batch of 8,000 volunteers reported for six weeks training, although they only received four. At the beginning of July the graduating class were released for service, while a second batch of 8,000 were inducted for training. By 1 September 1943, 16,000 trained recruits were listed on the rosters of the newly-formed Hitlerjugend division and were assembled at an SS training facility located at Beverloo, near Leopoldsbourge, Belgium.
In March 1944, C-in-C West von Rundstedt and I SS Panzer Corps’ commander, SS-Obergruppenführer Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, visited the division at Beverloo. During this highly-publicized and stage managed event the two generals were introduced to the division’s staff and Officers including: SS-Sturmbannführer Arnold Jürgensen, commander of I Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Prinz, commander of II Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bartling, commander of III Abteilung SS-Panzer Artillery Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Hubert Meyer, Ia (General Staff Officer, Operations) and SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Buchsein, IIa (General Staff Officer, Personnel). Also present were SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, whose units conducted exercises for Runstedt’s benefit.
On 20 April 1944 Witt was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer and on 27 May celebrated his 36th birthday. Well-wishers and Officers from all over the division attended the celebration at the divisional headquarters in TilièSur-Avre castle, Belgium. Witt commanded the 12th SS from 24 June 1943 to 14 June 1944.
On paper, the 12th SS was an extremely powerful armoured formation with a reported strength of 20,540. On 1 June, however, some 2,438 of these troops were probably with the division’s replacement battalion stationed in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Elements of this unit were directed to Normandy, but did not arrive in time to take part in the fighting.
In addition, the Panzerjäger and Nebelwerfer, or rocket launcher, battalions were not combat ready on D-Day. SS-Panzerjäger Abteilung 12 only had a company’s worth of Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers; in total it only received twenty-one Jagdpanzers and the battalion was unable to join the division until 19 July. Similarly, the Nebelwerfer battalion lacked its prime movers, rendering it immobile.
It has been estimated that the 12th SS arrived in Normandy with about 17,000 men. SS-Panzer Regiment 12, under SS-Obersturmbannführer Max Wünche, had an authorised strength of 101 Panzer IVs and seventy-nine Panthers; its actual strength was close to this with ninety-one combat-ready Panzer IVs and another seven in the workshop, along with sixty-six Panthers and two undergoing maintenance at the beginning of June. A further thirteen Panthers were despatched to the division on 7 June.
SS-Artillery Regiment 12 included the usual complement of six Hummel and twelve Wespe self-propelled guns along with the standard towed artillery batteries. Of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 and 26, only SS-Panzer-grenadier Regiment 26’s III Abteilung was fully equipped with armoured personnel carriers, although altogether the division had 333 of these vehicles.
Early on 6 June, 12th SS was put on alert, but SS-Panzer Regiment 12 did not receive its orders until just before midday at 1130. Its I Abteilung assembled in Le Neubourg and then made its way through Thibouville and Bernay to Orbec.
Allied fighter-bombers soon forced the panzers to seek shelter amongst the nearby trees. Panthers of III Kompanie withdrew to Chateau De Launcy near Orbec and that evening combat elements drove through St Pierre-sur-Dives, past Falaise, over the Orne near Thury-Harcourt and concealed themselves in a defile at Maizet.
Into action
On D-Day Hitler dithered, hoping that his infantry would hold the invasion. After midday he passed control of the 12th SS over to General Dollman’s 7th Army. Kurt Meyer, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, came under air attack on 6 June as he graphically relates:
A chain of Spitfires attacks the last section of the 15th Kompanie. Missiles and cannon reap a devilish harvest. The section is passing through a narrow pass; it is impossible to get away. An elderly French woman is coming towards us screaming, ‘Murder, Murder!’ An infantryman lies in the street. A stream of blood comes out of his throat – his artery has been shot through. He dies in our arms. The munition of an amphibious vehicle explodes into the air – high tongues of flame shoot up. The vehicle explodes into pieces.
Over the next two days the Hitler Youth of the 12th SS threw themselves with gusto at the British and Canadians. The latter were thrown back for two miles (3km), but their line did not break. The Allies then tried to drive the Germans from Caen, but the only place that the 12th SS gave ground was at Cambes on 9 June. The Allies would learn to fear these Nazi teenagers.
The SS-Aufklärungs Abteilung, or reconnaissance battalion, under SS-Sturmbannführer and Ritterkreuzträger Gerd Bremer, was among the first units to reach the front on the 7th. Upon arrival it manoeuvred through eight miles (13km) of no-man’s land to the division’s far left lank to establish a security line. The battalion beat off numerous heavy attacks during 7–11 June, during which Bremer’s command vehicle was knocked out and he was wounded by shrapnel. Twice wounded, he nevertheless remained with his abteilung until the situation was secure.
The Allies penultimate attack came on 11 June when the British 50th (Northumbrian) Division struck, employing an infantry battalion and eighty-four tanks. This was repulsed with seven Sherman tanks destroyed and the British suffered over 250 casualties. At the battalion command post in Cristot, one of the Shermans was salvaged by Hauptsturmführer von Reitzenstein and Untersturmführer Wieneke and placed over the command post bunker as protection against shrapnel.
On the night of 6/7 June, Fritz Witt reached the HQ of the decimated 716th Infantry Division. It had taken him eight hours to get to them; a good four of which had been spent grovelling in roadside ditches avoiding air attack. The 716th, raised in 1941, had been under 15th Army until June 1942 when it was sent to the Caen area to join Dollmann’s 7th Army. Totally inexperienced, it was one of the weakest divisions in Normandy, numbering just 7,771 men in early May1944. The division had only twenty-one anti-tanks guns, half of which were self-propelled, and forty artillery pieces of Czech and French origin. Initially the division had found itself stretched from Carentan to the Orne estuary until the 352nd Infantry Division arrived and was deployed east of Carentan.
Shortly after, SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer arrived and galvanised the situation, proposing a counterattack on the left flank of 21st Panzer. His SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, part of Kampfgruppe Meyer/Wünsche went into action against the Canadians north of Caen on 7 June, supported by fifty Panzer IVs of II Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12 commanded by Sturmbannführer Prinz. The Canadian 3rd Division was driving on the strategic Carpiquet airfield west of Caen when its 9th Brigade ran into an accidental ambush and was driven from Authie and Buron northwest of the city.
The counterattack was timed for 1600, but four Panzer IVs of V Kompanie under Untersturmführer Porsh ran into Sherman tanks along the Franqueville-Authie road. Three of the panzers were knocked out and it became impossible to wait. Wünsche gave the order and V and VI Kompanies advanced left of the Ardennes Abbey, with VI claiming ten enemy tanks for the loss of five Panzer IVs.
SS-Sturmmann Hans Fenn was almost killed in this battle:
Ours the fifth panzer, took a direct hit between the side of the hull and the turret…The shell ripped a leg off my commander, Oberscharführer Esser. As I heard later, he managed to get out of the turret. The incendiary shell immediately set fire to all parts of the panzer
. I lost consciousness…. Somehow, I managed, without being fully conscious, to crawl over the hatch of the loader. I could only remember clearly the moment when I dropped head first out of the hatch to the ground. With bad, third-degree burns, I walked back toward our advancing grenadiers. They looked at me as if I were a ghost.
The attack was broken up by Canadian artillery, naval gunfire and air strikes followed by a counterattack by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. That evening the kampfgruppe of panzergrenadiers and panzers held defensive positions stretching from the railroad line between Caen and Luc-sur-Mer to Rue Nationale 13 from Caen to Bayeux. Although the Canadians had pushed through the Carpiquet airfield, the 12th SS had stopped them in their tracks, destroying a total of twenty-seven tanks for the loss of fourteen Panzer IVs. Over the next few days the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, striking from the Caen-Bayeux railway near Bretteville, fought the 12th SS.
On the 8th, Panzergruppe West’s commander, General Schweppenburg, arrived at Meyer’s HQ at Ardenne Abbey outside Caen and unnerved him slightly by saying: ‘My dear Herr Meyer, the war can only be won by political means.’ However, on that day the 12th SS, 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr were thrown into the attack.
The 12th SS found Carpiquet airfield deserted by the Luftwaffe and unoccupied by the Canadians. They now turned on the Canadian 7th Brigade, also part of the Canadian 3rd Division, driving it from Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse and Putot-en-Bessin, though the Canadians in turn recaptured Putot, claiming six Panthers.
Falaise: The Flawed Victory Page 9