Elements of the 326th Infantry Division, deployed in the Pas de Calais area with 15th Army, crossed the Seine and remained in the Caumont area. Lüttwitz and his men were pulled out of the line on 21 July after the 326th Infantry relieved them. Although the Panzerjäger Battalion of the 326th included Marder self-propelled guns and Sturmgeschütz IIIs, the Panzer IVs of the I Abteilung Panzer Regiment 3 remained in welcome support for a week.
By 28 July the Germans realised that Operation Cobra represented the Allies’ main effort to break the deadlock in Normandy. The Germans could not get 9th Panzer to the disintegrating American front for at least ten days, so von Kluge summoned the 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions from the British front. Belatedly, General Krüger’s LVIII Panzer Corps began to move northwards from Toulouse to free up General der Panzertruppen Hans Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps, which shifted from the British sector taking 2nd and 116th Panzer to confront the Americans at Avranches.
By the end of the month 2nd Panzer was pushing westward to link up with Panzer Lehr and the 2nd SS. Field Marshal von Kluge attempted to prevent the Americans spilling over the Vire by sending 2nd Panzer to Tessy-sur-Vire southeast of St Lô. The lead elements of 2nd Panzer went into action near the town on the 28th when they counterattacked.
Further to the west a 2nd Panzer kampfgruppe, including twenty panzers, reached the cross roads at la Denisiére, on the road between St Lפ and Villebaudon to the south. On the 30th they found themselves under attack not only from the north, but also on their southern flank near Denisiére as the Americans attempted to surround them. Although cut off, the kampfgruppe knocked out twenty-five American tanks before it was overwhelmed. Just seven panzers managed to fight their way east to Moyon.
Hitler instructed Operation Lüttich (Liège) to close the developing American breach and von Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps was given the job of overseeing the Avranches counterattack. This meant it needed it to disengage. To the southeast of St Lô, II Parachute Corps also began to withdraw and on the 31st the Americans entered Torigni-sur-Vire northeast of Tessy. In the meantime the Americans seized Troisgots, just 4.5 miles (7km) north of Tessy-sur-Vire, where 2nd Panzer and remnants of the 352nd Infantry Division resisted to the end. The town fell to elements of the US 2nd Armored Division on 2 August, just as XLVII Panzer Corps was withdrawing through Pont-Farcy to the south.
Mortain counterattack
The Avranches counterattack was to be launched by2nd, 116th, Panzer Lehr, 1st SS, 2nd SS and 17th SS, supported by two infantry divisions. In total the panzers were down from 1,400 tanks to 800, of which just 120–185 were allotted to Operation Lüttich. According to German sources the attack force involved no more than seventy-five Panzer IVs, seventy Panthers and thirty-two StuGs. The Americans were tipped off by the highly secret ULTRA intelligence intercepts and prepared to repel the Germans.
On the night of 6/7 August the 2nd Panzer, with about 80 tanks, was the first to strike west, between the La Sée sector and the St-Barthélemy-Juvigny road. Specifically, the panzer forces consisted of sixty Panzer IVs and Panthers as well as fifteen Jagdpanzer IVs. Then, supported by a panzer battalion from the 1st SS, the division was to force the Juvigny–Avranches road with an attack via St-Bathélemy, with the rest of the 1st SS following up.
Reinforced by Panzergrenadier Regiment 304, the right attack group of 2nd Panzer moved on Le Mesnil-Adelée via Mesnil-Tôve against weak American forces. Unfortunately, the right lank of 2nd Panzer was exposed when the 116th called a halt to its contribution to the operation. The left kampfgruppe, with Panzergrenadier Regiment 2, took Bellefontaine, but the Americans were not so easily ejected from St-Barthélemy and it took two attacks before they captured the area along with a hundred American prisoners.
Then, in the face of Allied air power, a crucial factor throughout the entire campaign, the German counterattack died out. Tantalisingly for Hitler, the attack got to within nine miles (14km) of Avranches; had they reached the coast they could have cut off twelve American divisions way to the south.
Although they took Mortain, the 2nd SS were unable to dislodge American troops of the US 30th Division from Point 317. Some seventy panzers penetrated US VII Corps front, but fifty were lost and the attack was not renewed on the 11th as instructed by OKW. Following the Mortain attack, once the Americans had gathered their wits, American Lightning, Mustang and Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, as well as British Typhoons, set about Lüttwitz’s division at Le Coudray, halfway to Avranches. The 1st SS and 2nd SS were also caught in this rain of fire. In one RAF Typhoon strike the 2nd Panzer Division reportedly lost sixty tanks and 200 vehicles. This was a deadly taste of things to come. In total eighty-one panzers were knocked out, fifty-four were damaged and twenty-six abandoned. Hundreds of armoured cars, trucks, Volkswagens and guns were also lost.
However, Allied fighter-bomber claims during the Mortain counterattack are greatly exaggerated and were often the result of double counting or simply misinterpretation of a target. Between 7 and 10 August the British 2nd Tactical Air Force claimed a total of 140 panzers, whilst the US 9th Air Force bagged another 112. The problem with this is immediately evident: it was more than the Germans actually deployed for Operation Lüttich.
The Allies’ operational research teams who scoured the battlefield afterwards only found forty-six panzers and self-propelled guns and only nine of those had clearly been knocked out by air attack. Similarly, another thirty-two combat vehicles had been lost, but only twelve of these had been hit from the air.
By 9 August, Krüger’s newly-committed LVIII Panzer Corps had taken over command of the 2nd and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. A penetration on its right wing was eliminated when 2nd Panzer counterattacked west of Le Neufbourg, the division then repelled enemy attacks in the area of Mesnil-Tôve. All this activity had to be carried out in the face of heavy artillery fire and constant fighter-bomber attack.
The 2nd Panzer Division then found itself counterattacked frontally and on its flanks by the American 4th Infantry division. When Le Mesnil-Tôve was recaptured, the 2nd Panzer kampfgruppe was cut off around Le Mesnil-Adelée. With its main body annihilated, the division was forced onto the defensive. It was, though, able to repulse successfully all attacks directed against its frontline on 10 August.
Final days
By this date Panzergrenadier Regiment 2 could still muster 820 combat effectives; Panzergrenadier Regiment 304 some 760 men; Panzeraufklarüngs Abetilung 2 some 360 and the Panzer Pioneer Battalion 38 just 280. Lüttwitz found that his division could field about 4,000 troops, twenty-five to thirty still-functioning panzers, 800-900 vehicles and forty guns.
For the attack on Alençon, XLVII Panzer Corps was to assemble the 1st SS, 2nd SS, 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions in the Forêt d’Ecouves to strike the US 5th Armored and French 2nd Armoured and push on to Mayenne and further southwest. General Eberbach, demoted to command Panzergruppe Eberbach for a renewed effort against the Americans, by the afternoon of 13 August had gathered the remains of 2nd Panzer, 116th Panzer and the 1st SS; but with just seventy panzers they were no match for the US XV Corps’ 5th Armored Division and the French 2nd Armoured Division.
The attack had to be abandoned after the enemy thrust through Alençon and reached south of Argentan, and Panzergruppe Eberbach was forced onto the defensive. The 2nd Panzer had not even reached the assembly area when it was given orders to gather east of Carrouges. Losing communication with the 9th Panzer Division, 2nd Panzer, under air attack, moved in two columns, reaching Domfort-Flers on the 13th. Only the reconnaissance battalion reached south of Carrouges and 300 men from the division were captured. Losing contact with General Eberbach, 2nd Panzer was placed under XLVII Panzer Corps.
The 2nd Panzer and 1st SS were encircled at Falaise, along with elements of the 10th SS. On 17 August the division was ordered to withdraw from the pocket via St Lambert-sur-Dives. The following day, the remaining tanks of Panzer Regiment 3 and men of Panzergrenadier Regiment 2 reached the town in good order. Durin
g the fierce fighting in an around St Lambert, some Officers and men of the division were forced to surrender to the Canadians. By the end of the month 2nd Panzer had lost up to 7,000 men in Normandy; its role in the war, though, was far from over.
Chapter 9
Tough Resistance – 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
Although the 1st SS Panzer Division was recuperating from the fighting on the Eastern Front in Belgium, it did not enter the fray in Normandy until mid-July. The British, intending to pivot at Rauray and swing over the River Odon, driving southeast in an attempt to isolate Caen, attacked on 25 June. The British VIII Corps managed to secure a bridge near Baron and by 30 June had forced a bridgehead two and a half miles (4km) wide and one mile deep (1.6km). Subsequently, tough resistance was encountered from battle-hardened elements of the 1st SS, 2nd SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. Then in early August the 1st SS were switched to the American sector and although escaping the chaos of the German collapse lost all its’ panzers.
Combat experience
The 1st SS dated back to 1925, with the creation of the Schutz Staffel (SS), Hitler’s protection squad, building on the Nazi’s short-lived Sturmabteilung (SA) Stabswache (Headquarters Guard). In March 1933 Joseph ‘Sepp’ Dietrich established the SS-Stabswache Berlin, consisting of 120 men, and these along with the SS-Verfügungstruppe were the forerunners of the Waffen-SS. Initially the unit was based at Berlin’s Alexander Barracks but was later moved to Berlin-Lichterfelde.
SS-Stabswache Berlin was re-designated SS-Sonderkommando Zossen and, along with the newly-raised SS-Sonderkommando Jüterbog, was merged in September 1933 and designated SS-Leibstandarte (Bodyguard) Adolf Hitler (LAH). The following year it was re-designated Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) and grew to regimental strength.
LSSAH took part in the Anschluss with Austria as a part of XVI Corps under General Heinz Guderian and later in the annexation of Czechoslovakia. During the invasion of Poland it served with Army Group South under the leadership of SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich. It later took part in the invasion of France and the Low Countries, where it was mainly held in reserve, though it was used against the retreating British troops at Dunkirk. LSSAH was attached to XIV Corps during the second and final phase of the invasion of France.
The LSSAH was then upgraded to brigade strength in August 1940 for the planned invasion of Britain (Unternehmen Seelöwe or Operation Sealion). When this was called off, LSSAH was transferred to Romania for the attack in the Balkans. It fought its way through Yugoslavia and Greece, chasing the Allied troops to Kalamata, from where they took flight by sea to Crete. Kurt Meyer, commanding Liebstandarte’s reconnaissance battalion, captured 11,000 men after attacking the Klussura Pass and the brigade took the surrender of at least sixteen divisions before the Greeks surrendered.
In June 1941 LSSAH expanded to a full motorised infantry division and took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, as part of Army Group South and was involved in the fighting at Kiev and Rostov. The division was sent to France for refit in 1942 and upgraded to a panzergrenadier division. Sent back to the Eastern front in 1943 under SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Wisch, it fought at Kharkov and Kursk. After the failure at Kursk, LSSAH was sent to Italy on anti-partisan duty, but it soon was deployed back to the Eastern Front as a panzer division.
In January1944 the division was involved in the rescue of those troops trapped in the Cherkassy pocket. The tanks of SS-Panzer Regiment 1 cut through four Russian divisions and thanks to its efforts some 32,000 men escaped, but the depleted 1st SS was left with just three panzers and four assault guns. By mid-March the division had less than 1,250 men. LSSAH was one of the divisions encircled near Kamenets-Podolsk and, though rescued by the 9th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg and 10th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, it suffered heavy losses. The division was then sent to Belgium for rest and refitting in 15th Army’s area of responsibility.
On 18 April 1944 the remainder of 1st SS under Wisch was sent by train to northwest France and established its headquarters at Turnhout in Belgium, where it became part of the I SS Panzer Corps. The problems of manpower and equipment were soon addressed. Over 2,000 men from the 12th SS were transferred to the division and in early May Hitler ordered it should get new equipment, much of it straight from the factory floor.
A month later the 1st SS was far from combat ready. The week before D-Day the division stood at 19,618 strong, though many of the new recruits were untrained and 1,081 men, mainly drivers and vital technicians, were still in Germany. Wisch was still awaiting replacement Panzer Mk IVs and Vs and these did not arrive until the weeks following D-Day. Motor transport was lacking, the division only had 1,691 of 3,887 authorised trucks and over a third of those were in maintenance. None of the panzergrenadiers’ armoured halftracks were operational.
The division’s SS-Panzer Regiment 1 was commanded by veteran SS-Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper, who had made a name for himself in the campaigns fought in Poland, where he had commanded 10 Kompanie of the LSSAH, and in France and Russia. He then commanded III Abteilung of the newly-motorised division’s SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 2.
Peiper fought with distinction during the recapture of Kharkov and at Kursk. In November 1943 he succeeded SS-Obersturmbannführer Schönberger as commander of SS-Panzer Regiment 1. He was later to achieve notoriety for the Malmedy massacre perpetrated by the 1st SS during the German Ardennes offensive in the winter of 1944.
SS-Panzer Regiment 1 mustered forty-two Panzer IVs in its I Abteilung under SS-Sturmbannführer Kling, thirty-eight Panthers in II Abteilung commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Pötschke and forty-four StuG IIIs in SS-Sturmbannführer Heimann’s SS-Sturmgeschütz Abteilung 1. A further eight Panzer IVs and a StuG were in the workshop. In total the 1st SS was to field 103 Panzer IVs, seventy-two Panthers and forty-five StuG IIIs during the fighting in Normandy. Divisional artillery also included five Hummel and eight Wespe self-propelled guns mounted on Panzer IV and II chassis respectively.
Nazi indecision ensured that the 1st SS were kept away from Normandy for two crucial weeks. Although not combat ready, just two days after the Allied invasion it had been decided to send what units it could to help. Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans changed their minds and the division was not embarked onto its freight trains until 17 June.
Stationed at Enghen, Belgium, on 9 June, expecting an attack across the Pas de Calais, the 1st SS was ordered to move east of Bruges as a safeguard. Five days later the Panther abteilung arrived east of Rouen and eight days later other units were unloaded west of Paris, but elements of the division totalling 5,800 men remained in Belgium.
Into action
Equally frustratingly for Rommel, Schweppenburg and the others, only the SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 1 could be committed belatedly to help resist the British Epsom Operation along National Highway175. A kampfgruppe under SS-Obersturmbannführer Albert Frey from SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 1 went into action on the 28th. Although the panzergrenadiers arrived in the Caen area it would be another week before other elements arrived. In the meantime the 12th SS were left to fend off the Epsom offensive, aimed at securing Caen, largely unassisted.
SS-Panzer Regiment 1 had not been brought together by 1 July and the bulk of the division was not in the line before the 9th. By early July, Kling had thirty Panzer IVs, Pötschke twenty-five Panthers and Heimann thirty-one StuGs. The division initially gathered south of Caen between Thury-Harcourt and Bretteville-sur-Laize, then to the north of Potigny between Caen and Falaise and also Bretteville-sur-Laize and Caen. Wisch reported to Sepp Dietrich’s I Panzer Corps, which included the battered 12th SS.
From 7 July, for three days, elements of 1st SS fought with the 12th SS to the southwest of Caen to halt Operation Charnwood, the British frontal assault on the northern outskirts. They found themselves up against Major General R F L Keller’s Canadian 3rd Division, which struck toward the Odon. The British attack opened with 460 bombers carpet-b
ombing the city and a regiment from the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division suffered seventy-five per cent casualties. Within two days the Germans had been driven from all of Caen north of the Orne. On 10 July the British tried to barge the Germans out of the way to the west with Operation Jupiter.
Following Charnwood, General von Obstfelder’s LXXXVI Corps, which included 21st Panzer, assumed I SS Panzer Corp’s responsibility for the whole sector east of Caen. The 1st SS then assumed responsibility for the sector taking over from the exhausted 12th SS. Between 12-17 July the division’s HQ was just to the northwest of Bretteville at Fresnay-le-Puceux. On the 15th the British launched Operation Greenline, pinning 2nd Panzer, 9th SS and 10th SS west of Caen and obliging 1 SS to return to the fight to hold the Orne.
In mid-July the 272nd Infantry Division gradually relieved the 1st SS. The former, part of Army Group G’s 19th Army, had been ordered to move from the Mediterranean coast on 2 July. After being sent by train to the Le Mans area, the 272nd began to move into defensive positions on the night of 13/14th. By 15 July the Germans had suffered 97,000 casualties, an attrition rate of 2,500 to 3,000 per day. Replacements numbered just 10,000, of whom only6,000 had reached the front. Tank losses totalled 225, with just seventeen replacements.
Stopping Goodwood
By the 18th, the 1st SS was in reserve at Falaise, way to the south of Caen, when the British launched Operation Goodwood. Just prior to this, the 1st SS between Eterville and Mondeville were directed eastward towards Cagny. Subsequently the 1st SS and 12th SS were redeployed to the south and east of Caen on a line from Bras-Bourguébus-Frénouville-Emiéville, while 21st Panzer lay between Emiéville and Troarn along with the Tiger tanks of Abteilung 503.
Falaise: The Flawed Victory Page 15