Chapter 10:
Operation Totalize and the defeat of 12th SS Panzer.
After blunting Operation Luttich, the Allied High Command saw that it had the opportunity to trap the German armies in Normandy in a giant pocket. General Patton’s Third Army was fanning out virtually unopposed into Brittany and moving rapidly eastwards, heading towards the Seine River crossings. All that was needed was for the noose to be closed around the 400,000 Germans still fighting in Normandy. Montgomery decided that now was the time to blast through the German defences east of Caen, and push south to link up with Patton’s spearhead. Operation Totalize was to begin on 8 August 1944.
Two infantry divisions, each led by an armoured brigade, were to advance due south along the main road out of Caen towards Falaise, on Route Nationale 158. This would be a very different style of attack to those previously attempted by the British or Canadians. Seven separate armoured columns would be formed, with as many infantry as possible loaded on armoured personnel carriers which had been created by converting self-propelled artillery pieces. For the first time, tanks would lead the way at night, guided by artificial moonlight from searchlight batteries. Mine-clearing “flail” tanks, armoured bulldozers and flame- thrower “Crocodile” tanks were at the front of each armoured column, leading 200 armoured vehicles. Huge air support was laid on as normal, but this time it was aimed not just at the German frontline positions, but also at reserve units and reinforcement routes. This Allied force also had one major advantage over previous units that had attempted to seize the Bourguebus ridge. This time there were no Waffen-SS tanks and 88mm Flak guns waiting for them. The Leibstandarte had been pulled out to lead the attack on Mortain, II SS Panzer Corps was fighting Operation Bluecoat to a halt near Vire, and the Hitlerjugend was in reserve. “Sepp” Dietrich was still in command of the sector, although his I SS Panzer Corps headquarters had only one Waffen-SS division, Hitlerjugend, with 59 Panthers, 39 Panzer IVs, 27 Jagdpanzer IVs and the 8 Tigers of the 101st SS Battalion under its command. They faced more than 700 British, Canadian and Polish tanks.
At 23:00 hours on the evening of 7 August, 1020 RAF bombers began the preparatory bombardment. As the 3517 tonnes (3462 tons) of bombs were exploding, the armoured columns started their engines and moved forward into the attack. The bombing finished on time and the assault tanks were able to cross the start-line at exactly 23:00 hours.
Meyer’s stop line
For the next six hours, the columns pushed nearly 5km (3.1 miles) into the stunned German 89th Infantry Division. Resistance was patchy, but in terms of the previous attempts to take the Bourguebus ridge, the assault troops suffered relatively low casualties: in the region of 300 men spread evenly between seven battalion-sized units. As dawn was breaking, the Allied troops had for all intents and purposes blasted open the German front. Shell-shocked survivors were streaming away from the fighting. For a few hours only one man stood between the Allies and victory: the Hitlerjugend’s commander, Kurt Meyer.
He had rushed to the threatened sector to carry out a reconnaissance, and early in the morning stood on Route 158 as hordes of fleeing German infantry rushed past. Armed only with a carbine, he shamed the soldiers into standing firm with a couple of Hitlerjugend Panzerjäger IVs that had just arrived in the village of Cintheaux.
Operation Totalize: 7–11 August, 1944
By midday, Meyer had brought up his battalion of Panzer IV’s, some Panzerjäger IVs, and Michael Wittmann’s Tigers to his improvised “stop line”. Not content with just holding the attack, Meyer was going to attack. His mind was made up when he saw an American B-17 flying overhead dropping flares to mark targets for follow-up waves of bombers. The panzers would be safer from the American bombs if they mixed with the British, Canadian and Polish tanks. Wittmann’s Tigers led the Panzerkeil (or wedge) forward. Meyer briefly climbed on to the Waffen-SS Tiger ace’s tank to wish him luck, not knowing that this would be Wittmann’s last battle.
Meyer’s unconventional tactics paid off. The panzer charge escaped the B-17s and drove headlong into the Polish armoured regiment and the British 33rd Armoured Brigade. The terrain was open and the Allied tanks had little cover from the German 75mm and 88mm high-velocity cannons. Wittmann’s Tigers swung off Route 158 and hit the Canadian 4th Armoured Division. It was stopped dead, losing scores of tanks, but two Tigers were knocked out. Undeterred, Wittmann pressed on eastwards against the flank of the British Northamptonshire Yeomanry, blasting another 20 Shermans as he went. Hopelessly outnumbered, Wittmann pressed on towards St Aignan-de-Cramesnil. British Sherman Firefly tanks, armed with the powerful 17-pounder gun- firing tungsten sabot rounds, were waiting in ambush for the Tigers. A Squadron of the Yeomanry is credited with putting an end to Wittmann’s career which, to his credit, took in 138 tank kills. Five tanks zeroed in on Wittmann’s Tiger, and consequently the turret was seen to explode after a sabot round succeeded in penetrating the tank’s armour. There were no survivors.
More Panzer IVs now joined the battle from the south, intercepting the 1st Polish Armoured Division’s lead regiment and putting 24 Shermans out of action. Hitlerjugend 88mm Flak guns were also in action against the Poles to great effect. Again, the intervention of the Hitlerjugend Division had thwarted the Allied plans. Scores of Shermans were burning and the Allied advance was brought to a halt. It cost Meyer 178 men, 5 Tigers and 6 Panzer IVs. Lacking the manpower to hold a continuous front during the night against such overwhelming odds, Meyer ordered his forward Kampfgruppe to fall back to a new line centred on the high ground around Point 140, 5km (3.1 miles) to the south, where the bulk of Max Wünsche’s panzer regiment was now gathering.
In the confusion, the retreating German units became lost and this allowed the Canadian 28th Armoured Regiment and the Algonquin Infantry Battalion to slip through their lines to occupy Point 140. The result was a massacre. Wünsche’s Panthers were to their front and five Tigers on high ground to the west. All day the Canadians were trapped on the exposed hillside, which had now become a “killing zone” raked by 88mm, 75mm, Nebelwerfer, mortar and machine- gun fire. Standing off outside the range of the Canadian Shermans, the Tigers and Panthers systematically wiped out all vehicles on the hillside. In desperation, the Canadians tried to call in RAF Typhoons to rocket the German tanks, only to have them attack their own tanks by mistake.
The last great success
When Canadian units were sent to relieve the cut-off troops, Meyer’s men ambushed them, knocking out 26 tanks and turning them back. In the afternoon the Poles tried to get through to them, only to run into a wall of Panzerjäger IVs, and they lost 22 Shermans. They got close enough to the trapped regiments to bring down fire support, but mistook the Canadian tanks for German ones and started firing on them. Some 125 men were killed and 47 tanks destroyed on Point 140. It was not until nightfall that 49 Canadians were able to escape back to Polish lines. In contrast to these losses, not a single German panzer was lost in the course of the battle.
His battered troops held their lines for one more day, until Hitler ordered the division to be pulled out of the line to be sent westwards, to reinvigorate the now-stalled Operation Luttich. In the three-day battle, the Canadians lost 80 tanks and the Poles admitted the destruction of 66 of their tanks. The battle had not been all one-sided, with Meyer losing 414 casualties. His tank strength was now reduced to 20 Panzer IVs and 15 Panthers. Thanks to the arrival of additional tanks from the 102nd SS Battalion, he now boasted 15 Tigers.
This was the last notable defensive success for the men of Meyer’s division. The great Allied jaws were now closing around the German armies in Normandy, and it was becoming clear that these German armies were being pushed further and further towards the town of Falaise. It was apparent that in a matter of days, the struggle for supremacy in the northwest would be over.