The SS-VT before Dunkirk

Farther south the SS-VT was coming into the line on 23 May when it was surprised by a column of French tanks and infantry striking south out of the Dunkirk bridgehead at Saint Hillaire. The French tanks swarmed into the positions of the Der Führer Regiment, but Hausser's men soon recovered and his tank-hunting teams knocked out 13 tanks and captured 500 prisoners.

After clearing up this problem, later in the day Hausser ordered his troops forward to occupy a section of the La Bassee Canal where they ran into fierce resistance from the British 2nd Division. A strong British counterattack stopped the SS-VT in its tracks, forcing it to reorganize itself before it could attack again.

Like its other SS counterparts, the SS-VT participated in the attack on the British on 26 May, striking north into the Nieppe Wood area against British rearguard units. The fighting against the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was stiff, and the SS attack did not succeed in destroying the British troops. The SS-VT could not prevent the British escaping into the Dunkirk bridgehead, but the division pressed close on their heels, brushing with the British rearguard at the Lys Canal on 27 May.

The Totenkopf's attacks

In the Totenkopf sector, the halt order on the 24th had enraged Eicke but there seemed to be little he could do until the order to attack was given by Hitler. During 25 May, British artillery and mortars were starting to take an increasing toll on the Totenkopf, so Eicke ordered a series of raids over the "canal line" by small SS squads to try to put the British guns out of action. On the afternoon of 26 May a night-time assault was ordered to seize a bridgehead over the canal to open the way for the division to strike north to Dunkirk. By 20:30 hours the first SS men were across the canal, and in a few hours had established a firm foothold. The British, though, launched repeated counterattacks throughout the night.

At dawn the Totenkopf Division launched multiple attacks from its small bridgeheads to overwhelm all the British defences in its sector. The sheer weight of numbers in the attack seemed to crush the British defenders from the Royal Scots, Royal Norfolk Regiment and Lancashire Fusiliers. As the morning passed, however, the British defence stiffened and soon the SS attack had broken down into a series of vicious, small actions. As casualties began to mount, Eicke started to struggle to regain control of his troops. By early afternoon the attack had ground to a halt. The divisional command post was in a chaotic state as Eicke tried to come up with a way to get the attack moving again. Amid this crisis, the divisional operations officer collapsed in the headquarters from a haemorrhaging stomach ulcer. A key battalion commander was then killed by a British sniper.

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