'Hitler's Paratroopers in Normandy'
How the Wehrmacht's elite infantry confronted the US Army during the battle for the hedgerows in Normandy during June and July 1944
Gilberto Villahermosa, a retired U.S. Army Colonel with more than 30 years military service, produced a fresh look at the Battle of Normandy in 2019. Focusing solely on the campaign fought by the Fallschirmjager Hitler's Paratroopers in Normandy: The German II Parachute Corps in the Battle for France, 1944 describes the different battles fought during that summer, from the initial shock of D-Day to the eventual disaster in the Falaise pocket. Throughout these engagements, the German paratroopers proved to be a formidable enemy, highly trained and expertly led - with a morale and discipline that refused to be broken even as the world fell apart around them.
Villahermosa draws on a wide range of resources from both sides to describe the fighting in considerable detail. The following excerpt is part of his description of the battle for Hill 192 in late June and early July 1944:
The Fallschirmjager maintained a tight counter-reconnaissance screen, made maximum use of sunken roads and hedges, and employed roadblocks, wire entanglements and minefields. The Americans expected the Germans to defend with 'determination' and 'vigour', and to employ local counter-attacks to hold their positions, although there seemed to be few, if any, German tanks in the area. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence officers estimated that the II Parachute Corps did not possess an impressive amount of artillery.
In fact, the II Parachute Corps possessed only a single battalion at the beginning of July with about 330 rounds per gun. However, three additional battalions were in the process of being deployed from Italy to Normandy to support the Fallschirmjager corps. The Americans were certain that the Germans had pre-registered the artillery they did have to cover the approaches to Hill 192 with 'precision' fire.
'These new defenders all wore mottled camouflage suits and seemed to be all armed with automatic weapons,' remembered American Lieutenant Colonel D.C. Little, an artillery battalion commander, who participated in the battle. 'They were clever, tenacious foes. They fired their "burp" guns from trees, hedgerow corners, and buildings.'
Furthermore, snipers were everywhere, even in the trees, which grew as high as 20ft above the hedgerows.
Between 17 June and 11 July, while the Americans awaited the order to resume the attack, Schimpf's paratroopers converted each hedgerow on the northern slope of Hill 192 into a maze of dugouts and firing positions, an intricate system of mutually supporting positions. According to Little:
Tunnels were dug at ground level through the hedgerows to afford apertures at the base of the hedgerows. Pits dug through the tops of the hedgerows were zigzagged for greater protection. Machine guns and towed and self-propelled anti-tank guns fired from prepared positions throughout the defended area. Movement laterally and to the front was covered by the hedgerows themselves and the many orchards and tree-lined trails throughout. Mortars were emplaced in countless positions and covered every American position and avenue of advance.
Good camouflage and well-concealed positions made the firing points, gun and mortar, and anti-tank positions almost impossible to see from the American side. Some dugouts were as deep as 12ft with underground passageways leading to concealed, firing positions within the hedgerows. The firing slits from these positions were covered by vines growing out of the hedgerows. Machine guns were located under hedgerows at junctions to cover all possible approaches. During the ten days preceding the battle, the Fallschirmjager managed to badly shoot up almost every American patrol sent out trying to find gaps in their positions.
'The Germans ... employed deadly and vicious anti-personnel mines against patrols,' recorded the 2nd Division history. 'Mortars and automatic weapons, even self-propelled 88s, blazed away at patrol parties on the slightest provocation, playing hide and seek with the Division's artillery.'
The same thing happened to patrols from other U.S. units attempting to penetrate their flanks. This was not only due to the paratroopers' counter patrolling skills, but also, according to several U.S. commanders, to a lack of tactical competence in scouting and patrolling among American infantry divisions. 'The Germans' greatest asset was the calibre of the troops themselves recalled Little:
They were always in the next hedgerow. Our patrols sent out at night were shot up badly or gobbled up entirely. If we withdrew a hedgerow or two to bring down fire on their positions, they followed us back and were again in the next hedgerow. I watched as a group of paratroopers was being questioned after the hill had been captured. One ragged bearded survivor expressed the esprit of the 3rd Parachute Division when he was asked what he thought of the Americans now. Looking fixedly at his questioner he answered without hesitation 'Germany will win!'
Replacements for the 3rd Parachute Division arrived sporadically and too few in number. On 1 July, sixty Fallschirmjager arrived by truck from Gardelegen and Nurnberg. They were divided up among the companies of the 9th Parachute Regiment, which was in desperate need of reinforcements following heavy losses during the last week of June. Only the night before, fourteen paratroopers had been killed around St-Andre- de-l'Epine during an American attack that had been repulsed. Among the replacements were several lightly wounded paratroopers, who now re-joined their respective companies.
The Fallschirmjager had learned to respect the soldiers facing them. Some even feared them. 'It was Hill 192, near Berigny recounted Fallschirmjager Erwin Schmieger of the 9th Parachute Regiment's 3rd Parachute Infantry Company during a post-war interview. Schmieger had joined the Wehrmacht in March 1943 at the age of eighteen. He had enlisted as a paratrooper in the Luftwaffe on 5 May 1944 as a machine gunner. 'For a fortnight we were told to guard the front line along the edge of the wood, each of us in a hole in the ground 50m apart, as the rest of the company headed down the road to St-L6 at night. Opposite us were madmen with Indian heads ...' Schmieger tapped his left shoulder, indicating the place where the Americans of the 2nd Infantry 'Indian Head' Division had their unit insignia sewn.
There were no rules ... Everyone had their knives drawn ... we were soldiers! Suddenly, in the night, there was a noise. It was a friend who thought he had seen someone go down. A few minutes later we heard a cry that went straight through me; they had slaughtered him! I could hear him crawling toward me through the leaves and I spent the entire night in my foxhole trembling with fear. I had other fears, but nothing like that. I'd only just turned nineteen. When we took roll call in the morning, there were only half of us left.
The U.S. V Corps plan called for the 2nd Infantry Division to attack Hill 192, with the 23rd Infantry assaulting on the left, the 2nd Battalion 38th Infantry assaulting on the right, and the 1st Battalion 38th Infantry attacking frontally on a 600-yard front. Seizure of Hill 192 would provide the Americans with control of the hill and the St-Lo-Berigny road.
The 1st Battalion planned on committing eight tanks from the 741st Tank Battalion to its attack on the right-front of its sector. The attack was supported by artillery from the 3rd Armour Division, two battalions of artillery from the 1st Infantry Division, V Corps Artillery, two Tank Destroyer battalions and two companies of 4.2in mortars, along with the 741st Tank Battalion.
Air support included armed reconnaissance with planned and on-call missions. The 2nd Division plan of attack called for demonstrations on the fronts adjacent to Hill 192 to divert the attention of the defenders and get them to commit their reserves and supporting weapons prematurely.
After hearing of the fire support available for his frontal attack, 1st Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel F. T. Mildren wrote: 'I figured the battalion could almost walk up the hill without too much effort. I was due for quite a surprise and found I greatly underestimated the ability of the German 3rd Parachute Division.'
Major Spencer was informed by his commander that all he had to do was to follow the artillery barrage up the hill. High explosives would do the rest.
At 0500 hours on 11 July the artillery battalions began their preparatory fires, joined by the armoured artillery battalions, 4.2in mortars, and the infantry battalion's own 60 and 81mm mortars. The artillery barrage lasted for an hour, increasing in intensity, as the Americans pounded the German paratroopers and hedgerows with growing numbers of tanks, mortars and artillery pieces.
The eight 105mm artillery battalions supporting the attack fired more than 25,000 rounds, an average of 300 rounds per artillery piece, and more than 45,000 tons of high explosive. Except for three days during the Battle of the Bulge, this was the heaviest expenditure of ammunition in the history of the 2nd Infantry Division's 38th Field Artillery Battalion. Tanks and bazookas knocked out German assault guns concealed in a destroyed village, while U.S. infantrymen, who had crept within grenade distance, destroyed enemy machine gun and anti-tank gun emplacements.
Gefreiter Helmut Kaslacka, of the 9th Parachute Regiment, was one of the Fallschirmjager defending Hill 192. Kaslacka had made his ten qualifying parachute jumps at the Luftwaffe's airborne school at Wittstock. Arriving in France, he was assigned to the 3rd Parachute Division in Brittany, near Brest.
'When the invasion started we move out approximately 30-40km daily, but only at night,' he recorded in a 24 July 1944 letter to a friend. 'During the day American fighter bombers controlled the area. Then we were put into [the] line East of St. Lo, approximately 5km away from the town.'
The strength of Kaslacka's company was 170 paratroopers when the American artillery opened fire on Hill 192:
Then 11 July arrived and the most terrible and gruesome day of my life. At 0300 our company sector got such a dense hail of artillery and mortar fire, that we thought the world was coming to an end. In addition to that, the rumbling of motors and rattling could be heard in the enemy lines - tanks. It scared the pants off us. We could expect a very juicy attack. If we thought that the artillery fire had reached its climax, we were disillusioned at 0530. At that time a tremendous firing started which continued to 0615. Then tanks arrived. The movement of tanks, however, is somewhat difficult here in Normandy. As we at home have our fields fenced in by wire and wooden fences, so the fields over here are lined with hedgerows. They are about five feet high and have the same thickness. These hedgerows are winding crisscross through the terrain. We dig in behind these walls and the Americans do the same. It is a regular hedgerow war.
© Gilberto Villahermosa 2019, 'Hitler's Paratroopers in Normandy: The German II Parachute Corps in the Battle for France, 1944'. Reproduced courtesy of Pen & Sword Publishers Ltd.
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