(5) The Villedieu Pocket
Independently the regimental commander and the commander of the 2.Battalion each decided to grant their exhausted troops a day of rest and sleep after the withdrawal from the Coutances Pocket. Consequently on the day following the withdrawal both groups of the regiment, although separated, were concealed even from other German troops in barns off the main march routes. It was not until the next day that the regimental commander and the commander of the 2.Battalion made successful efforts to reestablish contact with the division. Through the division these two groups learned about each other’s fate. Each of the two groups had considered the other lost. The regimental commander then reassembled the remnants of the regiment, approximately one battalion (not quite 1000 men) in strength, and sent the commander of the 2.Battalion to the Parachute Army headquarters at Nancy where he was to make a verbal report concerning the fate of the regiment and explain why resistance in Normandy was doomed to failure. The commander of the 2.Battalion left the regiment on August 1, 1944. It was evident to everyone that units which in the smaller area of the Cotentin Peninsula and with unimpaired fighting power had not been able to withstand the force of the American attack, would now, when they had been defeated and scattered, be less able than ever to check the advancing American armored formations. Officers and men therefore clung to the hope that there was truth in the rumor, which was circulating among the troops about August 1, that the German High Command had decided to give up southern and western France, to withdraw the Seventh Army behind the Seine River, and to establish a new defensive front on the Seine and the Yonne River. The troops themselves no longer believed that they would be able to hold out in Normandy; however, during these first days in August they still felt strong enough to offer effective resistance behind a strong sector like the Seine – Yonne line if they were able to reach it in time. Only too soon it turned out that this rumor regarding a withdrawal behind the Seine and the Yonne was not based on fact. In France, too, it seemed to be the aim of the High Command to apply the tactics of ‘holding at any cost’ and allowing the units to be encircled. The troops had already become acquainted with this policy in Russia.
(Note)I must agree with the author that after the American breakthrough at St Lot the only possible decision for the German top-level command was to make a timely withdrawal acroas the Seine. The practice of exposing whole armies to annihilation by having them remain too long in front of river barriers was to continue until the end of the war. This happened when, after heroic battles, Army Group Italy was given orders to hold out to the last man in front of the Po River in spite of the hopelessness of the situation. (Pemsel)
It first appeared that an attempt was being made to form a defensive flank along a line extending from Percy to St Denis-le-Gast to Avranches in order to prevent a widening of the American breakthrough. In the sector extending from Percy to St Denis-le-Gast, in which the 2.SS-Panzer-Division was committed, this defensive flank consisted of a thin line formed by infantry security detachments. Dispersed elements of the Army and the Navy and remnants of the 5.FD (the latter committed on both sides of the main road running almost due north and south from Hambye via Sourdeval to Villedieu and joining the St Denis-le-Gast – Villedieu road north of Villedieu) had been inserted between the remnants of the two panzer grenadier regiments, the 2.SS-Panzer-Division regiments and the remnants of the 17.SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division Kampfgruppe. There was practically no artillery remaining in the 2.SS-PD sector, the 2.SS-Panzer-Artillery-Regiment still had seven guns. The 2.SS-Panzer-Regiment probably still retained about one fifth of its original strength or one battalion.
On the afternoon of the second day after the escape from the Coutances Pocket, almost exactly forty-eight hours after he had passed St Denis-le-Gast the commander of the 6.FR, who was on the way back from the division to his unit, crossed the road running from Hambye via Sourdeval to Villedieu, on which he had in the morning seen elements of the 5.FD. On this road, he now observed the first American tanks rolling southward in the direction of Villedieu with no German resistance in sight. Although the commander succeeded in crossing the road, the rest of the regiment and the SS forces committed east of the road were cut off by this American armored thrust from the division command post located west of the road.
In view of this situation, the regimental commander decided to act on his own responsibility. The remaining elements of his regiment did not have a single antitank weapon at their disposal, not even Panzerfausts. It seemed useless to resist or even to remain. Consequently, after nightfall the commander of the 6.FR led the remnants of his regiment in a march covering a distance of more than fifty kilometers, bypassing Villedieu, to the area of St Martin-le-Bouillant, south of Villedieu, which they reached about 0800.
The regimental assembly point for minor casualties at Alençon was designated by the commander as the collecting station for the dispersed elements of the 6.FR; messengers also guided to that point the regimental trains which, four days previously, had been assigned by the regimental commander to the area of Avranches where some of the elements had been employed by the garrison commander in a futile and brief battle against the American armored columns which had broken through. At St Martin-le-Bouillant the regimental commander found the command post of the 353.Grenadier-Division. The remnants of this division had been combined into two combat groups and placed on the heights west of St Martin-le-Bouillant with the front facing westward. This force was to provide protection against the American armored units which had broken through and were advancing on Avranches and to narrow down the enemy breakthrough. The regimental commander placed the remaining portions of his 6.FR under the 353.GD. On the same afternoon, American tanks which had probably advanced from the north, pushed forward up to the northern edge of St Martin-le-Bouillant. This thrust again divided the remnants of the 6.FR into two groups; a smaller group of approximately a company strength which remained with the regimental commander and a stronger group which, after contact with the regimental commander, was disrupted fought its way through to Alençon.
The regimental commander and the company which remained with him fought as a reserve of the 353.GD south of Saint-Sever-Calvados and south of the Vire River; these engagements were in general of no consequence. The company which was stationed in the vicinity of the division command post was as a rule alerted around noon and sent forward in order to seal off any breakthrough in the division sector. These sealing off operations were invariably successful because in the area south of Saint-Sever-Calvados and south of Vire the American infantry was feeling its way forward only gradually and very cautiously. In the evening the division was as a rule instructed to change positions, the order usually specifying that the front be withdrawn a few kilometers.
(7) Withdrawal From Normandy
About August 10, the regimental commander received an order from the Parachute Army instructing him withdraw the remnants of the regiment from the front and to lead them back to the Nancy area. However it was several days before the Seventh Army released the sixty men who were still with the regimental commander.
By August 14, the regimental commander and the sixty men with him advanced via Tinchebray and were able to reach the Dreux Air Base, to which point the regimental commander also sent the elements of the regiment which had in the meantime been assembled at Alençon. They still totaled 1007 men, although they lacked heavy weapons, were inadequately equipped, and were clothed in tatters. After a few days of rest at Dreux, which the German administrative agencies already seemed to have abandoned, the regiment was transported in motor vehicles to Nancy advancing via Paris (where utter confusion seemed to prevail among the German agencies, particularly those of the Luftwaffe), Saint-Dizier, and Toul. Not the slightest sign of any activity on the part of the French resistance movement was observed between Tinchebray and Nancy by either the regimental commander who from Tinchebray on was riding in an armored car, about six hours ahead of the regiment, or by the main body. As had been the case in Normandy, the French civilians along the entire route proved to be friendly and helpful when they were treated with kindness.
The regimental commander had not reported to his superiors the establishment of the assembly point at Alençon for minor casualties and stragglers of the regiment. Instead, the men assembled there were first reported as casualties according to regulations, being listed as either wounded or ill; or, in the case of men who had become separated, as missing. There was great danger that the higher Army authorities would learn of this secret assembling of the men by the regiment and that those who had been collected at Alençon would again be sent to the front and thrown into a battle which had become meaningless. Consequently, the regimental commander and his men felt relieved when on August 20, all the elements of the regiment which had escaped from the battle in Normandy were assembled at Nancy and received orders transferring it to Güstrow (Mecklenburg) where it was to be rehabilitated.
In order to depict the conditions prevailing in France behind the disintegrating German front in the middle of August 1944, it should be noted that the regiment on its own initiative took steps to begin its rehabilitation while it was still in France during the march to Nancy. The units were brought up to strength because a number of stragglers from the Army, the Waffen-SS, and other parachute regiments reported to the advance message centers of the regiment, which had been set up along the march route, and requested to be taken into the regiment. They were taken into the regiment and clothing procured for them from supplies which were found at Dreux. Among other items, the regiment succeeded in purchasing on the French black market in Paris practically all the equipment needed to bring the regiment up to war strength.
(Note) The regimental commander’s decision to assemble the regiment secretly at Alençon, located far to the rear, and to submit inaccurate reports to his superiors is not commendable. The regimental commander was still in command of sixty men and as a result of his orders found more than one thousand stragglers belonging to his regiment when he arrived at Alençon. None of the divisions which were being drained of their last resources at the front had such numbers at their disposal at this time. It is furthermore incomprehensible that the regimental commander incorporated in his regiment stragglers who naturally had been attracted by the news that the regiment was to be transferred to the zone of interior, instead of turning them over, in accordance with regular procedures, to the collecting points for stragglers. A curious feature is that the regimental commander equipped his forces by making large-scale purchases on the French black market. (Pemsel)
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