On top of the Maquis problem, only forty per cent of Lammerding’s panzers were serviceable and seventy per cent of his half-tacks and prime movers. Repeated calls for spare parts had fallen on deaf ears, which meant broken down vehicles could not be moved and therefore required infantry to guard them. Six depots had to be set up for the waifs and strays and efforts to commandeer local civilian vehicles produced few results.
In response, General Johannes Blaskowitz’s Army Group G, also headquartered in Toulouse, requested OKW provide troops to replace the 2nd SS once it had left Corrèze and Dordogne. A kampfgruppe from the 11th Panzer Division, comprising two infantry abteilungen, an artillery abteilung and an anti-tank company, was assembled with instructions to contact the 2nd SS in Tulle. These forces arrived on the 11th and the 2nd SS rolled north to Limoges.
By this stage the division had suffered seventeen dead and thirty wounded, the Maquis fighting an uneven struggle had lost 500 killed and 1,500 prisoners. The French figures included civilian executions. On the 12th, von Blaskowitz finally took personal control of the anti-partisan operations and requested that OKW formally declare the southwest a battle zone. The French Resistance found itself at war with Army Group G.
On 13 June the Der Führer Regiment and the reconnaissance battalion crossed the Loire at Saumar and Tours, where the bridges remained standing. Due to the lack of transport, by the end of June some units remained stranded in the south of France and it was not until late July that the last elements began heading north. Only 11,195 men from 2nd SS’s total manpower of 17,283 had reached Normandy by 1 July.
Arriving in Normandy, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger, who had replaced Sylvester Stadler as commander of Der Führer three days after crossing the Loire, expected to take part in a major counterattack to drive the Allies back into the channel. Instead, his men were directed to plug a gap in the line beside Panzer Lehr. Fritz Bayerlein was amused when he heard they wanted to take the offensive remarking, ‘It will be a miracle if we can stand where we are’.
Into action
During June, Kampfgruppe Weidinger, consisting of elements of Panzergrenadier Regiments 3 and 4 along with the 9th SS, resisted the British Epsom offensive. Then, during July, elements fought in the American sector. Kampfgruppe Weidinger came under von Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps on 5 July, when it was tactically attached to the 353rd Infantry Division for the defence of La Haye Du Puits and Monte Castre.
They launched a counterattack against the Americans on the afternoon of the 7th, striking the American 79th Infantry Division on the recently-won Montgardon Ridge south of La Haye du Puits. The Germans inflicted 2,000 casualties, but American tanks, tank destroyers and artillery claimed three panzers and the attack died out. Such was the 79th’s mauling that it had to be withdrawn to be refitted.
Holding a line Les Landes-Lemonderie, the V and VII Kompanies were attacked by the US 83rd infantry Division on 7-8 July. The US 9th and 30th Infantry Divisions pushed on Lé Desert after crossing the Vire-Taute canal. In the meantime the US 3rd Amored Division attacked northwest of St Lô. On the 9th, elements from the 2nd SS then ran into the 30th Infantry Division’s right flank near Lé Desert. The SS, though, were driven back by American artillery fire.
However, The VII Kompanie caught a company of the US 743rd Tank Battalion pursing two Panzer IVs on the 9th near Lé Desert. The surprised American tanks reeled back with the loss of twelve Shermans. By the close of the 10th, the 2nd SS had claimed ninety-eight enemy tanks in the space of just eight days. On the 13th the division knocked out another thirty American tanks.
The SS panzertruppen’s morale was high, but the Americans’ limitless resources dismayed them. The 2nd SS, like all the other panzer divisions in Normandy, was plagued by ammunition and fuel shortages. Due to the lack of supplies, by 11 July the 2nd SS had lost twenty-two tanks, seven guns and seven lorries.
On 8 July, SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Barkmann, commanding Panthers of SS-Panzer Regiment 2’s IV Kompanie, knocked out his first Sherman and on the 12th claimed two more. The next day, American tanks hidden amongst the Normandy hedgerows almost surprised him. He recalled:
First came a clattering noise; then, from behind the hedge, the rounded hull of a Sherman heaved into view… and behind it, five more. The first panzergranate [armour piecing round] hit the leading tank in the hull. Smoke appeared from its open turret hatch. The other Shermans had come to a halt. A second round from the Panther knocked off one of the leading tank’s tracks. The hedge behind which it had sought shelter had a hole in it as large as a man. The damaged Sherman was returning fire…a third round hit its turret. The four tanks that were left opened fire with their machine guns which merely tore jagged holes in the Panther’s Zimmerit [an anti-mine coating]. One of them was unwise enough to show its side. A fourth round went right through it. Three of the crew got out, searching for a fold in the ground as they ran.
Although the Americans moved anti-tank guns behind Barkmann’s Kompanie, he surprised them in a wood using high explosive rounds and his bow machine-gun. An anti-tank shell skidded off his turret and he hit the gun with his second shot. The Americans struck his turret again and a fire broke out. Although he and his crew were forced to bail out, they later got the tank back to the repair company. Throughout the 14th, Barkmann and his Panthers were heavily engaged against the Americans rescuing surrounded tanks and captured wounded.
Cobra strikes
By late July the 2nd SS was the only significant formation rated suitable for offensive operations within 7th Army. It had thirty-seven Panzer IVs, forty-one Panthers and twenty-five StuG assault guns available for combat. It was tasked with stopping the Americans seizing the main coastal road that led to Avranches, the best north-south route in the Cotentin Peninsula. At the time of Cobra the 2nd SS were supported by two 10.5cm artillery companies from Artillery Regiment 275, formally part of the infantry division of the same number.
On the 26th, the 2nd SS rushed to fill the gap left by Bayerlein’s decimated Panzer Lehr Division, having deployed its panzer regiment to the St Aubin-du-Perron area south of the Périers-St Lô road the previous day. Some of those tanks south of Périers were sent southeast to Marigny. Two companies from 2nd SS counterattacked elements of the US 3rd Armored Division on the outskirts of the town that afternoon.
Barkmann’s Panther, caught in the open, was attacked by four fighter-bombers and caught fire. Working through the night, his men had the tank up and running by the morning. At the village of le Lorey, north of the St Lô–Coutances road, they were confronted by comrades fleeing American Shermans driving from St Lô, where SS-Panzer Regiment 2 was supposed to be deployed. Barkmann decided to try and halt elements of the US 3rd Armored Division trundling down the Coutances road on the 27th, at the junction of the Lorey road and the N172 between Coutances and St Lô.
When the Americans drove into view, Barkmann’s gun-layer, Poggendorf, opened fire at 200 metres. The Americans tried desperately to back off but soon the road was a twisted mess of smashed jeeps and half-tracks. Although the roar of the gun, the clang of the spent shell case and the hum of the ventilator sucking out the noxious cordite fumes deafened his crew, he kept a constant lookout. Two Sherman tanks advancing to the left of the road were dealt with, though not before his Panther took two shuddering hits to its armour. The Americans then called in fighter-bombers to shift the stubborn Barkmann, which damaged his tank’s running wheels. Again, two more Shermans trying to outflank him found their guns had no effect and paid the price.
Halting 3rd Armored, he destroyed up to nine Sherman tanks, but his tank was damaged and had lost a track. Miraculously, although his driver was wounded, they managed to withdraw to Neufborg. Despite holding up the Americans the end result was still the same. Left behind by the rest of the division, Barkmann’s Panther, with two others in tow, reached Coutances on 28 July, only to find the Americans already in the city. Two days later he had lost all three panzers and he and the crews made their way back to
their own lines on foot.
Meanwhile, panzers of SS-Obersturmfüher Schlomka’s II Kompanie, previously deployed east of Carentan, were instructed to hold the Americans west of Périers on the 27th. Following a briefing by SS-Obersturmbannführer Christian Tychsen, Fritz Langanke and his platoon moved into position to be greeted by heavy artillery fire. Langanke’s tank then got stuck in a ditch and had to be towed out. The American advance, though, was brought to a brief halt and at nightfall the panzers withdrew. II Kompanie were then ordered to block the St Lô-Coutances road on the 28th. The ever present fighter-bombers did all they could to hamper the 2nd SS, as Langanke witnessed:
As soon as we turned onto it, in the direction of St Lô, we were engulfed in the heaviest fighter-bomber activity I experienced during the war. The only thing similar occurred during the breakout from the encirclement at Falaise/Trun. The light coloured ribbon of concrete of this road was littered, as far as we could see toward Coutances, by wrecks of vehicles and other military equipment. Some of it was burning, smoking, entangled, or just abandoned. Here and there we saw dead or wounded soldiers. Once our small unit had been spotted driving on the road, fighter-bombers dove on us from all sides, dropping bombs and firing onboard weapons. To catch our breath, we pulled off the road to the right for a while into an orchard. That did not help very much as that area was being hammered as badly.
Like all German tank crews, they faced the dilemma of bailing out or staying inside their tanks, either option could be equally risky. In this instance Langanke’s panzer drove on; passing a knocked out Panther, he observed:
As far as we could see along the road, there were German and American vehicles of various types, cars, trucks, half-tracks, tanks, some of them burning and entangled. In between, German and American ambulances were driving back and forth, lying Red Cross lags, recovering dead and wounded who were strewn on the road or still in their vehicles.
There was a pause before the American armour opened fire amidst the chaos and Langanke’s panzer beat a hasty retreat and took up an ambush position. That evening, Schlomka appeared and guided them back to the regiment in the Coutances area. On the night of 29/30 July elements of the 2nd SS, including Langanke, battered their way out of the Coutances pocket, allowing troops from a number of divisions to escape.
SS-Obersturmführer Otto Baum, assuming command of both the 2nd SS and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, with his Corps commander’s permission withdrew his troops towards Brehal, southwest of Coutances, to avoid the westward-moving American Army. This, however, was countermanded by General Hausser, 7th Army’s commander, who ordered them towards Percy to the southeast.
Roncey Pocket
A major battle ensued at the crossroads southwest of Notre-Dame-de-Cenilly as the 2nd SS attempted to force a passage toward Percy on the 28th. One column of thirty panzers and 2,500 men, led by a Hummel 15cm self-propelled gun named Clausewitz, became trapped after the lead vehicle was knocked out. In the subsequent firefight the American 2nd Armored Division devastated most of this column. At La Pompe about fifteen Panzer IVs from 2nd SS and 200 paratroops successfully forced the Americans to fall back, but they could get no further.
Unable to get through, the bulk of the 2nd SS and 17th SS were trapped around Roncey, west of La Pompe. American fighter-bombers caught 122 tanks, 259 other vehicles and eleven pieces of artillery in the Roncey pocket on the 29th, reaping a cruel harvest of tangled metal. The 2nd SS Panzer’s Panzer-jüger Abteilung 2 lost some of its self-propelled guns, most notably a Panzerjüger 38(t) abandoned in the shattered streets of Roncey.
About 1,000 survivors and almost a hundred vehicles, including several dozen armoured vehicles, which escaped the Roncey pocket broke through at St Denis-le-Gast to the south. By dawn the town was back in American hands and the Germans had suffered 754 casualties and lost a further seven panzers and eighteen other vehicles. Only a battalion of Mark IVs from 2nd SS and elements of 17th SS managed to escape the chaos. Near La Baleine, to the southeast of St Denis, RAF Typhoons again caught those trying to flee, knocking out nine panzers, eight armoured vehicles and another twenty vehicles, leaving dead Germans strewn everywhere.
Christian Tychsen, SS-Panzer Regiment 2’s commander, was killed at the crossroads near Cambry, southwest of Roncey, on 28 July, when the vehicle he was travelling in bumped into an American patrol. Rudolf Enseling, commander of I Abteilung succeeded him. Two days later the Americans reached Granville, about 11 miles (18km) northwest of Avranches, where Barkmann’s Panther had retreated to. He and his crew abandoned their tank the following day.
To the south, the assault guns of Sturmgeschütz Brigade 341 were thrown into the fight to try and stop the US 4th and 6th Armored Divisions breaking out into Brittany and capturing the key Breton ports. This was one of only nine non-divisional panzer or Sturmgeschütz units to be involved in the Normandy campaign. Combined, these forces could theoretically field 363 tanks and assault guns, but they were committed piecemeal. Brittany was the responsibility of General der Artillerie Wilhelm Fahrmbacher’s XXV Corps, comprised of entirely-infantry formations.
Brigade 341 had only been formed in late 1943 and by May of the following year was deployed near Narbonne in southern France. At the time of the invasion it was still incomplete and did not receive its full complement of thirty-three StuG IIIs and twelve Sturmhaubitze 42 (the latter were armed with a 10.5cm howitzer, rather than the regular 7.5cm anti-tank gun) until early July. By late June Sturmgeschütz Brigade 341 was still attached to General Wiese’s 19th Army in southern France. It did not depart for Normandy until 25 July, just as Operation Cobra was commencing.
Two batteries saw combat against the Americans six days later, between Avranches and Bréceyto the northeast, while the third battery remained in the Rennes area. Other elements of the brigade were caught up in the fighting in the Pontorson-St Malo-Dinan area along the north Breton coast, and in the Nantes area.
In the face of two American armored divisions, the fate of this inexperienced brigade was perhaps predictable: within the first few days the first battery lost twelve of its fourteen assault guns and by 1 August both batteries were largely destroyed. That day the US 4th Armored reached Rennes and by 5 August had pressed on south to Redon, where, three days earlier, elements of Brigade 341 had still been sitting on five railcars.
The Americans arrived at the well-defended Breton ports of Brest and Lorient on 6 and 7 August respectively. German forces in Brest would hold out until mid-September, while the garrisons in Lorient and St Nazaire did not surrender until the end of the war. This mattered little as by August Le Havre and Antwerp had much greater allure for the Allies.
Mortain counterattack
In order to close the gaping gap between the Vire and Avranches, Hitler fool-hardily decided to counterattack, a move that would force the panzers further into the noose. For the attack on Avranches on 6 August, the 2nd SS, with just twenty to twenty-five tanks, was to capture Mortain and the hills to the west. Elements of Panzer Lehr’s reconnaissance battalion were assigned to the 2nd SS to screen their southern flank. It proved highly successful in its mission, though groups of Americans remained cut off in their rear.
Lammerding’s men swept into Mortain, brushing aside elements of the American 30th Infantry Division by 0230, and attacked the high ground to the west. However, an American infantry battalion holding Hill 317 blocked further progress by 2nd SS toward Avranches. They could have by passed it but would have been exposed to American fire from the hill.
General Hausser visited the 2nd SS command post at 1000 on the 8th and told them the attack would be renewed after the XLVII Panzer Corps had received additional tanks promised by Hitler. The 9th Panzer Division was to be diverted to Mayenne to seal up a breakthrough in the LXXXI Corps’ front line. At 1400 the 2nd SS counterattacked the northern flank of the American 35th Infantry Division, which had moved south of Mortain between the 30th Infantry and the 2nd Armored at Barenton.
The Americans then
broke through north of Mortain in 1st SS Panzer Division’s area, threatening the northern flank of 2nd SS and the division came under heavy artillery fire. American Shermans were soon also pushing up from Barenton. The failure of Hitler’s ill-advised Avranches/Mortain counterattack sealed the fate of Dietrich’s Panzergruppe West (5th Panzer Army), Panzergruppe Eberbach and Hausser’s 7th Army.
At 1800 on 10 August the 2nd SS came under the control of Krüger’s LVIII Reserve Panzer Corps, having previously been under the operational direction of General von Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps. The division was then pulled back to the main line of resistance just to the east of Mortain.
Elements of the division were involved in heavy fighting and on 11 August alone destroyed nineteen American tanks. Despite all this fierce action, the division still had well over 13,000 men and was far from destroyed. Successfully withdrawing east, the 2nd SS did not end up in the Falaise pocket and counterattacked against the advancing Allies to help some of those trapped to escape.
Final days
Tanks of the Polish 1st Armoured Division had taken up position on Points 262 and 239, at the foot of Mont Ormel, which dominates Chambois and St Lambert-sur-Dives on the 19th and were shelling the exit route from the congested Falaise salient. The following day, a number of 2nd SS Panzer IVs and Panthers stormed up Hill 239 from where they shelled Hill 262, knocking out five Polish tanks and gaining valuable time for the lucky survivors who were still streaming eastward.
When it was clear that all was lost, the 2nd SS made for the Seine. During the campaign the division claimed over 200 enemy tanks for a combat loss of seventy-five panzers, with another thirty abandoned around Falaise for the want of fuel and spare parts.
Falaise: The Flawed Victory Page 19