Allied bombing of the French railway and bridge network played havoc with Rommel's attempts to bolster his battered front. The only safe way to move men and materiel by rail was under the cover of darkness, and the nearest railheads to the Normandy Front were a good day's drive away, in the western suburbs of Paris. This geographical constraint posed a particular problem for panzer units that had to make long road-marches to the front from railheads, since it put an immense strain on the sensitive tracks, engines and transmissions of their tanks. The damage caused by this rough ride forced many tanks to be left behind, from where they would be collected by their recovery parties.

Allied aircraft and the French resistance

These were losses that Rommel's small panzer force could ill afford. As the panzers approached the front, they started to receive attention from Allied fighter-bombers, the dreaded "Jabos". As an average, German units lost between 5 percent and 10 percent of their vehicle strength to Allied air attacks or mechanical breakdowns as they moved to Normandy. When the Leibstandarte arrived at the front in late June, its panzer battalions had only 75 percent of their tanks fit to fight.

Farther from the front, the activities of the French resistance - blowing up bridges and ambushing isolated German columns - were beginning to play a major part in delaying the arrival of Waffen-SS units. Forced by damage to the railway network to travel mainly by road, the Das Reich Division was plagued by resistance attacks. However, the division was hardened by years of fighting in Russia and its officers responded in the way they had in the East: brutally, and without any mercy.

SS retribution

When the Das Reich reconnaissance battalion entered the town of Tulle, it allegedly found the remains of 62 German soldiers who had been mutilated, it was claimed, by some resistance fighters. This act of brutality was said to have taken place after the Germans had surrendered. In response, the Das Reich troopers rounded up 99 Frenchmen and hung them from lamp-posts.

If deterring others was the intention, it failed. Resistance attacks continued apace. Matters came to a head when a Das Reich convoy was fired upon near the town of Oradour, killing an SS-Hauptsturmführer. As revenge, the Waffen-SS men ringed the town, rounding up its entire population in the local church, before setting the church on fire. The blaze killed the 548 men, women and children inside the church. One German was killed when a slate fell off a roof and hit him on the head. In the hours that followed, every building in the town was either blown up or set on fire.

This massacre at Oradour was the worst incident of its type in the West to be committed by Waffen-SS troops. Rommel was outraged at the massacre, and during a conference with Hitler demanded that a number of Das Reich officers be punished. The main culprit during the massacre, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Dickmann, was later killed in Normandy, and after his death the Waffen-SS leadership was able to hush up the incident.

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