Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

Then all hell broke loose. The heaviest naval guns, up to 38cm in calibre, artillery, and fighter-bombers plastered us without pause. Radio contacts were lost, wounded came back, and the men of the reconnaissance battalion were forced to take cover.

I had gone up with the attack and saw the disaster. I managed to run forward to the commander of the battalion and gave him fresh orders.

To avoid further heavy losses, break off the attack at once and take up defensive positions on the southern edge of Escoville.

Set up a line of defense there and prevent any further enemy advance. No.4 Company of the panzer regiment, as well as Major Becker's assault-guns, when they get here, will support you. See that your men, and also the crews of the armored cars, dig themselves in." I ran back to my regiment's radio station. My adjutant, Liebeskind, had to report the breaking-off of the attack to division. At the same time Feuchtinger sent word that the armored group had reached the coast through the gap between the landed elements of the British 3rd Infantry Division and the 3ro Canadian Infantry Division. Heavy fire from the navy, relays of attacks by fighterbombers and, in the rear of the armored group, newly landed paratroops had forced them to withdraw, to avoid being encircled. My sister regiment, 192, had taken up a defensive position at about the same level as us.

Now the very thing Rommel had feared had happened: the en 180 PANZER COMMANDER emy had not been attacked by our whole division and thrown back into the sea in the first hours of the landing.

The other two panzer divisions were lying in areas far to the rear. Of the “1,000 fighters” that Goering had promised nothing was to be seen.

Now, on the evening of 6 June, it seemed to have become clear even to Hitler that it must be a matter of a large-scale invasion. But, as Feuchtinger told us, Hitler and his High Command still reckoned on a further landing in the Pas de Calais. The panzer divisions and reserve units stationed there were not to be withdrawn, on express orders from Hitler.

At the same time it was also clear to the last man that the invasion had succeeded, that it could now be only a matter of days or weeks before the Allies would have landed sufficient forces to be able to mount an attack on Paris, and finally on the German Reich. If it were not for that damned air superiority!

Even by night “Christmas trees” hung in the sky bathing the whole area in bright light. The air attacks never stopped; the navy laid a barrage of fire on our positions and bombarded the city of Caen, which was a focal point in our lateral communications.

By day it was even worse: at any movement on the battlefield, even of an individual vehicle, the enemy reacted with concentrated fire from the navy or attacks by fighter-bombers.

Either our radio

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