D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

pride, ‘The Polish soldier fights for the freedom of other nations, but dies only for Poland.’ Having heard of their compatriots’ uprising in Warsaw as the Red Army approached the city, the Poles were doubly determined to kill as many Germans as possible.
    For Maczek, who had commanded the 10th Cavalry Brigade in the defence of Lwow against the German 2nd Panzer-Division in September 1939, it seemed a heaven-sent coincidence that ‘luck gave the 10th Cavalry Brigade the well-deserved revenge of surprising the same division’ in this battle. That day, the 10th Mounted Infantry near Chambois also captured Generalleutnant Otto Elfeldt, the commander of LXXXIV Corps, with twenty-nine staff officers. But the real threat to the main Polish positions around Mont Ormel, as Ultra intercepts had warned, was about to come from the rear, as well as from the improvised battlegroups in front.
    The Poles, fighting a desperate battle, also requested support from the Canadian 4th Armoured Division. Kitching’s obstinate and unjustified refusal to help led to Simonds relieving him of his command the following day.

    At 04.00 hours that morning, the remains of the Der Führer Regiment of 2nd SS Panzer-Division, which had been defending the line of the River Touques, was ordered south in their half-tracks towards Chambois to break open the pocket. At 10.00 hours, they sighted ten Allied tanks. All their guns were pointed in towards the pocket. Hauptmann Werner, who commanded the III Battalion, had just passed a broken-down Panther tank from another SS panzer division. He returned there rapidly. The soldier working on the tank implied that it could be moved, but added that its commander, an Untersturmführer , was in a house nearby. The Untersturmführer was reluctant to move, but Werner drew his pistol and forced him back to his tank. Werner climbed up on to the engine deck behind the turret and directed him back to where they had seen the Allied tanks. When they were close, Werner went forward on foot to reconnoitre the best firing position. By then the Untersturmführer was showing a good deal more enthusiasm. According to Werner, they took the enemy tanks entirely by surprise, knocking out five of them and damaging several others. 72
    Elements of the 9th SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen also counter-attacked from the direction of Vimoutiers, as Eberbach had planned. But their advance did not start until 10.00 hours, because of fuel shortages. A junior staff officer, reconnoitring the way in a motorcycle combination, ran straight into a large detachment of Polish troops. His driver was shot, and the Poles, seeing his SS uniform, were about to execute him. His life was saved by the intervention of a Canadian liaison officer, apparently a White Russian who had escaped to Canada in 1919.
     
    Meindl and his paratroops, meanwhile, had been able to continue on towards the heights of Coudehard and Mont Ormel only after the detachment of Polish tanks set off for a new position. Meindl suddenly spotted another group of paratroops advancing in skirmishing order across an open field. He whistled. Their young commander recognized him and Meindl heard him mutter, ‘Oh, it’s the old man.’ Meindl briefed him rapidly and told him to take all the paratroops with him. The only way to get past the blocking detachments of tanks was by a flanking attack to the north. In return, the young officer told him that Oberstgruppenführer Hausser was not far away.
    After a circuitous route, Meindl found the commander-in-chief of the Seventh Army sheltering in a bomb crater with men of the SS Der Führer Regiment. They collected other groups of infantry and two Panther tanks which appeared. Meindl, obsessively proud of his paratroops, was scathing about some of the army personnel who had joined them. Many had abandoned their weapons. He saw ‘fear in their eyes and cowardice in their hearts’ in the desperation to break out of the encirclement, rather than join in the battle to open the breach. ‘Here one saw the communication zone troops from France, who had not known what war was for the past three years. It was a pitiful sight. Dissolution and panic. And in between them my paratroops, with contempt in their eyes, fulfilling their duty in an exemplary way.’ His men, together with a handful from the SS and infantry, were prepared to make the sacrifice for the rest, while the ‘toe-rags’, as he called them, displayed nothing but ‘crass