"About 15 [British] 'Sherman' tanks attacked directly in front of us. After my tank destroyed 4 or 5 of the tanks, the rest retreated. In retaliation, the enemy poured a large number of heavy shells on our positions, and our grenadiers suffered serious losses. In the afternoon the enemy attacked the village again. Our 3rd Platoon tanks engaged the Sherman head-on, while the grenadiers outflanked them from behind to cut off their retreat. Suddenly my tank tracks were blown off.

I jumped out of the tank and got two grenadiers to help me get back on the tracks. Braving heavy artillery fire, they helped me to load the tracks. That's when I heard the captain shouting over the radio: 'Get started!' Leaving here, enemy planes are coming soon. ”

Meyer often complained that some of the battles had failed solely because the troops involved in the battle were not determined, but no one heeded his muttering. In any case, the Youth Division remained in the bombed-out defensive positions around Caen during the brutal fighting.

In order to counter the air superiority of the Allies, the grenadiers moved to the front line at night, removing all traces of the night before dawn. Despite this, they were constantly attacked by Allied curved artillery and anti-tank guns. These battles, in which the 12th SS Panzer Division participated, were considered the most tragic battles of the Battle of Normandy, with the tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Division at the front and Panzergrenadiers covering the tanks behind.

A British officer recalled:

"For the most part, under the cover of a barrage of advancing mortar and curved artillery fire, German troops slowly advanced towards our line on a road full of craters. The offense looked unstoppable. But when the German tanks suffered certain losses. They began to retreat. The tank often does not turn around, and directly hangs on the reverse gear and goes back.

Some of the wounded young soldiers were crushed by their own tanks, some were abandoned on the battlefield, and only our sniper rifles could bring them out of their misery. An Allied soldier vividly remembered a wounded German grenadier crying out for his mother as he let out a terrible cry.

But it didn't take long for him to be out of his misery - the ensuing shelling blew him to pieces.

A German engineer company's medic Friedrich Zestler, the captain of the 2nd class commando group, was himself wounded while rescuing the wounded. He still remembers the scene in the hospital very well:

"In the containment cell of a field hospital, I had just been injected with morphine and fell asleep. The sudden pain of the wound woke me up. Just then I heard a wounded man moaning. Then I heard him say in a high-pitched voice:

"Mom! Mom! I'm sorry" Listening to these words, I went back to sleep. I don't know how long it took me to wake up again and hear that what I had just heard was the boy's last words. "It was not only the soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division who died in the battle, but the Allies also suffered terrible losses. The low morale was already beginning to affect the troops, and the Allies were also uneasy by the continued German shelling and the possibility of a counteroffensive. The battle continued day and night

It's just a German division! The hundreds of thousands of Allied troops who landed suffered heavy casualties, which shows how huge the difference in fighting will between the Allied and German forces was. The Allies were able to win. It was completely Li Mo who was releasing water, and at the same time the incomparable air and naval superiority of the Allies, otherwise Normandy would only be their graveyard.

On the evening of June 9, the Panzer Instructor of the German General Bayer Rhein finally reached a point only a few kilometers from the front line. Along the way, they were fiercely attacked by the air forces of the allies. 80 self-propelled guns, 130 trucks, 5 tanks and many other vehicles were lost. After withstanding the initial blows of the Allies. The Panzer Instructors, the 21st Panzer Division, the 12th SS Panzer Division, and units withdrawn from the coastal line formed the main German defense around Caen.

It's been a week since the Allies landed on the northern coast of France. They still failed to capture Caen. June 14th. After a fierce battle, the attack launched by the British 7th Panzer Division was once again repulsed by the 12th SS Panzer Division.

It was supposed to be a day of celebration for the young German grenadiers. But the sad news came and plunged all the officers and men of the 12th SS Panzer Division into shock, panic and sorrow. The command of the German 12th Panzer Division, based in Vinox, near Caen, sent a notification to his superiors and subordinates:

"During the heavy shelling of the British fleet, the supreme commander of the division, the captain of the brigade Frieze Witte, was killed. On the day of the 14th, Fritz-Witt and most of his staff officers were in the command headquarters when they suddenly heard the sound of large-caliber shells flying over the headquarters.

Witt ordered everyone to hurry to the shelter. Just as he was the last to jump into the trench of the hideout, a shell suddenly exploded on the top of the tree, and the deadly shrapnel flew in all directions like hail, hitting Witt in the head, killing him instantly, while some officers of the staff were also mortally wounded.

The death of the division commander touched everyone in the Panzer Division, including, of course, the commander of the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment, Captain Kurt Meyer. He felt deeply that they were facing the most brutal battle.

It wasn't long before Meyer received an order to transfer command of the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment to the commander of the regiment's 3rd Battalion, Captain of the 1st Commando Group of Karl-Heinz Milius, and the 3rd Battalion was commanded by the Captain of the 1st Commando Squadron of Frittez-Steiger, while Meyer himself took command of the 12th SS Panzer Division, replacing the fallen Werther.

Meyer stressed to his subordinates that the "first man" of the 12th SS Panzer Division, Fritz Witt, should never be forgotten. In fact, in the shelling of June 14, the Germans lost not only one senior commander, but also his upper General Simalkes. Many saw this as a bad omen and began to think that the Germans were hopeless in Normandy. Of course, these soldiers did not know that Li Mo had prepared a large pocket for the Allies, and the sacrifice now was very necessary.

The new commander, Kurt Meyer, known to the soldiers as "Armored Meyer", was a well-known tank commander and tactician. Meier, who was also from the 1st SS Panzer Division like his predecessor, fought brutally on the Eastern Front and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Oak Leaf. But regardless of the talents of the new commander of the panzer division, nothing changed in favor of the Germans in this brutal battle at hand. In fact, with no air supremacy at all, the German defensive line around Caen was already on the verge of collapse.

In the second phase of the attack on Caen, the Allies began to launch a fierce attack using infantry and tanks. After intensive fire preparation by the Air Force and Navy guns, Canadian tanks carrying infantry crossed the open area in the middle of the battle line. The Canadians believed that the Germans, who had passed this battle, were doomed. But for the German grenadiers, who had learned to survive under fire, victory or defeat was not yet known. They silently watched as the Allied tanks got closer and closer (to be continued......

PS: Acknowledgements:

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