2.SS-PANZER-REGIMENT AT NORMANDY
SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 formed part of 2.SS-Panzer-Division ‘Das Reich’
The division originated from the three motorized infantry regiments of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS Special Forces- literally Special Disposal Troops): Standarte 1 Deutschland, 2 Germania and 3 Der Führer, which fought in Poland in 1939 and were formed into the motorized Verfügungs Division on April 1 1940, fighting in the Low Countries and France and becoming SS-Division Reich in 1940. Less Germania, which was detached to help form what later became 5. SS-Division Wiking, it took part in the Balkans operations prior to the invasion of Russia.
The Division was brought back to Normandy from Russia in June 1942 to reorganize and re-equip. It also received a Panzer Battalion - SS-Panzer-Abteilung ‘Das Reich’ and was designated SS-Panzer-Grenadier Division ‘Das Reich’ in November 1942. It returned to Russia early 1943 where it fought at Kharkov and on the Dnieper. In October 1943 it became 2.SS-Division ‘Das Reich when its panzer battalion expanded into SS-Panzer-Regiment 2. The Division returned to France in April 1944 and stationed in south-west France near Toulouse, its divisional headquarters at Montauban.
Panzer Vor!
While in Montauban, 2.SS-Div. was ordered to move up to Normandy shortly after D-Day. Traveling through the stronghold of the Maquis, the division took six days to cover the first 90 miles to Brive-la-Gaillard, and from there the armor made a detour by rail via Perigueux, Angoulme and Poiters whilst the rest of the division was continued by road via Limgomes. The battles against the Marquis en route were harsh and 99 people were executed at Tulles (east of Brive) on June 9, another 642 at Oradour-sur-Glane (north west of Limoges) on June 10, and another 50 on June 11 at Mussidan, south-west of Perigueux.
The division assembled south of Saint L towards the end of june and beginning of July. A Kampfgruppe was sent across to fight on the left flank of the Odon salient in the vicinity of Noyers Bocage, but the bulk of the division entered the line to the north-east of Periers around July 10.
From St. Sebastien-de-Raids, two kilometers outside of Périers,
I. Abteilung under SS-Sturmbannführer Enseiling moved forward in an attack launched towards Sainteny six kilometers to the north-east. In the lead was 4.Kompanie led by Ernst Barkmann who had been with the unit from the time of the regiment’s first Panthers had been delivered a year previously.
Barkmann’s Corner, the Corridor of Bocage Death:
From Barkmann’s own account, he destroyed his first Sherman on July 8. His Kompanie had come under artillery fire and they had been forced to get out of their tanks and take cover underneath them. At the time the Abteilung was pitted against US 3rd Armored Division attempting to force a way through. Next day they were in action again and on July 12 Barkmann knocked out two more Sherman’s and immobilized his fourth. Fighting in the Bocage of Normandy, however, was a different matter than on the steppes of Russia; here there was no question of attacking other than in platoon or companies - and tanks were expected to advance without supporting infantry.
Then there had was a lull. Barkmann recalled that checking the way his tank was camouflaged was now almost a reflex action among tanks crews in Normandy, for whom covering a tank with foliage had become a normal part of its maintenance…and survival. The following morning he was slowly surveying the area where the Americans were supposed to be through his field-glasses when, suddenly, from behind a hedge, he spotted movement.
"Turret to 11 o’clock…anti-tank round…range 400 meters…"
First came a clattering noise, then, from behind the hedge the first rounded hull of a Sherman heaved into view…and behind it, five more. The first Panzergrenate hit the lead tank in the hull. Smoke appeared from its opened turret hatch. The other Sherman had come to a halt. A second round from the Panther knock off the one leading tank’s tracks. The hedge behind which it had sought shelter had a hole in it as large as a man. The damaged Sherman was returning fire…a third round hit its turret. The four remaining tanks opened fire with their machine guns, which merely left jagged holes in the Panther’s Zimmerit. One of them was unwise enough to show its side. A fourth round went right through it. Three of the crew got out, searching for a fold in the ground as they ran. Ten minutes later a Panzergrenadier came dashing up to Barkmann’s tank:
"The Americans are behind you; they’ve got anti-tank guns!"
The Panther moved off towards a small wood, went through it and caught the American spearhead by surprise.
"HE round, 400 meters…"
The first round took off the top of a tree; the second hit a group of American infantry. The wireless operator had taken off his earphones and, as the Panther came up behind the American troops, he was firing the bow MG34.
All the sudden there was a flash ahead of them and an anti-tank round skidded off the turret. Barkmann’s gun layer hit the anti-tank gun with his second shot (a true testament to the Panzertruppen doctrine of taking out anti-tank guns at long distances). Another anti-tank round banged into the turret and fire broke out.
’AUSBOOTEN!” The men tumbled outside, but the gun later was not among them. Barkmann got him out through the top hatch before they tackled the fire. Thereafter they managed to get their tank back to the repair company.
The next day, July 14, Barkmann was involved in relieving four of his Kompanie’s tanks, which had become surrounded. His own tank was not yet repaired, and when he slid into the turret of a replacement tank he found it was still stained with blood of the previous commander. In the company of three other tanks his Panthers accounted for three more Shermans.
Towards midday, the regiment’s commanding officer, SS-Oberstturmbannführer Tychsen came up to Barkmann’s tank. Tychsen, a big man with blonde hair, ice-cold eyes and a chin that was heavily scarred, pointed a finder towards the horizon:
"Away you go, Barkmann. In the house over there they’ve got our wounded and we’re going to get them back!"
Three panzers set off at full tilt across the 800 meters to the house and in one swoop rescued the wounded.
The same day, Barkmann’s Panther took the full force of an artillery shell. HE bursts from 105 or 155mm guns caused a few real problems for the larger tanks though a direct hit on the side could cripple the tracks. That is precisely what happened this time although back at the repair company Barkmann was able to take out his own 424 which was ready again.
On July 25 SS-Panzer_Regiment 2 was pulled back to St. Aubin-du-Perron, three kilometers south of the N800 from Périers to Saint Lô . By this time the front line was beginning to look something like the blade of a saw- - with the dug in tanks as its teeth.
As the American break-out got into gear, on July 26 SS Panzer-Regiment 2 was thrown into the gap left by the decimated Panzer Lehr Division. Despite intense air activity, the tanks managed to reach the sector without loss. Several had fallen back on Saint Sauer-Lendelin, six kilometers south of Périers, were sent south-east to Marigny, were they went in against the Americans during the same afternoon.
This time the carburetor on Barkmann’s own tank gave up and stranded the tank out in the open. There was no time to tow it under cover, and a repair unit was doing its utmost to fix the trouble when four fighter-bombers dived down. As the engine hatches were open there was nothing to stop their cannon-shells from smashing the cooling system and oil sump, which resulted in catching the engine on fire. They managed to extinguish and the repair crew and tank mechanics worked right through the night so that by dawn on July 27 the Panther was back in running order.
As Barkmann set out to rejoin his Kompanie at its latest position, SS-Hauptscharfürher Heinze and a motor transport NCO, Corth, were clinging to the roof of a tank and taking a look at their new surroundings. Coming out of the village of le Lorey, to the north of the Saint Lô-Countances road, they pulled alongside some infantry and rear area troops who were running in the opposite direction. The answer to the men’s shouts from on top of the tank came from a Feldwebel: the Americans were on their way from Saint l - in fact, from where the regiment’s tanks were supposed to have been - and even as the two NCOs looked hard at one another they could make out the sounds of fighting. Heinze and Corth went forward on foot to investigate. Shots were heard and they came running back, one of them having been hit in the shoulder and arm. The Americans were indeed on the main road from Saint L. Barkmann decided to go as far as the crossroads.
At battle stations, the Panther moved along a row of hedges which screened it on both sides and stopped at the crossroads under the thick spread of an Oak tree. Armored vehicles with white stars on them were coming along from the left. The gun layer, Proggendorf, estimated that they were 200 meters away. Carefully, he adjusted his sight to the base of the olive-green silhouette that stood out magnified in the viewer. The Panther’s turret shuddered. Flames lept up from the leading American vehicle and the others started to back away. The loader, in his shirtsleeves, was by now shoving round after round into the breech; a dull thud of the gun and clang of spent shell cases adding to the background noise if the ventilator as it drew out the cordite fumes from inside the turret.
Further along, the smoke from burning petrol tankers sullied the sky with black oily scrolls, and jeeps and half tracks lay twisted and torn under the fire of the 7.5cm gun, Barkmann scanned the whole area around him continuously. To the left of the road two Shermans were coming up. It took two shots to brew up the first, although the second managed to get two hits on the Panther before it too fell victim. Beneath the clouds of black smoke, the crossroads were no longer visible yet still more vehicles kept coming. It had to end somehow. Fighter-bombers were now cratering the ground all around. One bomb landed five meters away and nearly turned the tank over. Another had rocked it on the left and damaged the running wheels, and cannon-shells bit into the armor plate as the aircraft concentrated on this solitary tank that, single-handed, was blocking the road. Yet Barkmann hung on, continuing to fire at anything that came in sight.
Two Shermans opened fire from a flank, their shells scraping along the sides of the Panther’s hull. As the Panther’s turret turned relentlessly, the gun-layer responded instinctively. Both Shermans brewed up. Battered and scarred, tank 424 was missing a track torn off by a direct hit, one of the hull welds had been ripped open, and its ammunition was practically exhausted.
The driver who had been wounded in the neck and was moaning with pain and trembling uncontrollably, was struggling to open his hatch and get out, but it was jammed. Throwing aside his earphones, he tried to work the levers to et the tank onto a slant. Barkmann called out his gun-layer to calm him. A shell clanged against the Panther’s side. Back in his seat, the driver wrestled to get the tank away. With only one track and a twisted drive sprocket, he somehow managed to get it to reverse - in the meantime the gun-layer had managed to know out another Sherman.
Two NCOs who remained behind the totaled up Barkmann’s kills: the tanks alone came to nine. Crab-like, his Panther crawled back to the little village of le Neufbourg; only then were they able to open the jammed hatches with crowbars to release the driver and radio operator.
That day, July 27, ten Panthers belonging to I. Abteilung, SS-Panzer-Regiment 12 were to the north of Cambernon, about four kilometers north-east of Countances. The bulk of SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 headed towards Belval, five kilometers further south, and to Courcy below Saint Lô-Countances road. Eight of the regiment’s tanks remained on a line at Montcuit-Saint Sauveur-Lendelin as a rearguard. Four Pz.Kpfw. IVs of II. Abteilung, SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 were knocked out south of Périers, and by the evening a number of tanks had been destroyed due east of Countances and south-west of Saint Lô around Quibou, Dangy and Cerisy-la-Salle.
Only July 28 two Panthers that remained behind at Cambernon were destroyed by bazookas. Another fifteen of I. Abteilung’s Panthers could see that their advance towards Marigny, mid-way between Countances and Saint Lô, had been blocked and were handed over to Panzer Lehr and 7. Armee.
Plate01: Two Pz.Kpfw. IVs Ausf.J of SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 identified by the yellow ‘Kampfrune’ painted on the rear of the tanks. The tank numbers on the turret skirts identify them as being from the 6.Kompanie. The location is St. Fromond which lies just east of the N174 from Carentan to Saint Lô. The American unit in the area was 117th Infantry of the 30th Infantry Division and the photo is dated July 9, it shows a very early encounter by the SS-Panzer-Division 2.
Plate02: SS-Oberscharführer Ernst Barkmann, most likely this picture was taken between the time of his rearguard retreat from the Falaise Pocket and his partaking in the Ardennes Offensive.
Plate03: Illustration of Ernst Barkmann’s Panther Ausf.A. This painting shows the gouging of the Zimmerit by the Shermans MGs.
Plate04: Barkmann’s Corner as it stands today at the junction of the Lorey road and the N172, between Countances and Saint Lô. The road trek has been widened and paved, which unfortunately makes this plot of land seem less haphazard as it was back in 44. To the right is the hill in which his panicked driver managed to put the damaged cat in reverse and retreat to the village of le Neufbourg…with only one working track and a twisted drive sprocket.