WHILE THE NORTH SHORE REGIMENT had advanced inland and then fought the long battle for control of Tailleville, the Germans had ponderously been trying to reinforce the beleaguered 716th Infantry Division. The nearest reinforcement immediately available was the 21st Panzer Division under command of Generalleutnant Edgar Feuchtinger, which was spread out across a twenty-five-square-mile area in the vicinity of Caen. Panzer Group West commander General der Panzertruppen Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg, who ostensibly oversaw the operations of Panzer divisions in France, had opposed this scattered disposition as “a striking example of wretched Panzer tactics and the result of Rommel’s orders.” That order to create mobile reserves close to the coast by spreading some Panzer divisions out rather than keeping them together further inland had been vigorously opposed by Schweppenburg without effect. Now he believed the Germans were to pay the price of this folly because the division was too distributed to effectively regroup and lash out with the intended power of an armoured formation against the still weakly established Allied landings.
The 21st Panzer Division’s 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was situated northeast of Caen on the east bank of the River Orne. A second group, consisting of the division headquarters, the 22nd Panzer Regiment (the division’s tank unit), one artillery battalion, and weak elements of the Panzerjäger (antitank) battalion formed a reserve southeast of Caen. Committed to front-line positions along the coast and under command of 716th Infantry Division were a battalion of 192nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the rest of the Panzerjäger battalion. The placing of these units under direct control of General-leutnant Wilhelm Richter, who had no experience in tank warfare, contradicted standard German command doctrine for the control of Panzer forces. Finally, the 193rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment, less a battalion, was situated north of Caen.1
Elements of Major Hans von Luck’s 2nd Battalion of the 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment had been skirmishing through the night with paratroops of the 6th British Airborne Division, who had landed right in the midst of the battalion’s night training exercise. Shortly after those landings started, von Luck had interrogated a captured British Medical Officer and the man’s guarded responses left the major in no doubt that this was the invasion and no diversionary operation.
But when he contacted Feuchtinger’s divisional headquarters, the major had been unable to secure permission to launch a concentrated night attack against the airborne division. The orderly officer on duty had only been able to tell him that Feuchtinger and his general staff officer were in Paris, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel was away from Army Group B headquarters on a visit to Germany, and there was therefore nobody available to authorize such an aggressive response. As the hours passed, von Luck could sense the opportunity to destroy the paratroopers slipping from his grasp. “We were becoming filled with anger,” he later wrote. “The hours passed. We had set up a defensive front where we had been condemned to inactivity. The rest of the division… was equally immobilized, though in the highest state of alert.”2
One phone call followed another, but von Luck was unable to get his orders changed. Finally, at dawn, the major sent his adjutant, Leutnant Helmut Liebeskind, to divisional command with express instructions to not return until he had secured “immediate clearance for a counterattack.” If only Rommel was here, von Luck thought, “he would have disregarded all orders and taken action.”
Liebeskind arrived at divisional headquarters just a few minutes after Feuchtinger’s return from Paris and overheard the generalleutnant having a heated telephone discussion with someone at OKW. “I’ve just come back from Paris,” Feuchtinger shouted, “and I’ve seen a gigantic armada off the west coast of Cabourg, warships, supply ships, and landing craft. I want to attack at once with the entire division east of the Orne in order to push through to the coast.” After several seconds of listening to a voice on the other end, Feuchtinger banged the telephone into its cradle and told the room that permission had been denied.3
Feuchtinger had never seen combat and as an artilleryman had no training in tank warfare. His previous experience had been largely confined to organizing the participation of military units in Nazi Party rallies back in Berlin, which had resulted in his developing close ties to Hitler and other Nazi political figures. Recognizing his own military shortcomings, Feuchtinger had wisely developed a habit of delegating responsibility down the chain of command to those divisional officers, who, like von Luck, were veterans of the great tank battles of North Africa and Russia. But he could not delegate to these men the decision to act without orders and ended up vacillating for several hours while continuing to get direction from von Rundstedt, who in turn was hamstrung by OKW.4
In his command post at Bellengreville about four miles from the most southerly concentrations of the paratroopers, von Luck “paced up and down and clenched [his] fists at the indecision of the Supreme Command in the face of the obvious facts… So the tragedy took its course. After only a few hours, the brave fighting units in the coastal fortifications could no longer withstand the enemy pressure… while a German Panzer division, ready to engage, lay motionless behind the front… In the early hours of the morning, from the hills east of Caen, we saw the gigantic Allied armada, the fields littered with transport gliders and the numerous observation balloons over the landing fleet, with the help of which the heavy naval guns subjected us to precision fire.”
Although refused authorization to go on the offensive, the 21st Panzer Division made every effort to regroup while being harassed by navy and air bombardment, in order to be so positioned that when a counterattack was ordered it could respond with lightning speed. Major von Luck broke his regiment into two strong combat units, with one standing on either side of the Orne, despite the fact that the officer believed “there was no longer much chance of throwing the Allies back into the sea… A successful invasion… was the beginning of the end.”5
While von Luck despaired, his superiors hesitantly began to mobilize to meet the invasion with the reserve divisions. Having engaged in a number of fruitless discussions with Richter and then Richter’s superior, General der Artillerie Erich Marcks, who commanded LXXXIV Corps, Feuchtinger decided to take the fight to the enemy on his own initiative. He ordered the division’s regimental commanders to immediately go on the offensive with their sixteen thousand men by moving to the east of the River Orne to wipe out the airborne units.6
Feuchtinger and his staff believed it was “of paramount importance to capture this sector.” Otherwise, the paratroops would pose “a standing menace to the division’s east wing… be in a position to reinforce this bridgehead [and] constantly tie down strong German forces.” This was also where the Allies would logically gather their forces in from the beaches to effect a breakout from the beachhead onto the Falaise plains, which were ideal for tank operations. If 21st Panzer Division could regain this ground, however, the Germans would be able to form a bridgehead at Ranville from which to attack the Allied east flank and threaten the beaches themselves, particularly Sword and Juno.7
Just a few hours earlier, the division’s tanks and vehicles could have moved from the holding areas south of Caen under the cover of darkness, but now they were exposed to constant harassment by the low-flying Allied Expeditionary Air Force’s fighter-bombers. Still, by maintaining a space of one hundred yards between each tank, the German columns were able to warily creep from one position of cover to another and advance on the Orne without suffering any losses. As his regiment was already close, and in some places actually engaged in sporadic contact with 6th Airborne Division, von Luck was soon in position to begin the offensive upon arrival of the rest of the division. But at 1030 hours, a new set of orders altered Feuchtinger’s attack.8
At his headquarters in St. Lô, Marcks had finally received word that Hitler, having at last awakened and been fully briefed, had ordered OKW to clear 21st Panzer Division for offensive action under LXXXIV Corps command. He also learned that Seventh Army’s Oberst-general Friedrich Dollman was working on getting 1st SS Panzer Corps released to him as well. This would bolster his forces significantly by freeing the Panzer Lehr Division and the 12th SS Panzer (Hitlerjugend) Division to support Marcks’s right flank with counterattacks on the British and Canadian beachheads. But, although both these divisions had been ordered to begin moving towards Caen, they would be hours arriving. So for now Marcks would have to make do with the 21st Panzer Division.9
Marcks immediately informed Feuchtinger that “the bulk of the 21st Panzer Division will attack the enemy forces that have landed west of the Orne; only elements of von Luck’s combat group will attack the bridgehead east of the Orne.”10 Orders issued, the one-legged Marcks jumped into an armoured scout car and raced to intercept the 22nd Panzer Regiment with the intention of personally sending it into battle. Marcks, who had just turned fifty-three in the early hours of June 6, had been instrumental—along with Heinz Guderian, presently serving as Inspector General of Armoured Troops—in developing fundamental aspects of the German blitzkrieg tactics and was no stranger to tank command. When he arrived at 22nd Panzer Regiment’s forming-up area, Marcks grimly approached the regimental commander, Oberst von OppelnBronikowski. “If you don’t succeed in throwing the British back into the sea,” he warned, “we shall have lost the war.”11
TURNING THE BULK of the Panzer division around and moving in the ordered direction proved chaotic, and it was not until 1200 hours that Feuchtinger could report his force fully assembled and starting towards the beaches. The march itself was hellish. Whereas the tankers and mechanized troops had earlier managed to largely avoid detection by the Allied flyers while moving towards the east side of the Orne, their approach to Caen brought them directly into an area being heavily bombed and shelled. “There was only one usable bridge in Caen,” Feuchtinger later wrote. “A further light bridge was available at Colombelles. The approaches of the various combat teams had to be fixed correspondingly.”12
To von Luck, the move meant the majority of the division “had to squeeze through the eye of the needle at Caen, [which] was under virtually constant bombardment from the navy and the fighter-bombers.” The major, however, was not concerned about trying to get his own regiment through Caen, for Feuchtinger had given him a more demanding immediate task. His job was to “crush the 6th Airborne’s bridgehead, recapture the two Orne bridges at Bénouville [on the opposite side of the river from Ranville] and establish contact with the coastal units. Elements of artillery will support you. Start of the attack; as soon as all elements have reached you.” In short, he was to carry out Feuchtinger’s original plan with less than a quarter of the division’s available strength. The major’s 2nd Battalion was to be reinforced by the 21st Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, 200th Assault-gun Battalion, and a platoon of 88-millimetre guns. For tanks, he would receive No. 4 Company of the 22nd Panzer Regiment, but had to send his own 1st Battalion to support the armoured regiment.13
Complicating von Luck’s problem was that several elements of his 2nd Battalion were already locked in heavy fighting to hold back the attempts by the paratroops to extend their bridgehead. This meant that he could only free some of the battalion to participate in the attack. He was also greatly concerned that his only additional infantry reinforcement was in the form of the reconnaissance battalion, which was lightly armed and “not equipped for direct attacking operations.”14
It took until 1700 hours for No. 4 Company to show with its tanks. Word came that the assault-gun battalion could not possibly arrive in the area until sometime in the early morning hours of June 7. As the main divisional attack had already started at 1600 hours, von Luck decided to wait no longer. He ordered the reconnaissance battalion to assume the point and start moving. His route would be via EscovilleHérouvillette to Ranville and the two bridges there.
“The reconnaissance battalion went straight into the attack from its march,” von Luck wrote, “and, supported by the Panzer company, penetrated to Escoville against their surprised opponents. Then all hell broke loose. The heaviest naval guns, up to 38-[centimetre], artillery, and fighter-bombers plastered us without pause. Radio contacts were lost, wounded came back, and the men of the reconnaissance battalion were forced to take cover.”
From a position just behind the reconnaissance troops, von Luck “saw the disaster” and ran to the commander with fresh instructions. He told the officer to assume a defensive position on the southern edge of Escoville, with the tanks in support to block any advance by the paratroops. Then he radioed Leutnant Liebeskind and said to inform Feuchtinger that he was unable to break through on the eastern side of the Orne.
Feuchtinger had divided the main part of the division into two teams—one a mixed force of armour and mechanized infantry and the other mechanized infantry supported by artillery. The Armoured Combat Team’s backbone was 22nd Panzer Regiment with the 1st Battalion of the 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, while the Combat Team consisted of 1st Battalion of the 192nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment with a company of the 220th Panzer Engineer Battalion in lightly armoured half-tracks. Although the armoured team at first glance appeared quite formidable, its one hundred tanks were mostly outdated Mark IVs mounting short-barrelled 75-millimetre guns with an effective range against armour of only two thousand feet. Still, Feuchtinger intended the armoured team to crash out from Caen along a road passing through Lébisy to Hermanville-surMer and clear the coast from the mouth of the Orne to the eastern outskirts of Lion-sur-Mer. The 192nd Panzer Grenadier’s team, meanwhile, would guard the armoured force’s left flank and secure Lion-sur-Mer itself. With Sword Beach effectively destroyed, the 21st Panzer Division could be reinforced by the 12th SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr divisions in the morning. Then, together, this massive armoured juggernaut could roll up the invasion beaches from the most easterly to the most westerly, with Juno Beach the first marked for elimination.15
The counterattack enjoyed initial success as the tanks came up sharply on the 2nd King’s Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI), which was approaching Lébisy in a dash for Caen, and forced it to scramble back a mile to the protection of a ridge at Bieville. Breaking to the left, the German armour swung into a gap between épron and Mathieu to gain Périers Ridge, less than two miles from the open left flank of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s main line of advance. It was a move intended to enable the use of the ridge as a screen to protect the tanks from exposure to the antitank guns of the regiments guarding 3rd British Infantry Division’s western flank. But the Germans were unaware that the British and Canadian armoured brigades possessed a new, deadly answer to the might of their Panzers.
Hidden on the opposing Hermanville Ridge, little more than a mile to the east, were three troops of Firefly Sherman tanks mounting 17-pounder guns. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel J.A. Eadie of the Staffordshire Yeomanry, had anticipated that the Germans would launch a counterattack precisely into the gap between the Canadian and British divisions and use Périers Ridge to mask the move. As the Mark IVs came over the crest of the ridge, Eadie launched his ambush.16 The big guns ripped into the German tanks at a range of just over 6,500 feet and the Germans were helpless to fight back. Sixteen tanks were knocked out in minutes and the rest scuttled back to the safety of the ridgeline.
An attempt by von Oppeln-Bronikowski to sideslip his combat group west to evade the British fire turned into a confused muddle because Allied radio-jamming efforts were so effective that he was unable to establish contact with individual tank crews. Progress by the tanks slowed to a crawl and then stopped entirely when the Germans saw hundreds of gliders descending to land in their rear.
This was the 6th Airlanding Brigade, arriving as scheduled at the end of the day to reinforce 6th British Airborne Division. When the tug planes crossed the coast almost over the heads of the Panzer troops, they released 228 Horsa and 30 Hamilcar gliders that began their descent. Unable to elevate the barrels of the tank and SPG main weapons to engage the British gliders, the Germans sprayed the air with machine-gun fire. Although Feuchtinger later claimed that this fire brought down 26 gliders, the fact was that the British troops were descending towards a drop zone just north of Ranville, well east of the German division’s rear.17 The main purpose of this landing was to strengthen the airborne bridgehead around the Ranville bridges crossing the Orne and Caen Canal to ensure that this vital position was not overrun by expected German counterattacks on June 7 and 8.
To the men of 21st Division’s armoured team, however, it seemed eerily as if the Allies had somehow deliberately mounted a stunning coup de main with glider troops to cut off their lines of retreat. Badly pummelled by British tanks that stood far outside the range of their own guns, and now threatened from the rear, the Germans panicked and began a hasty retreat that was quickly endorsed by Feuchtinger.18
The 192nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment, meanwhile, was already too far forward to think they could escape the illusory trap of the British airborne forces. While the tankers had attempted to work around the deadly Staffordshire Yeomanry tanks, the 192nd Regiment’s commander, Oberst Josef Rauch, had slipped his force along the west flank of Périers Ridge through to Plumetot. From here, it dashed northward along a local road to reach Lion-sur-Mer, and linked up with some elements of the 111th Battalion of the 736th Infantry Regiment dug in before the beach there. But on learning that there was no chance his smaller force would be reinforced by the tank team, Rauch decided he must turn around and withdraw. Poor communications plagued Rauch as badly as had been true for the armoured team and he lost contact with a number of self-propelled guns and the majority of his 1st Company of Panzer grenadiers during the withdrawal. They ended up straying into the lines of the Germans defending the radar station at Douvres-la Délivrande. When Rauch managed to establish radio contact with this lost element and reported their situation back to divisional headquarters, he was informed it would be too dangerous for it to attempt withdrawing and that the troops should strengthen that defensive position until relieved.19
The confusion that mired the 21st Panzer Division’s counterattack had been greatly exacerbated by the actions of its commander. First, Feuchtinger had shifted his headquarters from outside Caen to a new position at St. Pierre-sur-Dives near Troarn to be closer to the offensive he had ordered executed between the Dives and Orne rivers. This placed him a good twelve miles east of Caen and far from the action when Marcks ordered the offensive directed to the west of the Orne. Belatedly desiring to get closer to where the main strength of his division was engaged in battle, Feuchtinger had taken his entire staff—excepting the division’s first general staff officer—off to Richter’s headquarters on the Caen outskirts. In their haste, nobody had thought to take along a wireless set, leaving Feuchtinger dependent on the telephone for communicating through the staff officer to his fighting units. As the telephone exchanges and lines around Caen had been badly disrupted by massive Allied bombing and shelling, he was often unable to establish a link with his own headquarters.20