Waffen-SS: Caen: Battle of Attrition, 1944

Background

Montgomery's efforts to take the strategic Hill 112, outside Caen, during the second half of June 1944 came to naught. However, although the Waffen-SS divisions fought superbly to repel the numerous British attacks, they were slowly being ground down in a battle of attrition. The British had reserves of both men and tanks, whereas II SS Panzer Corps was woefully short of both.

Waffen-SS defences at Caen

In front of Caen, Montgomery had not given up his ambitions to destroy the Waffen-SS panzer divisions and seize the Norman city. The Hitlerjugend Division was still the rock of the German defence, positioned in a semi-circle in its western suburbs. The arrival of II SS Panzer Corps had released Meyer's division from the responsibility of holding the western edge of the Scottish Corridor, and allowed him to concentrate it for the defence of Caen. The 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment was holding the villages to the northwest of the city, and Wilhelm Mohnke's regiment was holding to the west, centred on Carpiquet airfield. Meyer still had a kampfgruppe from the Leibstandarte under his command, and he posted it to the south of the airfield. Max Wünsche's panzers were holding the eastern edges of the Hill 112 feature. It would be mid-July before the Hitlerjugend's sister division would be in Normandy in strength.

The Frundsberg Division was firmly entrenched on the summit of Hill 112 and the nearby Hill 113. It was now reinforced by the Tigers of the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. Willi Bittrich's other division, the Hohenstaufen, was on the north bank of the Odon, linking his corps to the army panzer units to the west.

Dietrich and Bittrich could muster a combined total of 94 Panzer IVs, 45 Panthers, 48 StuG IIIs and just over 30 Tiger Is ready for battle.

The Canadians attack

It was now the turn of the Canadians to return to the fray, and they were given the objective of taking the northwestern corner of Caen in Operation Windsor. The attack opened on the evening of 3 July with a massive salvo from the British battleship HMS Rodney's 16in guns. Then some 500 Canadian and British guns opened fire. Shells rained down on Carpiquet airfield throughout the night. At dawn the 8th Canadian Brigade was launched against the airfield. A forward panzergrenadier company held the attack briefly, while panzer reserves were mobilized. As the 17 tanks came up, a Hitlerjugend 88mm flak battery on high ground outside the airfield started to rip into the Canadian tanks. Throughout the day, the Canadians tried to push forward across the airfield's runway, but were rebuffed with heavy losses. RAF Typhoons were called in to blast a route through the defences. No panzers were hit and they kept up a furious resistance, hitting more than a dozen tanks and inflicting almost 400 casualties. To relieve pressure on the troops defending the airfield, a Leibstandarte panzergrenadier battalion was moved to its northern edge to launch a night attack. The assault was halted after German artillery fire mistakenly hit the Waffen-SS troopers.

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