12th SS in Normandy

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by canuck, Mar 12, 2009.

  1. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    The 67th anniversary of one of the fiercest encounters is almost upon us:

    June 7th 1944
    There were Germans everywhere in Authie. A terrific artillery barrage filled the air with earth and shrapnel and bits of wood. Tanks fired as fast as guns could be reloaded, machine guns chattered.
    More and more Germans appeared in the smoke and dust. Time and again they seemed only yards away but were hurled back. Then men screamed that the enemy were coming in from the other side of Authie: C company was being surrounded. Capt. Hank Fraser and a few others determined to fight as long as possible. The rest tried to get back to positions that could be held. Some made it, across 50 yards of open ground and 200 yards of wheat field, to a hedge where A company was holding.
    Fraser, some other Novas and Sherbrookes and machine gunners of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa took a huge toll of SS but were finally overwhelmed and killed.
    Getting out of Authie, Sgt. Bill Gammon ran into two Germans, shot one and when his Sten gun jammed smashed it into the face of the other German. He ran to the wheat fields and by nightfall got back to battalion lines. Cpl. Douglas Wild, also alone, encountered three Germans. One lunged at him with a bayonet. With his rifle butt, Wild knocked the German aside, then shot the other two. He threw two smoke bombs ahead of him and used the screen to reach the grain. Pte. Freeman Wallace took six hours to get through the wheat to the battalion lines. Cpl. Walter McKillop and his brother Earl, a sergeant, were captured but escaped when machine-gun fire pinned down their captors.
    A company, under Major Rhodenizer, held on back at Authie, still expecting B company to get up on the left and artillery to come to the rescue. Six German tanks appeared suddenly on the right and moved toward Buron, killing nine men as it went.. More German infantry moved in around A company and, near sundown, German shelling ceased. From the wheat rose the young soldier with the Schmeisser. "Komm!" Major Rhodenizer and what was left of his company were surrounded. Lt G. A. P. Smith rose, a rifle in his hands. Capt, J. A. Trainor shouted and Smith dropped his weapon just as a German was about to shoot him. More Germans came from the right. Two shot and killed two Novas who had surrendered. Still hidden, Pte. W. H. Gerrior shot these two Germans and three others; then he pulled the bolt from his rifle, threw it away, got up and surrendered without the Germans knowing where the shots had come from.
    The SS shot three men as they marched the A company survivors back to Authie. Authie was littered with German bodies. As the battle smoke lifted, revealing the casualties inflicted by C company, German soldiers shot several more prisoners.
    A German staff car raced by, horn blowing, and a soldier in the back seat took pot shots at prisoners. Two men staggered, hit in the stomach. The guards grinned, lined the prisoners in two ranks and searched them. One prisoner said something to a friend. As the man turned to answer, an SS guard emptied a submachine gun into his stomach.
    German vehicles were speeding both ways, some loaded with wounded who shook their fists at the Canadians. A big truck deliberately swerved into marching prisoners and two men died on the pavement. A guard said, "You bombed Germany. Can you expect mercy?"
     
  2. Sussex by the Sea

    Sussex by the Sea Senior Member

    Tom,

    That isn't hockey you're watching. It's actually the the military preparing the next draft for a tour in Afghanistan!!!!

    The Canadians did a fantastic job in Kandahar, excellent troops. They suffered many losses too.
     
  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Good shooting and this unit should have received more recognition for this feat.

    June 8th 1944
    Perhaps the most successful action of the Achilles tank destroyer was conducted by B troop, 245th Battery, 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery attached to the Hamilton Light Infantry.
    A mixed German force of Mark IVs and Panthers from the 12th SS Panzer Division attempted to retake the town of Buron that had been captured earlier by the Canadians. The eight Achilles of B troop had however set up in an orchard looking south towards Abbaye d'Ardenne, and were ideally placed when the Panzers began their counter-attack. In the brief action, 13 German tanks were knocked out and the attack fell apart.
     
  4. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    Apologies Canuck, it was 8 July 1944. At least 2 of the participants received some recognition.

    Copies of the War Diary of 245 Bty, 62 Anti-Tank Regt.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Sgt Bowden & Sjt Donovan were awarded the MM in December 1944 for this action at Buron. Sjt Bowden accounted for 8 of the tanks and Sjt Donovan 4/5 others. Sadly Sjt Bowden was to be killed in Holland in October 1944 and is buried at Geel War Cemetery in Belgium.

    A copy of both their citations are shown below:-

    Sjt Norman Bowden

    [​IMG]

    Sjt George Donovan

    [​IMG]

    Casualties sustained by 245 Bty during the Battle of Buron.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Thanks, very interesting.

    By recognition, I meant more references to the unit vs individuals in this action. Unless I haven't been paying attention, this seems to have been glossed over and certainly the actions at Buron/Authie seem tohave focused on the Canadians.
     
  6. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

  7. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    Canuck,

    Here is what the Canadians did to the 12th SS as reported by George Blackburn, MC, author of the book " Guns of Normandy "

    Among the troops shredded in the pocket were remnants of the 12th SS, marked men from the day after D-Day, when they rolled into battle so arrogantly and then began killing unarmed 3rd Canadian Division prisoners in their frustration at not being able to drive the Canadians back into the sea, even conducting a mass murder in a walled garden of the Abbaye d'Ardenne, where SS Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer had his brigade headquarters. After Falaise, 12th SS could muster only ten tanks, no guns, and only three hundred of the twenty thousand young fanatics with which it had begun the Normandy campaign. Likewise 2nd SS " Das Reich " Panzer Division had earned its destruction without mercy by its action on June 10 on the way up from southern France at Oradour-sur-Glane, fourteen miles northwest of Limoges, where it shot all the men of the village after herding them into siz barns, and murdered four hundred women and children in the church, in reprisal for the disappearance fo the colonel of the 4th SS Grenadier Regiment. After Falaise they counted only 450 men and fifteen tanks.
     
  8. woapysittank

    woapysittank Member

    17thDYRCH,

    Don't believe everything you read about 12th SS losses, although they lost most of their vehicles they suffered far fewer casualties than that. I'll dig Meyer out but if I remember, losses were about 8,500. I doubt Das Reichs were much different either.
     
  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    17thDYRCH,

    Don't believe everything you read about 12th SS losses, although they lost most of their vehicles they suffered far fewer casualties than that. I'll dig Meyer out but if I remember, losses were about 8,500. I doubt Das Reichs were much different either.

    IMHO, Meyer is dangerously close to being fiction!!
     
  10. wtid45

    wtid45 Very Senior Member

    17thDYRCH,

    Don't believe everything you read about 12th SS losses, although they lost most of their vehicles they suffered far fewer casualties than that. I'll dig Meyer out but if I remember, losses were about 8,500. I doubt Das Reichs were much different either.
    My money is on Randy;). When the withdrawal had been completed, Meyer ordered a French peasant to guide his last small group of some 200 men across the Dives River. On August 22, Army Group B reported that the 12th SS Panzer Division consisted of 10 tanks, 300 men and no artillery. It had effectively been destroyed in Normandy .World War II: 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division Fought in Normandy » History Net, Page 5
     
  11. woapysittank

    woapysittank Member

    Meyers account may avoid war crime issues but his figures are almost complete for the whole division. The Army Group B report does not refer to the whole division and is oft quoted in less well researched journals. Hubert Meyers figures are taken from the Deutsche Diensstelle and all that are missing are parts of the records for some of the support services and he gives a figure of 8,626 dead, wounded or missing and allowing for the missing figures he puts total losses at 9,000. Don't get me wrong that is hell of a kicking for a single division but it means 11,000 survived and a proportion of the 4,500 wounded will have returned which is a very different picture.
     
  12. Combover

    Combover Guest

    The more I read operational war diaries for British units in NW Europe, the more I am convinced that the real story of the British and Commonwealth contribution has yet to be written. Terry Copp has made a good start on the Canadian side, but authors like Reynolds are part of the 'Tommy was no soldier' school of thought that has a lot more to do with the German influence on NATO doctrine in the 60s-80s, and the flawed concept of the 'German warrior' which M.Kenny mentions above.

    I agree, having just read 'Fields of Fire' by Copp I believe he goes some way to putting paid to all the crap spoken about British and Commonwealth units by so called learned historians. It needs expanding on though.
     
  13. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    My money is on Randy;). When the withdrawal had been completed, Meyer ordered a French peasant to guide his last small group of some 200 men across the Dives River. On August 22, Army Group B reported that the 12th SS Panzer Division consisted of 10 tanks, 300 men and no artillery. It had effectively been destroyed in Normandy .World War II: 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division Fought in Normandy » History Net, Page 5


    Jason,
    Cheers, Mate. The figures quoted by George Blackburn were from the same Army Group B report.

    From the Colony...

    Randy
     
  14. woapysittank

    woapysittank Member

    I have just looked at Meyer and the Army group B report is actually based on 5th Panzerarmee's strength return of the 21st.

    Meyer states " These figures can only be based on an estimate for the units which had broken out of the encirclement and were ready for combat. The combat strength of Kampfgruppe Mohnke cannot be included in them. Based on that information mistaken conclusions regarding the losses in the Falaise encirclement have been made. It is completely useless as a basis for such considerations".
     
  15. woapysittank

    woapysittank Member

    From Zetterlings site showing that the Armeegruppe B report was well flawed. "Das Reich was not surrounded in Falaise, rather it counterattacked towards the pocket to enable the surrounded units to escape. On 4 September it was reported to be short of 7 000 men, but this report seem to have been made in a haste, without a complete picture of the situation.(Status report to the Inspector-General of Panzer Troops, Stand 4.9.1944, BA-MA RH 10/313).
    Nine days later it had 12,357 officers and men. This did not include the tank regiment (Stärkemeldungen vom 20. September 1944, T175, R141, F2668948.)"
     
  16. pzjgr

    pzjgr Member

    I recall reading in my grandfather's journal of his description of the operations against the Canadians as the "most ferocious" he has encountered. He described the Canadian soldier as "equally brutal and tenacious" as those my grandfather fought alongside in the East. He also noted that the Canadians were not the "gentleman" fighters and were "worthy of the respect garnered".

    Whilest I was not there, this was written by someone who was and from what I read, I would say that the Canadians put up a good fight.....so I would disagree with the original Michael Reynolds 'interpretation'.
     
  17. pzjgr

    pzjgr Member

    Steve,
    You may want to conduct some research of your own before agreeing too readily with his assertions. To be sure, there were atrocities committed by both sides. A reality of war which will always be present. The events in Normandy were not those isolated incidents perpetrated by a few individuals. What distinguishs the conduct of the 12th SS is the systemic pattern of killing prisoners which pervaded their actions in Normandy. While those who ordered these acts escaped prosecution, by and large, there is a huge body of evidence which damns the division, it's leaders and the idealogy which drove it. As many as 156 Canadian soldiers were murdered by the 12th SS during the Normandy campaign. You may want to start with the Abbaye d'Ardenne before dismissing a reputation which was so richly deserved.

    Only because of the wide publicity of these events. Both sides did conduct the shooting of prisoners. Recently, there have been interviews and the release of documents stating Canadians did in fact shoot prisoners and the higher ups knew about it. Albeit, the HJ may have started the shootings, fact remains Canadians did shoot prisoners.

    In my grandfather's journal there was an entry where on a visit to the 26th that 3 HJ soldiers were found laying on the ground side by side shot in the chest. It was obvious that they were executed. Monke who was in charge upon hearing of this ordered no prisoners taken for the next 3 days. My grandfather wrote that he agreed with that order. The 'huge body of evidence' exists because of the tit-for-tat which was going on between the Canadians and the HJ. The Germans being the losers, their infractions are put on center stage whereas the victor's are hidden backstage.
     
  18. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Only because of the wide publicity of these events. Both sides did conduct the shooting of prisoners. Recently, there have been interviews and the release of documents stating Canadians did in fact shoot prisoners and the higher ups knew about it. Albeit, the HJ may have started the shootings, fact remains Canadians did shoot prisoners.

    In my grandfather's journal there was an entry where on a visit to the 26th that 3 HJ soldiers were found laying on the ground side by side shot in the chest. It was obvious that they were executed. Monke who was in charge upon hearing of this ordered no prisoners taken for the next 3 days. My grandfather wrote that he agreed with that order. The 'huge body of evidence' exists because of the tit-for-tat which was going on between the Canadians and the HJ. The Germans being the losers, their infractions are put on center stage whereas the victor's are hidden backstage.

    Ike,

    I would draw your attention to the word 'systemic' used in my original post. That individual Canadian soldiers killed prisoners is not a fact in dispute. It is the consistent pattern on the part of the organization which differentiates the behaviour from being individual to that of implementing policy.

    I'd be interested in more details on the recent release of documents that your referenced.
     
  19. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

  20. pzjgr

    pzjgr Member

    God ... how glad we are they lost the war!!!

    No dispute from me on that.
     

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