North Novas - Buron/Authie

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by canuck, Jul 30, 2011.

  1. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    The Normandy Battle Of Attrition

    Published October 1998 - T. Copp

    The American military historian Stephen Ambrose has a new bestseller in the bookstores. It’s called Citizen Soldiers and in it he describes the United States Army from the Normandy landings to the surrender of Germany. Ambrose is one of a small, but growing group of American historians who argue that the Allied armies fought with skill and determination in defeating their enemies on the battlefield. He believes that "free men fight better than slaves" and that "the sons of democracy proved to be better soldiers than the sons of Nazi Germany."

    I think Ambrose overstates his case, but a re-examination of the conventional wisdom on the campaigns of WW II is badly needed.

    Such a re-examination began in Canada in the early 1980s with the publication of the five-volume Maple Leaf Route series. In it, the late Robert Vogel and I rejected the negative view of the Canadian Army’s performance and noted that Canadians had won a series of important tactical and operational victories in 1944—45. However, our argument had little impact on the country’s military historians not to mention those who portrayed our history on television.

    This reaction may be explained by the particular role played by historian C.P. Stacey who wrote the official history of the Canadian Army in WW II. His book, The Victory Campaign: The Operations in North-West Europe 1944—1945, remains the outstanding single volume account of operations in Northwest Europe. Its author was too good an historian to ignore some of the obvious achievements of the Canadians, but he attributed our success to "numerical and material superiority", "the paralysing effects of Allied air power" and the superior generalship of the Allies, especially that of Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Stacey selected the delayed closing of the Falaise Gap "as his major example of failure". Running a close second, in his view, was the battle for Verrières Ridge.

    British and American historians as well as a generation of Canadians accepted Stacey’s view as definitive until John A. English wrote his penetrating study of the Canadian Army’s development and its performance in Normandy. Published in 1991, his book is entitled The Canadians in Normandy: A Study of Failure in High Command.

    English accepted Stacey’s judgment that the key question was how to explain the failure of the Canadian Army, especially at Verrières Ridge and in the Falaise Gap, but he insisted that the causes were to be found in the shortcomings of the Canadian high command that "seriously impaired Canadian fighting performance" by failing to develop appropriate leadership, training or doctrine. And so English’s book quickly became the new standard interpretation of the Canadian Army’s experience in WW II.

    However, the evidence from the battlefield demonstrates that offensive operations in Normandy, whether carried out by the Allies or their opponents, invariably failed in the sense that combat units were unable to secure the objectives called for in the operational plans. The Battle of Normandy was a battle of attrition and there are no reasonable grounds for believing it could have been otherwise. Historians must develop a reasoned case for counter-factual scenarios if they’re going to suggest that there were alternate operational and tactical methods of winning the battle, more decisively, more quickly and at lesser cost. It is not enough to simply claim that the actions taken were wrong.

    On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched one of the most hazardous operations in the history of war. In the planning phase of Operation Overlord, memories of Gallipoli and Dieppe guaranteed that every conceivable precaution was taken to improve the odds of victory. However, any serious study of D-Day will echo what the Canadian artillery officer who served with 21 Army Group’s Operational Research section wrote in June 1944. Major John Fairlie noted that none of the elaborate methods of bombardment of the defences destroyed any significant part of the Atlantic Wall. The defences in the Canadian sector, wrote Fairlie, were overcome by "D.D. (Duplex Drive) tank, engineer and infantry assault."

    Indeed, there was little indication that the massive fire power directed at the Juno beach area had any significant neutralizing effect. "The defences," Fairlie concluded, "were substantially intact when the infantry touched down and the enemy was able to deliver lethal fire in great quantity against our troops." The evidence from the British and American beaches leads to a similar conclusion.

    At the sharp end there was no "numerical and material superiority" and Allied air power had little impact on the battlefield. Apart from air superiority, which had been won long before D-Day, the contribution of the tactical air forces on D-Day was at best marginal. Interdiction produced only minor delays in the movement of German divisions to the beachhead and this allowed the enemy to stage several successful counter-attacks. The 12th SS Panzer Division caught the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade as it advanced along a single axis on D-Day Plus One, and savaged the Canadian vanguard. The next day another Canadian battalion, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, was overwhelmed on the right flank. In both cases the Canadian units were placed in a precarious position because the British brigades that were tasked to advance on their flanks were unable to overcome stronger resistance and keep pace.

    These tactical victories on June 7-8 encouraged 12th SS to launch both its Panzer Grenadier regiments and a good deal of its armor against the positions held by the 7th Cdn. Inf. Bde. astride the Caen-Bayeux railroad and highway. The terrain, natural and man-made, favored the defenders and the Germans added to their difficulties by underestimating their opponent.

    The battle that raged for the next 48 hours was one of the great neglected moments in the history of the Canadian Army. Seventh Bde., the divisional artillery, anti-tank guns and the armor of the 1st Hussars met and defeated attack after attack. Twelfth SS staff officer and historian Hubert Meyers recalled that "our opponents were especially strong on the defensive and they did not allow themselves to be surprised. They fought ferociously and bravely."

    The frustration and failure experienced by the 12th SS led to the murder of at least 106 Canadian prisoners of war.

    The German army’s failure to drive a wedge into the bridgehead meant that it had little choice except to dig in. Naturally, the officers selected high ground with good fields of fire and worked hard to ensure their men used camouflage and dug alternate machine-gun and mortar positions.

    Between June and August, the Allies initiated a series of engagements designed to close with and destroy the enemy, break through his defence in depth and, if possible, obtain the ability to manoeuvre. The Canadians participated in five of these, beginning July 8 with Operation Charnwood, the attack on Caen and its outer defensive perimeter.

    It’s important to note that the Allies had arrived in Normandy equipped with weapons that were distinctly inferior to those used by the enemy. Attacks on fortified villages, such as those around Caen, ought to have been carried out by battle groups built around tanks or self-propelled assault guns. Unfortunately, the Allies did not possess such armor and what’s more the Allied battle doctrine reflected that reality.

    When an investigation of Allied and German tank casualties in Normandy was carried out it confirmed the most pessimistic views about Allied armor. The statistics showed 60 per cent of Allied tank losses were due to a single round from a 75- or 88-mm gun. The stats also showed that 2/3 of all tanks brewed up when hit.

    German armor-piercing shells almost always penetrated and disabled a tank. In fact, the armor on our tanks offered such little protection that the only way to survive was to avoid being targeted. The contrast with German tank casualties was especially striking. Only 38 per cent of hits from the Sherman 75-mm or six-pounder-anti-tank gun penetrated German armor. What’s more, German Panther and Tiger tanks often survived one or two hits. The sloping frontal armor of the Panther and the German self-propelled guns prevented penetration of 3/4 of all direct hits.

    No one present on the battlefield in July 1944 would have considered using a regiment of Shermans as a manoeuvre force in attacking well-prepared defensive positions that controlled open approaches. Such a force would simply have been destroyed without effecting the battle.

    Operation Charnwood was fought on a three-division front with, from left to right, 3rd British, 59th Staffordshire and 3rd Cdn. divisions. Heavy bombers were to open the operation but given the problems of both target identification and the wide dispersal of bombs around the point of impact, the area designated for the bombers was well behind the enemy positions. The operation was based in part on an elaborate fire plan that maximized the Allies‘ artillery advantage. Many people thought Charnwood would break the defenders without too much difficulty. Instead, the operation cost Canada more casualties than it had on D-Day.

    To understand what happened on July 8, 1944, it’s necessary to examine the events closely and to make an effort to understand exactly what it was that artillery could and could not do.

    The fire plan called for the navy and the medium guns to concentrate on counter-battery work and the destruction of targets well beyond the defensive perimeter. A great deal of attention was paid to rear areas to prevent reinforcements from arriving. The field artillery, which had been employing self-propelled 105-mm guns, was to help the infantry get to its objectives by firing a timed barrage. It would then respond to requests from forward observation officers or FOOs.

    The capacity to neutralize hostile gun batteries, anti-tank positions, mortar and other sites depended on intelligence that was based almost entirely on photo reconnaissance, and the accuracy of artillery fire. Good photo reconnaissance could locate most of the larger enemy installations though it was seldom possible to distinguish between dummy positions and ones that were unoccupied. The small mortar pits and machine-gun posts, the low-profile anti-tank guns camouflaged in hedges and other infantry positions were another matter, although in the case of Charnwood, patrolling and observation of fire helped.

    Once the known positions were plotted, a fire plan was drawn up. Unfortunately, accuracy depended on a host of variables that meant that unobserved and therefore uncorrected fire was frequently plus or minus 100 to 300 yards for both range and line. Therefore, the only way to ensure success under such conditions was to fire many shells from a large number of guns.

    Operation Charnwood was the first set-piece battle of the campaign and it’s clear the gunners had a great deal to learn as they went along. The attack by the Highland Light Inf. on the village of Buron was the single most costly engagement on July 8. It is well documented and it’s possible to learn a good deal about what took place.

    The Germans had dug a long V-shaped anti-tank ditch in front of Buron and were intent on channeling the Allied armor into a carefully constructed killing zone. The barrage got the infantry to the obstacle easily enough but it quickly became evident that few of the German positions had been destroyed. Neutralization depended on continuous fire on the edge of the village and this depended on the forward observation officer.

    The HLI got into Buron and began to clean out the defensive positions. The armor, which had circled west to try to provide support from the flank, suffered losses after it ran into a minefield. It was then out of action during the advance on the village.

    As enemy shelling and mortar fire took its toll, the 12th SS attempted to recapture the village by employing a battle group of infantry and tanks. This counter-attack was quickly dealt with by a British self-propelled battery of the Corps Anti-tank Regt. that destroyed eight German tanks at the cost of three of its own self-propelled guns. With the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders in firm control of Gruchy and the British in St. Contest, the fighting for the outer defences was over by late afternoon.

    The North Nova Scotia Regt. captured the next objective and set the stage for 7th Bde’s assault on Cussy and the Abbaye d’Ardennes.

    Operation Charnwood ended when the German order to withdraw across the Orne River was issued at 3:30 a.m. on July 9. That same day, British and Canadian patrols entered the city of Caen.

    What might military historians learn from Charnwood? The operation was a battle fought and won by British and Canadian infantry battalions that used personal and close-support weapons in accordance with their training. The heavy casualties reflected the difficulty of the task they were asked to carry out and the profound limitations of the weapon systems available to them. The German decision to retreat across the Orne rather than mount counter-attacks was a product of Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel’s growing pessimism and the difficulty of movement in the area north of Caen that had been bombed and was subject to continuous shelling by naval guns. The British and Canadian troops had won an important operational victory.
     
  2. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    By Robert M. Citino May 11, 2010


    Last week we had Kurt "Panzer" Meyer launching his famous D+1 counterattack against the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division. Catching the Canadian vanguard (Lt Col Charles Petch) unawares as it drove on Carpiquet airfield, Meyer smashed into the flank of the North Nova Scotia Highlander battalion (the "North Novas") and drove the Canadians back in some confusion to the north.
    Or so we've always thought.
    The narrative has always made so much sense. On the one side you had highly experienced, tough German commanders, better tanks, and higher unit cohesion; on the one side, you had green Allied troops, still getting their legs underneath them after their great landing the day before, inferior tanks, and a group of commanders who had done a lot of things on paper, but not much in reality. For many Canadians, in particular, the failed drive on Carpiquet continues to stimulate a debate over the true quality of the army they sent overseas in World War II.

    As much as that tale seemed to resonate, there was always another narrative about what actually happened on the ground that day. The North Novas themselves knew they'd had a bloody day, certainly, but a defeat? Like any troops in the field, they had a mission: take Carpiquet if they had a clear shot at it, ie, if there was "no serious opposition." If the Germans were defending in force, the Novas were supposed to hunker down on the high ground between Buron and Authie, consolidate, and let the rest of the Brigade come up for a more deliberate attack. They met opposition alright, plenty of it. An ambush? Not really. More like a meeting engagement. The Novas found that their Sherman tanks were no match for German antitank fire, especially of the 88mm variety–a lot of Allied crews were going to learn that lesson in the ensuing weeks. But they gave as good as they got. From the start, accurate Canadian artillery fire played havoc with Meyer's assault columns. His young grenadiers spent the day launching one senseless charge after another across 1200 yards of open plain against the entrenched Canadian defenders of Authie. The finale, which saw Meyer trying to take that very ridge north of Buron specified in the Canadian orders, saw the Germans stopped cold, with heavy losses. Both sides were exhausted, and it is safe to say that no one was unhappy to see nightfall.
    And so it goes. For historians, the war hasn't stopped. It's still going. The Germans vs. the Allies. The 25th SS Panzergrenadiers vs. the North Novas. Meyer vs. Petch.
    It's humbling. Even today, we're still trying to figure out what "really happened" in World War II.

    (See Marc Milner's fine article, "Stopping the Panzers: Reassessing the Role of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division in Normandy, 7-10 June 1944," in the Journal of Military History 74, no. 2, April 2010).


    If anyone has a copy of the Milner article I would appreciate it if you could post or pass it along. Thanks
     
  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

  4. Buteman

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

  5. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    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?"

    Canada at War
    wwii.ca
     
  6. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    And, the opinion of one who was there:

    Lt. Col. Freddie Clifford, the diminuitive, irascible and acid tongued commanding officer of the 13th RCA, commented on the Normandy battles in 2002. He thought the Canadian army's doctrine and training worked superbly. Artillery stripped away the the German infantry or kept them in their trenches, and left their tanks vulnerable to anti-tank fire. On the whole, Clifford was unimpressed with the Germans. Although they were brave, they were also arrogant, careless and clumsy. "The Germans thought we were fucking Russians!!", he exclaimed when asked about this. "They did stupid things and we killed those bastards in large numbers."

    Stopping the Panzers - Marc Milner
     
  7. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    A case in point:

    "As on the day before, every available tank was thrown into action to cope with the desperate situation. At times it seemed nip-and-tuck, but in the end the audacity and aggressiveness of Canadian infantry and armour, with excellent artillery support, saved the day. During the afternoon Tpr. A. Chapman, crack gunner in Lieut. G. K. Henry's tank, established a bridgehead record. When six tanks penetrated his position he held his fire until all were visible; then with Tpr. "Sass" Seaman slapping the rounds into the 17 pdr., he fired five times. Five rounds—five Panthers. Before he got to the sixth one another "C" Sqn. tank, commanded by Sgt. Boyle, had accounted for it. In this action Tpr. Chapman's record was made possible by distracting HE fire, provided by other tanks at the crucial moment. The incident happened so quickly that L/Cpl. "Chub" Reeves would not believe it until he saw the burning tanks. Such individual victories during the day boosted the confidence of all the troops and eventually the counter-attacks dwindled out.

    This occurred during the defense of Norrey-en-Bessin on June 9th against an attack by the 3rd Company of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Determined to capture the town in preparation for a larger offensive to drive the British and Canadians back into the sea, Kurt Meyer ordered an attack by 12 Panthers of the 3rd Company and infantry to attack Norrey-en-Bessin and drive the Canadians out of the town. The attack got underway at 1300 hours with the Panthers racing to the town at full speed only to stop to fire their guns, quickly outrunning their infantry support. Within 1000 meters of the town, 9 Shermans of the 1st Hussars opened fire into the advancing Panthers flanks. Lt. Henry's gunner, Trooper A. Chapman, waited until the Panthers "lined up like ducks in a row" . The attack was repulsed with the loss of 7 of the 12 Panthers attacking Panthers, the majority credited to Lt. Henry's single Firefly.
     
  8. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Ossy's War

    On June 6, 1944 - D-Day - 25-year-old Private William Osaduke, a medic born and raised in Port Perry, landed on Juno Beach with the Stormont-Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, Canadian Infantry Third Division, 9th Brigade. The next 11 months were a living hell and a waking nightmare. This is his story. This is Ossy’s war.
    We were the last to land on Juno Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944. I’ll never forget that date. Every soldier had a shell dressing in his pocket - a wound packet that absorbs blood. I had a duffel bag full.

    The seventh and eight brigade cleared the beach. Our objective was to take the airport west of the city of Caen. We advanced until midnight and got inland seven miles. Then we had to wait by Beny-sur-Mer.

    Me and the doctor were getting a ride in our ammunition truck. Our trucks didn’t arrive until sometime during the night with our sergeant and corporal. We took the casualties into a church basement and treated them with morphine for the pain.

    We were told nothing - no one - was going back to the beach. We could hear the German Stuka divebombers and see the flares going up two miles away. The rest of the regiment did the fighting while we looked after the casualties. One soldier was in a standing position in a slit trench. His head and face were covered in blood. I didn’t know what to do and this was a shock to me. I found Captain Rowd, who was wrapping a shell dressing over a stomach wound. He followed me to the injured soldier. He put his hand around the back of his head and at that very moment, the soldier died. I knew him. He was a batman like me. His name was Bert Box. He was married and had a small baby. He was our first killed.

    The next day we followed the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. They reached Buron and Authie about two miles ahead of us, not far from Caen. We got to Les Buissons. There was a big chateau there and the colonel told us to dig in on the front lawn. Our Regimental Aid Post (RAP) took over a shed because we had to have light at night. An artillery officer came to Captain Rowd and asked if we could send somebody ahead. Their forward observation officer was wounded and hiding in a barn. The colonel said he’d send his own driver, with his jeep.

    “Ossy,” said the doctor, “you go with him.”

    We reached Authie just outside Buron. I saw a wounded German soldier just shaking his head back and forth. I saw our North Nova Scotia Highlanders running around and we found the barn. The officer was lying in the hayloft. He had a broken leg. I was looking around for a piece of wood to splint his leg when the shelling started.

    The driver said to me “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

    I told him I hadn’t splinted the officer’s leg.

    He said, “Forget it!”

    I grabbed the officer’s shoulders and he grabbed his legs. We didn’t have any morphine, so the officer was moaning. We carried him out to the jeep and threw him on the stretcher on the racks. We didn’t have time to wrap him to the stretcher. We just got out of there. I was hanging on to him so he didn’t fall off.

    We got to Les Buissons and Captain Rowd took care of him. When the officer was being taken to the ambulance, he looked up at me from the stretcher and said, “Thank you.” I felt so good about that. It was an important job I was doing.

    We repelled the Germans, but later on, they counterattacked. The Nova Scotia Highlanders had 200 men taken prisoner, wounded or dead. The regiment pulled back to our line and the colonel said, “This is where we consolidate.”

    We were in the shed and that night the Germans really started shelling us. We didn’t sleep too much that night. It was new to me and we had to treat all those casualties. All of a sudden, I went from being a first aid man in England to the doctor’s assistant.

    The doctor performed the surgeries and I held the part that was being cut off. And that became my job. After that, anytime a stretcher case came in, I would look the soldier over, cut off his clothing, stop the bleeding and clean the wound. Then the doctor would look at him. A lot of times we amputated the leg or the arm at the elbow. This had to be done to stop the bleeding. It was all we could do under the circumstances. My hands would be right in the blood and the funny thing is, I never got sick.

    So I became a nurse, helping the doctor with surgeries. I had my scissors - I used to cut the men’s hair when we were back in England - and I uses those to cut off their clothing.

    A young soldier came in so badly injured the doctor had to amputate his hand. The flesh was torn off and his finger bones were exposed. I held the soldier’s hand by the bones as the doctor cut it off at the wrist. We had given the soldier morphine, but he still screamed. Captain Rowd said, “Shut up. It doesn’t hurt.” I guess the sight of seeing his hand amputated was enough to make him scream.

    We went night and day for the next five days in what came to be known as Hell’s Corners. We had 24 killed and 83 casualties, including two brothers. Ronald E. Northmore was killed one night, his brother, Robert F., was killed the next. I felt so badly for his family and kept imagining what his mother would feel when she received the telegram that both her sons had died in France. It is something I will never forget. It took a while for me to get over it. I was so sorry for her.

    Our artillery was behind us, so every time the German mortars shelled us we would reply with our artillery. During those five days, the Germans tried to come in and drive us out, but we repelled them. We never gave an inch to the Germans.

    We used to have passwords at night. This one time here we were in our shed. It was full of stretcher cases. We were crouching against the wall. About 10 p.m., after it got real dark, I heard someone yell out the password, and then BANG!

    Our ambulance driver started yelling, “I’m shot! I’m shot!”

    We went outside and brought him in. He’d been hit in the stomach. We heard later that the bullet hit his spine and he was paralyzed.

    At 4 a.m. we were still awake. We had nobody to go out and get our casualties: the wounded and our dead. Captain Rowd said to me “Why don’t you go and talk to the colonel and see if we can have another driver.”

    The colonel was in his own dugout. I went outside and a flare was up. When a flare goes up, you stand still like a deer. I was yelling, “Don’t shoot! This is Ossy!”

    I had about 150 feet to go to reach the colonel’s trench. When the flare went down, I already knew where my path was. I got to the trench and then another flare went up. And the colonel saw who I was.

    I asked if we could have a driver. The colonel said, “There are is no one available. We are here to the last man.”

    We held off the Germans with our artillery and tanks. They were always on the go. The shelling went back and forth, but we used to say, everything is ours, coming and going.

    After five days we started to get letters from our rear echelon and we got our first hot meal. We were able to write home. I sent a letter to my wife and to my two-year-old son. He was six months old when I left for England. I knew I wasn’t coming back and if what I’d seen so far was what the war was all about. Everyone else was getting killed. Why wouldn’t I?

    I didn’t write that in the letter. I kept it in my head. I didn’t tell my wife where I was. I figured she’d read it in the newspaper.

    A few days later, our regiment was on the offensive again. We captured a town from the Germans and we set up our RAP in the schoolhouse. One morning while we were there, I went out the door to see a German Messerschmitt flying over my head, then disappearing in a cloud. A few minutes later, I heard RAT-A-TAT-TAT! and there was one of our spitfires on his tail. Our spitfire broke the wing off the Messerschmitt and it came flapping down. The plane went down on the other side of the village. They brought me a bag with the remains of the German pilot. It weighed about 40 pounds. Inside was his back. No head. No arms. No legs. I buried what was left of him behind the schoolhouse and put up a cross.

    While we were in the village, we were preparing for our next attack on the Germans. One night in the schoolhouse, a lieutenant came to see me when I was alone on duty. He was talking to me very friendly. Later, he was leading a night patrol along the road into town. The Germans had strung a wire across the road with tin cans attached to it and trained their machine guns on it. As soon as our soldiers hit the trip wire and rattled the cans, the Germans opened fire with their machine guns. The lieutenant was killed. Whoever they didn’t kill, they took prisoner. One lone soldier came back late in the afternoon. We were so glad to see him.

    I took a walk one morning along the main street of the village and saw someone I knew. He shared a tent with me in Canada and we came to England together. His name was McCarthy. He was sitting with his back up against the wall of a house. As I went over to him, I was shocked to see he was dead. A shell had killed him. He had a wife and children but I couldn’t let it bother me much or dwell on it. I had seen so many soldiers killed and we had so much work to do. This was war.

    The Scugog Standard
    Nov. 11, 2010
     
  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    On 7 June, SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer's ("Panzermeyer") SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25, along with the II./Abteilung from SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Max Wünsche's SS-Panzer-Regiment 12, were supported by artillery and ordered to crush advancing Canadian infantry and armour and drive through to the coast, still only a few miles away. In Meyer's words they were to "throw the little fish into the sea". Although they destroyed many Canadian tanks and overran a company of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders in Authie, the attack failed to break through the advancing Canadians. Meyer had relied on the shock value of the rapid attacks that had served his units so well on the Eastern front but here in Normandy, as both sides were to discover, effective scouting was a key element to an attack. The 25 Regiment had been forced to launch their attack into the flank of the Canadian advance a full hour before Meyer initially planned to strike.
    Without support from other units on his own flanks and no reconnaissance information with which to plan his attack it was initially very successful but rapidly lost its momentum. The North Novas in Authie bought time for the other companies of their regiment to establish defensive positions. The Sherbrooke Fusiliers lost over 25 Sherman tanks to the Panzer IV tanks and anti tank guns of 12th SS in the opening minutes of the counterattack. The 12 SS managed to push the portion of the Canadian spearhead they attacked back two miles but the remaining North Nova Scotia Highlanders, without artillery support or any armour halted the 25th regiment and established a firm defence.
    According to accounts from Canadian prisoners who survived the events, the youth of the Hitler Jugend were frustrated and mad with rage and there were numerous incidences of North Nova prisoners being shot, bludgeoned to death and even run over with a truck while they were being marched along a road. Battle casualties for the day on both sides were virtually even. Both forces suffered approximately 80 killed and around 175 wounded or captured. It was a hard and bloody fight to a draw.
    Meyer set up his command post in the Abbey Ardennes, whose towers provided an excellent view of the countryside. In the early evening of June 7th, as he planned the regiment's next moves, a further 18 Canadians were interrogated and then executed on the grounds of Abbey. In all over 100 Canadians from several regiments are documented as having been killed after surrendering to the 12SS. Meyer's regiment was deployed near the villages of Authie and Buron, in positions covering the vital Carpiquet Aerodrome. Forced to stay in place to contain the North Nova's brigade they were unavailable the next day to support the 26th Regiment in its attacks. They would remain on the same ground until driven off in vicious hand to hand fighting with the Highland Light Infantry of Canada on July 8th.
    On 8 June, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 26 under command of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke arrived on the battlefield. Meyer's attack had pushed back one part of the Canadian advance but another brigade had occupied a group of small villages two miles into the German line. They crossed behind Meyer's regiment and the 26th took up positions to their west. After planning and positioning the regiment for a powerful thrust the I Battalion launched an attack towards Norrey-en-Bessin, defended by the Regina Rifles of 3rd Canadian Division. Their orders were to drive over the Canadians and force a deep wedge between them and the British division to the west. Again, no reconnaissance of the Canadian positions was done and this time the youth of the 12th SS infantry would wade into a maelstrom of defensive fire from firmly established defensive positions.


    The attack, launched at 0330 hours some 8 hours after Meyer's battle ended, had little initial success. The various companies in the attacking 12th SS failed to co-ordinate their moves towards the Canadians and despite heavy casualties during repeated attempts by the infantry, Canadian artillery and supporting heavy machine guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa took a heavy toll of each attacking company of SS troops. The Regina Rifles held their ground, and the I Battalion fell back.
    On the Canadian right, the II Battalion attacked the Royal Winnipeg Rifles defending the village of Putot-en-Bessin. The Battalion managed to break into the village and surround several companies, effectively pushing the Winnipeg's out of the village, inflicting 256 casualties - of which 175 were taken prisoner [1]. However a counter-attack launched at 20:30 by the Canadian Scottish regained Putot-en-Bessin, and the II Battalion withdrew and dug-in south of the village. By nightfall on June 8th the Canadians were sitting in a firm position well within the critical area near Caen and the Carpiquet airfield, and further attacks against Norrey-en-Bessin and Bretteville L'Orguilleuse between June 8th and June 10th failed to dent the Canadian defence.
    Both sides had suffered serious losses, and again many Canadian prisoners were executed after their surrender. The SS-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 12(reconnaissance battalion) under SS-Sturmbannführer Gerhard Bremer participated in the attacks on June 8th and they were responsible for the after the battle killing of over a dozen Canadian troops. Bremer himself is reported to have been directly involved. The 2nd Battalion of the Monke's 26th Regiment murdered a further 20 some odd men, most from the Winnipeg Rifles in Putot. Before their capture the men who defended Putot had inflicted numerous casualties on the 2nd Battalion but the bodies of the murdered Canadians were found well away from the village.
    Following the battle SS-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 12 deployed to the west of Mohnke's regiment, and by the evening of 8 June the division, having failed in its assignment to drive the Canadians into the sea, had effectively halted the units of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division in the Allied advance on Caen. These Canadian units were the only ones in the entire D-Day effort that managed to reach their assigned objectives.
    Despite the ferocity of the 12th SS counterattacks, the Division failed to fulfil its orders to throw the attacking allies back into the sea. Once British troops had moved up to the positions now firmly held by the troops of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division that faced the 12th SS, the British dug in and established a firm line of defence from which they could launch future attacks. The allies were firmly on the continent to stay. The panzer army that contained the 12SS and the 21st Army Group they opposed, settled into a bitter series of battles that would finally lead to the liberation of Normandy.
    On 14 June, a British naval barrage hit the divisional command post in Venoix, killing Witt and leaving the division without a commander. The thirty-three-year-old "Panzermeyer" was ordered to take command of the division, becoming the youngest divisional commander of either side during the war.
    Over the next four weeks, the division managed to halt all Allied attempts to take Caen, despite the Allies' superior numbers and overwhelming air supremacy. The ferocity of the combat during this period equalled or exceeded anything the German troops had encountered on the Eastern front. (In this case also, Meyer was convicted of war crimes - he had ordered his men not to take prisoners.) No such order was given on the Allied side of the lines but it was scarcely needed. Time and again to the consternation and often sadness of the attacking Allied troops, the brave youth of the 12SS fought to the bitter end. Despite their successes in breaking up several major attacks, the division suffered immense losses, and in the first week of July 1944, Meyer ignored orders to hold the line north of Caen and withdrew the shattered remnants of his division south of the city. In the fighting from the day after D-Day until 9 July the division had lost 4,000 dead with a further 8,000 wounded and missing.
    The division was to have little respite though, and on 19 July took part in the defence against the Anglo-Canadian Operation Goodwood. Following this, the division was pulled out of the line and used to form the mobile reserve for I.SS-Panzerkorps. Rather than rest and refitting, the division found itself involved in constant fire-brigade actions. In early August, the division took part in defensive actions to halt two Allied operations, Totalize and Tractible. At the launch of Totalize, the sixty remaining panzers of the HJ were faced with over 600 tanks of the Canadian First Army. Despite these odds, the division managed to halt the offensive short of its objectives.
    Hitlerjugend, reduced to a few thousand men and a handful of vehicles, now took part in operations to try and keep the Falaise Pocket open and to help trapped German forces to escape. During this period the Panzer regiment's commander, Max Wunsche, was captured by British forces. On the 20th of August as the pocket collapsed and tens of thousands of troops of the Seventh Army went into captivity. The scattered remnants of the division were pulled back behind the Seine River.
    While they had established a reputation as fierce combatants, the actions of those men responsible for the murders of Canadian prisoners had forever sullied the escutcheon of the 12th SS.

    WWW.WAFFEN-SS.NO "10. SS-Panzer-Division Frundsberg"
     
  10. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

  11. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

  12. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

  13. klambie

    klambie Senior Member

    Marc Milner’s Chapter, “No Ambush, No Defeat: The Advance of the Vanguard of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 7 June 1944″ in Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp rewrites the history of 9 Brigade on D-Day+1. The defeat of 9 Brigade has always been used a prime example of the flawed nature of Allied leadership and combat capability and proof of the superior fighting skill of German forces. Milner challenges this assessment, arguing “the vanguard of 9 Brigade fought an enemy at least three times its size to a standstill, and did so largely without the crucial component of Anglo-Canadian doctrine: artillery support…in the process 9 Brigade met and defeated a portion of the panzer forces that the 3rd Canadian Division had been tasked with destroying. So maybe 9 Brigade did all right on D+1 after all.”

    Canadian Military History – Marc Milner’s Corrected Chapter from Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp
     
    stolpi likes this.
  14. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    An article of Canadian Military History http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%203/issue%201/Haller%20-%20The%20Defeat%20of%20the%2012th%20SS%207-10%20June%201944.pdf

    This is a great article Stolpi. I had posted it in another thread earlier but it was worth another read.

    A recurring theme is the role of Meyer.
    Any discussion of Kurt Meyer quickly turns to his role in murderering Canadian and British soldiers during this period. That subject has distracted from any thorough examination of his leadership and the combat effectiveness of the 12th SS.
    In the Haller article there are frequent references to the lack of command and control by the SS and a myriad of tactical blunders which prevented any significant breakthrough on the Canadian front. A lack of crucual artillery support, poor armour-infantry coordination, attacks without prior reconnaissance, cautious or clumsy infantry attacks, an inability to concentrate forces and ineffective communication are all cited as reasons for falure in the attacks from June 7th to 10th.
    It would be highly interesting to see a detailed assessment of Meyer's performance for the totality of the Normandy campaign.
     

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