No matter how stubborn the defense was this time, the 12th SS Panzer Division had exhausted its strength, and those who survived were very tired. Most of the German units around Caen were in a terrible state of despair. On 25 June, a message reached the German High Command on the Western Front that Limer had decided that the 12th SS Panzer Division could be replaced for recuperation, while all German units defending Caen began to retreat to northern Italy.

But the division commander Meyer did not receive this order in time, and the soldiers of the Youth Regiment Division had already reached a new front. There they reorganized the last of Caen's defenses for the most difficult moments.

The final Allied offensive on Caen began. The operation was named "Telford". Operation Telford began on 28 June, but preparations for fire on Caen began on the first day. The first shot was fired by the famous battleship Rodney, which bombarded the northern part of Caen with its 406-mm guns, while the RAF also bombarded the city and its environs in a row.

In the early hours of June 28, the Allies finally launched a fierce attack on Caen. Accompanied by intensive artillery fire, the British 3rd and 59th Infantry Divisions, the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, the 105th Artillery Brigade, the 4th and 107th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiments, the 6th North Stafford Wing and the 2nd South Stafford Wing were joined by a large number of tanks and armored vehicles.

In the face of Allied superior forces and fierce onslaught, Meyer's grenadiers remained at the heart of the defense and continued to fight in the ruins around Caen. As the battle continues. The German defenses had been gradually divided, the battle had gradually lost its organization, and the tanks and anti-tank guns had been reduced to scrap metal because they had run out of ammunition.

The soldiers continued to fight in the instinct of survival. The near-self-destructive operation of the 12th SS Panzer Division once again dragged down the ferocious offensive momentum of the British and Canadian armies. The British lost almost 45% of their infantry strength in two days of hard fighting, (poor boys, the soldiers of the 12SS Panzer Division are all 14-16 children!). So tenacious, so one hundred, can only be described as incredible. But all the fighting around Caen continued, and the fire caused by the shelling and bombardment was raging everywhere, and the "whoosh" of German machine-gun fire could be heard everywhere on the battlefield.

Soldiers fought mercilessly through the ruins, and the battle turned into a war of human attrition that the Allies could not bear. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The fighting was especially fierce near the village of Bulon. The remaining units of the 25th Battalion of the 3rd Panzergrenadier Regiment defending here were finally surrounded by the Allies.

Meyer realized that the situation was dire and that his youth division would soon be annihilated. There were no reserves left in the division, ammunition was running out, and reinforcements and supplies had become an unattainable luxury. The only way out now is to retreat before the Allies encircle them. Creation of a new line of defense in the rear.

But at this time, Meier finally received an order from Li Mo - to organize a retreat immediately. Travel to Northern Italy to replenish and recuperate. I'm proud to have people like you.

The exhausted 12th SS Panzer Division finally retreated, abandoning the city of Caen that had held out for 33 days. During the retreat, they still could not escape the powerful Allied aerial fire, which charged Caen's retreating troops. Once again, it withstood the test of blood and fire. The Canadian troops broke through the line and advanced to the rear of Caen, where they opened heavy fire on the Germans with every weapon available to them, driving these stubborn enemies out of the city.

Sporadic resistance around Caen continued in the north and west of Caen, but by the evening of 9 July the fighting was over. In his memoirs, Meyer wrote:

"The soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division have reached their physical limits. They fought on the front line for 4 weeks without receiving any reinforcements, and at the same time suffered huge losses in the battle, they went into battle with childish faces, but today they could only see the muddy steel helmets casting black shadows on their depressed faces, and their eyes often staring distractedly into the distance. ”

The Youth Regiment division lost another 595 men in the final battle of the city's defense. On July 15, 1941, the remaining units of the 12th SS Panzer Division arrived in northern Italy to begin recuperation and replenishment, and it was only after the Allied occupation of Caen that the Allied forces truly gained a foothold in France.

……

The Allies were dragged in the Normandy area for a month, which undoubtedly gave Li Mo more opportunities, first of all, the German aircraft replenishment, Li Mo's aircraft in his hands have increased to 6,000, this month to replenish 1,500 aircraft, the rest to the Eastern Front battlefield, more than 1,200 tanks, another 500 to the Eastern Front, the hoarding of other strategic materials, is also very large and smooth.

Now that the Allies had gained a foothold in the Normandy area, Limer began to retreat all the troops deployed in France in a planned way, and before retreating, Limer blew up all the large ports, even the foundations were blown up, and it was impossible for the Allies to repair these ports without more than half a year.

The bridges and airfields that had not yet been blown up by the Allies were ordered by Li Mo to be blown up again, this time they were completely blown up, anyway, it was to increase the difficulty of repairing the Allies.

Although the Allied forces landed successfully in Normandy, they paid a heavy price of 250,000 casualties, and the German side also had a lot, with a total of 120,000 casualties, which were mainly casualties caused by the Allied air force, and only less than 50,000 people were actually killed in the field battle, which shows the importance of air supremacy.

As soon as the Allies gained a foothold in Normandy, they organized their troops to attack several nearby ports, of which Serbaeu was one of them.

Cherbourg, though occupied, is in ruins. As early as June 7, the day after the Allied landing, the Germans expected that the Allies would seize Cherbourg and immediately began to plan to destroy Cherbourg. An engineer expert in the U.S. Army looked at the destruction of Cherbourg and considered it "the most thorough and complete destruction in history." ”

As soon as the Allies occupied Cherbourg, they sent a large number of engineers, salvage detachments, and minesweepers to carry out the removal work, and it took two months to recover, sweeping 133 mines and salvaging 20 sunken ships, which barely restored the throughput capacity of the port of Cherbourg, because there was no breakwater, and the port could not be loaded and unloaded with heavy winds and waves.

All the ports along the coast of France are like this, all of them have been completely blown up, but the Allied artificial ports in the Normandy area have the best throughput capacity, and it would be good if other ports can have 20% of the previous ones, but fortunately, the materials and manpower of the Allies are very sufficient, and they are sparing no effort to repair these ports, so the logistics of the Allies are getting better and better, but this has undoubtedly delayed the supply of all the materials of the Allied forces, and the impact is not visible now, and these effects will be completely exposed when the decisive battle is due, becoming the most headache.

…… (To be continued......)