Despite this, they were constantly attacked by Allied curved artillery and anti-tank guns. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

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 12SS 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 some losses, they began to retreat, and the tanks often did not turn around, but simply hung up on the reverse gear and retreated.

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. ”

One Allied soldier vividly remembered a wounded German grenadier screaming and crying out for his mother.

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, and he remembers the scene in the hospital very well:

"I had just fallen asleep after being injected with morphine in the containment chamber of a field hospital, when suddenly I was awakened by the sharp pain of the wound, when I heard a wounded man moaning, and then I heard him say in a high-pitched voice:

"Mom! Mom! I'm sorry...... Listening to this, 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 armies was, and the Allied forces were able to land victoriously, completely because Rommel was releasing water.

Of course, the incomparable air and naval superiority of the Allies also played a crucial role, otherwise Normandy would have been their graveyard.

On the evening of August 29, the armored instructor of the German General Bayer Rhein finally reached a point only a few kilometers from the front line.

Along the way, they were heavily attacked by the Allied air forces, losing 80 self-propelled guns, 130 trucks, 5 tanks, and many other vehicles.

After withstanding the initial Allied attack, the Panzer Instructors, the 21st Panzer Division, the 12th SS Panzer Division, and troops withdrawn from the coastal line formed the main German defensive force around Caen.

A week after the Allied landings on the northern coast of France, they still failed to capture Caen, and on 2 September, after a fierce battle, the British 7th Panzer Division's attack was once again repelled by the 12th Panzer Division.

It was supposed to be a day of celebration for the young German grenadiers, but the sad news threw all the officers and men of the 12th 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:

"In the heavy shelling of the British fleet, the brigade commander of the division, Fritz Witt, was killed, and on that day, Fritz Witte and most of his staff officers were in the command headquarters when they suddenly heard the sound of large-caliber shells flying over the command headquarters.

Witte ordered everyone to hurry to the shelter, and just as he was the last to jump into the trench of the shelter, a shell suddenly exploded on the top of the tree, and the deadly shrapnel flew in all directions like hailstones, hitting Witt in the head, killing him instantly, and 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 Mayer, who deeply felt that they were facing a most brutal battle.

Not long after, Meyer received an order from Rommel 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, the 3rd Battalion under the command of the Captain of the 1st Commando Squadron of Frittez-Steiger, and Meyer himself took over the command of the 12th SS Panzer Division from the fallen Werther.

Meyer stressed to his subordinates that the "first man" of the 12th SS Panzer Division should never be forgotten, Fritz Witt. 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.

These soldiers, of course, did not know that Rommel had prepared a large pocket for the Allies, and now the sacrifice was very necessary.

The new commander, Kurt Meyer, known to the soldiers as "Armored Meyer", was a well-known tank commander and tactician.

Meyer, who was also from the 1st SS Panzer Division, fought brutally on the Eastern Front and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Oak Leaves.

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 with infantry and tanks, and 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 made it through this battle were doomed, but for the German grenadiers, who had learned to survive under artillery fire, victory or defeat was not yet known, and they watched quietly as the Allied tanks drew closer......

The leading "Sherman" fell into the anti-tank trap set by the German sappers, and the exploding mine raised a puff of black smoke, and the tanks behind immediately stopped, and before the infantry on board could disperse around the tank, the hidden German anti-tank guns opened fire.

At the same time, the MG-42 machine gun also roared, and the explosions of the "Iron Fist" came and went...... The result of the engagement was heavy losses for the Canadians, while the Germans held not only the main defensive positions, but even some minor ones.

In the face of the stubborn German defense, the Allies continued to intensify their strike fire in the area around Caen, and hundreds of attack planes in the air desperately bombed and strafed every moving target on the German position. (To be continued.) )