Chapter 6:
The defeat of Operation Epsom and the recapture of Hill 112.
With the blunting of the outflanking movement by the British 7th Armoured Division at Villers-Bocage, General Montgomery had to look again at how he was going to take Caen, and open a route for his armour to break out into the French countryside beyond. The arrival of the Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer Divisions in the German frontline to the west of Caen effectively closed down the option of any rapid movement by tank forces out of the Allied bridgehead. Any attack would have to punch straight through the German front.
Montgomery now came up with the idea of a corps-level attack. In this manoeuvre, three infantry divisions backed by enormous firepower would create a breach for the newly arrived 11th Armoured Division to exploit. More than 60,000 men, backed by more than 600 tanks and 900 guns, would be thrown into the attack. The objective would be the high ground to the west of Caen, just south of the River Odon. This would be the biggest Allied offensive in Normandy so far.
The Allied bridgehead in Normandy was now firmly secure, with thousands of ships delivering 35,000 men, 6000 vehicles and 25,401 tonnes (25,000 tons) of stores a day onto the French coast. By 17 June there were 557,000 Allied troops, with 81,000 vehicles – including 3200 tanks – ashore. The Germans were also racing to reinforce their armies in Normandy. By mid-June 1944, though, Rommel probably only had half as many men at the front as the Allies and some 859 armoured vehicles.
Aware that the Allies were concentrating on pumping huge amounts of men and materiel ashore into their bridgehead, the German commanders, Rommel and Rundstedt, were constantly engaged in their efforts to muster a strong counterattack force to drive the British and Americans back into the sea.
Great hopes were now placed in the fresh divisions of Paul Hausser’s II SS Panzer Corps. This unit was currently en route from the Russian Front, and was expected to be available in Normandy in the last week of June 1944.
At the same time, the Leibstandarte Division was also – at last – on its way to the front from Belgium, and Das Reich and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions were moving northwards from Toulouse and Bordeaux respectively. It was intended to launch Hausser’s corps at the boundary between the British and American bridgeheads. This move would split the Allies apart and the Germans would then be able to crush each of them in turn.
The German plans, however, were constantly being thwarted by the late arrival of the armour necessary for this job. There was also a lack of infantry, which was needed to allow the panzer divisions already in the line to be pulled back and launched into the counterattack.
It was for these reasons that the few panzer divisions which were stationed in Normandy, such as the Hitlerjugend, were still holding the front west of Caen a week after being committed to action. Under a relentless bombardment by hundreds of guns, battleship broadsides and thousands of fighter- bombers, German combat power was being steadily wasted away. The Hitlerjugend’s commander, Fritz Witt, succumbed to a naval gunfire barrage on 14 June when his command post was blasted by a huge salvo. Caught by shell splinters as he dived into a bunker, Witt was killed instantly. The 32-year-old Kurt Meyer was immediately appointed in Witt’s place, making him the youngest German divisional commander of the war.
Allied bombing of the French railway and bridge network played havoc with Rommel’s attempts to bolster his battered front. The only safe way to move men and materiel by rail was under the cover of darkness, and the nearest railheads to the Normandy Front were a good day’s drive away, in the western suburbs of Paris. This geographical constraint posed a particular problem for panzer units which had to make long road-marches to the front from railheads, since it put an immense strain on the sensitive tracks, engines and transmissions of their tanks. The damage caused by this rough ride forced many tanks to be left behind, from where they would be collected by their recovery parties.
These were losses that Rommel’s small panzer force could ill-afford. As the panzers approached the front, they started to receive attention from Allied fighter-bombers, the dreaded “Jabos”, as they were called by the Germans. As an average, German units lost between 5 percent and 10 percent of their vehicle strength to Allied air attacks or mechanical breakdowns as they moved to Normandy. When the Leibstandarte arrived at the front in late June, its panzer battalions had only 75 percent of their tanks fit to fight.
Farther from the front, the activities of the French resistance – blowing up bridges and ambushing isolated German columns – were beginning to play a major part in delaying the arrival of Waffen-SS units. Forced by damage to the railway network to travel mainly by road, the Das Reich Division was plagued by resistance attacks. However, the division was hardened by years of fighting in Russia and its officers responded in the way they had in the East: brutally, and without any mercy.
SS retribution
When the Das Reich reconnaissance battalion entered the town of Tulle, it allegedly found the remains of 62 German soldiers who had been mutilated, it was claimed, by some resistance fighters. This act of brutality was said to have taken place after the Germans had surrendered. In response, the Das Reich troopers rounded up 99 Frenchmen and hung them from lamp-posts as an example of what would happen if German troops were attacked.
If deterring others was the intention, it failed. Resistance attacks continued apace. Matters came to a head when a Das Reich convoy was fired upon near the town of Oradour, killing an SS-Hauptsturmführer. As revenge, the Waffen-SS men ringed the town, rounding up its entire population in the local church, before setting the church on fire. The blaze killed the 548 men, women and children inside the church. One German was killed when a slate fell off a roof and hit him on the head. In the hours that followed, every building in the town was either blown up or set on fire.
This massacre at Oradour was the worst incident of its type in the West to be committed by Waffen-SS troops, although such brutal behaviour was considered routine in the East. Rommel, who had never served in the East, was outraged at the massacre and during a conference with Hitler, demanded that a number of Das Reich officers be punished. The main culprit during the massacre, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Dickmann, was later killed in action in Normandy, and after his death the Waffen-SS leadership was able to quickly hush up the incident.
Eventually 21 rank-and-file soldiers were put on trial by the French after the war, but it was soon revealed that these men had merely been conscripts from the French-speaking Alsace region, and consequently they were able to persuade the court that they were unwilling participants. After the war, the French did not rebuild the town, and it stands today as a monument to the suffering of the French victims who died there in 1944.
One week into the invasion, the Germans seemed to be losing the reinforcement race. That was, until mother nature came to Rommel’s assistance on 19 June. From that date, four days of storms raged in the Channel, with the result that two of the Allied prefabricated Mulberry harbours were smashed and some 700 ships were run ashore. The arrival of Allied reinforcements dropped to barely a trickle. Only some 9000 men a day were coming ashore and 142,247 tonnes (140,000 tons) of supplies were stranded, backed up in various depots throughout England.
Montgomery’s plan for Operation Epsom had to be put back until the last week of June. During Hitler’s only ever visit to the Normandy front on 17 June, he ordered Rommel to prepare a massive counterattack. This would involve six panzer divisions, which would be tasked with smashing the Allied bridgehead. Until four of these divisions arrived in the last week of June, all the “Desert Fox” could do was hang on. Whichever side struck first would have a decisive advantage.
Montgomery was first off the mark, launching Operation Epsom on 25 June. This was aimed at punching through the forward positions of the Hitlerjugend Division. Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O’Connor’s VIII Corps commanded the offensive, while the 49th, 15th and 43rd Infantry Divisions were responsible for taking the lead in the advance.
The 11th Armoured Division was held in reserve close behind the front, ready go into action once crossings over the Odon River had been seized. Its objective was Hill 112, which dominated a swathe of the Norman countryside to the west of Caen. The gentle slopes of the hill were covered in open cornfields that provided superb fields of fire for the German gunners who were engaged in defending it. Meyer, Dietrich and Rommel correctly judged that whoever held the hill would control Caen, and with it Normandy, and they all resolved that no effort would be spared keeping it.
The British attack was sequenced, with the 146th and 147th Infantry Brigades hitting Wilhelm Mohnke’s 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment at 05:00 hours. Heavy fog covered the battlefield, making it impossible for the German defenders to strike the British infantry before they were almost on top of their positions.
Heavy fighting surged around the village of Fontenay-le-Pesnel and the nearby Tessel woods. Two companies of Panzer IVs were called up to lead a counterattack, which stabilized the situation. However, the neighbouring 901st Panzergrenadier Regiment broke under the pressure, and had to be relieved by the panzers of the Hitlerjugend Division By nightfall Fontenay village itself was still being fought over, with Waffen-SS men holding out in a string of strongpoints. The Hitlerjugend panzers, however, still managed to hold the high ground near the village of Rauray, and this vantage point was to play a crucial part in the forthcoming battle.
During the night, the commander of the Hitlerjugend’s Panzer Regiment, Max Wünsche, was ordered to form a Kampfgruppe to throw back the 49th Division’s penetration into Fontenay. Just as the Hitlerjugend Panzer IVs and Panthers were advancing into the dawn, British Shermans of the 24th Lancers and 4th/7th Dragoon Guards were also starting to roll forward into the attack from the eastern edge of the village. A fierce tank battle was developing in the fields south of the village when Meyer, who was watching from Rauray with Wünsche, started to receive reports that a major British attack was developing against the division’s centre. He immediately called off the panzer attack and began moving troops to counter the new threat.
It was now the turn of the 15th Highland Division to attack. At exactly 07:30 hours, 700 guns started blasting the positions of the Hitlerjugend pioneer battalion around the village of St Manvieu. For 10 minutes this storm of destruction laid waste fields, villages and woods. Then the barrage started to move forward at a rate of 100m (9144yd) every three minutes. Behind this torrent of fury came two brigades of British infantry, walking with fixed bayonets. This neatly scheduled attack soon broke down into chaos when nine British Shermans exploded in a minefield laid by the pioneers. Nevertheless, despite furious resistance from the pioneers, they were just overwhelmed.
By late morning the British had pushed 3km (1.8 miles) through the Hitlerjugend lines, and had captured Cheux. This success was far from easily won: the assaulting regiments had each lost more than 100 men. Several British tanks were victims of Panzerfaust fire in these actions, but nonetheless it seemed that the British armour had opened a way through to the Odon. Three armoured regiments were able to cruise on forward.
Operation Epsom: 26–28 June, 1944
However, Meyer had not finished his work yet. He ordered all of his available tanks to move to cover the breach in the line. Panzer IVs were posted in ambush positions facing eastwards on the high ground at Rauray, and Panthers moved in from their reserve positions at Carpiquet airfield in order that they might hit the British from the other flank. Both sides were poised for battle.
Dietrich now released Tigers of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and assault guns of the 21st Panzer Division. Numbers of 88mm Flak batteries were also mustered to form an antitank gun line ahead of the British tanks. All through the afternoon and into the evening, the German panzer crews and Flak gunners duelled with the British tank crews into the evening, the German panzer crews and Flak gunners duelled with the British tank crews.
As night fell, some 50 British tanks could be seen through the darkness, burning around Cheux. Meyer’s desperate measure had just held the line. Some panzers had even managed to fight their way into St Manvieu and rescue groups of pioneers engaged in fighting behind the British lines. German losses were grievous, though. The Hitlerjugend Division lost more than 750 dead, wounded or missing, some 325 taken from the pioneer battalion.
Montgomery and O’Connor now made the decision to pile on the pressure even more and ordered that the 43rd Wessex Division be fed into the battle, allowing the 15th Division to push its 227th Highland Brigade forward through Cheux to make a dash for the Odon. The 4th Armoured Brigade was brought up to roll behind the infantry, and was awarded the responsibility of leading the breakout.
Blocking the British axis of advance between Grainville-sur-Odon and Marcelet was a Kampfgruppe made up of 30 Panzer IVs and a number of StuG III assault guns. Based around Rauray were 17 Panthers of the Hitlerjugend’s 1st Panzer Battalion, backed by a dozen 101st Battalion Tigers. Holding the Odon were a number of 88mm batteries. A Panther company from the 2nd Panzer Division was also dispatched to help Meyer hold the line. Groups of pioneers and panzergrenadiers had turned many of the villages along the Odon into well-fortified strongpoints, but Meyer’s defence plan relied on the long-range killing power of his many panzer and Flak guns.
The British attack got off to a slow start because Cheux was clogged with troops, tanks and supply vehicles. This chaos was not helped by the fact that the 2nd Panzer Division’s Panthers made an unauthorized attack and that its move was beaten back, with the loss of 4 out of its 17 tanks.
A weak attack in the morning by one Scottish regiment was easily defeated by the panzers covering Rauray. Early in the afternoon, a strong force of Scottish infantry of the Argylls backed by the 23rd Hussars pushed south towards the Odon. Shermans duelled with Panthers, Tigers and Panzer IVs all through the day.
The Hitlerjugend’s weak infantry strength meant that it was not able to establish a continuous front along the wooded river valley, which allowed the Argylls to find an undefended route to a bridge. Just after 22:00 hours, the first tanks of the 23rd Hussars were across the Odon and fanning out towards Hill 112. Meyer heard that his vital ground was under threat when his radio interception unit picked up triumphant radio conversations from the British tanks as they advanced, apparently unopposed, from the Argylls’ bridgehead at Mandrainville. Overnight the British 159th Brigade joined the Argylls, and elements of the 29th Armoured Brigade were also across the Odon, accompanied by more than 150 Sherman tanks.
Holding Hill 112
During the night, Meyer had resorted to desperate measures to rush reinforcements to hold Hill 112. The strongpoints at Rauray and Marcelet were abandoned to release a company of Panzer IVs and panzergrenadiers, as well as an 88mm battery from the Luftwaffe. They reached the summit during the night and were ready and waiting when the British tanks began moving forward at dawn on 28 June. British tanks were soon burning on the slopes of the hill. However, in response, RAF Typhoon strike aircraft were called in to rocket the German tanks, enabling the British infantry to start edging forward, gradually outflanking the outnumbered panzergrenadiers. By noon the Germans had been pushed off the exposed summit of the hill.
Wünsche was soon on the scene and set about mustering the remains of his panzer regiment to contain the British breakthrough. Panthers and Panzer IVs were positioned around three sides of the hill in order to pen in the British, who were threatening to overwhelm the thinly stretched defences. The presence of 30 Hitlerjugend panzers, backed by 88mm Flak guns and Nebelwerfer rockets, was just enough to hold the line. Three times during the day Wünsche led his tanks forward into a storm of 17-pounder fire from the now dug-in British antitank guns in the woods along the banks of the Odon. The British were still determined to hold Hill 112 whatever the cost, feeding new armoured regiments into the battle until their point units ran out of ammunition or tanks. By the time the last of Wünsche’s attacks went in at 17:00 hours, some 40 Shermans were smashed on the slopes of the vital ground. As darkness fell over the battlefield, the British troops had retained their precarious foothold on Hill 112.
Meyer’s division was now almost split in two by the huge British penetration. Mohnke’s panzergrenadier regiment was just about holding out on the eastern edge of the British salient, and the remainder of the division was stopping O’Connor’s tanks from driving directly into Caen from the east. The British were desperate to expand their breach and relentlessly attacked the Hitlerjugend positions during 28 June. The Hitlerjugend troops had been in action for almost 48 hours straight and were exhausted. Those who were not dead or wounded were falling asleep in their trenches and tank turrets. Help was now desperately needed if the division’s front was not to collapse under the pressure.
Just in time, elements of the Leibstandarte and Das Reich Divisions were approaching the battlefield. They were to be launched in a coordinated attack to pinch off the top of the British salient. Kampfgruppe Weidinger from Das Reich’s Der Führer Panzergrenadier Regiment was thrown in to bolster Mohnke’s hard-pressed regiment around Grainville-sur-Odon. With only a handful of army Panthers in support, all Mohnke’s Waffen-SS men could do was doggedly hold on to the string of villages along the north bank of the Odon through the day against attacks by a British infantry brigade with strong Churchill tank support.
The Leibstandarte’s attack
On the other side of the salient, which had now been dubbed the “Scottish Corridor”, two panzergrenadier battalions of the Leibstandarte entered the battle in a dawn attack from the village of Verson. Dietrich pulled together strong panzer support in the shape of 22 Panzer IVs from the 21st Panzer Division, a company of Hitlerjugend Panthers, and three Tigers of the 101st SS Battalion. At first the Leibstandarte Kampfgruppe swept all before it, sending the Monmouthshire Regiment reeling back in disorder and destroying three British tanks. The advance continued for another 3km (1.9 miles) until the British defence solidified around Colleville. Then tanks of the British 4th Armoured Brigade were thrown in against the Leibstandarte’s flank. In the face of this onslaught and a massive supporting artillery barrage, the German attack faltered. Five Panthers were lost and several other tanks damaged. The Leibstandarte spearhead was less than 3km (1.9 miles) from the Das Reich troopers in Grainville-sur-Odon. Nevertheless, the Scottish Corridor remained open to Hill 112.
During the morning of 28 June, the German command in Normandy was thrown into crisis by the suicide of Colonel- General Friedrich Dollman, commander of the Seventh Army. Dollman was the senior German officer on the Normandy Front in the absence of Rommel and Rundstedt, who had been summoned to Berchtesgaden for a conference with the Führer.
Dollman’s cyanide
The British seizure of the bridgehead over the Odon had thrown all the German plans for a counterattack against the British bridgehead into chaos. This attack was planned for 29 June with II SS Panzer Corps, which was assembling after its long road march from Paris to the southwest of Caen. At 20:10 hours, Dollman decided that the situation on the Hitlerjugend’s front was so precarious that Hausser’s corps would have to be diverted for a immediate counter-stroke against the western flank of the British salient. Hausser replied to Dollman that his troops would not be ready to take action for another day.
Dollman was already in a precarious position. He had been placed under investigation by Hitler’s lackeys for the loss of Cherbourg to the Americans two days before. Not wanting to face the wrath of the Führer for countermanding his attack orders, the colonel-general reached for his cyanide capsule.
The next most senior German officer in Normandy was Hausser, and within a few hours he had been ordered to replace Dollman. Fearing that it was not a good idea to change command just as his corps was about to attack, Hausser remained with his troops for one more day before handing over to SS-Gruppenführer Willi Bittrich, who was at that time the commander of the Hohenstaufen Division.
Throughout the night, Hausser’s men were struggling to get into position for an attack at 06:00 hours. With a combined strength of more than 30,000 men, 79 Panthers, 79 Panzer IVs and 76 StuG IIIs, II Panzer Corps was the largest German armoured formation to enter battle en masse during the entire Normandy campaign. The corps’ Tiger battalion had yet to arrive at the front, so it was unable to offer support for the attack on 29 June.
Alerted by their ULTRA code-breaking operation, the British were well aware of the impending counterattack. Montgomery, fearful of the 11th Armoured Division’s tanks being cut off around Hill 112, decided that he would pull back the 4th and 29th Armoured Brigades from the bridgeheads south of the Odon and concentrate his tanks to beat back the German attack on the flanks of the Scottish Corridor. Operation Epsom was halted. His caution at this key moment in the battle gave the Germans a much-needed respite and allowed them to shore up their front once more.
Using his ULTRA intelligence, Montgomery now decided to unleash his artillery and airpower against II SS Panzer Corps. The Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg Divisions were caught in their assembly areas around Noyers by huge artillery barrages, then waves of RAF Typhoons swooped down to machine-gun and rocket their columns.
The Hohenstaufen was given the objective of Cheux, at the heart of the Scottish Corridor. An attack by 100 RAF Lancaster bombers on one of the division’s assembly areas played havoc with its attack and it did not roll forward until the early afternoon. With its two panzergrenadier regiments in the lead, the division quickly secured Grainville-sur-Odon. As the Waffen-SS Panzer IVs, Panthers and StuG IIIs took the lead for the advance on Cheux they ran into the British 4th Armoured Brigade. A swirling tank battle developed around Cheux, and by the end of the day some 60 British tanks were burning in the fields. Some 30 panzers and assault guns were lost in this battle, which failed to produce the decisive breakthrough which its tacticians had anticipated.
At the same time, the Leibstandarte Kampfgruppe tried to push westwards in order to effect a link-up with the Hohenstaufen Division. However, the Leibstandarte’s attack never got beyond its start-line: the Waffen-SS troopers had been hit hard by a British armoured regiment. Although the Kampfgruppe did manage to destroy 12 tanks, later on it was forced to retreat and surrender two villages to the British 43rd Division.
South of the Odon River, the Frundsberg Division was ordered to clear the British from Hill 112 for good. A rocket barrage from 60 Nebelwerfers swept the hill prior to the attack. This time the panzers led the way and the Germans cleared a number of key villages on the southern edge of Hill 112 of British infantry, and knocked out 12 British tanks. Heavy rain lashed the battlefield during the night, but Hausser was not about to give the British any respite. More rocket fire poured down on the hill and the Frundsberg pressed home its attacks, assisted by Hitlerjugend tanks firing from the southern and eastern slopes. Shortly after dawn, Frundsberg and Hitlerjugend Panzer IVs were on the summit of Hill 112. Panzergrenadier attackers were then sent forward to mop up the last remaining British bridgeheads over the Odon.
Aftermath
In five days of bloody fighting, Montgomery almost cracked open the German front in Normandy. Operation Epsom had nearly succeeded, yet at key moments, quick thinking and aggressive defence by Waffen-SS commanders snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Success came with a price. The Hitlerjugend Division was hardest hit, suffering some 1240 casualties. Hohenstaufen was hit hard during the Allied air attacks on 29 June, losing 1150 men in a two-day period. Frundsberg was not so heavily engaged and lost 570 casualties. Casualty figures for the Leibstandarte and Das Reich Kampfgruppen are not available. In total, the five Waffen-SS divisions engaged must have lost in excess of 3500 men, compared to 4020 British losses.
While the Germans had halted the British and held their line, their casualties were grievous. Unlike the British, who replaced their losses in a matter of days, the Germans had no replacements to fill their ranks. The Russians had just started a major offensive on the Eastern Front and the Führer decreed that troops in Normandy could expect no relief. General Montgomery may have been outfought by the Waffen-SS in the course of Operation Epsom, but nonetheless he was bleeding Hitler’s élite panzer force white. The likes of Rommel, Dietrich and Meyer were beginning to wonder how long their troops would be able to withstand such harsh punishment.