Falaise: The Flawed Victory - The Destruction of Panzergruppe West, August 1944

Along with the 21st Panzer Division, the 12th SS Hitlerjugend was the nearest armoured division to the Normandy beaches. On 7 June the division counterattacked the Canadian Army but, despite inflicting heavy losses, crucially failed to breakthrough to the beachhead. Seven days later a British naval barrage killed their divisional commander. Thirty-three year old SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer took command, becoming the youngest divisional commander on both sides.

By 9 July the battered division had suffered a staggering 12,000 casualties and was forced to withdraw south of Caen. The 12th SS had little rest, resisting Operations Goodwood, Totalise and Tractable. The survivors fought in some cases to the very last to keep the Falaise pocket open, allowing thousands of survivors to escape.

Combat experience

The idea to create a Hitler Youth or Hitlerjugend division was initially raised with Hitler by Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger in early 1943. His plan envisaged drafting all Hitler Youth members born in 1926 and assigning them to a combat formation. Hitler liked the proposal and ordered Berger to commence organizing a division and the official order was issued on 10 February 1943. Berger nominated himself to be the first divisional commander, but Himmler gave that duty to a former Hitler Youth member, Oberführer Fritz Witt, instead, as he had been commanding one of the 1st SS Panzer Division’s panzergrenadier regiments.

Witt had won the Iron Cross and Knight’s Cross in Poland and France respectively. In the Balkans his men from the 1st SS were instrumental in opening the Klidi Pass, the heart of Greece; during the fighting there, Witt’s younger brother, Franz, had been killed. He then fought in Russia, seeing action at Rostov and Kharkov.

Hitler signed off on a number of additional decrees in April 1943 relating to the formation of the Hitlerjugend Panzergrenadier Division. On 1 May the first batch of 8,000 volunteers reported for six weeks training, although they only received four. At the beginning of July the graduating class were released for service, while a second batch of 8,000 were inducted for training. By 1 September 1943, 16,000 trained recruits were listed on the rosters of the newly-formed Hitlerjugend division and were assembled at an SS training facility located at Beverloo, near Leopoldsbourge, Belgium.

In March 1944, C-in-C West von Rundstedt and I SS Panzer Corps’ commander, SS-Obergruppenführer Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, visited the division at Beverloo. During this highly-publicized and stage managed event the two generals were introduced to the division’s staff and Officers including: SS-Sturmbannführer Arnold Jürgensen, commander of I Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Prinz, commander of II Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bartling, commander of III Abteilung SS-Panzer Artillery Regiment 12; SS-Sturmbannführer Hubert Meyer, Ia (General Staff Officer, Operations) and SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Buchsein, IIa (General Staff Officer, Personnel). Also present were SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, whose units conducted exercises for Runstedt’s benefit.

On 20 April 1944 Witt was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer and on 27 May celebrated his 36th birthday. Well-wishers and Officers from all over the division attended the celebration at the divisional headquarters in TilièSur-Avre castle, Belgium. Witt commanded the 12th SS from 24 June 1943 to 14 June 1944.

On paper, the 12th SS was an extremely powerful armoured formation with a reported strength of 20,540. On 1 June, however, some 2,438 of these troops were probably with the division’s replacement battalion stationed in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Elements of this unit were directed to Normandy, but did not arrive in time to take part in the fighting.

In addition, the Panzerjäger and Nebelwerfer, or rocket launcher, battalions were not combat ready on D-Day. SS-Panzerjäger Abteilung 12 only had a company’s worth of Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers; in total it only received twenty-one Jagdpanzers and the battalion was unable to join the division until 19 July. Similarly, the Nebelwerfer battalion lacked its prime movers, rendering it immobile.

It has been estimated that the 12th SS arrived in Normandy with about 17,000 men. SS-Panzer Regiment 12, under SS-Obersturmbannführer Max Wünche, had an authorised strength of 101 Panzer IVs and seventy-nine Panthers; its actual strength was close to this with ninety-one combat-ready Panzer IVs and another seven in the workshop, along with sixty-six Panthers and two undergoing maintenance at the beginning of June. A further thirteen Panthers were despatched to the division on 7 June.

SS-Artillery Regiment 12 included the usual complement of six Hummel and twelve Wespe self-propelled guns along with the standard towed artillery batteries. Of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 and 26, only SS-Panzer-grenadier Regiment 26’s III Abteilung was fully equipped with armoured personnel carriers, although altogether the division had 333 of these vehicles.

Early on 6 June, 12th SS was put on alert, but SS-Panzer Regiment 12 did not receive its orders until just before midday at 1130. Its I Abteilung assembled in Le Neubourg and then made its way through Thibouville and Bernay to Orbec.

Allied fighter-bombers soon forced the panzers to seek shelter amongst the nearby trees. Panthers of III Kompanie withdrew to Chateau De Launcy near Orbec and that evening combat elements drove through St Pierre-sur-Dives, past Falaise, over the Orne near Thury-Harcourt and concealed themselves in a defile at Maizet.

Into action

On D-Day Hitler dithered, hoping that his infantry would hold the invasion. After midday he passed control of the 12th SS over to General Dollman’s 7th Army. Kurt Meyer, commander of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, came under air attack on 6 June as he graphically relates:

Over the next two days the Hitler Youth of the 12th SS threw themselves with gusto at the British and Canadians. The latter were thrown back for two miles (3km), but their line did not break. The Allies then tried to drive the Germans from Caen, but the only place that the 12th SS gave ground was at Cambes on 9 June. The Allies would learn to fear these Nazi teenagers.

The SS-Aufklärungs Abteilung, or reconnaissance battalion, under SS-Sturmbannführer and Ritterkreuzträger Gerd Bremer, was among the first units to reach the front on the 7th. Upon arrival it manoeuvred through eight miles (13km) of no-man’s land to the division’s far left lank to establish a security line. The battalion beat off numerous heavy attacks during 7–11 June, during which Bremer’s command vehicle was knocked out and he was wounded by shrapnel. Twice wounded, he nevertheless remained with his abteilung until the situation was secure.

The Allies penultimate attack came on 11 June when the British 50th (Northumbrian) Division struck, employing an infantry battalion and eighty-four tanks. This was repulsed with seven Sherman tanks destroyed and the British suffered over 250 casualties. At the battalion command post in Cristot, one of the Shermans was salvaged by Hauptsturmführer von Reitzenstein and Untersturmführer Wieneke and placed over the command post bunker as protection against shrapnel.

On the night of 6/7 June, Fritz Witt reached the HQ of the decimated 716th Infantry Division. It had taken him eight hours to get to them; a good four of which had been spent grovelling in roadside ditches avoiding air attack. The 716th, raised in 1941, had been under 15th Army until June 1942 when it was sent to the Caen area to join Dollmann’s 7th Army. Totally inexperienced, it was one of the weakest divisions in Normandy, numbering just 7,771 men in early May1944. The division had only twenty-one anti-tanks guns, half of which were self-propelled, and forty artillery pieces of Czech and French origin. Initially the division had found itself stretched from Carentan to the Orne estuary until the 352nd Infantry Division arrived and was deployed east of Carentan.

Shortly after, SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer arrived and galvanised the situation, proposing a counterattack on the left flank of 21st Panzer. His SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, part of Kampfgruppe Meyer/Wünsche went into action against the Canadians north of Caen on 7 June, supported by fifty Panzer IVs of II Abteilung SS-Panzer Regiment 12 commanded by Sturmbannführer Prinz. The Canadian 3rd Division was driving on the strategic Carpiquet airfield west of Caen when its 9th Brigade ran into an accidental ambush and was driven from Authie and Buron northwest of the city.

The counterattack was timed for 1600, but four Panzer IVs of V Kompanie under Untersturmführer Porsh ran into Sherman tanks along the Franqueville-Authie road. Three of the panzers were knocked out and it became impossible to wait. Wünsche gave the order and V and VI Kompanies advanced left of the Ardennes Abbey, with VI claiming ten enemy tanks for the loss of five Panzer IVs.

SS-Sturmmann Hans Fenn was almost killed in this battle:

The attack was broken up by Canadian artillery, naval gunfire and air strikes followed by a counterattack by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. That evening the kampfgruppe of panzergrenadiers and panzers held defensive positions stretching from the railroad line between Caen and Luc-sur-Mer to Rue Nationale 13 from Caen to Bayeux. Although the Canadians had pushed through the Carpiquet airfield, the 12th SS had stopped them in their tracks, destroying a total of twenty-seven tanks for the loss of fourteen Panzer IVs. Over the next few days the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, striking from the Caen-Bayeux railway near Bretteville, fought the 12th SS.

On the 8th, Panzergruppe West’s commander, General Schweppenburg, arrived at Meyer’s HQ at Ardenne Abbey outside Caen and unnerved him slightly by saying: ‘My dear Herr Meyer, the war can only be won by political means.’ However, on that day the 12th SS, 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr were thrown into the attack.

The 12th SS found Carpiquet airfield deserted by the Luftwaffe and unoccupied by the Canadians. They now turned on the Canadian 7th Brigade, also part of the Canadian 3rd Division, driving it from Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse and Putot-en-Bessin, though the Canadians in turn recaptured Putot, claiming six Panthers.

Around 2200, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, supported by Panthers, struck toward Bretteville from three directions. The attack from the south resulted in the platoon commander’s tank being immobilised in the town and surrounded. The attack from the southwest was ordered to rescue him, but the lead tank was knocked out and the rest driven off. In the attack from the west, three Panthers were hit simultaneously by concealed Canadian anti-tank guns; two managed to withdraw, but the other burned like a torch, though its crew managed to escape. The following morning the attack was broken off.

During the withdrawal Wünsche was wounded, as SS-Untersturmführer Chemnitz records:

On the 9th, Panthers of III Kompanie, SS-Panzer Regiment 12, under SS-Obersturmführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop, having missed the attack on Bretteville, moved on Norrey with the Caen-Cherbourg railway embankment protecting their right flank. With Wünsche temporarily out of action, Kurt Meyer probably directed this attack. Ribbentrop had been wounded, so Hauptmann Lüdman led his twelve Panthers. However, once beyond the cover of the railway bank well-concealed anti-tank guns knocked out seven tanks and the advance was halted. Crew losses were also heavy, with eighteen of the thirty-five men involved killed.

The Kompanie moved to Fontenay-les-Pesnel to the west, but, with all its tanks suffering mechanical problems, withdrew to Harcourt. Two days later the division’s tanks claimed thirty-seven Shermans for the loss of three panzers in the fighting south of Le Mesnil

The stark reality of war soon came home to Emil Werner, serving with Meyer’s SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25:

The British and Canadians were dismayed at the Hitler Youth’s apparent fanaticism, little realising that they could expect little else from youngsters raised under the harsh dictates of National Socialism. Sergeant Leo Gariepy of the Canadian 3rd Division saw little reason for leniency toward these Nazi teenagers:

Colonel H. S. Gillies, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 15th (Scottish) Division, could not forget the hot reception meted out by the 12th SS at Cambes:

The battle for Hill 112 was a brutal affair. SS-Schütze Zimmer experienced the British attempts to dislodge them on 10 June:

On the 11th, the Canadian 6th Armoured Regiment lost thirty-seven of its seventy-six tanks in the fighting around Le Mensil-Patry. By now the 12th SS had lost about twenty-five per cent of its manpower, twenty per cent of its tanks and ten per cent of its guns. In total about sixty Panzer IV and V tanks remained serviceable. Fritz Witt was killed at Venoix on the morning of the 14th when his HQ was caught in an Allied naval bombardment and shrapnel stuck him in the face. Following his death, Kurt ‘Panzer’ Meyer, took command of the division.

By 15 June it was decided to withdraw the depleted 716th Infantry Division to the south of France and Chevallerie’s 1st Army. In the event this proved difficult as units were with the 346th, 352nd and 711th Infantry Divisions and 21st Panzer. Having suffered 6,261 casualties its withdrawal was not completed until late July and then it ended up with Wiese’s 19th Army on the French Riviera.

Containing Epsom

It seemed that the British Operation Epsom, designed to punch west of Caen on 25 June, could not fail; directly in its path lay the 12th SS holding the line from Fontenay-le-Pesnel through St Marvieu and Cheux, eastwards to Carpiquet air field. Rommel moved the 2nd Schwere Panzer Kompanie (Heavy Tank Company) with Tiger tanks behind SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26. The British XXX Corps was to jump off first, followed by VIII Corps the following day. The latter had 60,000 men, 600 tanks, 300 guns and the support of another 400 guns from the flanking XXX Corps, plus naval and air support. It fell to SS-Panzer Regiment 12 and SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 to resist VIII Corps, while just to the west of Caen SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 was facing the Canadian 3rd Division

The plan was for the British VIII Corps to break through between XLVII Panzer Corps and I SS-Panzer Corps, force a bridgehead over the Odon River and take the strategic height of Hill 112. For the British it was a race against time as the II SS Panzer Corps and 2nd SS were heading for the sector; even if the attack pierced the in-depth defences of the 12th SS, the intervention of German armoured reinforcements could kill Epsom.

On 25 June, XXX Corps conducted Operation Dauntless, a subsidiary attack to secure VIII Corps’ western lank before the main offensive carried out by the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, supported by the 8th Armoured Brigade. The 49th also conducted Operation Martlet, intended to capture Fontenay-le-Pesnel.

Second Lieutenant Stuart Hills, Nottinghamshire Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, 8th Armoured Brigade, was then a fresh faced twenty-one year-old who had only been with them since January, having arrived straight from the Officer Cadet Training Unit at Sandhurst. The Sherwood Rangers were assigned to support the 147th Brigade’s attack on Fontenay. Recalling his role in Operation Epsom, Hills remembered a stiff reception from the 12th SS:

The attack, though, was renewed, Fontenay captured and the road to Caen cut. A Squadron moved forward to attack Rauray. As Stuart Hills relates it was in for a nasty surprise:

Hot splinters from the driver’s visor had caused the crew to abandon their tank, not the shells from the Rangers’ Shermans. Some of Semken’s tanks included the Sherman Firefly armed with the powerful 17-pounder anti-tank gun and by the end of the day they had accounted for thirteen Panzer IVs, a Tiger and a Panther tank.

Between Tessel Wood and Rauray, ten Tiger tanks were dug in and the SS-Panzer Regiment 26 repulsed the British attack through Le Manoir from Tessel towards Rauray and established positions near Le Haut du Bosc, facing toward Cheux. Assembling across the line Fontenay–Tessel–Bretteville to attack toward Juvigny, the heavy tank company’s actions left SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, which lay directly in the path of the British attack, unsupported. The latter was thrown into a counterattack at 0500 on the 26th

Hubert Meyer, Operations Staff Officer, 12th SS, expecting an armoured attack, tried to get the order rescinded but I SS Panzer Corps would not comply. The results were predictable:

The 15th (Scottish) Division, with 11th Armoured Division and 31st Tank Brigade, also broke through the 12th SS defences. Likewise, the 43rd (Wessex) Division, supported by the 4th Armoured Brigade, reached Mouen. On the 27th, the 15th (Scottish) Division captured a bridge over the Odon and 11th Armoured Division moved to take Hill 112.

On the 28th a hastily-formed kampfgruppe from 12th SS supported by 21st Panzer’s 4th Kompanie, Panzer Regiment 22, which had been redirected from the British airborne bridgehead, attacked along the railway embankment toward Mouen. The young panzergrenadiers broke through and drove the British back.

With the British pouring out of the Odon bridgehead, the Luftwaffe Motorised Flak Unit I/53 armed with 8.8cm dual-use guns, which had been protecting the 12th SS workshops, was moved forward. Its job was to relieve a battalion of 12th SS on Hill 112. What they found was half a company of exhausted teenagers who had fought hard to fend off encroaching British tanks the previous day.

The Luftwaffe’s flak guns were soon engaging British armour coming through the village of Esquay to the southwest. The following day, British tanks and air attacks drove them from the hill. The British 20th Armoured Brigade withdrew from Hill 112 on the night of 29/30 June, not because of the dogged resistance by12th SS but the arrival of II Panzer Corps with the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, which came into the line between XLVII Panzer Corps and I SS Panzer Corps.

The Germans had succeeded in containing Epsom but at a cost of over 2,600 casualties sustained by the 12th SS. Epsom cost the British VIII Corps 4,020 casualties; the 11th Armoured Division alone lost 100 tanks and suffered 1,000 killed, wounded and missing during 26–29 June.

By early July the SS holding Carpiquet air field were expecting an attack by the Canadian 8th Infantry Brigade. The garrison consisted of just 150 Hitler Youth teenagers drawn from SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25; about 100 were on the air field and the rest in the village of Carpiquet itself, supported by a few tanks and an 8.8cm gun. The attack was launched at 0500 on 4 July and the Canadians cleared Carpiquet village and then ran into the panzers and the gun. The Germans counterattacked the following day.

On 6 July panzergrenadiers of the 12th SS deployed to the northern suburbs of Caen. Within two days they and a regiment from the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division were ejected by Montgomery’s frontal assault on the city known as Operation Charnwood, which commenced on the 7th. Initially Caen was heavily bombed and then, on the 8th, German defences were smothered by an artillery barrage. Major General R F L Keller’s Canadian 3rd Division attacked on the German left, L O Lyne’s inexperienced 59th (Staffordshires) in the centre and L G Whistler’s 3rd Infantry on the right.

The Canadians sought to exploit their gains at Carpiquet, striking Caen from the west. To the east, the 3rd Infantry were to secure Lebisey and Herouville, their original D-Day objectives. The bombing, while impeding the progress of the attackers, did not completely neutralise the defenders and 7.5cm and 8.8cm anti-tank guns met the tanks. At La Bijude the 12th SS were well entrenched and it took two attempts before it was firmly in 59th Division’s hands. They were then brought to a halt before Malan.

The British 3rd Division reached Lebisey and Herouville within an hour and brushed aside the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, only to find Caen an impassable sea of craters and rubble. In the meantime, the 1st SS tried to mass their armour for a counterattack, but air strikes and naval gun fire drove back their thirty-five panzers, which suffered some losses.

At the village of Buron, northwest of Caen, elements of III Abteilung, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 were surrounded and on the verge of being overrun by Canadian tanks. Kurt Meyer and General Eberbach, Panzergruppe West’s commander, were at the Ardenne monastery. Meyer recalled the dramatically unfolding events:

Loathe to enter the village without infantry support, von Ribbentrop quickly found the tables turning as he noted:

The company’s remaining tanks spent the rest of the day under heavy artillery fire around the monastery. Several engagements with enemy armour took place, which prevented the enemy from advancing any further and enabled the monastery to be held until it had to be abandoned soon afterwards.

SS-Unterscharführer Freiberg, serving with Ribbentrop, found himself in one of the three Panthers knocked out:

His tank withdrew to Ardenne monastery, south of Authie, only to be attacked by Allied fighter-bombers. During the fighting in the Buron area 1st SS lost thirteen panzers to a Canadian 17-pounder anti-tank gun battery. Having secured Buron the Canadians took Ginchy, Authie and St Louet as the SS abandoned Carpiquet. During the heavy fighting on 8 July III Kompanie’s Panthers destroyed twenty-seven tanks, eight Bren gun carriers and four antitank guns.

The British, suffering heavy losses, took Malan on the 9th, and the loss of the defensive chain of villages north of Caen now meant that the city itself was open to attack. At this point Kurt Meyer took the decision to withdraw south of Caen and back over the Orne to spare his men further slaughter. To the west of the city he also withdrew from Carpiquet air field. South of the river his men entrenched themselves in the industrial suburbs of Colombelles and Faubourg de Vaucelles.

Although the 12th SS could not retain Caen they had, along with Panzer Lehr, denied it to the Allies for just over a month. By the 9th, the 12th SS had lost fifty-one Panzer IVs and thirty-two Panthers. Three days later the division received a welcome respite from the bloodletting when it was relieved by the 272nd Infantry Division and sent to Potigny, 20 miles (32km) north of Falaise, to recuperate.

Thus, at the time of Operation Goodwood on the 18th, the 12th SS was resting in reserve, except for a strong kampfgruppe under Max Wünsche, which Hitler ordered to the coast at the Orne estuary to counter a spurious invasion threat. With the onset of Goodwood the division was called back into the line and remained in the Caen area, fighting along the Caen–Falaise road.

Several kampfgruppen were formed including Wünsche, Olboeter, Krause and Waldmüller. On 6 August they tried to seal the Orne bridgehead after Major General O Lyne’s 59th (Staffordshire) Division had crossed, but to no avail. The II Abteilung of Panzer Regiment 12 was in support of Kampfgruppe Krause near Grimbosq on the Orne, just over nine miles (14km) from Caen.

Battle for Falaise

On 1 August the inexperienced Canadian 4th and Polish 1st Armoured Divisions arrived in Normandy. Following the launch of Operation Totalise to take Falaise just six days later, these two divisions were tasked to breach the Germans’ second defence line between St Sylvian and Bretteville, but they were to run into successive defensive lines held by the 12th SS and the 85th, 89th and 272nd Infantry Divisions forming Dietrich’s I SS Panzer Corps. These defences included sixty hulled-down panzers, self-propelled guns and ninety8.8cm antitank guns.

The initial attack for Totalise by the Canadian 2nd and British 51st (Highland) Divisions opened at 23.30 on 7 August, following a bombardment involving 1,000 heavy bombers. The 89th and 272nd Infantry Divisions all but collapsed, but, with stout support from Meyer’s 12th SS, the 85th Division blocked the Allies’ way. By dawn the Canadians had managed to advance just three miles (5km) before they ground to a halt. The Polish 1st Armoured on the left flank, east of Hautmesnil, and the Canadian 4th Armoured on the right, just north of Bretteville-sur-Laize, were thrown into the attack the following day to try to break the deadlock.

Kurt Meyer drove cross-country to Cintheaux to rally Kampfgruppe Waldmüller in an attempt to halt the British and Canadian Totalise offensive on 8 August. The significance of Falaise dawned on him:

Kurt Meyer was to give both armoured divisions a bloody nose; Panthers of the 12th SS and Tigers of Abteilung 101 held the Canadians at Bretteville and Cintheaux; the Poles were countered at St Sylvain, losing thirty tanks while trying to barge the 12th SS out of the way. On the 9th, Max Wünche’s Panthers, I Abetilung SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 and troops from the 85th Infantry Division, the latter having only recently arrived in Normandy, counterattacked the Canadians on Point 140. In the bitter tank-to-tank battles the Canadians were driven off with the loss of forty-seven tanks; miraculously, SS-Panzer Regiment 12 lost none.

The following day, the 12th SS were involved in trying to stem the Canadian attack on Point 195. With Kampfgruppe Krause’s flank at risk from the Poles to the northeast, who were trying to force the River Laison near Condé-sur-Ifs, a dozen panzers had to be diverted to counter this new threat.

By the end of 10 August Meyer had just fifteen Panzer IVs, five Panthers and fifteen Tigers facing 700 enemy tanks. However, in the area defended by the 12th SS alone, over 100 had been destroyed in the fierce close combat. By now the American breakout from Avranches was well under way and, with the US 1st and 3rd Armies charging westward, Totalise became Operation Tractable, intended to close the neck of the developing Falaise salient. The 12th SS now became instrumental in preventing this happening.

The Canadians attacked on 14 August and despite getting to within three miles (5km) of Falaise the neck was still 15 miles (24km) wide. To the south General Wade H Haislip’s US XV Corps, instead of driving northward to Argentan and beyond to link up with the Canadians, was directed to Dreux and the Seine with the view of making a much wider envelopment.

Captured intelligence tipped the Germans off that Tractable would fall to the east of the Caen–Falaise highway, this gave the 12th SS the opportunity to make some hurried preparations. Meyer regrouped his exhausted division on the high ground in front of Falaise and the River Dives. The remains of the 89th and 271st Infantry Divisions redeployed to the hills to the northwest and the 89th along the River Laison. They would contest every inch of the way to Falaise.

Meyer and Wünsche knew that the key strategic ground northwest of Falaise lay around Point 159. The Canadians drove from Soignolles to Potigny and Sassy, while at Perrières and Jort the last few panzers were quickly put out of action. On the 15th, Point 159 was heavily bombarded and then assaulted by Allied tanks; they were stopped cold. SS-Sturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Prinz was killed, while to the right of the hill RAF Typhoons set about the panzers. The pressure was such that only a few panzers were able to cling to the reverse slopes and in the afternoon were forced to abandon their positions.

Final days

Although the Canadians reached Falaise on 16 August, the 12th SS held out in the town until the 18th, four days after Tractable commenced. By now the Battle for Normandy was all but over. Between 6 June and 22 August, Hitler’s fanatical and resolutely fearless teenage Nazis lost around 8,000 killed in action, wounded and missing. This seemed a deathblow from which no unit could hope to recover.

Nonetheless, most of the division’s combat arms and rear services were not encircled at Falaise, resulting in moderately low casualties during the latter half of August. Also, many of the missing who were not captured made their way back to the unit. For this reason, despite the disaster of Falaise, from 15–22 August the 12th SS lost less than 1,000 men, consisting of forty-five killed, 248 wounded and 655 missing. It would soon rise from the ashes of Normandy, ready to fight again.