I started to venture into the British Sectors today with a visit to the La Cambe, WW2 German Cemetery.
This is a large collection cemetery, one of six German Cemeteries in Normandy. This is the largest. It had the remains of over 21,000 German soldiers. It was initially an American Cemetery in 1946 then used for the German dead from 1947. It was officially opened in 1961. Due to the number of SS soldiers buried here, German Heads of State have avoided ceremonies here in the past.
I then moved onto a gun battery at Longues-sur-Mer. This was a very busy site with many tour parties arriving. The guns are located on top of 200ft high cliffs between Omaha and Gold beaches. They were targeted during D-Day by the Navy which eventually took out one of the four casemates, and damaged two others. The final gun was active until the afternoon of 6th of June. It had fired over 100 shells during the day. The soldiers of the battery surrendered to the 2nd Devonshire Regiment on June 7th.
I then met with Paul “Woody” Woodage founder of WW2TV.com at the Ardenne Abbey just outside Carpiquet Airport. Woody had been at Deauville Airport meeting 29 US Veterans who had flown in from America. He kindly offered to meet us on his way back home to explain the events that took place at the Abbey.
On the 7th of June, the British 9th Brigade and Canadian 9th Brigade pushed out from the beaches towards Carpiquet Airfield northwest of Caen. They moved parallel to each other providing mutual protection. The British were stopped at Cambes-en-Plaine. With lack of good communications, the Canadian Brigade continued their advance without the protection of their British counterparts. Just outside Authie, the Canadians found German positions which had been abandoned, so felt the Germans were retreating. It was a very hot day and many of the Canadians did not have full water bottles, so when they reached Authie, where they found a water pump, the infantry stopped to replenish. The Tanks continued and this is where the 12th SS Panzer Division, under command of Kurt Meyer, attacked. He was watching the advance from the tower at the Ardenne Abbey. They caught the Canadians by total surprise. They knocked out 16 tanks and then ambushed the Canadian Infantry soldiers in the square at Authie. They killed 84 Canadians in the square, even shooting surrendered soldiers and they used their tanks to run over the bodies lying in the road. Canadian captured soldiers who had not been shot by the fanatical 12th SS Panzer Division were distributed away from the battle, yet some were taken to the Ardenne Abbey. They were interrogated and then one by one, in ten-minute intervals, lead outside and shot in the back of the head. The interval and leaving the previous soldiers’ bodies on the ground could only have been done to be as evil as possible to those facing their fate.
When the owners of the land returned after the war, they found the land hand been disturbed and upon investigation found 20 bodies. (It is felt there are 21). Kurt Meyer was put on trial for war crimes and sentenced to death. This was commuted to life in prison, then reduced to 9 years. The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a Hitler Youth division with most soldiers only being 18. They were fanatical and fought with no regard for any conventions. Most of the time they were high on Pervitin which made the user more aggressive and tendency to disobey commands.
