In the last hours of 6 June, elements of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Hitler Youth Division moved into the Canadian area of operations. Lead elements arrived at the Abbaye d’Ardenne and established their headquarters. They spent 6 June making their way to reach the invasion area and the Canadians. The 12th SS was a new but powerful formation with about 20,000 men with attached armour and artillery. Their ranks were comprised of fanatical young soldiers who had been indoctrinated in Nazi ideology as boys in the Hitler Jugend (Youth). Devoted to Hitler and contemptuous of their opponents, they were characterized by a “dangerous combination of selfrighteousness, brutality, patriotic fervor, sophisticated training, and simplistic ideology.” On the morning of the 7th, they prepared to counterattack the Canadians and “throw the little fish back into the sea.” Meanwhile, the Canadians had done well on D-Day; they advanced further inland than any other allied formation. While they did not reach their final D-Day objectives on 6 June, they prepared to continue their push inland push on the morning of the 7th. The Canadians spent a rather restless night after D-Day; one can only imagine how these young soldiers felt after that first time in battle and the preceding days of nervous anticipation. Then as night came, they awaited the German counterattack everyone expected. Many of these young men would have lost comrades that day too. Private Angus Kearns of the Canadian Scottish said, And that very first night we started burying our dead. When you start burying your buddies, you want to quit. You think what’s the use of going on? But we did. So much energy and effort had been put into the initial D-day assault, but the real challenges for the Canadians were only beginning. On the morning of the 7th, the anticipated German counter attacks still did not materialize. Resuming the advance on the Canadian left flank was the 9th Infantry Brigade supported by the 27th Armoured Regiment. On the morning of the 7th, they set off from a small village named Villons les Buissons towards their final objective, Carpiquet just seven kilometers away. At first things went well for the Canadians. However, standing in one of the Abbaye’s church towers watching the Canadian advance that morning was the commander of 25th Panzer Grenadier, Obersturmbannfuhrer Kurt Meyer. With a reputation for ruthlessness towards his enemy gained earlier on the Eastern Front, Meyer now readied his fanatical soldiers to hit the Canadians hard. Meyer ordered a massive counterattack for the afternoon. By midday, the Canadians observed alarming and increasing reports of German armour in the area; their concerns were soon realized and ferocious tank battles in the wheatfields on the flanks of the Canadian advance developed. Soon after Meyer ordered his counterattack. The severity and ferocity of the fighting that afternoon around Authie and Buron demonstrated the fanaticism of the SS soldiers; it also proved the toughness and resolve of the Canadians. Ultimately the German Buron and Authie 7 June.
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