CanadaCapt Arthur Gullachsen: Night of the Panthers, Assault of Kampfgruppe Meyer-Wünsche on Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse (France), June 8-9, 1944. Canadian Military History (2021)
Gullachsen, Arthur Night of the Panthers? Assault of Kampfgruppe Meyer/Wünsche on Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse, France, June 8-9, 1944.

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Members of the 12-SS Panzer Division (HJ) in Normandy

(Abstract): This archive provides historical insight into the failure of the German armored counterattacks in the immediate aftermath of the Normandy invasion. The failure of an armored battlegroup of the 12.SS-Panzerdivision to take the village of Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse during the night of June 8-9, 1944, was not exclusively due to poor planning, lack of coordination and not enough infantry support. Though these factors were present in abundance, the main reason for failure was German confidence in mutated armoured tactics that were successfully used by the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front. These rough tactics, though successful in Ukraine in 1943, actually violated established German armored doctrine. The failure of the Waffen-SS commanders to recognise the need for greater preparation and, by default, larger and more powerful resources doomed their early offensive operations against the Normandy Bridgehead, one of which is examined in detail within this article.

Within the Historiography of the Normandy Campaign, the Battle of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse (France) on June 8-9, 1944, is viewed as one of the most outstanding small unit actions of the Second World War.(1) The victorious nighttime defensive battle of the 1-Regina Rifle Regiment (RRR), against an armored Kampfgruppe (battlegroup) of the 12-SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend, the military arm of the Nazi party, is a well-known event in the Canadian Military History. Canadian authors Marc Milner, Mark Zuehlke and Oliver Haller have all presented narratives of the nighttime battle, but largely from a Canadian perspective.(2) Apart from the first-hand accounts of former Hitlerjugend divisional commander SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer (3) in his autobiography Grenadiers and within the Hitlerjugend divisional history by SS-Obersturmbannführer Hubert Meyer, there was little detail on the German side of this engagement.(4) The ability to gain a fuller picture of the night time encounter has recently become more attainable with the widespread dissemination of the Normandy war diary of the 12-SS-Panzerregiment, the tank regiment of the 12-SS-Panzerdivision, and newer works by French military historians.(5)

Following the successful June 6, 1944, assault of the Canadian forces on Juno Beach and their move inland, the German 12-SS-Panzerdivision rapidly moved forces to the battle zone and utilised them piecemeal. German commanders felt an urgent need to wrest the initiative from the Allied invasion force in the eastern sector of the bridgehead and capture vital jumping off points for a larger multi-panzer division counteroffensive. They would ultimately be defeated in their attempt to achieve this objective.

Canadian tank, destroyed by 12th SS Panzer Division, abandoned near Authie

The failure of the 12-SS-Panzerdivision attack on the village of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse and its surrounding area on June 8-9, 1944, was not exclusively due to poor planning, inexperience, lack of coordination and not enough infantry support. Though secondary sources on the battle state that these factors were present in abundance, the main reason for failure was the German confidence in mutated armored tactics that had been successfully used by the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front.(6) This argument has been presented by Marc Milner in his work Stopping the Panzers, but little exists in the Normandy historiography in the way of a detailed discussion of these tactics or their practitioners.(7) By supplying greater detail on this particular battle and German armored tactics, this article provides historical insight into how and why initial German armored attacks floundered in the face of strong Anglo-Canadian resistance in June 1944.

These rough tactics, though proven successful during 1943 German operations in the Ukraine, violated established German armoured doctrine that propagated the use of all arms, especially infantry support, artillery and airstrikes, to conduct operations. The Russians, so familiar to the Germans, fought in an entirely different manner than Anglo-Canadian forces. The lack of available resources confronting both sides in the Ukraine often negated the ability to use artillery preparatory fire to reduce enemy defences. Often groups of German tanks with limited infantry support present could achieve battlefield objectives using shock and surprise on the vast steppes of the Ukraine, where Russian anti-tank and artillery forces in depth were often absent.(8) These conditions were not present in Normandy, to the dismay of the Eastern Front veterans of the Waffen-SS. The failure of the Waffen-SS commanders to recognise the need for greater preparation and, by default, larger and more powerful resources doomed their early operations to failure.

The greatest victory in the Ukraine achieved by the two German commanders discussed in this article, then SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Meyer and then SS-Sturmbannführer Max Wünsche, at the time both battalion commanders within the 1-SS-Panzergrenadierdivision LSSAH (Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler), occurred on February 23, 1943, when their combined forces successfully attacked the village of Paraskowejewskije (Ukraine). In this operation, Kampfgruppe Meyer consisting of parts of I./SS-Pz.Rgt. 1 (1st battalion of the Leibstandarte tank regiment) under Wünsche and the SS-Aufklärungsabteilung 1 (recce battalion) under Meyer, attacked the Ukrainian village from two directions. The Panzerabteilung Kompanien (tank battalion companies) with their Panzer IV tanks flanked the village while Meyer attacked down its main road. As a participant in the attack, SS-Obersturmführer Georg Isecke recalled that it was a complete success: with two Panzerkompanien, we pursued the enemy to the east and northeast and destroyed him. Our own panzer crews suffered no wounds to personnel and only light damage to the equipment. Our thrust hit the Russian divisional headquarters precisely. The Russian division commander was reported killed, and their first officer of the general staff was taken prisoner.(9)

A Canadian soldier investigates a knocked out German Panther tank in Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse

There were many such attacks made by the Kampfgruppen of the 1-SS-Pz.Gren.Div in the winter and spring of 1943 in Ukraine, and the successes achieved solidified the soundness of these armored tactics in the minds of the Waffen-SS commanders that had executed them. While certainly not in accordance with approved German armored tactics, Meyer and others had made do in situations where they had little in the way of resources on the vast expanses of the Ukrainian Steppe.

Transferred to the west in the spring of 1943 to help form the 12-SS-Pz.Div, Meyer, Wünsche and other Waffen-SS officers retained an appreciation for these tactics and encountered nothing to change their minds in the relatively placid training environment of Belgium and France in the months leading up to the Allied invasion. Unfortunately for these newly promoted regimental commanders, they did not gain any experience whatsoever fighting the Western Allies in Italy or Sicily, nor did they understand the great gulf in operational tactics practiced by the Commonwealth armies and the Russians.

The Germans possessed significant advantages during their attack on Bretteville during the night of June 8-9, 1944, but accompanying weaknesses ultimately assured their failure. Attacking with an overabundance of armor, including a battery of six Wespe (Wasp) 105-MM self-propelled guns to accompany two under-strength Kompanien (companies) of Panther tanks, the infantry strength needed to construct a well-balanced battlegroup was not present.(10) Further weaknesses in the assault force’s infantry contingent included weak leadership, no coordination with the armor, poor start line positions and a lack of infantry heavy weapons, such as mortars. Also totally missing from the German plan was an effective preliminary field artillery barrage to diminish the defensive capabilities of the Canadians. This was in part to facilitate surprise, which had been vital to Meyer’s success in Ukraine. There is also no evidence Meyer utilised his own regimental staff to organise artillery support.

Self-propelled howitzer Wespe 105-MM

These factors would be ruthlessly exploited by a powerful Canadian combined arms defence that dealt with the relatively small attacking German infantry force that sought to follow in the tracks of the Panthers. The majority of the Anglo-Canadian defenders were unexperienced in battle, despite a small number of officers gaining combat experience in Italy and North Africa. But the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division was highly trained after two and a half years in the United Kingdom. Superb training allowed many of the division’s units to perform at a high level in their first battles, despite their initial lack of combat experience.(11)

Map Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse

After assaulting Juno Beach on June 6, 1944, the RRR under Lt Col Foster Matheson made steady progress inland, moving from the landing beaches at Courseulles-sur-Mer through Reviers to a position near Le Fresne-Camilly by nightfall.(12) The following day the regiment pushed further south to take up its assigned location in its parent 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s defensive line, designated ‘Oak’, a line roughly parallel to the Caen-Bayeux railway running slightly northwest.(13) The designated defensive position for RRR, centred on the village of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse, was first reached by the vanguard of the battalion at 0730, supported by a troop of Sherman tanks from the 1st Hussars (6th Canadian Armored Regiment)(14).


(1) Michael Reynolds, Steel Inferno: 1st SS Panzer Corps in Normandy (New York: Dell Publishing, 1997), 106
(2) The Night of the Panthers? Marc Milner, Stopping the Panzers: The Untold Story of D-Day (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012); Mark Zuehlke, Holding Juno: Canada’s heroic defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7-12, 1944 (Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre Ltd, 2005); and Oliver Haller, “The Defeat of the 12th SS: 7–10 June 1944,” Canadian Military History 3, 1 (1994): 8-25.
(3) See Appendix A for Second World War Canadian Army rank equivalents.
(4) Kurt Meyer, Grenadiers (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2005); and Hubert Meyer, History of the 12. SS Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend (Winnipeg: J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1994).
(5) Kriegstagebuch [War Diary] No. 1, I./SS-Panzerregiment 12., 1944, 2, Divize SS [SS Division], 2. čs. odboj a fondy a sbírky z let 1939-1945 [2nd Resistance and Funds and Collection from 1939-1945], Vojensky Historicky Archiv, Prague; Stephan Cazenave, SS-Panzer Regiment 12 in the Normandy Campaign (Winnipeg: J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Inc, 2020); and Georges Bernage and Frederick Jeanne, Three Days in Hell: 7-9 June 1944 (Bayeux: Editions Heimdal, 2016).
(6) Terry Copp, Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 72-73.
(7) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 264, 285.
(8) Rudolf Lehmann, The Leibstandarte III: 1 SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (Winnipeg: J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1990), 105. Meyer and Wünsche
(9) Lehmann, The Leibstandarte III, 123.
(10) Stephan Cazenave, Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend Front de Normandie: SS-Panzer Regiment 12 Normandie 1944 (Bayeux: Maranes Editions, 2014), 181.
(11) John English, The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2009), 51.
(12) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 113.
(13) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 206.
(14) David Greentree, Normandy 1944: Hitlerjugend soldier versus Canadian Soldier (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2018), 44.

Foster, Monty, Jefferson

(Above): Former Canadian 7th Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier H. Foster (right – then Major-General and commander 4th Canadian Armored Division) with FM Sir Bernard Montgomery in Belgium, October 1944. Foster’s proximity to the battle in Bretteville is ignored in previous accounts of the battle. His headquarters was very close (approx. 200 metres north) to the rampaging Panther tanks during their roughly 6-hour firefight with the RRR, RCA, and Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. Brigadier J.C Jefferson left, commander 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade. [Library and Archives Canada 3199243]

The individual infantry line companies were not mechanised and marched into the area. An anti-tank battery of the 3rd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery soon joined them, as well as a Vickers medium machine gun company of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa Machine Gun Regiment.(15) Matheson immediately made plans on how to deploy his battalion’s companies in discussion with his brigade commander, Brigadier Harry Foster of 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade. His initial dispositions saw his companies take up positions in the area of Rots, Le Villeneuve, Bretteville and Norrey-en-Bessin, dominating the local road network, villages and prominent geographic features.(16) This was in line with the Anglo-Canadian infantry doctrine circa 1944 which demanded ‘defended localities’ if a continuously manned defensive line was not possible or feasible.(17) The RCA assets supporting the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade ‘fortress’ were significant and consisted of the 12th and 13th Field Regiments, RCA, with a total of forty-eight M-7 105-MM Priest self-propelled guns deployed in gun position ‘Nora’ as the 12th Field Group, RCA.(18) West of this and roughly 1000 meters north of Putot were the battery positions of the 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA) and remaining battery positions of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, RCA.(19)

Norrey-en-Bessin 1944

That the Allies had landed in Normandy with significant forces became apparent to Hitler and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) headquarters by the afternoon of June 6, 1944. This led to the release of the 12-SS Panzer Division and the Panzer-Lehr Division, under control of the headquarters of the I.SS-Panzerkorps.(20) By the next day, the Oberbefehlshaber West (OB West), Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, directed that an advance north from Caen would take place with this Panzerkorps and its combat divisions. However, Allied aircraft had significantly slowed the advance of German motorized units and weakened their striking power.(21)

On reaching Caen, roughly half of the 12-SS Panzer Division went into combat on June 7 against the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade northwest of the city. On the night of June 7-8, and on June 8, the remainder of the division arrived piecemeal. This included three Panzergrenadier Battalions (armored infantry) of the 26.SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment; I./12.SS-Panzer Regiment; the remaining battalions of the artillery regiment, 12.SS-Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment; the combat engineer battalion, 12.SS-Panzer-Pioner-Bataillon, as well as smaller divisional units.(22).

The I./12.SS-Panzer Regiment, on June 6, in transit to the front with sixty-six Panther tanks on strength and led by SS-Sturmbannführer Arnold Jürgensen, was alerted to conduct future operations northwest of Caen during the night of June 7/8. The Companies were then directed to depart their waypoint at Maizert at 0930 on June 8 once they had refueled and the 1st, 3rd and 4th Companies arrived in the vicinity of Caen by roughly 1600.(23)

During the night of June 7/8, the first elements of the 26.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt, led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke, also began to arrive south of the Brouay-Putot-Norrey-Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse area. They had been beaten in their race to these positions by the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade. Hasty attempts by the battalions of 26.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt to seize Norrey and Putot were beaten back by determined Canadian defensive actions. Near Norrey an attack by I./26.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Bernard Krause, was defeated in the early morning of June 8.(24) Charlie Company of the RRR, under Maj Stuart Tubb, utilised artillery support in conjunction with machine gun and mortar fire to defeat this haphazard assault, conducted at 0300 without artillery preparation.(25)

Following this failed surprise night attack, the deployment of I./26.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt during June 8, was scattered, with the 1st Company slightly east of Saint Manvieau, the 3rd Company just north of the same village and the 2nd Company in Les Saullets near Le Mesnil-Patry. The battalion hardly appeared to be a concentrated force, its commander at this stage being hard-pressed to merely hold the frontage he had been assigned, never mind move his Panzergrenadier Bataillon forward in a concentrated manner.

notes

(15) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 260-61.
(16) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 217-18.
(17) War Office, “Infantry Training Part I: The Infantry Battalion: 1944 26/G.S. 1070 Publication” (Ottawa: His Majesty’s Stationary, 1944), 39, accessed 8 January 2019, http://wartimecanada.ca/categories/training-manuals?tid=All&page=1.
(18) Marc Milner, “The Guns of Bretteville: 13th Field Regiment, RCA, and the defence of Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse, 7–10 June 1944,” Canadian Military History 16, 4 (2007): 2; and Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 211, 235, Map showing RCA and RA field and anti-tank regiment dispositions.
(19) Milner, Stopping the Panzers, 235, Map showing RCA and RA field and anti-tank regiment dispositions.
(20) Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs and Detlef Vogel, Germany and the Second World War, Vol. VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943-1944/5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 593.
(21) Boog, Krebs and Vogel, Germany and the Second World War, 595.
(22) Meyer, 12. SS Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend, 47-48.
(23) Kriegstagebuch No. 1, I. /SS-Panzerregiment 12., 1944, Vojensky Historicky Archiv. The battalions within a regiment are given Roman numerals in the German unit titles. The Panther crews were not exhausted and the drive of the last sixteen kilometres was not enough to cause massive technical or engine failure in the tanks. The 2. Panther Company did not depart due to a lack of fuel.
(24) Meyer, 12. SS Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend, 50. The advanced artillery observer attached to the battalion could not contact the divisional artillery due to lack of radio contact. Casualties in the failed attack were five killed and twenty wounded.
(25)Zuehlke, Holding Juno, 197. The lack of artillery preparation and attempts at surprise attacks would continue as a favourite, if unsuccessful, tactic of the Waffen-SS.

notes

Canadian Infantry and Royal Air Force personnel talking to French civilians and gendarme, Caen, Normandy, 10 July 1944



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