Normandy massacres
The Normandy massacres were a series of killings in-which approximately 156 Canadian and two British prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division during the Battle of Normandy in World War II. The majority of the murders occurred within the first ten days of the Allied invasion of France. The killings ranged in scale from spontaneous murders of individual POWs, to premeditated mass executions involving dozens of victims. The massacres are among the worst war crimes committed against Canadian soldiers in Canada's history.
Background
The 3rd Canadian Division landed at Juno Beach at approximately 07:45, on June 6, 1944. They were opposed by the German 716th Division, which was at two-thirds strength. Juno Beach was secured shortly after 10:00, with Canada incurring hundreds of casualties in the process. Most Canadian units failed to achieve their day-one objectives, but nonetheless advanced inland over. The 12th SS Panzer Division was one of three German armoured divisions that were in reserve relatively close to the Allied beachheads. The division did not deploy to counter the Allied attack until after 15:00 on June 6 when orders were finally issued by German dictator Adolf Hitler.Battle of Authie
The 12th SS Panzer Division was ordered to halt the advance near the Orne River, and force the Allies back into the Atlantic Ocean. The 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, led by SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, was among the first Hitler Youth units to reach the front. Meyer was a fanatical believer in the Nazi ideology. On the Eastern Front, his regiment had razed multiple villages to the ground — slaughtering their inhabitants in the process. Meyer set up his headquarters in a chateau near Caen on the night of June 6. By this time, the 716th Division had been almost entirely decimated, and could no longer function as a cohesive unit. Meyer received orders to destroy the Juno beachhead at 16:00 on June 7 — giving him less than 15 hours to prepare his forces. Meyer was forced to deploy his forces piecemeal, because many elements had been delayed by strafing from allied fighter-bombers.As the Germans began their counterattack near the villages of Villons-les-Buissons and Anisy, elements from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment were advancing southward, and initially did not encounter any resistance. C Company of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders was the first unit to come under fire in this sector, with German artillery and mortar fire killing and wounding a number of Canadians. The Canadian forces were unable to secure any support from artillery or ships offshore, and tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers that were sent to assist had been destroyed soon after arriving. Meyer spotted tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers from his nearby advanced command post at the Abbaye d'Ardenne, and ordered his forces to launch their attack two hours ahead of schedule to exploit the exposed Canadian flank; himself fearing being outflanked.
The Canadians managed to disable or destroy multiple German tanks, but received heavy losses after falling into a German trap at the village of Authie. The Fusiliers' Intelligence Officer was captured by the Germans, who secured his radio codebook. The 12th SS Panzer Division's radio operator was reportedly highly adept at impersonating the commander of the Fusiliers, Lieutenant colonel M. Gordon, making it difficult for Canadian soldiers to distinguish genuine orders from false ones; the German radio operator sent Canadian tanks to pre-plotted fields, where 75mm anti-tank guns picked them off.
Two companies from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders were cut off from the rest of their forces during the German assault; they salvaged three Browning machine guns from their destroyed tanks, and they lost all of their anti-armour support except for one surviving Sherman tank. Captain Fraser, who took command of the remaining Canadian forces, managed to reach headquarters and was promised reinforcements if he continued to hold on, but these reinforcements never arrived. Around two dozen Canadians attempted to escape the impending encirclement, while the remaining defenders tried to cover them. The defenders finally surrendered at shortly after 16:00 on June 8; the Canadians suffered 110 men killed, 195 men wounded or captured, and up to 30 tanks disabled or destroyed. The executions commenced before the Canadians had even surrendered.
Battle of Putot-en-Bessin
Elements of the 12th SS Panzer Division's 12th Reconnaissance Battalion, which was commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer Gerhard Bremer, set up fortifications at the front on the night of June 7. The 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment arrived on the line at around the same time. One of its officers was SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who had a highly volatile temper and previously ordered the execution of over 100 POWs during the Battle of France in 1940. The Germans were facing forces from the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, the Regina Rifles, the Queen's Own Rifles, the 3rd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment, and the Cameron Highlanders.Mohnke ordered his battalions to conduct patrols on the night of June 7, to prepare for attacks against Brouay, Putot, and Norrey. One of the patrols came across a Canadian mine-laying party, and in the ensuing engagement three Canadians became separated from their units and were captured by the Germans three days later. Mohnke's forces attacked shortly after 02:00 on June 8, achieving mixed outcomes in the initial phases of the battle. The 1st Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment pushed deep into Canadian lines, but failed to flank Norrey, which remained in Canadian control.
Part of the 2nd Battalion first attacked a railway bridge near Putot, but the Canadian defenders repulsed this attack. Other elements from the 2nd Battalion attacked positions in other parts of the village, and the two sides engaged in a ferocious battle which involved some house-by-house fighting. The 3rd Battalion attacked a railway line between Putot and Brouay. The Canadian defenders tried to buy time for reinforcements to arrive, but by 13:30 they were completely surrounded and unable to communicate with the outside world; only a few men managed to escape the trap and reach friendly lines. The Royal Winnipeg Rifles suffered around 256 men killed, wounded, or captured. More than 100 prisoners were immediately sent to Mohnke's regimental command under military police escort, while 40 other POWs were kept in a stable at the Moulin farm while awaiting a military police escort; they were held in cramped conditions but their captors initially treated them according to the standards mandated by the Geneva Conventions.
Massacres
Authie murders
Initial killings
The 3rd Battalion of the 12th SS Panzer Division, commanded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl Heinz Milius, committed some of the first atrocities against the Canadian prisoners of war. The SS troopers were infuriated by the number of casualties they incurred when taking the village, and that these losses were inflicted by soldiers they viewed as inferior. The first victim was Private Lorne Brown, who refused to retreat and leave a severely wounded comrade behind. The wounded man reported seeing Brown stand up in response to an order from a German soldier, only to be forced to the ground right after. The German pinned Brown with his heel, and repeatedly bayoneted him while shouting curses. The other wounded Canadian pretended to be dead, and was later captured by another SS soldier.A villager stated that Canadian soldiers had cleared the main street of civilians before digging in to fight the German attackers. This resident witnessed one Canadian walking towards German troops with his hands raised, only to be shot when he was just a few meters away. Soon after, they witnessed Private William Nichol attempt to move out of the line of fire after being shot in his right leg. A German officer ran up to Nichol, picked up his rifle, and bashed his skull in with the rifle butt, before shooting one bullet into his corpse. Lance Corporal Mackay was being escorted toward a group of his fellow POWs, but suddenly got pushed into a nearby doorway by his escort. The guard briefly spoke with two other German soldiers, before heading back in the street with Mackay; the latter then witnessed the Germans order eight POWs to go to the middle of the road and take their helmets off, then proceeding to fatally shoot them. One of the Germans pulled two bodies — including that of Corporal Thomas Davidson — into the road for traffic to run over, while his comrades stopped villagers from moving the bodies out of the way. By the time a villager received permission to bury the two bodies, they were in such bad condition that he had to use a shovel to collect their remains. The corpse of another murdered Canadian was sat up, and given a hat and cigarette as props. The mass executions and bodily mutilations were witnessed by other Canadian POWs as well.
To the left of Authie, another company of the 3rd Battalion committed additional murders. The first victim, Private John Metcalfe, was being searched along with 15–20 other POWs, when he fell because of rough handling from a German captor. The guard then fired four shots into Metcalfe's abdomen, and smiled while letting him lie in pain for a few minutes. The German ultimately shot Metcalfe three times in the head, and emptied the rest of his magazine into the body. Lance Corporal Joseph R. Arsenault was undergoing a similar search, and held two grenades in his hands to clearly show the German soldiers what he had. An SS officer took the grenades and spoke to Arsenault in French; after Arsenault responded in French, the officer fatally shot him in his neck. The Germans were soon forced to evacuate Authie due to British naval shelling, and murdered at least 12 Canadian POWs during the subsequent evacuation. Six of them were killed together in the kitchen of a French home, while another two were a Canadian medic wearing a red cross armband, and his patient.
The executions were temporarily halted after Major Leon M. Rhodenizer, who commanded A Company of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, appealed to the SS soldiers in German. However, the column of POWs passed SS soldiers going the opposite direction, toward the front. The officer leading the oncoming SS column began to shoot into the line of POWs, and his men followed suit; nine POWs were killed in this massacre. Later, a German truck with Red Cross markings deliberately drove into the procession of POWs and ran over three men — two of whom died from their injuries. Some Canadian officers in captivity were later forced to sign papers falsely claiming that those two victims died from combat injuries. To reinforce this lie, the Germans held a military funeral for these two victims, which was recorded by a German cameraman.
The last man known to be murdered by members of the 3rd Battalion on June 7 was army chaplain Captain Walter Brown, of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. He set out in a jeep to visit an officer who was recovering at a field hospital in Les Buissons. He was accompanied by Lieutenant W.F. Grainger, and Lance Corporal J.H. Greenwood. They left for the hospital at 11:30 on June 7, and soon became lost. They stopped near the village of Galmanche to try and get their bearings, and were shot at by an SS patrol while disembarking from their jeep to surrender. Greenwood was killed by the initial volley, while Grainger was wounded. Grainger saw Brown walk toward the SS patrol with his hands raised, but passed out before seeing what became of him. Grainger came to some time later, and managed to drive himself back to friendly lines. Brown's body was found several weeks later, close to where the trio had initially stopped; a single stab wound from a bayonet pierced his heart.