Blood and Steel: The Wehrmacht Archive, Normandy 1944 by Graves Donald

Author:Graves, Donald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HBWQ; HIS027100; HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473832466
Publisher: Frontline Books,
Published: 2013-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Document 3/815

To the Bitter End: The Last Hours in the Falaise Pocket

Wartime Intelligence Officer’s Comments

The following information was obtained from interrogation of an Officer PW captured on 21st August 1944 at St. Lambert-sur-Dives.

At 2 o’clock we received a report that the gap had been forced. We were accordingly to move and drove off with three cars. We drove two or three kilometres and then came onto roads which were completely blocked. There were four or five columns of traffic which had run into each other with dead and wounded in between. We put our vehicles into one column and got stuck in it. Then we went on foot from 3 o’clock in the morning until six. Eventually we arrived forward at the place where the gap was supposed to be, and met about two to three hundred men. They were composed of a paratroop ‘Battalion’, to which SS and Army and German Air Force and Navy personnel had attached themselves. Two tanks joined us – a Mark IV and a ‘Panther’; they were put in the vanguard with scouts ahead and one platoon behind them, and then the troops. Suddenly there was heavy firing into the sunken road. At first it sounded like fire from Anti-Tank guns and mortars and MGs, interspersed with rifle fire. The tank immediately reversed and ran over some of our men, whereupon all the infantry streamed back. I took up the position at the rear to hold up the retreat and I shot the first one who came along. An RSM stood beside me and brought them to a halt. Then the tank drove up and I ordered it to drive ahead again. Soon however the tank was hit and set on fire. We lay down flat and then came heavy firing along the sunken road from ahead. We had a great many dead and wounded. We lay for 10 minutes and then the fire eased off a bit. I heard the sound of tanks, so I made two men come forward with ‘Faustpatronen‘16 which we still had with us. It slowly became light and then we saw Americans in the opposite hedge. We fired at them with MG and tommy-gun fire. Then the enemy started firing again. There was suddenly heavy fire out of the whole hedge with cannon and MGs. Then someone at the rear started to wave a white flag on a stick. We shot him at a distance of 100m. After a second attempt with a white flag had also proved unsuccessful, we heard the noise of an enemy tank ahead again. In the meantime we had brought up our second tank, the ‘Panther’. This was given orders to take up a position behind the shot-up Mark IV tank and to shoot up the advancing tank with its guns. The ‘Panther’ made a mistake in not taking up a position diagonally behind the Mark IV but driving past it. It was hit and burst into flames. Later, another white flag appeared, and again we fired at the troops surrendering.

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