Death Ride of the Panzers

by Dennis Oliver

  1.03. Photographed sometime after on July 18, 1944 following the bombardment that preceded Operation Goodwood, this Tiger I of 3.Kompanie, schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 was commanded by Oberfeldwebel Sachs. By the end of the first day of Goodwood, the battalion’s third company would be reduced to just a single serviceable tank.

  1.04. British troops inspect a Tiger II of 1.Kompanie, schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 in Le-Plessis-Grimoult, south of Caen, on August 10, 1944. The company began the campaign with twelve of these tanks with the so-called Porsche turret and two Tiger I tanks, which also equipped the second and third companies. British accounts insist that this tank was knocked out by a round from a 2inch mortar, although it is difficult to believe that such a small projectile could have account for the damage seen here. German records state that it was disabled by a nearby explosion. By the time this photograph was taken, the battalion was down to nine operational Tigers.

  1.05. Photographed near Saint-Germain-de-Tallevande on August 15, 1944, this badly damaged Sturmgeschütz III may have belonged to 2.SS-Panzer-Division or 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, both of which were operating near there at the time and had a number of these vehicles on hand.

  1.06. A Sturmgeschütz III ausf G said to have been photographed near Tournai-sur-Dives on August 21, 1944. In the original print of this photograph it is possible to see what may be the unit insignia of 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen on the front fender. The second battalion of the division’s SS-Panzer-Regiment 9 was equipped with these vehicles. The application of the Zimmerit paste in the so-called waffle pattern is indicative of assault guns manufactured by the firm of Alkett. The absence of a gun travel lock on the hull front would suggest that this vehicle was assembled prior to May 1944.

  1.07. This Panther ausf A was photographed in the ruins of Rue Saint Germain in the town of Argentan on August 21, 1944, by which time the fighting was taking placed to the north in the Falaise Pocket. This tank is usually associated with I.Abteilung, Panzer Regiment 24 which was attached to 116.Panzer-Division, however there is some suggestion that it may have in fact belonged to Panzer-Regiment 33 of 9.Panzer-Division. While both divisions were engaged in this area in mid-August, the distinctive hooks on the turret side would suggest that the Panzer-Regiment 33 identification may be correct. While the Panthers of Panzer-Regiment 24 did suspend lengths of track from the turret sides, they were held by rectangular shaped brackets, usually two per side, welded approximately five inches from the edge of the turret roof.

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  1 It has been suggested, with some justification, that Bayerlein was overstating the case here. The commander of the second battalion of Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130, Major Helmut Ritgen, stated that not one of his Pzkw IV tanks had been lost as his battalion was held in reserve. He also stated that very few of the division’s Panthers and Jagdpanzers, which had been in the frontline, had been destroyed by the bombing. It is entirely possible that the aerial assault accounted for the deaths of more French civilians than German soldiers and it is certainly true that a large number of American troops were killed and injured by their own bombs.

  2 326.Infanterie-Division had replaced 2.Panzer-Division in the frontline around Caumont in late July and was severely battered by British armored units over the next week. Although the division’s Panzerjäger-Abteilung 326 reported that ten Sturmgeschütz III assault guns were on hand in July, they are not mentioned in the following month and may have been either disabled or in repair. In any case, the division was badly undermanned by the first week of August and would lose much of its remaining strength in the defense of Vire. Losses included Drabich-Wächter, who was killed.

  3 Prior to the invasion, the Luftwaffe had just over 3,600 combat aircraft on the Western front. Although this may sound impressive, this total included the single-seat and twin-engined fighters engaged directly in the defense of the Reich and almost 1,000 nightfighters. Dedicated ground attack aircraft accounted for just 265 airplanes. On July 31, the day before the Americans took Avranches, just 231 fighter sorties were mounted over France and the bombers had long been restricted to operating during the short summer nights. It is difficult to understand why Kluge put any faith in Görings promises.

  4 The Belgian city of Liège is referred to in German as Lüttich. In August 1914 Liège, universally considered one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was captured by a small infantry force under the command of Eric Ludendorf, until then an unknown brigade commander. At the time Kluge was a young captain on the staff of XXI.Armeekorps.

  5 In an incredible stroke of bad luck, the Leibstandarte’s progress had been brought to a halt after the Panzer crews had managed to down an Allied fighter, only to have it crash directly onto the lead tank, blocking the road and holding the column up for hours.

  6 Eisenhower and Bradley rejected Montgomery’s plan in favour of the more conservative option of Patton pushing on to Argentan while the British were to take Falaise.

  7 General Heinrich Eberbach, it will be remembered, was Hitler’s choice to lead the Mortain attack. His ad hoc Panzergruppe was one of the last armored reserves left to the Germans and consisted of parts of 1.SS-Panzer-Division and 2.Panzer-Division, the second battalion of Panzer-Regiment 33 of 9.Panzer-Division, and elements of 116.Panzer-Division, although none of the latter’s tanks or reconnaissance units were available.

  8 On the morning of August 14, 1944, this company, which had been continually engaged since the first week of July, had only three operational tanks, numbered 212, 231, and 241. Later that day during an attack near Soulangy Tiger 231, commanded by Untersturmführer Loritz, was lost and late in the afternoon Tiger 212 of Untersturmführer Münster was destroyed by Canadian infantrymen. On the following day the remaining vehicle, Tiger 241 commanded by Untersturmführer Martin Schroif, was joined by the tanks of 1.Kompanie and was involved in the fighting around Potigny.

  9 By this time Bittrich’s corps was made up of the 9.SS-Panzer-Division, 3.Fallschirmjäger-Division, and parts of 21.Panzer-Division while XLVII. Panzerkorps, with General von Funck still in command, contained the survivors of 2.Panzer-Division and 116.Panzer-Division.

  10 By this time 2.SS-Panzer-Division was made up of as few as ten tanks of SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 supported by the remnants of the third battalion of the Der Führer regiment, the remaining assault guns, and parts of the division’s reconnaissance battalion.

  11 Initially trapped inside the Pocket were the greater parts of 84.Infanterie-Division 276.Infanterie-Division, 277.Infanterie-Division, 326.Infanterie-Division, 353.Infanterie-Division, 363.Infanterie-Division, 2.Panzer-Division, 116.Panzer-Division, 1.SS-Panzer-Division, 10.SS-Panzer-Division, 12.SS-Panzer-Division, and 3.Fallschirmjäger-Division, plus stragglers from most of the German units that served in Normandy. Elements of these units would be able to escape during the battle, in particular the armored formations. Probably the most reliable figures given for material losses were those put forward by the Bombing Analysis Unit of the RAF in 1945, which estimated that 900 tanks and self-propelled guns and more than 14,000 motor vehicles were destroyed in the Pocket and the Gap and the fields and villages between Falaise and the Seine.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THERE TREAT

  After months of struggling through the close confines of the Bocage country of northern France and battering away at the German defenses around Caen, the Allies had succeeded in breaking the enemy’s line and encircling large parts of 7.Armee and 5.Panzerarmee in the Falaise Pocket. The opportunity to build a defensive line along the natural barrier of the Seine, as Feldmarschall Kluge had earlier suggested, had been lost and the river now became an obstacle to the retreating Germans. The Seine, as it meanders through northern France, is over 100 kilometers from the Falaise battlefield at its nearest point and the Allies were now racing to cut off the retreating Germans. Additionally, many of the Seine bridges had been destroyed by aerial bombardment and most of the troops who managed to reach the river would have to cross on ferries. De
spite these difficulties, and the fact that most of the retreating units were not coherent formations, the Germans showed few signs of panic and the command staff and technical services performed near miracles in organizing a withdrawal under what could only be described as the worst possible conditions.

  On August 15, while the Canadians were battling to take the town of Falaise, units of the US Army and Free French forces were landing in southern France. The Allied landings on the Côte D’Azur were opposed by Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz’s Heeresgruppe G, made up of a number of infantry formations with 11.Panzer-Division, the only armor available to Blaskowitz, held in reserve. The defenses were spread so thinly that Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the military high command, had seriously considered withdrawal to a defensive line near Dijon, over 300 kilometers from the coast. This idea was quickly dropped in the aftermath of the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler, following which the relinquishing of any territory was looked upon with suspicion. Nevertheless, Blaskowitz realized that the force under his command could not withstand a determined assault, backed as it would be by sea and air power, and planned for a fighting withdrawal towards the north. The only armored formation allocated to Heeresgruppe G was 11.Panzer-Division, which was under Hitler’s direct control and stationed to the west of Avignon and the Rhône river, at least four hour’s drive from the nearest coastline. Blaskowitz had expected to be able to count on the tanks of 9.Panzer-Division, which had been rebuilding at Carcassone, west of Narbonne, but this formation was transferred to the Normandy front in early July.

  Commanded by Generalleutnant Wend von Wietersheim, 11.Panzer-Division was at about half strength in early August. It had forty-nine Panthers and twenty-six Pzkw IV tanks on hand with Panzer-Regiment 15 and a handful of self-propelled guns with Panzerjäger-Abteilung 51 and the division’s two Panzergrenadier regiments. Blaskowitz had made numerous requests that it be moved closer to the area between the port cities of Marseille and Toulon, which he considered the most likely place for an Allied assault. Less than forty-eight hours prior to the first landings, the Führer relented and during the afternoon of August 13, 1944, Wietersheim’s tanks prepared to move east. This was complicated by the need to share any available rail transport with two infantry divisions and the destruction of the bridges across the Rhône during the preliminary Allied bombardment on the morning of August 15, which effectively trapped 11.Panzer-Division on the western bank.

  It would be the afternoon of August 21 before the first elements of the division crossed the river. By this time, US Army units had advanced to Montélimar, almost 70 kilometers north of Avignon, where they were able to threaten the retreating Germans. The infantry formations in the area, under the command of General Friedrich Wiese’s 19.Armee, could do little to halt the Americans and Wiese implored Wietersheim to ferry his tanks across the river by any means available and move with all possible speed to Montélimar. An energetic and experienced commander, Wietersheim directed his armored reconnaissance battalion under Major Karl Bode, which had crossed the river earlier and was intending to feint towards Aix-en-Provence, to now head north to Montélimar. On August 22, Bode’s men arrived in the Montélimar area and found that the Americans had occupied the high ground between the Rhône and Roubion Rivers, from which they were able to fire on any German units withdrawing to the north. Skirting the Roubion, Bode attacked the American position from the rear with the support of a scratch infantry force made up from Flieger-Ausbildungs-Regiment 71, a Luftwaffe training unit. However, the armored car and halftracks of Aufklärungs-Abteilung 11 were at a distinct disadvantage against the American tanks, which received reinforcements during the battle, and Bode was forced to withdraw.

  On the following day Bode made another attack across the Roubion, but his battalion had been greatly weakened by the previous day’s fighting and was driven back by intense artillery fire. Slowly, parts of Wietersheim’s division were able to move towards the north and as Bode’s men were making a final attempt to drive the Americans from their positions on the high ground above Montélimar, the division’s headquarters staff and an armored Gruppe under Major Karl Thieme, a battalion commander of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 110, arrived in the area. On August 24, a detailed copy of the American plans for the following day fell into the German’s hands, allowing General Wiese to prepare a pre-emptive strike. All his available forces were concentrated in Korpsgruppe von Wietersheim, which would include the tanks of 11.Panzer-Division with 198.Infantry-Division, a Luftwaffe infantry unit, and an anti-aircraft regiment equipped with 88mm guns. In addition, five super-heavy railroad guns would be available if the tracks could be kept open. Wietersheim divided his battle group into four elements, each commanded by veterans of the Russian front that he knew well. On August 25, he launched five separate attacks against the American center while his tanks penetrated both flanks along the lines of the Roubion and Drôme Rivers, temporarily isolating the American position. But Allied reinforcements were continually arriving and, although Wietersheim’s men were able to keep the escape routs open, the retreating Germans were almost constantly harassed from the air and by artillery fire. In addition, the Germans had left the main road north at La Coucourde, some 10 kilometers north of Montélimar, completely undefended and the American commander rushed a combined arms team to secure the area and block the road. At midnight Wietersheim, admonished by Weise for such an obvious lapse, personally led a column of his tanks, which charged into the American position and cleared the road, destroying ten American tanks and tank destroyers in the process.

  Despite these tactical successes, the situation of Weise’s 19.Armee was becoming increasingly desperate. The major ports of the south were all in Allied hands and men and supplies were streaming ashore, allowing the Americans to push not only to the north but also the west in pursuit of the withdrawing Germans. On August 24, the Americans had entered Avignon without a fight and had turned north towards Korpsgruppe von Wietersheim and the retreating formations of 19.Armee, held back only by a lack of fuel. Meanwhile, the remainder of Blaskowitz’s army group were fleeing towards the east and were concentrated to the north of Lyon. Under continuous air attack and harassed by Resistance fighters, this force was now in danger of being overtaken by US 3rd Army, which was advancing at a rapid pace from the west and had already crossed the Seine at two points.1

  With the situation at Montélimar stabilized, at least for the moment, Weise ordered the bulk of 11.Panzer-Division with its commander to move north to Lyon, which would have to be held if Heeresgruppe G was to escape destruction. The divisions of General Baptist Kniess’ LXXXV.Armeekorps, which had arrived in the Montélimar area as part of the general retreat, would be given the task of keeping the road to the north open. Between August 26 and 28, Kniess’ infantrymen kept up the attacks against the American positions in the Roubion and Drome areas, cleverly keeping the enemy occupied with their flanks and unable to launch an attack in strength on the road, along which the German forces were still moving north.

  By the evening of August 27, the remnants of General Otto Richter’s 198.Infantrie-Division were the only troops left in Montélimar. Towards midnight Richter gathered his two remaining regiments, with the last of the stragglers that had made their way into the town, and headed north. Unfortunately, they ran head on a major American offensive and Richter and most of his men were forced to surrender.

  During the morning of August 29, units of US 3rd and 36th Divisions entered Montélimar and rounded up some 500 prisoners, capturing a further 2,500 in the general area in the following days. However, the bulk of 19.Armee had been allowed to escape and Wietersheim’s tanks would now be able to cover the retreat as far as Dijon, where Blaskowitz hoped that Wiese’s remaining divisions could form a solid front and await the arrival of the German forces now streaming in from western France. If that could be accomplished, the survivors of Heeresgruppe G would withdraw east towards the Vosges Mountain and the Belfort Gap. Eager to avoid any repeat of the slogging match of
Montélimar, 11.Panzer-Division was ordered to secure Blaskowitz’s eastern flank, fight a delaying action but conserving its precious tanks by denying the Americans a set-piece battle, and gradually pull back in the direction to the Belfort Gap.2

  The situation in the north was no less dire. With the closure of the Falaise Pocket on August 21, 1944, the Canadians had pushed along the coast to Honfleur, on the southern edge of the Seine estuary. Earlier, on August 19, units of US 3rd Army had reached the Seine at Mantes-Gassicourt, almost 60 kilometers north of Paris, and seized a footbridge which German engineers had only partially destroyed. Although of limited use, this bridge posed a serious threat to the German flank and it was only an uncharacteristic lack of aggression on the part of US 3rd Army that saved the Germans from disaster. By August 23, a much more substantial crossing had been captured at Melun; however, this was over 30 kilometers south of the capital. Both these crossings, although unexploited for the moment, were of concern for the Germans: if the west bank of the river from Paris, north to Rouen then on to the coast at Le Havre, could not be held, the retreating German divisions would find themselves trapped in yet another pocket. Nor would the Germans be allowed to retreat unhindered; what remained of the shattered Panzer divisions of 5.Panzerarmee, now commanded by Oberstgruppenführer Dietrich, would have to provide a screen behind which the infantry formations of Eberbach’s 7.Armee could retire.3

  The report prepared by the staff of 5.Panzerarmee made for depressing reading. The armored divisions available to Dietrich could each muster, on average, about 3,000 men. Even this figure is deceptively optimistic as some divisions had been almost totally destroyed; for example, 12.SS-Panzer-Division was left with just ten tanks and 300 men. The total armored vehicle strength of 5.Panzerarmee in late August was made up of approximately 250 tanks of all types.