By early August 1944 the Germans fighting in Normandy had been worn down
by the battles around Caen, while to the west, the American breakout was
finally gaining momentum. Now was the time to launch II Canadian Corps
south towards Falaise. With much of the German armor having been
stripped away for the Mortain Counter-Attack, hopes ran high that the
Corps, reinforced with British tanks, the 51st Highland and the Polish
Armoured Divisions, would repeat the success of their predecessors in
the Battle of Amiens.
An innovative change of tactics to a night armored assault and the
conversion of seventy-two self-propelled guns to armored personnel
carriers for the accompanying infantry was very successful, but up
against their implacable foes, 12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division, the
pause for bombing allowed Kurt 'Panzer' Meyer to deploy his division.
Consequently, when the 4th Canadian and Polish Armoured Divisions were
launched into their first battle they made frustratingly little
progress. As the Canadians advanced over the following days, the battle
degenerated into a costly fight for ground as the Hitlerjugend struggled
to contain the inexperienced Poles and Canadians.
Operation Totalize is renowned for the death of SS panzer Ace Michael
Wittmann at the hands of Trooper Joe Ekins and the destruction of
Worthington Force, the result of a navigational error.
