Each regiment also had its own support troops, known as B Echelon. Once it became dark, tanks would pull back and ‘leaguer up’ – usually each troop in a circle with the guns pointing outwards or backed into a hedgerow or somewhere with natural camouflage. Depending on how close they were to the front, they might dig a hole in the ground, sleep underneath the tank or pull a tarpaulin out from the side. B Echelon would arrive in ‘soft-skins’ – trucks, Jeeps, weapons carriers – with more ammunition, basic spare parts, jerry cans of fuel, and rations. Unlike the Germans, no British tank crew, or tank battalion, was ever short of support. The system was much the same for the Americans, whose supplies, if anything, were even more efficient and plentiful.
The Germans had a similar system. The equivalent of the British LAD was the Panzer Maintenance Detachment of nineteen men and two shop trucks. Each panzer regiment then had a panzer maintenance company of between 120 and 200 men and did have lathes, electricians and some lifting gear. The prime mover was an 18-ton half-track Maybach capable of pulling 20 tons. Heavier tanks were shifted by coupling several of these Maybachs together. The Germans did not have the kind of low-loaders, tank wreckers or tractors available to the Americans and British; no country was as capable of building big, powerful prime movers as the Americans. The Germans also had panzer maintenance platoons, usually attached to each tank battalion; Hauptmann Helmut Ritgen, for example, had a maintenance platoon serving his battalion, and they could, on paper at any rate, replace engines and transmissions and carry out welding. Ritgen’s battalion was equipped with Mk IVs, however, which were far easier to maintain than Panthers or Tigers.
On paper, then, the German system seemed efficient enough. Problems arose, however, on a number of different levels. First, from 1942 onwards the urgent and pressing need for new tanks like the Panther and Tiger had taken precedence over other aspects of armour production, such as the manufacture of spare parts. By 1944, tank battalions were always short of parts and far too many tanks had to be abandoned for want of a new gasket, cog or pinion. Second, the reduction of training across the board coincided with the increase in both numbers and varieties of German tanks – there were thirteen different variants of the Mk III, for example – as well as the massively increased size and sophistication – and complication – of certain models such as the Panther and Tiger. All too often, repairing stricken panzers was simply beyond the abilities of the maintenance teams.
The contrast with the Americans simply could not have been starker. At the start of the war, there had been two Americans for every motorized vehicle in the USA, but that figure had been forty-seven in Germany. The United States had tens of thousands of mechanics and they had the capacity, time and materials to ensure those with mechanical skills were superbly trained for the task they were assigned, whether it be tank, truck, gun or aircraft maintenance. Third, in Normandy the Germans no longer had enough fuel or prime movers, and even though divisions such as the Panzer-Lehr and 12. SS set off to the front at full strength, the traumatic journey to Normandy soon put paid to that. It was one of the reasons why Bayerlein was so angry and distraught at the losses to his soft-skins en route. Without them, his tanks could not be supported, and tanks that could not be properly supported in the field were no good to anyone. ‘Any nation that anticipates conducting large-scale military operations in a distant theater of war,’ wrote a US study on German tank maintenance, ‘can conserve the combat efficiency of its armour only if proper tank maintenance is performed in the field.’10 It was hard to argue with that, but the German armies in Normandy were unable to abide by this simple but essential tenet. By mid-July, both the Americans and the British (and Canadians) had around 3,500 tanks each in theatre, a huge number. The Germans had brought up, in total, a thousand fewer. The difference between the two sides was that the Allies were able to maintain and even grow those figures, but the Germans were not. For them, the line on the graph was going ever downwards.
Yet while the operational level was executed so much better by the Allies, it would be wrong to suggest their armour was necessarily inferior. It really wasn’t just about the guns and armour, despite what was often believed at the time and has been perpetuated in many quarters ever since. There were other factors about the Sherman, the most numerous of all tanks in Normandy, that often get ignored, but which made it an immensely practical tank to have among the Allied armies. Ever since the Battle of Alamein in October and November 1942, the Allies had been on the advance. As the Axis forces retreated, so they blew up bridges in their wake, which meant Allied engineers then had to bring forward bridging equipment. The best and most effective way to do this was by laying a Class 40 Bailey bridge, which could take 40 tons at any one time. A Sherman was 30 tons; even with crew, fuel, ammunition, kit and wood on the side for extra protection, it still weighed less than 40 tons. If it were heavier, like the 56-ton Tiger, it would not be able to get across. The Cromwell was a similar weight but could also travel at 50 m.p.h., faster than any other comparable tank, and would be a huge advantage as and when British armour managed to get into open countryside. Its time would come. Shermans also fitted neatly into liberty ships and landing craft, as well as being very easy to maintain compared with most German models. When considering the advantages and disadvantages of any particular armoured fighting vehicle – AFV – it is essential to look at it in the round, not just from the perspective of its armour and gun, and these practical advantages of the Sherman were very important indeed.
By contrast, the Tiger was not only incredibly complex, it was also very thirsty, yet fuel, along with food, was one of Nazi Germany’s biggest shortcomings. Tigers had to be transported as close to the front as possible by rail, but because they were so big they were too wide to fit on to the continental railway loading gauge. The solution was to give the tank narrower tracks for travel, which would then have to be taken off and switched for much wider combat tracks once it reached the front. Under the watch of enemy Jabos, this was a complicated and time-consuming exercise. The tank then had to be driven the rest of the way, the crew hoping they didn’t break it en route before it actually got into action. Only 1,347 Tigers were ever built – compared with 49,000 Shermans and 74,000 Sherman chassis, which, because of their uniformity, were converted into assault guns, troop carriers and other AFVs – and of those Tigers it is estimated half were lost to lack of fuel or mechanical failure.
One of the problems facing the Germans was that, because they were not a particularly automotive country even before the war, they had a much smaller pool of drivers, mechanics and large vehicle factories in the first place. As the war progressed and training was cut and cut again, and fuel became ever scarcer, so their tanks demanded a larger share of available fuel. This meant huge corners had to be cut. From prisoners captured in Normandy, it became clear to the Allies that a lot of Panther and even Tiger drivers had gone into action with as little as ten hours’ training, a woefully insufficient preparation for operating beasts so mechanically complex. It was no wonder Sergeant Dring’s crew were able to best several Panthers and a Tiger in one action. Most prisoners grilled about their German armour reckoned that, on average, at least five Panthers out of a company of twenty-two would be permanently in workshops undergoing maintenance. A Tiger company was fourteen tanks and it was estimated that at least two would always be out of action and in the workshops, which usually amounted to 5–10 days. Engines overheating, blown gaskets, broken final drives, a lack of maintenance and bad driving were the most common cause of mechanical problems.
Then there were other small but not insignificant differences. The suspension, track and wheel systems on the Tiger and Panther were complicated and not easy to repair. The Panther, for example, had eighteen wheels, all interlinked, including the drive wheels, on each side, so thirty-six in all, with the suspension system on the far side. Shermans, on the other hand, had eight each side, including the drives, and the three twin-suspension bogeys on each side were on the outside of th
e tracks so they could be easily accessed and replaced if damaged. All were simply bolted on. This kind of practicality and ease of repair was really important in the fury and heat of battle when maintenance of the front – and effort – was of paramount importance. Broken tracks were very easy to repair, but the suspension and wheels on a Sherman could be replaced, if necessary, without removing the tracks at all. On a Tiger or Panther – or a Mk IV for that matter – the entire track and wheel system usually had to be removed to repair one part.
Nor was the bocage any better for panzer divisions than it was for the attacking American troops. ‘We could only knock out enemy tanks at a maximum range of 200 yards,’ said Fritz Bayerlein, ‘as the hedges concealed everything further away.11 The German tanks are built for long range firing.’ This was true enough; the Panthers and Tigers, especially, as well as upgunned StuGs, had been designed with the open steppe of Russia and the equally wide-open North African desert in mind. Big, heavy tanks were a nightmare to operate in such close country. ‘We could not use the Mark V cross-country in Normandy,’ he added – nor the Tiger, had he been given any.12 As far as he was concerned, the Cromwell was the best suited to the bocage with its ‘sharper angle of approach. We believed it had been specially built for use in Normandy.’
However, there was no doubting that in open country, such as that around Caen, British tanks were vulnerable, less to Panthers and Tigers but more to anti-tank guns. Allied tank crews understandably viewed combat from their own experiences and it often seemed as though these incredible German weapons were making mincemeat of them and displaying overwhelming superiority. German tank crews, however, had to contend with many more enemy anti-tank guns, vastly overwhelming artillery, naval guns and, of course, the Jabos, about which they were even more obsessed and fearful than Allied troops were about Tigers and 88s. Most Allied troops never got to see this German perspective, however.
The vulnerability of tanks to anti-tank guns also applied to the bocage country, where pretty much all fighting was short-range and where they were vulnerable to hidden 88s, Pak 40s and even Pak 38s and other German anti-tank weapons, such as the hand-held Panzerschrek rocket-launcher and the Panzerfaust. Colonel Tick Bonesteel had suggested to the First Army planners that they urgently request the bigger Pershing M26 tank, which was now rolling off the assembly lines but had yet to be shipped to the ETO. General George S. Patton, generally considered the leading armour expert and soon to be commanding US Third Army in Brittany, had advised against this 46-ton heavy because of the support it would require in terms of parts, fuel and shipping. It was certainly too big for a Class 40 Bailey bridge, but did have a 90mm high-velocity gun. On the other hand, its armour was less than that of a Tiger and similar to that of a Panther, with 102 mm of frontal armour and 55 mm on the sides; the Churchill had 150 mm of frontal armour, while the Tiger had 100 mm and a 120mm-thick gun mantlet. This meant that even in close hedgerow country the Pershing would have been vulnerable to anti-tank weapons, while not as easy to maintain or manoeuvre. For clearing enemy troops, mortars and lesser guns from bocage country, the Sherman’s machine guns and 75mm main gun were very effective. The secret to winning in the hedgerows was rapidly to develop new tactics and techniques, and, despite the horror and shocking devastation men like Lieutenant Richard Blackburn saw on arriving at the front, by the middle of July this was starting to happen.
It has to be remembered that, in terms of their armies, Britain, America and even Canada had been at ground zero in June 1940, a mere four years earlier. The United States had had a tiny army in September 1939, almost no tanks, just seventy-odd fighter planes and not one single producer of high explosive. Britain had lost the fighting power of her very small army in France following the retreat from Dunkirk and had never intended to have a large army in the first place; that had been France’s role in the pre-war alliance. Suddenly, they had found themselves facing a terrible danger that threatened the free Western world. Four years on, they had not only expanded already large navies but had built the world’s two largest air forces and armies of millions, superbly well equipped and supported. Any criticism of tanks has to be tempered by the truly astonishing achievement of building such armies so exponentially quickly and with the operational infrastructure to sustain them. Furthermore, Allied war leaders had worked out a method of defeating the enemy that was, by the standards of the day, comparatively cost-effective in terms of the lives of their young men. The Allied war effort should be not only applauded but marvelled at. It was a truly incredible achievement that had happened only because every fibre of their respective nations had been ploughed into their war effort with a focus and cool-headed pragmatism that has never been rivalled or equalled at any point in world history.
The trouble was that it was the poor infantry and the tank crews who had to put their necks on the line and head into the hedgerows and across the open ground to face the full fury of the enemy. When tanks started brewing up left, right and centre, and the terrible losses began to mount, it was no wonder morale took a hammering. It was also no wonder that those getting hammered began to have weapons-envy, especially when they saw a much bigger Tiger or Panther loom over the horizon or lurch around a corner. Resentment and a feeling of the inadequacy of their own equipment was entirely understandable, not least because they were, in effect, the sacrificial lambs of the Allied armies. The British and American way of war was far more efficient, better supported and supplied than any other of the combatant nations, but despite the ‘steel not flesh’ wider strategy, and despite the fire-power-heavy approach to war, there was simply no avoiding the work of the infantry and armour. To destroy the Germans and bring their immense fire-power to bear, there had to be a bait. And that bait was the poor bastards in the infantry and armour.
CHAPTER 28
Crisis of Command
On D-Day, Leutnant Richard Freiherr von Rosen had just rejoined Schwere Panzerabteilung (Heavy Panzer Battalion) 503 at Ohrdruf troop-training depot. From an aristocratic Prussian family, he had been brought up on an estate in Altenburg, in the hills south of Dresden, and in 1940, when he was just eighteen, he had been thrilled to join the army’s exciting new panzer arm. He started in the ranks, as was the case for every soldier, and then became a Fahnenjunker, an officer candidate. He had earned his right to attend Kriegsschule – military school – and had duly become an officer in the army’s spearhead, the elite. By 1944 he had seen much action: he had been there at the start of Operation BARBAROSSA, had survived Russian winters and the previous July had been wounded in the Battle of Kursk. Patched up and rested, he was now glad to be back with his old unit. His commander, Hauptmann Rolf Fromme, had appointed von Rosen as special duties officer at Battalion HQ and one of his first tasks had been to prepare for the visit of Feldmarschall Heinz Guderian, then still the inspector-general of panzer troops, who was due to visit on 15 June. Guderian remained, in many ways, the father of the panzer arm, so a visit from this great warrior was an honour indeed.
Guderian had been guest at the officers’ party and during the dinner he made a point of coming over and sitting with the lieutenants at their table, speaking gravely about the situation on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. ‘If we do not succeed in destroying the enemy bridgehead in the next fourteen days,’ he said of Normandy, ‘the war is lost for us.’1 Coming from a man such as he, this made an especially deep impression on von Rosen and his fellow officers, although over the next couple of weeks he tried to put it out of his mind and focus on the exacting demands of preparing for front-line action once more. Their movement order finally arrived on 27 June; they were to pull out of Ohrdruf at six the following morning, von Rosen’s twenty-second birthday as it happened, and head to the Normandy front.
As was standard for any new units heading to Normandy, Schwere Panzerabteilung 503’s journey was one of constant interruptions by Allied air attacks and long detours to avoid smashed bridges, so they did not reach their railhead until 2 and 3 July, then labori
ously moved up to the front over the ensuing nights, arriving in darkness on the 7th. The following day they were attached to 21. Panzer-Division, and von Rosen was now given command of the fighting Staffel (squadron) of 3. Kompanie. Leaguered up in fields and woods to the south-east of the battered city of Caen, the battalion’s tank companies took it in turns to be on alarm duty, although for a few days they were not called upon. Instead, they used the time to acclimatize to their new surroundings. The fighting here, von Rosen realized, was very different to that along the Eastern Front; here the enemy’s mastery of the air was undisputed.
On Thursday, 11 July, von Rosen was woken by a dispatch rider at around 5 a.m. and warned to get his company at immediate alarm readiness and to hurry to the battalion command post. There he was briefed: the Canadians had broken through between Cuverville and Colombelles and now occupied the high ground just to the north of the chimneys and factory complex there. The roads east of the city lay dangerously open to the enemy and a large number of British tanks had been reported moving forward. His 3. Kompanie was to destroy them, push back the enemy and restore the front line, then hold and await further orders.
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