Chapter 4:
The 12th SS Panzer Division and the defence of Caen.
In its billets northwest of Paris, the men of the Hitlerjugend Division could clearly hear the waves of Allied bombers passing overhead on the morning of 6 June 1944. This performance was heavier than usual. Throughout the early hours of the morning, a steady stream of phone calls alerted the division to the fact that parachute landings were taking place all over Normandy. The divisional commander, 36-year-old SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, put his command on alert. Commanders frantically roused their troops from bed, and reconnaissance parties were formed, ready for any move to counter the invasion.
In the German High Command, confusion reigned. No one was sure where the Allies had landed or in what strength. Rommel, Rundstedt and Hitler all prevaricated, fearing the landing in Normandy was just a feint to distract attention from an assault in the Pas de Calais, or in the mouth of the Somme. A reconnaissance force was sent to the coast south of the Somme at 02:30 hours but the rest of the Hitlerjugend Division had to wait for orders. Reports were coming in every couple of minutes, but there was still no concrete information on the Allied attack.
At 05:00 hours orders were issued for the division to begin concentrating at Lisieux in eastern Normandy. It took several hours for the troops to get on the road, and they spent the rest of the day moving westwards under relentless Allied air attack. Swarms of fighter-bombers – “Jagdbombers” or “Jabos” as they were known to the German panzer crews – were scouting ahead of the Allied bridgehead on the lookout for German columns. Some 20 vehicles were destroyed and more than 80 Hitlerjugend soldiers killed or wounded in the attacks. More important than the materiel and human losses was the delay caused as the Waffen-SS columns had to stop, take cover and weave their way past twisted and smoking wreckage. Refugee columns clogged the roads, and this was responsible for further hindering the movement of German troops towards Normandy. As a result of these obstacles, it would be nightfall before the division found itself anywhere near striking distance of the Allied bridgehead.
The Allies have landed
The German High Command was still locked in confusion about what to do with the panzer reserves. By mid-afternoon on 6 June it was clear that the Normandy landing was in fact no feint. Although the Germans did not have precise information, Allied records showed that 55,000 men were firmly established ashore in five main bridgeheads. Only in the late afternoon were the first orders for counterattacks issued to the panzer reserves. The 21st Panzer Division was already in action north of Caen against the British bridgeheads. Accordingly, the Hitlerjugend and Panzer Lehr Divisions were ordered to move against the British beaches. They were under the command of “Sepp” Dietrich’s I SS Panzer Corps.
The Leibstandarte Division remained in Belgium to counter the threat of an Allied landing in the Pas de Calais, the region which so dogged Hitler. In the meantime, the Das Reich and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions began moving northwards from southwest France. Despite their determination, it would be at least a week before they managed to reach the invasion front. It would also be six days until Hitler finally agreed to release II SS Panzer Corps from the Eastern Front in order that it might return to Normandy. Far from being able to hammer the Allies with a decisive, knock-out blow, the Germans ended up committing their reserves piecemeal in a desperate bid to shore up a crumbling front.
While Dietrich was easily able to establish contact with his old comrade, Witt, he nevertheless had great problems in trying to link up with the 21st Panzer Division or the remnants of the infantry divisions resisting the British north of the large Norman city of Caen.
Dietrich and other staff officers from the Waffen-SS criss-crossed the German front in order to try to pull together some sort of cohesion. All during the night they worked out various formulae for counterattack plan after counterattack plan. But all of their plans were rapidly overtaken by events. The commander of the 21st Panzer Division could not be found at his command post, and this was to further frustrate plans to mount a joint attack with the Hitlerjugend Division.
Of even more concern was the fact that the arrival of the Hitlerjugend Division was still stalled because of the chaotic conditions on the roads. The Panzer Lehr Division was even further behind, and would not arrive at the front for days. In the meantime, thousands more Allied troops and tanks were rapidly pouring ashore.
The planned mass panzer attack for the following day had to be scrapped. The most that could be expected was for the Hitlerjugend Division to go in, with support from 21st Panzer. The first Kampfgruppe of the Hitlerjugend Division to reach the front was based on the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, commanded by the famous SS-Standartenführer Kurt “Panzer” Meyer.
Kurt “Panzer” Meyer
Only 34 years old, Meyer was an aggressive and determined officer who would claim fame for being the youngest German divisional commander of World War II. He would also later be accused of being the perpetrator of war crimes because of the merciless killing of Canadian prisoners of war during the coming battle.
Supreme self-confidence – which, some said, bordered on arrogance – was Meyer’s trademark, and when he arrived at the 21st Panzer’s headquarters during the early hours of 7 June in order to coordinate the coming attack, he did not win any friends. He took one look at the situation map and left the army officers in no doubt as to how totally unimpressed he was by their assessment of the threat posed by the Allied forces in the Normandy bridgehead.
“Little fish! We’ll throw them back into the sea in the morning.” For all his bravado, they could be absolutely sure that Meyer was not joking, either.
Meyer was to push forward on the left flank of the 21st Panzer, after forming up on the western edge of Caen itself. His objective was simple: to reach the coast. By first light, only a few companies of the 25th Regiment were in place on the start-line, with the remainder still moving around the southern suburbs of Caen. In the meantime, the petrol shortages and traffic chaos meant that the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment and the Hitlerjugend’s Panther tank battalion would not be in position to attack at the earliest until the following day.
This was to be a worrying time for Meyer as he surveyed the battle front from his command post in the Ardennes abbey, 4.8km (3 miles) outside Caen. At 10:00 hours, his Panzer IV battalion with 50 tanks finally arrived, followed by more of his Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers.
The attack was fixed for 16:00 hours, with two panzergrenadier units advancing line abreast. They were to be supported in their efforts by large numbers of heavy tanks and artillery.
During the early afternoon, Meyer watched from the Abbey’s high tower as the Canadian 3rd Division – which was known to contain three full infantry brigades and was backed by hundreds of tanks – started to form up for a major attack. Blissfully unaware that the Hitlerjugend Division was in its path, the Canadian 9th Brigade and a regiment of tanks began their advance. To observers, they looked as unthreatening as a unit which was on a training exercise during peacetime.
Making a split-second decision, Meyer junked his deliberate attack plan and instead decided to lay a devastating ambush for the Allied force. By now this force had bypassed one of his advance panzergrenadier units and was heading deep into the German rear with Carpiquet airfield as its objective. All of Meyer’s 88mm-armed tanks and antitank guns which were in hull-down positions on a ridge near the abbey were ordered to hold their fire until the Canadian 9th Brigade and the tanks drove into the centre of Meyer’s killing zone. The Panzer IV companies were ordered to move quickly along the hedge-lined roads before taking up vantage fire positions on the flanks of the Canadian line of advance.
Panzer power strikes
Meyer waited until the Canadians were within 200m (219yd) of his lines before giving the order “Achtung panzer – marsche!” Panzer crews powered up their engines and moved into position.
Fire started raining down on the Canadian brigade. Stuart and Sherman tanks began to explode after taking devastating hits from the Hitlerjugend panzers. Then Meyer’s I Battalion of panzergrenadiers was launched into the shell-shocked remains of the Canadian 9th Brigade.
The battle lasted for six hours as the two forces became intermingled. Company sized groups of Canadians were surrounded by Meyer’s troops in the small Normandy villages. Many fought to the last man, while others surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. Heavy Canadian artillery caused many German casualties that had to be evacuated on the backs of Panzer IVs. A Canadian counterattack now regained some of the lost ground, so Meyer ordered his two remaining panzergrenadier battalions into action. II Battalion with three companies of Panzer IVs led the way in a tight wedge formation. This restored the situation and the Canadians were soon in retreat.
The panzer battalion command group now stumbled into a troop of Shermans and were killed. I Battalion, with one Panzer IV company, pushed forward into a sector held by British troops of the Royal Ulster Rifles. The two forces soon became intermingled in the village of Cambes. British Sherman tanks shot up German gun positions before being knocked out by Panzerfaust teams, while Panzer IVs suffered heavy losses from Allied antitank guns. Both sides now pulled back to defensive positions on either side of Cambes.
The Hitlerjugend at Caen: 6–9 June, 1944
Meyer was all set to push forward when he spotted another Canadian brigade moving south around his right flank. The 21st Panzer Division’s attack had still not started and Meyer was afraid his flank would be turned. His Kampfgruppe was just not strong enough to take on all of the 3rd Canadian Division, so he reluctantly called a halt to his attack. As night fell, the 25th Regiment adopted defensive positions and easily saw off a series of night probes by the Canadians.
Two Canadian regiments – the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and Sherbrooke Fusiliers – lost more than 500 men killed, wounded or captured, as well as 28 tanks destroyed or damaged, during the day’s engagement. Meyer lost some 300 casualties and 9 tanks. At the time, many of Meyer’s troops were despondent, as they had failed to reach their objective. Given the odds, however, they had achieved an amazing result, stopping the Canadian advance in its tracks and thereby thwarting General Sir Bernard Montgomery’s plans to seize Caen on that same day.
The following day saw Meyer forced to consolidate his small force until the rest of the division was in a position to attack. Out on the left flank, the Hitlerjugend’s reconnaissance battalion tried to link up with any German units still putting up resistance, but Meyer’s flank was effectively hanging in open air. The halftrack-mounted reconnaissance troops had a lively day, skirmishing with British troops and tanks of the Durham Light Infantry and 4th/7th Dragoon Guards, convincing them that the German front was far stronger than it really was.
Pushing westwards from Caen, small Hitlerjugend patrols in SdKfz 250 half-tracks or SdKfz 234 eight-wheeled armoured cars were trying to find out the extent of the Allied advance southwards. Operating in small groups, the German vehicles soon started engaging Allied advance patrols. By the evening, the battalion was pulled back to form a firm defensive line to cover the deployment of the 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment.
On 8 June, SS-Oberstürmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke’s 26th Regiment was to attack at first light. This was Mohnke’s return to combat duty after almost three years recovering from the loss of a foot in Yugoslavia and serving in a number of administrative jobs. His comrades were watching closely to see if he held up under the pressure. The division’s Panther tank battalion was still delayed by fuel shortages, so his three panzergrenadier battalions would go into the attack with no tank support.
Mohnke’s task was to drive back the Allied units which had been detected by the reconnaissance battalion as they moved forward on the extreme left of the Hitlerjugend Division’s flank. Mohnke’s men proceeded forward on foot, supported only by SdKfz 251/22 armoured halftracks armed with 75mm guns.
First into action at dawn was the 26th Regiment’s I Battalion. Its men were tasked with seizing the village of Norrey-en-Bessin. Without armour support, the attack soon found itself bogged down. When the lead panzergrenadier companies were caught in the open by Canadian machine-gun, mortar and artillery fire, the Germans had to admit defeat. After many of the company and platoon commanders had been killed or wounded, the Waffen-SS attack was eventually repulsed.
In the centre of the regiment’s attack was the II Battalion, which had been assigned the village of Putot-en-Bessin as its objective. Due to strong artillery support, the II Battalion was able to reach the village and surround three companies of the Canadian Royal Winnipeg Rifles inside a few buildings. The Canadians tried to escape, but the Waffen-SS killed or captured most of them. The British 24th Lancers counterattacked in response to the success of the Germans, getting in amongst the panzergrenadiers. More than 40 Germans were captured in this foray before the III Battalion’s self-propelled antitank company intervened with its Marders and drove the British off.
As dusk was falling, the 7th Canadian Brigade launched a major counterattack, with heavy artillery and tank support. Under massive pressure, the II Battalion pulled out of Putot-en-Bessin, losing some 100 men in the action.
Meanwhile Mohnke’s armoured personnel carrier-mounted panzergrenadier unit, III Battalion, went into attack on the extreme left flank of his regiment. It rapidly relieved a badly shot-up panzergrenadier battalion of the Panzer Lehr Division in Brouay and then spent the day fending off one attack after the other from British tanks.
Outgunned by the British
Out on the Hitlerjugend’s extreme left flank, the reconnaissance battalion found itself outgunned by the British 8th Armoured Brigade. Pin-pointed by British scouts, the battalion was now targeted by three artillery regiments and two battleships. The battalion’s command post was wiped out in a single salvo, and its companies were also targeted, with total losses running to 80 men.
As the evening began, it was Meyer’s 25th Regiment’s turn to go forward on the attack. The offensive would enjoy the support of the Hitlerjugend’s Panther tank battalion. In a daring night attack, Meyer punched through the Canadian lines and surrounded a regimental headquarters based inside the village of Bretteville d’Orgueilleuse. This attack, which was westward from his position, was intended to strike at the exposed flank of the Canadian brigade which was counterattacking Mohnke’s regiment.
The 25th Regiment’s reconnaissance company followed up on its motorcycles, close behind the two companies of tanks, and they were to storm Canadian trenches after the panzer assault. Panzergrenadiers were then to mop up the Canadian position. In characteristic fashion, Meyer went into battle riding on a motorcycle side car, his way of motivating his men to give their all, but showing how impetuous the 32-year-old leader could be in the heat of battle.
As they approached the village, the Panthers fanned out into attack formation and gathered speed. A wall of antitank gunfire hit them as they got to within 200m (219yd) of the village, knocking out several tanks. Spurred on by Meyer’s presence, the tanks started to blast apart the village, with burning tanks and buildings turning night into day. The Canadians fired their salvos of parachute flares above the German tanks, silhouetting them, thereby providing excellent targets as well as temporarily blinding the Panther crews. Meyer now changed his tactics, sending groups of tanks and panzergrenadiers to penetrate the village from the north and south, thus avoiding the heavy antitank gunfire.
The Canadians retreated into a series of fortified strongpoints to try to hold off the attack. Meyer’s Panthers were able to get into the village, where they proceeded to shoot up Canadian bunkers and trucks.
In a crazy night battle, some 22 Panthers circled the Canadian command post of the Regina Rifles Regiment, with Meyer darting in between them in his motorcycle! The I Battalion had not been able to penetrate the Canadian defences, leaving the Panthers largely unsupported. In the end Canadian PIAT bazookas and antitank guns firing new sabot rounds knocked out six of the Panthers, so Meyer reluctantly called off the attack as dawn was breaking.
Small groups of German motorcyclists had managed to get into the village, and were eventually able to make their escape back to German lines. Meyer’s foray had been an expensive exercise, and had left 155 men dead, wounded or prisoners. The commander of the Hitlerjugend’s panzer regiment, Max Wünsche, had gone along for the ride on a borrowed tank, but for all his bravado, had not been as lucky as Meyer and had ended up wounded.
Allied pressure on Mohnke’s Regiment continued during 9 June, with a series of attacks by both British and Canadian troops. The 8th Armoured Brigade continued to probe into the Hitlerjugend’s reconnaissance battalion, which now had been joined by a Panther company, attached to beef-up its firepower. They traded fire with British Shermans all day, but were not able to hold back their advance. Only the arrival of elements of the Panzer Lehr Division could neutralize this threat to Hitlerjugend’s flank.
Meyer tried again with another raid by the Panther battalion which took place early on in the afternoon, but lost seven tanks to Canadian antitank fire. He sent a company of 12 tanks forward without infantry and artillery, expecting the surprise and shock effect to unnerve the defenders who were now dug-in in the village of Norrey-en-Bessin. The tanks formed a long line and headed out across open fields towards their objective when, one by one, the Panthers started to fall victim to Canadian tanks in ambush positions. Each Panther caught fire, and all the crew who escaped were badly burned. Canadian infantry then joined in, machine-gunning the survivors as they made their escape on foot. The whole episode was a dismal failure, with 15 men dead and 20 badly wounded.
The failure of the attack was a major problem for the Hitlerjugend Division, because it left a Canadian strongpoint jutting southwards into the line between the 25th and 26th Regiments. During the early hours of 10 June, the division’s pioneer battalion was to go into action to neutralize the position. German pioneers were considered élite infantry, specializing in assault operations and, as a result, great gains were expected to be made from their attack.
Under cover of darkness, the pioneers tried to approach the Canadian position in silence, but they were soon detected. Heavy mortar and artillery fire began raining down on the exposed pioneers. They managed to reach the edge of the village before the attack stalled. For most of the following day the men were pinned down, finding themselves unable either to advance or to retreat. By late afternoon, the pioneers managed to pull back, but they were forced to leave 80 dead or wounded behind. Allied naval gunfire support continued to pound the Hitlerjugend Division, and it was to have a devastating effect as 14in and 16in shells rained down on Caen. The use of altitude fuses meant the Allied shelling resulted in hot shrapnel raining down on German positions. When not actually fighting, Meyer had his men digging bunkers, trenches, artillery gun pits and panzer shelters. By digging large scrapes to drive their tanks into, the panzer crews protected their vehicles from the unrelenting barrages which smashed radio antenna, destroyed sighting optics or, in some extreme cases, ripped off tank turrets.
Firepower mismatch
Time and time again, Dietrich tried to muster his panzer divisions for a corps-level counterattack, but he was constantly having to reorganize his forces to plug holes in the front. The Panzer Lehr Division had still not arrived in strength, leaving the Hitlerjugend Division to hold the line to the west of Caen for another day. It was reinforced by the arrival of I SS Panzer Corps’ artillery regiment, but this boost did little to even out the mismatch between German and Allied firepower on the Normandy Front.
The Canadians were now joined by the British 50th Division for a major attack on the afternoon of 11 June. The reconnaissance battalion again proved its worth as a hard- hitting mobile strike force. A company of Hitlerjugend Panthers and the division’s reconnaissance battalion raced to block their line of advance. Holding their fire until the British tanks had raced ahead of their infantry, machine gunners in the reconnaissance halftracks then raked the ranks of the Green Howards Regiment. Lying in ambush, the Panthers picked off the British Shermans of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards from a hilltop firing line. The British attack faltered when one Sherman that had penetrated to with a few yards of the German battalion’s command post was knocked out by a 75mm antitank gun. The arrival of the reserve Panther company sent the British reeling backwards. The British lost 250 men and seven tanks in withering German fire.
At the same time, the Canadian 2nd Armoured Brigade had been launched against Mohnke’s regiment. The brunt of the attack fell on the divisional pioneer battalion, which was now holding the line south of Norrey-en-Bessin. A regiment of Shermans rolled forward, loaded with infantrymen on their rear decks. The pioneers were soon locked in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Shermans were stalked by German Panzerfaust teams through village streets and country lanes.
A Panzer IV company was moved forward from a reserve position to a hill which overlooked the Canadian line of advance. Hitting the Canadians in the flank, some 46 Shermans were soon burning fiercely in the Normandy fields. Not surprisingly, Shermans were soon nicknamed Ronsons, after the wartime cigarette lighter, because of their alarming ability to burn.
The Panzers now charged the confused mass of Canadians, sending them running back to their start line. Almost 200 Germans were killed or wounded, along with three tanks destroyed, in the desperate battle.
As this battle was taking place, the 40th Canadian Armoured Regiment, along with a commando unit, were launched against the village of Rots, which was at that point held by a composite Kampfgruppe of divisional escort troops and a company of Panthers. Although more than 15 Shermans were knocked out, ultimately the attackers were far too strong for the defenders. They slowly fell back through the streets of the village, inflicting more than 100 casualties on the Allies as they went.
By nightfall, the Canadians were in complete control of the village. During the fighting, just under 70 Germans were killed or wounded, and one Panther tank was knocked out.
In four days of bitter fighting the Hitlerjugend Division had effectively brought the Allied advance to a halt on the outskirts of Caen. For a unit in action for the first time, it had put up a remarkable performance. Although many Hitlerjugend troopers were despondent that they had not driven the Allies back into the sea, given the odds they faced, they had achieved far more than could be expected. Caen had been Montgomery’s objective for the attacks on 7 and 8 June, but the city remained firmly in German hands. The Allied commander would soon try different tactics to take it. One result of the fighting for Caen was a realization by Hitler and the High Command that Normandy was in fact the main Allied invasion front. After Caen, the Führer was finally forced to agree to change his tactics, and accordingly he ordered the Leibstandarte Division to move up to the front from its base in Belgium.
Similarly, II SS Panzer Corps was recalled from the Eastern Front on 12 June in order to assist its comrades in their efforts to counter the Allied invasion.
War criminals on trial
The fighting which took place in the fields and villages to the northwest of Caen was some of the most violent and brutal to be seen during the Normandy campaign. The Hitlerjugend Division lost over 1000 dead, wounded or missing in these engagements, while the Canadians alone lost nearly 3000 of their men. Equipment losses were equally heavy on both sides. In those violent first engagements between the Hitlerjugend and Canadian troops, little quarter was ever given. As a result, in the bloody aftermath, accusations flew back and forth that many prisoners had been executed by both sides.
Meyer and a number of his officers were charged with war crimes after the war had ended. Meyer was charged with being responsible for five incidents on 7 and 8 June which involved the deaths of 41 Canadian prisoners. He was also charged with issuing orders to his division to give no quarter to prisoners. Seven other Hitlerjugend Division officers were investigated for war crimes, involving the deaths of at least 134 Canadian prisoners. After long trials and appeals, Meyer and two others were found guilty of all or some of the charges and sentenced to death. Meyer later had his death sentence stayed, but his two comrades were not so lucky and they faced the hangman’s noose in 1948. On his release, Meyer launched a campaign to clear his reputation as well as redeem that of his beloved Hitlerjugend Division.
Both sides produced accounts of the unlawful killing of prisoners, the Waffen-SS men claiming that they were subjected to “victor’s justice” in show trails. In one famous case, men of the Hitlerjugend claimed that they had executed 3 Canadians in reprisal for the deaths of 10 German soldiers tied to a British armoured car and machine-gunned. The truth of these events will never be known, but bear testimony to the fact that during the summer of 1944, Normandy had become a brutal killing field.