Cover Rapid Reads This short ebook is part of the “Rapid Reads” series on the German Army of World War II. This series, when complete, will offer a comprehensive overview of this absorbing topic, covering the key campaigns, tactics, commanders and equipment of the World War II Wehrmacht. We hope you enjoy this Rapid Read and that you will recommend the series to friends and colleagues. You should be able to read one of these handy eBooks in less than an hour. They’re designed for busy people on the go. If you would like to place a review on our website, or with the retailer you purchased it from, please do so. All feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated. All these Rapid Reads plus supplemental materials and ebooks on other military topics are available on our website, www.germanwarmachine.com 0 10 20km Bareur 0 5 10 miles Cherbourg St-Vaast-la-Hogue Siouville-Hague Valognes Le Havre St Mere Eglise Grandcamp Douve Courseulles Portbail Issigny Esque Carentan Bayeux Ouistreham Cabourg Touques Créances St Fromond Cerisy-le-Forêt Vie Caen Lisieux St Lô Odon Vire Drôme Villers Bocage Coutancés Orne St-Pierre- Guilberville Thury Harcourt sur-Dives Villedieu-des-Poêles Vire Falaise Granville A knocked out Panzer IV of the I SS Panzer Corps’ Hitlerjugend Division looms over the graves of its crew. The Hitlerjugend Division held the line north of Caen, but at a terrible price in both men and equipment Carnage at Caen The 12th SS Panzer Division and the defence of Caen. 5 n its billets northwest of Paris, the men of the Hitlerjugend IDivision 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 6 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. 7 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 8 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 9 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.