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

The 9th Panzer Division’s efforts to stop the American break-out to the west and subsequent envelopment of German forces from the south were ill fated. The division was another exhausted unit pulled out of the Eastern Front and fleshed out with reservists. It was not ready for combat until almost the end of the Normandy campaign. Even then it did not fight as a coherent formation.

The US 3rd Army, consisting of seven armoured, fourteen infantry and two airborne divisions, became combat operational on 1 August. Ignoring General Bradley’s orders to secure a wide corridor, Patton squeezed his armoured divisions down the coast in twenty-two hours. He was now ready to sweep southeastwards in order to trap the Wehrmacht in northwestern France.

Swinging toward Le Mans, Patton knew that if the Germans persisted with their Avranches/Mortain counterattack they would ultimately not be able to get away. Slowly but surely, the German 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army were being wedged in a giant vice. In trying to stop Patton, 9th Panzer went into action on 10 August and swiftly was reduced to a dozen tanks.

Combat experience

The 9th Panzer Division was created in January 1940 from the 4th Light Division. It took part in the attack on Western Europe, fighting in the Netherlands, Belgium and finally France before being transferred to Poland in September 1940. It was involved in the invasion of the Balkans before fighting on the southern sector during the invasion of the USSR. It was then transferred to the central sector in October 1941 and took part in the summer offensive of 1942 and later, like 2nd Panzer, in the fighting at Kursk. The division was transferred to the southern sector in the fall of 1943 and took part in the fighting on the Dnieper, suffering heavy losses. By this stage the formation was all but exhausted by the unrelenting combat.

In March 1944, desperately in need of a refit and rest, 9th Panzer, under Generalleutnant Erwin Jolasse, was sent to southern France, where it absorbed the 155th Reserve Panzer Division. The division’s Panzergrenadier Regiment 11 remained on the Eastern Front and did not rejoin its parent unit until mid-June. Jolasse had started the war commanding infantry units, until he took over the 18th Panzer Brigade in March 1942, followed by the 9th Panzer Division in late July 1943. He and his men found France a world apart from the bloodletting experienced fighting in Russia.

The 155th Reserve Panzer Division was a fresh formation, having only come into existence in the summer of 1943. Previously it had been designated Panzer Division Nr. 155, created in the spring of that year, largely as a training unit under General Franz Landgraf. The 155th, commanded by General Max Fremerey from October 1943 until late April 1944, included Reserve Panzer Abteilung 7, Reserve Panzergrenadier Regiment 5, Reserve Panzerjäger Abteilung 5 and Reserve Artillery Abteilung (motorised) 360. It must have been rather daunting for the relatively-new recruits and transferees joining the bloodied veterans of Kursk and the Dnieper; their stories cannot have greatly helped morale.

Unfortunately for Jolasse, on D-Day the 9th Panzer Division was far from combat ready; the II Abteilung Panzer Regiment 33, like so many other armoured units, was at Mailly-le-Camp, training and receiving shipments of much needed Panther tanks. In addition, the process of assimilating the 155th Reserve Panzer Division took time. It was not until late July that 7th Army began contemplating deploying 9th Panzer between Alençon and Domfront, with a view to it taking part in the proposed Mortain counterattack.

On 27 July the division was put on notice to be ready to march north from the Avignon area. Unfortunately for General Jolasse, when he received his marching orders the Panther battalion had already departed Mailly-le-Camp, heading south, and had to retrace its steps, wasting precious time. On the road between Mailly-le-Camp and Normandy they were caught in the open and a number of lorries were left as blazing wrecks.

Although earmarked for the Mortain counterattack, the Panther abteilung never arrived in time. In fact, all the travelling caused the tanks major mechanical problems. By 1 August, 9th Panzer and six Infantry Divisions of varying quality were heading for the Normandy battlefield now that it was clear to the Germans that Cobra represented a very real threat.

Rumbling north, 9th Panzer was set upon by the French Maquis and Allied aircraft. Nonetheless, despite numerous air attacks, the division seemed to escape largely unscathed as it moved north. After the war, Jolasse claimed that his division suffered no significant losses in men or equipment during its march to Normandy. It arrived at the front with a total of eighty-two Panzer IVs, seventy-nine Panthers, nine Marder self-propelled guns and five StuG III assault guns.

Mortain counterattack

Coming into the line on 6 August, the division deployed from Domfront in the north to Mayenne in the south, along with a mixture of other units. It ended up scattered, with elements of its panzer regiment, panzergrenadier regiments and artillery regiment east of Domfront, west of Alençon, and north of Angers, as well as in the Tours and Trun areas.

In fact, the division never got to fight as a whole, due to the destruction of the bridges over the Loire and the Allied landings in southern France in mid-August. Elements of the support services never reached the division in Normandy and were not reunited with the parent formation until it had retreated to Metz following the defeat. In the event, the Domfort-Mayenne defensive line soon became untenable once the Americans reached Alençon, way to the east in the Germans’ rear.

For the Mortain attack Field Marshal von Kluge had to make do with what troops he had available, although Hitler did authorise the release of a new corps and two divisions. General der Panzertruppen Adolf Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps, based in distant Rouen, was due to assume command, with 9th Panzer ordered north from Avignon and the 708th Infantry Division redeployed to Royan.

Kuntzen was an experienced Panzer Corps commander who had fought in Poland and on the Eastern Front. He had been sent to take charge of LXXXI Corps in April 1942, where he had languished ever since with the Dieppe raid being the high point of his deployment to France. However, neither of his assigned divisions made it to Mortain in time as General Patton’s forces obstructed them. The 708th Infantry managed, with some difficulty, to deploy only 5,000 men in the Laval-Le Mans area, right in the path of Patton’s US 3rd Army.

Therefore, for the Avranches counterattack in early August, although the 9th Panzer along with the 708th Infantry Division were placed under Kuntzen’s direction, they were simply instructed to protect the lank of 7th Army at Domfront-Mayenne, north of Montsurs, and to prevent an American armoured attack in the Alençon area.

The division could muster just fifteen combat-ready Panzer IVs of the I Abteilung Panzer Regiment 33, its two panzergrenadier regiments, 10 and 11, the reconnaissance and pioneer battalions and most of its artillery regiment. The wayward Panther battalion was assigned to the II SS Panzer Corps on the 9th, but in the event was sent to Krüger’s LVIII Panzer Corps and five days later was placed under operational control of Gerhard Graf von Schwerin’s 116th Panzer Division.

Patton’s newly-formed XV Corps, under Major General Wade H Haislip, reached Le Mans on 8 August, outflanking Krüger’s LVIII Panzer Corps and Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps, the latter consisting of little more than 9th Panzer and some ad hoc units. By the 10th it was clear that strong American forces, including the US 5th Armored Division, had successfully pivoted from Le Mans northwards, with the US XV Corps striking toward Alençon. The 9th Panzer, with just seven combat battalions holding a thirty-one mile (50km) front, was able to do little more than delay the advance of the American Army.

In desperation, a kampfgruppe drawn from the 352nd Infantry Division was deployed to the east and northeast of Le Mans. At the time of D-Day this division had its own mobile anti-tank force in the shape of Panzerjager Abteilung 352, equipped with fourteen Marders and ten Sturmgeschütz IIIs. The division suffered heavy losses in the subsequent fighting against the American landings and by the end of July was no longer combat capable, with less than 100 combat-ready men supported by just two Sturmgeschütz, four heavy anti-tank guns and four artillery batteries. Under such circumstances little could be expected of the 352nd.

It also had operational control of elements of five other Infantry Divisions. Understandably, at the beginning of August the remains of the 352nd were withdrawn from the front. It had spent barely a week refitting southeast of Alençon before it became embroiled in the desperate rearguard actions along the axis Le Mans-Dreux. Inevitably the 9th Panzer, 352nd and 708th were too weak to hold off the fresh American armour. The battle that followed was to be desperate and confused.

Battle for Beaumont-sur-Sarthe

At 0300 on 10 August, orders were received that General Haislip’s US XV Corps would attack at 0800 to seize the line Sees-Carrouge, north of Alençon. German defences consisted of elements of 708th Infantry Division on the left, with 9th Panzer Division in the centre, and Panzer Lehr Division on the right. The American 5th Armored Division was to attack in the east with 2nd French Armoured Division to the west.

The Americans crossed the startline and by 1100 were meeting strong German armoured and artillery resistance. About fifty panzers were encountered and several counterattacks were repulsed in securing the Sarthe river crossings. German anti-tank units were discovered deployed at road junctions and critical points and nine American tanks and two armoured cars were lost to combined ambushes.

Jolasse’s 9th Panzer encountered the American’s in the Beaumont-sur-Sarthe area, roughly midway between Le Mans and Alençon, and the division’s two kampfgruppen were engaged in heavy fighting on both sides of the River Sarthe. Despite their best efforts, the Americans swarmed round the division’s flanks. The command post of both the 9th and Panzer Lehr Divisions came under attack and were forced to retire. With the 9th Panzer outflanked, the French seized the bridges over the Sarthe and in fierce fighting the division was shattered, losing 100 tanks.

In the late afternoon on the 10th, elements of the 9th counterattacked and drove back the Americans who had advanced via Rouessé-Fontaine. By the end of the day, 9th Panzer and the 352nd Infantry Division had claimed thirty-six American tanks. Nonetheless, by the evening the American Army was in Beaumont, Ballon, Marolle-le-Braukts, Bonnétable, La Ferté-Bernars and beyond Nogent-le-Rotrou. Oberst Max Sperling replaced General Jolasse and the division was increasingly involved in the heavy fighting south of Alençon.

The following day, the 9th’s two kampfgruppen were almost decimated in the futile and heavy defensive battles. Whilst the 352nd’s kampfgruppe was able to establish a new defensive position near Huisne, a gap formed either side of Mamers, into which poured Allied armour, including the newly-arrived French 2nd Armoured Division under General Leclerc. German armoured forces were appearing in greater number in an effort to stop the advance, with as many as 200 panzers reported in the area, though such a number seems unlikely. It was also notable that panzers were now tenaciously contesting the roadblocks.

After the French 2nd Armoured Division liberated Alençon on 12 August, the 9th Panzer lay in ambush in the Forêt d’Ecouves south of Tanville. Leclerc’s forces skirted east and entered Sées, but became tangled with the American 5th Armored Division. By mid-afternoon the French were northeast of Tanville, which was liberated the following day, although the forest remained full of Germans.

During the afternoon and early evening of the 12th, a column from the French 2nd Armoured blocked the supply route through Sées, three miles (5km) east of the boundary between themselves and the American 5th Armored Division. Refuelling of the 5th Armored was delayed six hours by this traffic jam. Consequently, its attack towards Argentan was not launched until just before dark and was stopped short of the town. Remarkably, German aircraft strafed the Americans three times during the day. That night, American patrols did enter the town.

German casualties suffered fighting the Americans to date amounted to 301 killed, 362 captured; vehicle losses were seventy panzers, eighty-eight motor vehicles, two armoured cars and seven pieces of artillery. The German defences were now in chaos, units identified being not only 9th Panzer but also elements from the 2nd SS, 6th Parachute, 9th SS, 10th SS, 12th SS, 17th SS, and Panzer Lehr, as well as scattered service and GHQ units.

Final days

Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps, including 9th Panzer, Panzer Lehr and 708th Infantry Division, were tasked to take part in the aborted Alençon counterattack on 13 August, though in reality Kuntzen’s only effective force was a small combat group from Panzer Lehr.

The 9th Panzer’s II Abteilung was pulled out of the line on the 15th to fight on the lower Seine. The rest of the division escaped being trapped in the Falaise pocket after it was ordered to withdraw southwest of Paris, having lost about 3,500 men in the fighting. By this stage the Americans were completing their wider envelopment toward the Seine.

By the end of August, the French 2nd Armored Division claimed to have killed 4,500 Germans and captured another 8,800, as well as accounting for 117 tanks, seventy-nine guns, and 750 wheeled vehicles. Many of these were from 9th Panzer. However, the uncharitable have assessed that the French, being road-bound, ‘claimed’ all casualties they came across.

Major General Walton H Walker’s US XX Corps reached Chartres on 16 August and four days later was at Fontainbleu, just short of the Seine. Just to the north, Haislip’s US XV Corps was at Dreux, west of Paris, while way to the south Major General Gilbert R Cook’s US XII Corps had liberated Orleans on the 17th. Sperling’s 9th Panzer could do no more. The German defeat in Normandy would be complete within three days.