Death Ride of the Panzers: German Armor and the Retreat in the West, 1944-45

Introduction

By early 1944, few in Germany and occupied Europe could have doubted that an Allied landing would be long in coming. Indeed, the design and building of static defense installations, which Hitler had christened the Atlantic Wall, had begun as early as March 1942. They were intended to stretch from the Franco-Spanish border along the Bay of Biscay to Brest, follow the Channel coast and the North Sea to Skagen in Denmark, and begin again at the Norwegian-Swedish frontier near the Oslofjord and continue as far north as the Soviet border. The defenses of the Atlantic Wall would also include the Channel Islands, particularly Alderney, which is closest to Britain. The Wall was to be made up of gun emplacements and bunkers constructed from concrete and steel, barbed wire fences, minefields, concrete walls, and fortified artillery positions. The strongest position was situated on the island of Sotra in Norway, where a complete turret taken from the battleship Gneisenau, with three massive 283mm guns, commanded the approaches to Bergen.

The required administrative effort alone was staggering, with some 600 different designs for bunkers, artillery, and machine-gun emplacements involved. As building progressed and resources became more scarce, weapons captured from the Czech, French, and Russian armies were pressed into service. Their use required additional amendments or alterations to the existing emplacements. The building program was given added impetus by the large-scale raids at St Nazaire, which took place just days after Hitler issued the initial order for the building of the Atlantic Wall, and at Dieppe, where over six thousand Allied troops were landed on four separate beaches. Nevertheless, and despite the claims of German propaganda, the construction of the Atlantic Wall was half-hearted. Far from being viewed as a potential invasion front, France was seen as a soft posting by most German troops.

As the result of an extensive inspection tour instigated by Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt (at the time Oberbefehlshaber West), which lasted from May to October 1943, the shortcomings of the German defenses became all too obvious. A key weakness lay in the extensive length of the Wall, which effectively prohibited any defense in depth; many German commanders felt that the system would at best delay an enemy landing. Importantly, the superbly trained and equipped German infantry units—the same who had thrown back the British and Canadian raiders at St. Nazaire and Dieppe—had been continually called upon to supply replacements for the Russian front. By June 1944, the Atlantic wall defenses were manned by depleted formations, with one in six infantry battalions made up of Eastern volunteers from Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Ukraine.

Opinion was divided as to whether the coming invasion should be met on the beaches with all available resources, including tanks, or held by the defenses of the Atlantic Wall until the enemy’s intentions were clear and then countered by powerful armored reserves held much further inland. An advocate of the former was Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, who conducted a further investigation of the western defenses in November 1943 at the behest of Hitler. Tasked with upgrading the Atlantic Wall, Rommel was to assume command of Heeresgruppe B, the army group responsible for the Pas de Calais and Normandy, the most likely invasion areas. However, Rundstedt and the commander of Panzergruppe West, General Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg, were understandably reluctant to bring their tanks within range of the enemy’s naval gunfire. In what may have been a compromise solution, and perhaps making a virtue of necessity, it was proposed that the German defenses should consist of what came to be called Crust, Cushion, and Hammer zones.

The Crust zone was the concrete and steel of the Atlantic Wall. The Crust would delay the Allied invasion forces, inflicting as many casualties as possible, until the armored reserves could be committed. It seems that by this time, only the most optimistic German planners believed that the Atlantic Wall alone would actually stop the invaders. Under Rommel’s direction, the Crust was reinforced with millions of mines and obstacles intended to stop or disable Allied landing craft. The Cushion zone was the area immediately inland from the beaches and it was planned that this would be defended by fortified emplacements providing a real defense in depth. However, as most of the available concrete had been used to create the Crust zone, the Cushion consisted of a system of trenches and bunkers constructed from wood and earth. The Hammer would be Schweppenburg’s Panzergruppe West, controlling the bulk of the German armor, based much further inland.

When the invasion came, the assumptions of both sides would be sorely abused in the fighting that followed. Although the Normandy battles were for the most part brutal slogging matches conducted between groups of infantrymen, it would be the Panzer units which would time and again cut off an Allied penetration, hold up an enemy attack and finally, between the villages of Chambois and Trun in the Dives valley, save the bulk of the German Army in the West.

Despite the German preparations, the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy in the early hours of June 6, 1944, and the subsequent establishment of a secure bridgehead could only be described as a spectacular, if qualified, success. The overly complicated chain of command imposed by Hitler, the lack of intelligence in matters as basic as weather forecasting, and the assumption that resisting the invasion would be no different in concept than the opposition of a river crossing (albeit on a larger scale) meant that the defenders were operating under a severe disadvantage. The German defenders were caught largely off guard. Those in the forward positions, the Crust, were swamped by naval gunfire or overrun by specialist bunker-busting tanks; although many held on to their positions for far longer than could have been reasonably expected, most were simply crushed by the weight of fire. Many of the battalions made up from Eastern volunteers fled or surrendered at the first opportunity.

Further inland, Generalmajor Heinrich-Hermann von Hülsen, the commander of 21.Panzer-Division and the only armored formation close to the coast, had placed his division’s Panzer-Regiment 22 on alert as early as 6:00 am. In the ensuing confusion, the first tanks would not move off for another three hours. As Hülsen’s men were preparing their tanks, an ad-hoc Kampfgruppe from 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, made up principally from the first battalion of SS-Panzer-Regiment 12 and the infantrymen of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 26 and both hastily transferred from Panzergruppe West to Rommel’s Heeresgruppe B, moved quickly towards the front. By 10:00 am, they were exchanging fire with Canadian units near the village of Buron, north-west of Caen. The fighting here would last for most of the day, with the men of the Hitlerjugend division denying the Canadians their objective of Carpiquet and its airfield. Realizing the importance of the airfield, the Germans strengthened their positions with machine-gun emplacements and an extensive minefield; it would be more than a month before Carpiquet fell to the Canadians. Finally, at 5:30 pm the units of 21.Panzer-Division mounted a concerted counterattack aimed at the Allied positions at Biéville-Beuville. Although elements of the division’s infantry actually managed to reach the coast, fighting their way behind enemy lines into the town of Lion-sur-Mer by 8.00 pm, the supporting tanks of Panzer-Regiment 22 were held up at Périers-sur-le-Dan, almost 3 kilometers to their rear, and the Panzergrenadiers were quickly surrounded.

At day’s end, the Allies had landed over 130,000 men with their equipment and supporting armor and had advanced up to 10 kilometers inland in places. Although the Germans had not immediately responded with the decisiveness and aggression for which they were justly famous, the steadfastness of the coastal defenses and the initiative of local commanders meant that strategically important centers were denied to the Allies. Theywould not be taken until a heavy price was extracted in both men and equipment.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BREAKOUT

The Beginning

After gaining a bridgehead on the Normandy coast, the American, British, and Canadian units of the invasion force were able to do little more than consolidate the gains that had been made on the first day. Initially slow to react, the German defense was soon conducted with the skill and tenacity learnt in the uncompromising school of the Russian front. Any Allied gains were promptly met with the inevitable counterattack, often mounted by a hastily scraped together formation. Against this, however, must be measured the numbers of men and the amount of supplies that the Allies had been able to land on the invasion beaches since the afternoon of the initial landings, with some 20,000 tons of equipment being unloaded daily in the American sector alone. In the early days of July 1944, more US Army soldiers were waiting in Britain to be shipped to the front than were actually fighting in Normandy. One effect of the changing supply and manpower situation was the perception, if unofficial, that the British army was very quickly becoming the junior partner in the alliance. Although it was true that the British and Canadians fighting to take Caen had faced the strongest German forces, the breakout from Normandy, when it came, would be left to the Americans. The planned assault was given the codename Cobra and its architect, General Omar Bradley, stressed that the retreating Germans must not be allowed to create a solid defensive line as they had in the Bocage and around Caen, indicating just how traumatic those operations had been for the Allies.

After a false start on Monday, July 24, 1944, Operation Cobra went ahead on the following day, preceded by a massive aerial bombardment. The main weight of the bombing caught the tanks of Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein’s Panzer-Lehr-Division, which had been concealed in the numerous woods and sunken lanes throughout the area. In his post-war account of the battle, Bayerlein claimed that his division was almost annihilated over the course of the next two days, with some fifty percent of the casualties being inflicted by the American bombers.¹

The Americans quickly broke through the German defenses and, with the capture of Saint-Lô on the Bayeux-Coutances road, the entire western half of the Normandy front began to crumble. By Friday, July 28, 1944, Bradley’s headquarters was receiving reports that resistance was in places nonexistent and where the Germans were able to mount local counterattacks, they were poorly organized and often easily brushed aside. On the same day Coutances, about 40 kilometers west of Saint-Lô, was taken, but any further progress was halted when the lead American units ran into elements of 2.SS-Panzer-Division and 17.SS-Panzergrenadier. During the evening of the following day, the two Waffen-SS divisions mounted an attack on the exposed flank of US 2nd Armored Division near the village of Saint-Denis-le-Gast, about 15 kilometers to the south of Coutances, and met with some initial success. However, both formations had been fighting in Normandy for weeks without respite or replacements and were already badly depleted. After causing some early confusion and inflicting a number of casualties, the Germans were forced to withdraw, leaving most of their tanks and heavy equipment behind. On Sunday, July 30, in support of the American breakout, the British launched their own offensive code named Operation Bluecoat. Much of the armored reserves that the Germans had hoped to employ against the Americans, including the powerful II.SS-Panzerkorps, were now diverted to face the British. By the following Tuesday, the strategically important town of Avranches, over 30 kilometers to the south of Saint-Lô, fell to the Americans with an intact bridge across the Seine at nearby Pontaubault. Although the Grenadiers of Generalleutnant Viktor von Drabich-Wächter’s 326.Infanterie-Division managed to hold the road junction of Vire, the Americans reached Mortain on August 3, which was less than 20 kilometers to the south. They occupied the town on the afternoon of the same day, inflicting further heavy casualties on 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division in the process.² By now those Germans units facing the Americans were fighting to escape.

Even the most optimistic German commanders realized that disaster was imminent and Feldmarschall Günther von Kluge, who had replaced Rundstedt as Oberbefehlshaber West in early July, begged Hitler to be allowed to withdraw to the natural barrier of the Seine. He argued that if the army in the west was encircled and destroyed, the Allies could drive straight into Germany. As US Army units were pouring across the Pontaubault Bridge, Hitler contacted Kluge by telephone from his home at Berchtesgaden. To the field marshal’s utter dismay and astonishment, the Fuhrer not only forbade any retreat but ordered Kluge to immediately begin preparations for an attack in force aimed at Avranches, which theoretically would shatter the over-extended Americans.

Viewed from the map table at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s plan had every chance of success. The length of the American supply lines through Avranches did indeed present an opportunity to deliver a severe setback to the Allies if attacked in strength. The failure of the British and Canadians to take Caen meant that the armored units stationed around the town were no longer required, at least for the present. In addition, the identification of Lieutenant-General George Patton’s US 3rd Army in western France, which the Germans had feared would be employed in a secondary invasion in the Pas-de-Calais, meant that the divisions stationed north of the Seine could be released for operations elsewhere.

In reality, however, the armored units facing the British had been bled white in almost two months of continual combat; the formations on the east bank of the Seine were all infantry units that had been slowly drained of men and material to reinforce the divisions fighting in Normandy. Moreover, any attack towards Avranches would have to be undertaken through the same dense Bocage countryside that had proven to be so much an advantage to the German defense. Even if these difficulties were to be surmounted, Kluge’s men would be required to operate completely without air cover despite the promises of Reichsmarschall Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe, that over 1,000 aircraft would be made available for the offensive.³

Two important considerations were also at play here. The first was Hitler’s lack of confidence in his generals, which often bordered on contempt. The assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 had rocked Hitler, but it had also handed him the excuse to disregard any advice from his commanders that did not fit his perception of the situation. Any suggestion of withdrawal was met with accusations of cowardice and lack of success was usually put down to treachery. To prove their loyalty to both Hitler and Germany, commanders were required to carrying out their orders to the letter regardless of the odds. Until the end of the war the planning and conduct of operations, often down to battalion level, was to be solely the preserve of the Führer. Secondly, Hitler and most of the German generals believed that the US Army was inferior to the British and that the remaining armored assets would be best employed against the Americans. This perception is difficult to explain and was probably created by the initial performance of US soldiers in North Africa. However, the Americans had learnt very quickly and Bradley’s men were a far cry from the amateurish, albeit courageous, units that fought in Tunisia. Perhaps tellingly, Hitler confided to his aides that the counterattack would only succeed if Kluge had faith in the plan, preparing a convenient scapegoat in case of failure and providing a glimpse of his own uncertainty.

In a complete about-turn, perhaps encouraged by the news of reinforcements, Kluge now suggested that the attack go ahead without delay. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Hitler insisted that the attack not commence until August 8, the earliest when all the available units could be assembled, even at the risk of the situation at the front deteriorating further. However, after protests from both Kluge and his subordinate, SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, the commander of 7.Armee, it was agreed that the attack should commence at 10:00 pm on Sunday, August 6, 1944. The attack was to be codenamed Operation Lüttich with tactical control exercised by XLVII.Panzerkorps commanded by General Hans Freiherr von Funck, much to the chagrin of Hitler, who wanted General Heinrich Eberbach to lead the offensive.⁴

Many histories describing the battles around Mortain, including the official US Army account, accept that small, isolated American units were able to hold off up to four elite German armored divisions, two infantry divisions, and a number of powerful armored Kampfgruppen until reinforcements were able to resolve the situation. If the German units available to Kluge had been at anywhere near full strength, he would have had at his disposal tens of thousands of men and hundreds of armored vehicles. But the truth is that the German formations were so depleted that at best the divisions were little more than strong brigades. A typical example would be the Kampfgruppe made up from the survivors of 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen. The division had been decimated after resisting the American breakthrough at Saint Lô during the early stages of Operation Cobra and was surrounded at Coutances, where it lost most of its remaining equipment. By early August, the division consisted of a number of small battle groups. The strongest of these was Kampfgruppe Ulrich, made up from a single Panzergrenadier battalion supported by a number of PzKw IV tanks, which had been detached from SS-Panzer-Regiment 2. They were, in all probability, all five combat-ready tanks that the regiment possessed at that time. The strongest unit available to Kluge was 116.Panzer-Division with perhaps sixty Panthers, although the recalcitrance of the divisional commander, General Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, did almost as much to hamper the attack as did the stubborn American resistance. By the afternoon of August 6, just hours before the attack was scheduled