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

Following the D-Day landings in the early hours of 6 June, it was not until 1400 that the German armoured reserve, Panzer Lehr and 12th SS Panzer Divisions, were released for combat operations. It would take up to three days to bring them into action. The Allied air forces did all they could to impede the panzers’ progress to the front and Panzer Lehr did not escape their unwanted attentions. Most of the Luftwaffe was tied up resisting the Allies’ strategic bombing campaign over Germany or on the Eastern Front.

Panzer Lehr’s commander, General Fritz Bayerlein, soon found that the constant air attacks and High Command’s insistence on radio silence created a state of chaos within his strung-out units. Panzer Lehr’s principal role would be desperately, but futilely, trying to fend off the American breakout, by which time it had suffered losses of 6,000 men. Almost swept away by the American offensive, Panzer Lehr remarkably avoided being trapped in the Falaise pocket.

Combat experience

Panzer Lehr had been formed at Potsdam in November 1943, from demonstration units of the various Panzer schools, and placed under the leadership of Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein. The division was then transferred to France in February1944 and on to Hungary in April of that year, where it absorbed Infanterie-Lehr-Regiment 901. It then returned to France for garrison duties.

Bayerlein was Bavarian, hailing from Würzburg, and like so many of his comrades he had served in the trenches during the First World War. During the invasions of Poland and France he had served as General Heinz Guderian’s First General Staff Officer. In North Africa he served under Erwin Rommel and that other leading panzer exponent, Wilhelm von Thoma. He was lucky to escape the German defeat in Tunisia, being sent back to Italy just before the Axis surrender on 12 May 1943. He then commanded the 3rd Panzer Division in Russia.

In Bayerlein’s capable hands, Panzer Lehr was one of the most formidably equipped panzer divisions in Normandy and was also one of the few divisions at almost full strength. By the beginning of June, Bayerlein’s command amounted to 14,699 Officers and men. Including those forces of the attached Panzer Kompanie 316 (Funklenk – radio controlled), Panzer Lehr amassed ninety-nine Panzer IVs, eighty-nine Panthers, thirty-one Jagdpanzer IVs, ten Sturmegschütz IIIs and eight Tigers (three Tiger Is and five Tiger IIs), giving an impressive total of 237 panzers and assault guns. Initially, Panzer Lehr was stationed in the Chartes–Le Mans–Orléans area.

Fate partly favoured the Allies when it was decided to ship the Panthers of the I Abteilung Panzer Regiment 6, which was on loan from the 3rd Panzer Division, to the Eastern Front. The day before D-Day, the first train bearing this unit reached Magdeburg in Germany, whilst the last was loitering in Paris. Once the Allied landings were under way the battalion was ordered to retrace its steps.

Again fortunately for the Allies, the half dozen Tiger IIs of Panzer Kompanie 316 (Funklenk) were defective prototypes that were due back in Germany. Because they could not be moved by rail they were left at Chateaudun and eventually blown up. Panzer Kompanie 316 (Funklenk) was attached to Panzer Lehr in Normandy for tactical purposes with about ten tanks, though by early July all but two were undergoing repair. It operated closely with the division’s Panzer Lehr Regiment, starting with an operational strength of nine StuG assault guns and three Tiger Is.

The divisional Panzer Artillery Regiment 130 also included Hummel and Wespe self-propelled guns, adding to its armoured fighting vehicle contingent. In addition, all the panzergrenadier units were equipped with armoured halftracks and an array of heavy support weapons.

Bayerlein recalled the almost immediate aerial assault on his division:

Hauptmann Helmut Ritgen also experienced first hand the division’s difficulties trying to reach the enemy:

The pilots of the Allied fighter-bombers attempted to wreak havoc on the division, though there is some dispute as to the exact numbers; losses of over 200 armoured fighting and wheeled vehicles were reported. While the columns of Panzer Lehr struggled toward their objectives under rolling air interdiction, General Bayerlein was severely cut up when his car was attacked; his aide and his driver were both killed. He himself got away, slightly wounded but violently shaken.

Like Bayerlein, his ordnance Officer, Hauptmann Alexander Hartdegen, was demoralised by the constant air attacks, recalling:

Just as crucial were the delays. The Panzer IVs of Panzer Regiment 130 did not reach the woods to the north of Alençon until early on 7 June. The result was that the Panzergrenadier Regiments 901 and 902 and Panzerjçger Abteilung 130 were committed in a piecemeal fashion over the next three days. The Panthers did not arrive until the 10th.

Major Peter Selerie, Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, came into contact with the Panzer Lehr on 7 June:

Into action

Coming up from Lisieux on the 7th, Bayerlein remembered what a bizarre spectacle his division must have seemed:

At Lingèvres Panzer Lehr was thrown into the fray as Leutnant Ernst recalled:

Turning westward, Ernst and the others skirted a small wood. Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a fire-fight with British tanks. He remembered the fierce action:

Carrying their wounded, Ernst and the other tanks of Panzer Lehr withdrew from Lingèvres.

Although only three days into the Allied invasion, Werner Kortenhaus was already full of doom and gloom:

After some difficulty, the bulk of Panzer Lehr came into the line to the left of the 12th SS on 9 June, having driven 90 miles (144km) from Chartres. By this stage the frequent air attacks were causing unwelcome shortages with those troops now engaged in the fighting. The division needed 8,000 rounds of 8.8cm and 60,000 rounds of 2cm ammunition, much of it probably expended shooting at aircraft, but while the quartermaster was sympathetic, petrol shortages meant nothing was reaching him. Even more alarming for Panzer Lehr’s panzertruppen, there was no tank ammunition to be had.

They first went into action opposite the Canadians, but then side-stepped to attack up the road towards Bayeux. The battle of Le Mesnil-Patry resulted in them halting just three miles (5km) from the city on 11 June. Panzer Lehr then went onto the defensive around Tilly-sur-Seulles and, as the rest of its units arrived, British XXX Corps’ advance was blocked. By the 11th the division 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 Mark IV and V tanks remained serviceable.

This forced the British to shift their efforts west of Caen to the flank of Panzer Lehr and the high ground beyond Villers-Bocage. The idea of a right hook was Major-General G W Erskine’s, commander of the 7th Armoured Division, and was first discussed at XXX Corps HQ on 10 June. It was hoped the move would break up the resistance in front of Major General D A H Graham’s 50th (Northumbrian) Division; it was also hoped to encircle the now-troublesome Panzer Lehr.

When 50th Division drove against Panzer Lehr, 7th Armoured Division swung to the west, driving three quarters of a circle into the American sector, then south through the gap in the German line and eastwards behind Lehr at Villers-Bocage. There, on 13 June, they ran into Tiger tanks of Schwere SS-Panzer Abteilung 101. The British were stopped dead in their tracks.

Oberstleutnant Kurt Kauffman, Operations Officer Panzer Lehr, assembled three field guns, two 8.8cm and some rear echelon troops, which he led in a successful attack against Villers-Bocage, while panzergrenadiers of the 2nd Panzer Division began pushing up from the south. By 1600 hours the German attacks had been beaten off, with Bayerlein reporting the loss of six precious Tigers and several PzKpfw IVs. On 14 June Panzer Lehr was transferred to General von Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps control.

That day the British XXX Corps launched a series of attacks using 50th Division against Tilly and Panzer Lehr’s Panzergrenadier Regiment 901, in the hope of forcing Lehr back to enable 7th Armoured Division to continue its own ill-fated offensive. 50th Division’s failure to get forward, the arrival of 2nd Panzer (which fanned out northwest of Caumont, north of Livry and northeast of Villers-Bocage), plus the two-day delay in the British build-up, meant the 7th Armoured was in danger of being crushed.

The division formed a defensive box of about 1,000 by 700 yards, which was attacked on three sides by German armoured forces on 14 June. Colin Thomson of the 11th Hussars recalled:

Lieutenant General G. C. Bucknall, Commander of XXX Corps, failed to ask 2nd Army for direct infantry support for 7th Armoured’s beleaguered tanks. In consequence, when Bucknall was visiting 7th Armoured’s Tactical HQ he had both his escort tanks knocked out by lurking Tigers, and on returning to his own HQ concluded Erskine’s communications were in danger of being severed.

By 18–19 June, however, Panzer Lehr had lost about 100 of its 240 tanks in the bitter fighting in the Villers-Bocage area. Bayerlein claimed this had weakened his division to such an extent that it was no longer capable of launching an armoured thrust towards the sea. Between 26 June and 5 July the 276th Infantry Division, previously deployed in southwestern France, relieved Panzer Lehr, moving into position on its right flank. By this stage the division had lost almost 3,000 killed, wounded and missing. Panzer Kompanie 316 (Funklenk) still had seven operational StuG on 1 July and was pulled out of the front later in July to join the newly-formed Panzer Abteilung 302 (Funklenk).

Cobra strikes

Panzer Lehr was placed in reserve and sent just nineteen replacement panzers. However, the rest was brief and within five days it was committed against the Americans in General Dietrich von Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps sector. On 11 July, Panzer Lehr counterattacked the Americans at Le Désert and made some ground. The attack, launched in the early hours, caused the American 30th Infantry Division problems, though the initial success of the panzers was due to a gap between the American 39th and 47th Infantry Divisions southwest of Le Désert. The Americans rushed in reinforcements, but to the west a column of ten panzers reached south of la Scellerie before losing three Panthers and being driven off.

By 1600 it was clear that Panzer Lehr had failed to break the American lines. American ground forces claimed about fifty panzers and the air force claimed another twenty-two, fighter-bombers reportedly destroying thirteen out of fourteen panzers near le Hommet-de-Arthenay. In reality, Panzer Lehr lost just twenty-two tanks to all causes during 1–15 July. Nevertheless, by 2100 on the 11th the Americans had reoccupied their old positions and the net result of Panzer Lehr’s attack was simply to delay the American 9th Infantry Division by a day. By this stage the division had lost 3,140 casualties.

While Panzergruppe West was given the lion’s share of the resources to fend off the British, General Hausser’s 7th Army facing the Americans was starved of troops. It only had 30–35,000 men divided into two corps, though the Americans estimated its strength as 17,000, with 375 tanks and assault guns. When General Montgomery launched Goodwood on 18 July it convinced Field Marshal von Kluge that the main threat remained in the British sector.

Panzer Lehr now formed the main striking force of von Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps, which was guarding the front from St Lô westward to the coast. Scathingly, Rundstedt’s verdict of Choltitz was ‘decent but stupid’. Choltitz was a veteran of the Eastern Front, having initially fought as a regimental commander at Sebastopol. Promoted to lieutenant general, he also served in Italy before moving to Normandy. His experience directing panzer forces was patchy.

Although an infantry general, in Russia he commanded 11th Panzer for two months in early 1943, followed by the XLVIII Panzer Corps, which included the 3rd and 11th Panzer Divisions, for about five months. The latter suffered heavy losses during the battle of Kursk and, notably, General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Eberbach replaced him. In Italy he had briefly commanded General Traugott Herr’s LXXVI Panzer Corps, consisting of the 26th Panzer and 29th Panzergrenadier Divisions, from 1 March-15 April 1944. He assumed command of LXXXIV Corps in mid-June after his predecessor, Erich Marcks, was killed in action.

Choltitz’s command also included the only other armoured formations on the American front, the 2nd SS Panzer Division and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division. Kluge advised Hausser to use two reserve infantry divisions to replace Panzer Lehr and 2nd SS, but Hausser was reluctant to do so. The II Parachute Corps, under General Eugen Meindl, had its 3rd Parachute Division and 352nd Infantry Division deployed east and south of St Lô, respectively.

Choltitz’s infantry formations consisted of the 243rd, 275th and 353rd Infantry Divisions and the 91st Air landing Division. Following the battles in the Cotentin Peninsula these units were completely depleted. The 275th, which had arrived in Normandy piecemeal as Kampfgruppe Heintz, was divided amongst Panzer Lehr, 2nd SS and LXXXIV Corps. The remains of the 91st were largely attached to the 2nd SS and 243rd.

Similarly, the 353rd was split amongst the 91st, 243rd and II Parachute Corps. The 243rd had just four weak infantry battalions, nine artillery batteries and eight anti-tank guns. Panzerjäger Abteilung 243 had just three Sturmgeschütz remaining from a complement of ten, plus fourteen Marder self-propelled guns. These formations along with Panzer Lehr would bear the brunt of Operation Cobra.

By 20 July, Panzer Lehr had been redeployed west of St Lô, still facing the Americans, though the exhausted reconnaissance abteilung and II Abteilung Panzergrenadier Regiment 902 were withdrawn to the Percy area for refit. Word of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler quickly reached Panzer Lehr as Hauptmann Ritgen recalled, with dismay at the possible outcome:

Hitler’s mistrust of his generals became even more marked, further hampering the direction of the Normandy campaign. Otto Henning of Panzer Lehr felt ‘the worst thing for us was that we were no longer allowed to salute in a normal military fashion with our hand raised to our caps. We had to have our arms raised in the Hitler [Nazi Party] salute’.

Just prior to Operation Cobra, Panzer Lehr had eighty tanks, of which only fifteen Panzer IVs and sixteen Panthers were operational, and was rated suitable only for defensive missions. When the Americans launched Cobra it was the Panther tanks that were at the front. Luckily Bayerlein’s Panzer IVs had been withdrawn to form a reserve and in fact only a few Panthers and tank destroyers were lost to the preliminary bombing.

The division was also reinforced with elements of the 5th Parachute Division, in the form of Fallschfirmjäger Regiment 14 that had recently moved up from Brittany. Its arrival was a mixed blessing; the unit was under strength and under-equipped and did not bring any supporting artillery or flak guns with it. Panzer Lehr also had under its command a battalion of infantry from the 275th Infantry Division, which were the remains of Kampfgruppe Heintz, along with Kampfgruppe Brosow from the 2nd SS.

During the night of 23/24, von Choltitz reported to Hausser’s 7th Army that there was evidence of American armour concentrating north of the St Lô-Périers road; ‘nonsense’, replied 7th Army, ‘The Allies will hit in the Caen sector’. In the prelude to Cobra on 24 and 25 July, Panzer Lehr’s positions were heavily bombed. Bayerlein got a warning phone call at his command post at the chateau at Canisy at about 1100. It was a battalion commander from his Panzergrenadier Regiment 901, stationed along the St Lô-Périers road: ‘American infantry [across the road] are abandoning their positions. They are withdrawing everywhere’. In fact they were pulling back out of the way of the imminent bombardment that would herald Cobra.

Cobra’s opening aerial attack fell squarely on Panzer Lehr and Bayerlein chronicled the destruction of his division:

Initially, von Kluge at La Roche-Guyon assumed Panzergruppe West had been bombed and phoned General Eberbach for a situation report. When the latter informed him Caen was quiet the penny dropped, it was Bayerlein who was on the receiving end of things. Calling Hausser, von Kluge was still unsure what all the air activity actually meant. Panzer Lehr weathered the first attack on the 24th losing just 350 men and ten vehicles.

The following day the bombing cost the division 1,000 men and numerous vehicles caught near the St Lô-Périers road; in particular, a number of Panther tanks were lost. Ironically, the Americans inflicted more casualties on their own men when the bombers dropped their payloads short. Many of Panzer Lehr’s casualties, though, are assessed to have been missing or captured rather than dead. The Allied bombers also cut Choltitz’s communications with Bayerlein, so he sent a runner but received no reply.

Nonetheless, the preceding fighting had proved a heavy drain on Panzer Lehr’s manpower and during June and July they lost almost 6,000 men; replacements numbered less than 2,500. Lacking infantry, it meant Panzer Lehr had to increasingly rely on its tanks and artillery, but this became increasingly difficult in the face of ammunition and fuel shortages. Bayerlein’s men were in no condition to withstand the American onslaught about to be unleashed on them.

By the end of the 25th Bayerlein stoically recalled:

On the 26th, four Panzer IVs and an assault gun attempted to hold the road junction at St Gilles against elements of the US 2nd Armored Division. In response an Allied air strike claimed two tanks and the American armoured column took out the rest. The Americans penetrated seven miles (11km) with the loss of just three tanks. Panzer Artillery Regiment 130 lost its guns northwest of Marigny, which lay between Coutances and St Lô, to the US 3rd Armored Division. Just two days after the American attack opened, Bayerlein had to abandon almost thirty panzers at the repair facility at Cerisy-le-Selle.

Fighting withdrawal

Choltitz’s LXXXIV Corps, in danger of being enveloped, attempted to retreat toward Coutances with the US 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions pressing on its heels. With the American forces driving on Avranches, Panzer Lehr was subordinated to General Funck’s XLVII Panzer Corps.

On the 27th Bayerlein set up a command post at Dangy, south of Marigny. All that remained of his division was a small kampfgruppe with some engineers and anti-aircraft guns deployed at Pont-Brocard. The rest of his men, numbering some 2,300 with Panzergrenadier Regiment 901, twelve tanks and six self-propelled guns, had retreated south to Villedieu-les-Poeles south west of Percy. Suddenly, tanks of the US 2nd Armored Division swept round his command post, driving off those Panzer Lehr units still at Pont-Brocard.

By the afternoon, Bayerlein found his command reduced to seven Officers and fourteen enlisted men, gathered in a farmhouse outside Percy. The arrival of American tanks at dusk, which began to shell the building, meant it was every man for himself. Bayerlein, narrowly missing being blown to smithereens, was the last to leave and in the gathering darkness found himself alone, heading toward Percy. He reached the town at midnight and, finding a radio, reported the loss of his division.

In the meantime, following the failure to hold Cobra, Kluge ordered the dismissal of von Choltitz and 7th Army’s Chief of Staff, General Max Pemsel. The latter was replaced by Oberst Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, who was to later conduct himself with some valour in the Falaise pocket. Choltitz’s poor handling of Panzer Lehr and LXXXIV Corps not only saw him lose his command, but also gain the poison chalice that was the post of military governor of Paris. Generalleutnant Otto Elfeldt commanding the 47th Infantry Division in the Calais-Boulogne area replaced von Choltitz as LXXXIV Corps commander.

By 1 August Bayerlein could muster just over 11,000 men with thirty-three panzers and Sturmgeschütz, although another forty-four were under repair, and just nine howitzers. The only good news was that the division could still field almost 400 armoured half-tracks. In light of the condition of Panzer Lehr, which urgently needed refitting, four days later Kampfgruppe von Hauser was put together with a company of Panzer IVs and a mixed artillery battalion and subordinated to Meindl’s II Parachute Corps. Panzer Lehr now found itself under LVIII Panzer Corps.

General der Panzertruppen Walter Krüger and his LVIII Reserve Panzer Corps staff (von Schweppenburg’s old command) stationed in Toulouse, were ordered to Le Mans to help direct the fight against the Americans. Created in France in 1943, the Corps was transferred from Rambouillet to Müdling, Austria, before taking part in the occupation of Hungary in March 1944. The following month it returned to France, this time to Toulouse, coming under General Blaskowitz’s Army Group G. From mid July1941 to the beginning of January 1944 Krüger had been in command of the 1st Panzer Division.

His new command dropped its reserve designation on 6 July and departed on the 27th, joining Panzergruppe West two days later, though it was subsequently subordinated to 7th Army and Panzergruppe Eberbach. It formed the southern flank of the counterattack near Avranches with responsibility for elements of Panzer Lehr and the 17th SS. Amongst Krüger’s corps assets in Normandy were thirty-eight wholly inadequate Panzer Is.

Krüger and his HQ thus avoided the liberation of Toulouse on 19 August, following the Allied landings in southern France. Only two days earlier, Blaskowitz had been ordered to abandon the city and start withdrawing north. General Ferdinand Neuling’s LXII Corps at Draguignan, a few miles northwest of Le Muy were not so lucky and found themselves surrounded, his two infantry divisions lost in Marseilles and Toulon.

The rest of Bayerlein’s forces were instructed to move to Alençon to refit between the 9th Panzer Division and 708th Infantry Division by 9 August. From these units another kampfgruppe was formed, including panzergrenadiers from 9th Panzer, and deployed between Joblains and Conlie. By 11 August, 7 Army’s tactical headquarters was at St André, the subordinate II Parachute Corps comprising the 3rd Parachute Division supported by a kampfgruppe from Panzer Lehr was holding a line from Chênedollé to Vire.

Final days

By the 12th, Kampfgruppe von Hausser was retiring eastward toward Fontainbleau. The following day Bayerlein ordered the rest of the division to follow and it was soon east of Argentan, thereby missing the chaos of the developing Falaise pocket.

Panzer Lehr saw action again in the Nonant-le-Pin-St Lombard area, but on the 17th was relieved by the 344th Infantry Division and was able to continue on its way to Fontainbleau and safety. Only Kampfgruppe Kuhnow remained and on the night of 16/17 August it crossed the Orne at Mensil-Jean to join the battered 12th SS.