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Modern War Studies
Stopping the Panzers: The Untold Story of D-Day
Brigadier General James L. Collins Jr. Book Prize
In the narrative of D-Day the Canadians figure chiefly—if at all—as an ineffective force bungling their part in the early phase of Operation Overlord. The reality is quite another story. As both the Allies and the Germans knew, only Germany's Panzers could crush Overlord in its tracks. The Canadians' job was to stop the Panzers—which, as this book finally makes clear, is precisely what they did. Rescuing from obscurity one of the least understood and most important chapters in the history of D-Day, Stopping the Panzers is the first full account of how the Allies planned for and met the Panzer threat to Operation Overlord. As such, this book marks nothing less than a paradigm shift in our understanding of the Normandy campaign.
Beginning with the Allied planning for Operation Overlord in 1943, historian Marc Milner tracks changing and expanding assessments of the Panzer threat, and the preparations of the men and units tasked with handling that threat. Featured in this was the 3rd Canadian Division, which, treated so dismissively by history, was actually the most powerful Allied formation to land on D-Day, with a full armored brigade and nearly 300 artillery and antitank guns under command. Milner describes how, over four days of intense and often brutal battle, the Canadians fought to a literal standstill the 1st SS Panzer Corps—which included the Wehrmacht's 21st Panzer Division; its vaunted elite Panzer Lehr Division; and the rabidly zealous 12th SS Hitler Youth Panzer Division, whose murder of 157 Canadian POWs accounted for nearly a quarter of Canadian fatalities during the fighting.
Stopping the Panzers sets this murderous battle within the wider context of the Overlord assault, offering a perspective that challenges the conventional wisdom about Allied and German combat efficiency, and leads to one of the freshest assessments of the D-Day landings and their pre-attack planning in more than a decade.
In the narrative of D-Day the Canadians figure chiefly—if at all—as an ineffective force bungling their part in the early phase of Operation Overlord. The reality is quite another story. As both the Allies and the Germans knew, only Germany's Panzers could crush Overlord in its tracks. The Canadians' job was to stop the Panzers—which, as this book finally makes clear, is precisely what they did. Rescuing from obscurity one of the least understood and most important chapters in the history of D-Day, Stopping the Panzers is the first full account of how the Allies planned for and met the Panzer threat to Operation Overlord. As such, this book marks nothing less than a paradigm shift in our understanding of the Normandy campaign.
Beginning with the Allied planning for Operation Overlord in 1943, historian Marc Milner tracks changing and expanding assessments of the Panzer threat, and the preparations of the men and units tasked with handling that threat. Featured in this was the 3rd Canadian Division, which, treated so dismissively by history, was actually the most powerful Allied formation to land on D-Day, with a full armored brigade and nearly 300 artillery and antitank guns under command. Milner describes how, over four days of intense and often brutal battle, the Canadians fought to a literal standstill the 1st SS Panzer Corps—which included the Wehrmacht's 21st Panzer Division; its vaunted elite Panzer Lehr Division; and the rabidly zealous 12th SS Hitler Youth Panzer Division, whose murder of 157 Canadian POWs accounted for nearly a quarter of Canadian fatalities during the fighting.
Stopping the Panzers sets this murderous battle within the wider context of the Overlord assault, offering a perspective that challenges the conventional wisdom about Allied and German combat efficiency, and leads to one of the freshest assessments of the D-Day landings and their pre-attack planning in more than a decade.
400 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 27, 2018
Marc Milner wants you to forget everything you’ve learnt about Canada in Normandy. The conventional image of its troops as inept bunglers on the margins of the British landings stems from a lack of interest, which this book seeks to inflame together with Mark Zuehlke.
He discusses the historiography of the campaign at great length, a necessity for revisionism. Inaccuracies started with the official history and have been perpetuated by a literature dominated by American historians. Natives of Canada have come up with new material to set the record straight, but they are few. ( the excellent Kansas U.P. series of Modern War Studies tackled the subject a decade previously with Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler's Panzer Counteroffensive; Milner may be overstating his case now & then, but there is no denying that the idea is a good cure for the Omaha tunnel syndrome that so many of us suffer from.
The premise of stopping the Panzers was easy to identify as early as the COSSAC plan. The most likely response to an amphibious assault was an instant, massive counterattack. This strategy had been applied several times during the Mediterranean landings in the summer of 1943, with enough success to haunt Allied planners. The best they could do was to locate the most likely point of counterattack and post a strong force there, to protect the rest of the landing zone. The best tank terrain in Normandy is the flat, open ground west and north of Caen. The unit landing behind it, on Juno Beach, was the Canadian 3rd Division (7th & 9th brigade). It came fully equipped for its task, with the heaviest artillery allocation of any Allied unit.
Little did they know that the defenders in Normandy never reached an agreement about the best use of their armored forces, which answered to 3 different commands. Rommel’s preference to crush OVERLORD on the beach is well-known to posterity, but others preferred to let the enemy advance inland, where he could be destroyed in the kind of fluid counterattack that had delivered most victories of the German war machine since Poland. This came on top of the fog of war that the Allies had successfully generated with Operation Fortitude. Even when Normandy was recognized as a bona fide invasion, there was still uncertainty as to whether it was a prelude to the main attack at Pas de Calais, thus whether the Panzer divisions to the north could be released. Here Milner takes a fresh look at a classic aspect of the D-Day story: Allied air supremacy. It influenced the course of battle in other ways besides strafing vehicle columns. Senior German officers were obliged to take roundabout roads and sacrificed strategic control as a consequence. By the time the main opponents (12th SS, 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr) made for the plains in force, the Canadians were reasonably well positioned, with some naval gunfire support to compensate for artillery still en route. The fanaticism of several Nazi field officers and Hitler Youth undermined the effectiveness of several attacks with poor tactical coordination, to the point of human wave attacks with overstrength companies.
Not to make the outcome sound too inevitable. The Canadians were in for a hard fight, especially those elements of the 9th brigade that made first contact. By following them by brigade and company, day by day, the text puts us in the middle of combat with great intensity. When we watch The Longest Day , we ricochet from beach to beach to London map room. Here we face the reality for the individual on the ground: there are five tanks to your front, there are a few dozen men around you, and nothing else matters.
He discusses the historiography of the campaign at great length, a necessity for revisionism. Inaccuracies started with the official history and have been perpetuated by a literature dominated by American historians. Natives of Canada have come up with new material to set the record straight, but they are few. ( the excellent Kansas U.P. series of Modern War Studies tackled the subject a decade previously with Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler's Panzer Counteroffensive; Milner may be overstating his case now & then, but there is no denying that the idea is a good cure for the Omaha tunnel syndrome that so many of us suffer from.
The premise of stopping the Panzers was easy to identify as early as the COSSAC plan. The most likely response to an amphibious assault was an instant, massive counterattack. This strategy had been applied several times during the Mediterranean landings in the summer of 1943, with enough success to haunt Allied planners. The best they could do was to locate the most likely point of counterattack and post a strong force there, to protect the rest of the landing zone. The best tank terrain in Normandy is the flat, open ground west and north of Caen. The unit landing behind it, on Juno Beach, was the Canadian 3rd Division (7th & 9th brigade). It came fully equipped for its task, with the heaviest artillery allocation of any Allied unit.
Little did they know that the defenders in Normandy never reached an agreement about the best use of their armored forces, which answered to 3 different commands. Rommel’s preference to crush OVERLORD on the beach is well-known to posterity, but others preferred to let the enemy advance inland, where he could be destroyed in the kind of fluid counterattack that had delivered most victories of the German war machine since Poland. This came on top of the fog of war that the Allies had successfully generated with Operation Fortitude. Even when Normandy was recognized as a bona fide invasion, there was still uncertainty as to whether it was a prelude to the main attack at Pas de Calais, thus whether the Panzer divisions to the north could be released. Here Milner takes a fresh look at a classic aspect of the D-Day story: Allied air supremacy. It influenced the course of battle in other ways besides strafing vehicle columns. Senior German officers were obliged to take roundabout roads and sacrificed strategic control as a consequence. By the time the main opponents (12th SS, 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr) made for the plains in force, the Canadians were reasonably well positioned, with some naval gunfire support to compensate for artillery still en route. The fanaticism of several Nazi field officers and Hitler Youth undermined the effectiveness of several attacks with poor tactical coordination, to the point of human wave attacks with overstrength companies.
Not to make the outcome sound too inevitable. The Canadians were in for a hard fight, especially those elements of the 9th brigade that made first contact. By following them by brigade and company, day by day, the text puts us in the middle of combat with great intensity. When we watch The Longest Day , we ricochet from beach to beach to London map room. Here we face the reality for the individual on the ground: there are five tanks to your front, there are a few dozen men around you, and nothing else matters.
April 30, 2024
Written in part as an exercise in filial piety (Milner's father hit the beach with the 3rd Canadian Division on D-Day), this book is part of a wave of the then New Operational History that started in the late 20th century.
Intended as a debunking of the supposed poor performance of the Canadians in the initial days after June 6, Milner begins this work with an examination of the initial historiography of operations, and finds them wanting. Partly this is due to a lack of access to key documents by the authors, a lot of it is due to either American and British writers with their own agendas, or a desire to bury certain Canadian controversies (such as the sacking of General Andy McNaughton).
From there, Milner goes deep into the weeds in terms of considering just what was the operational mission of the 3rd in the D-Day plan, and emphasizes that a specific mission was assigned; blocking the best avenue of attack for a German armored assault on the beachhead, and being given healthy reinforcements of field artillery, anti-tank assets, and a full tank brigade to achieve this mission.
Milner then swings into examining how theory was put into practice, and finds much to praise. While circumstances could be unforgiving, and some mistakes were made, the reality is that the Canadians went toe-to-toe with three supposedly elite German armored formations (12th SS Panzer, 21st Panzer, and the Panzer Lehr Division), and generally gave better then they got. This also answers a question that I've had ever since I've read John Keegan's "Six Armies in Normandy," that if the Canadians were supposedly so mediocre, why did they fight the supposedly elite "Hitler Jugend" Division to a stand-still? Answer: Maybe these German divisions weren't all they were cracked up to be, which can be admitted since we are no longer in the Cold War's "all hail the Wehrmacht" period of military history.
Finally, since Milner has spent a lot of time leading staff tours to this old battle zone, his work offers the valuable service of illustrating how the actual lay of the land influenced events.
I have almost nothing to mark this book down for and I regret not reading it a little bit sooner.
Intended as a debunking of the supposed poor performance of the Canadians in the initial days after June 6, Milner begins this work with an examination of the initial historiography of operations, and finds them wanting. Partly this is due to a lack of access to key documents by the authors, a lot of it is due to either American and British writers with their own agendas, or a desire to bury certain Canadian controversies (such as the sacking of General Andy McNaughton).
From there, Milner goes deep into the weeds in terms of considering just what was the operational mission of the 3rd in the D-Day plan, and emphasizes that a specific mission was assigned; blocking the best avenue of attack for a German armored assault on the beachhead, and being given healthy reinforcements of field artillery, anti-tank assets, and a full tank brigade to achieve this mission.
Milner then swings into examining how theory was put into practice, and finds much to praise. While circumstances could be unforgiving, and some mistakes were made, the reality is that the Canadians went toe-to-toe with three supposedly elite German armored formations (12th SS Panzer, 21st Panzer, and the Panzer Lehr Division), and generally gave better then they got. This also answers a question that I've had ever since I've read John Keegan's "Six Armies in Normandy," that if the Canadians were supposedly so mediocre, why did they fight the supposedly elite "Hitler Jugend" Division to a stand-still? Answer: Maybe these German divisions weren't all they were cracked up to be, which can be admitted since we are no longer in the Cold War's "all hail the Wehrmacht" period of military history.
Finally, since Milner has spent a lot of time leading staff tours to this old battle zone, his work offers the valuable service of illustrating how the actual lay of the land influenced events.
I have almost nothing to mark this book down for and I regret not reading it a little bit sooner.
August 16, 2015
I do not think it is going too far to say that this book is a model of how to write modern combat history. Technology, tactics, training, logistics, direct and indirect fires, coordination between land, sea, and air, command decisions at every level from the national leadership to the platoon and squad for both sides are found in these pages. Moreover, Milner has read the ground as well as the documents. He knows what does and does not make sense in the terrain. He explains in detail the role, heretofore unexamined in any detail, of the Canadian 3d Infantry Division in the D-Day Invasion and first days of the Normandy Campaign. The OVERLORD planners gave the 3d Infantry Division a corps' worth of supporting artillery, the assignment to cover that stretch of ground ideally suited for large-scale armor attack, and the mission to stop such an attack which all concerned were certain would come. This book is how the Canadians fulfilled that mission.
_Stopping the Panzers_ is fundamentally a revisionist account that will make us rethink the role of the Canadians in Normandy, the combat effectiveness of the Waffen SS, the role of strategic deception. It represents the best kind of revisionism: new evidence, a different angle of vision, and insightful analysis.
I have one complaint and that is a matter of tone. The author takes C. P. Stacey and his team to task for missing the important role played by the 3d Infantry Division in Normandy, while noting at this early period Stacey and his historians were denied access to certain key documents. Professor Milner fails to make allowance, I think, for the utter failure of the Canadian World War I Official History program. Under those circumstances, the World War II historians were under considerable pressure to show quick results or see the entire program go down. In retrospect it is clear that Stacey should have pressed harder for access to the key planning documents in British control. That he did not is understandable given the circumstances. And besides, Stacey was looking at the role of the Canadian Army in the entire war, not just a few crucial days in one crucial campaign.
_Stopping the Panzers_ is fundamentally a revisionist account that will make us rethink the role of the Canadians in Normandy, the combat effectiveness of the Waffen SS, the role of strategic deception. It represents the best kind of revisionism: new evidence, a different angle of vision, and insightful analysis.
I have one complaint and that is a matter of tone. The author takes C. P. Stacey and his team to task for missing the important role played by the 3d Infantry Division in Normandy, while noting at this early period Stacey and his historians were denied access to certain key documents. Professor Milner fails to make allowance, I think, for the utter failure of the Canadian World War I Official History program. Under those circumstances, the World War II historians were under considerable pressure to show quick results or see the entire program go down. In retrospect it is clear that Stacey should have pressed harder for access to the key planning documents in British control. That he did not is understandable given the circumstances. And besides, Stacey was looking at the role of the Canadian Army in the entire war, not just a few crucial days in one crucial campaign.
August 31, 2021
Milner lays out his mission in the introduction - in his view, the role of Canadian forces at D-Day is underappreciated and misunderstood. He also believes that this misinterpretation is used to downgrade the effectiveness and impact of Canadian soldiers at D-Day. His book looks to provide clarity into the role played by Canadians.
Milner is very thorough in reviewing the initial projected role of the Canadian army, how and why it changed, and what its ultimate role was. He argues that Canadian and British politics altered the force composition to a mixed Anglo-Canadian force for the British D-Day beaches as opposed to the Canadian army that was to be the D-Day spearhead for British and Commonwealth forces.
Milner also seeks to clarify the primary mission of the Canadians - to blunt a German armored counteroffensive against the D-Day beaches.
He gives a good analysis of Canadian training and the series of Canadian and German attacks in the days immediately after the D-Day invasion.
He discusses the successes and failures of Canadian forces, with the ultimate argument that they fought well and accomplished their mission.
There are times where Milner verges on the tone of an evangelizing zealot as opposed to clear eyed analysis, but for the most part this book offers a powerful argument for his interpretation of the role and success of Canadian forces in Normandy in the critical first few days following the invasion.
Milner is very thorough in reviewing the initial projected role of the Canadian army, how and why it changed, and what its ultimate role was. He argues that Canadian and British politics altered the force composition to a mixed Anglo-Canadian force for the British D-Day beaches as opposed to the Canadian army that was to be the D-Day spearhead for British and Commonwealth forces.
Milner also seeks to clarify the primary mission of the Canadians - to blunt a German armored counteroffensive against the D-Day beaches.
He gives a good analysis of Canadian training and the series of Canadian and German attacks in the days immediately after the D-Day invasion.
He discusses the successes and failures of Canadian forces, with the ultimate argument that they fought well and accomplished their mission.
There are times where Milner verges on the tone of an evangelizing zealot as opposed to clear eyed analysis, but for the most part this book offers a powerful argument for his interpretation of the role and success of Canadian forces in Normandy in the critical first few days following the invasion.
January 2, 2020
Excellent account of the 3rd Canadian Infantry division in the lead up and actions in the first 5 days of the Normandy campaign. The author Makes it clear that the division did not “fail” to take Caen in the first day of the campaign as is so often portrayed, simply because it wasn’t tasked with doing so. what it did accomplish was to blunt the only real chance the Germans had in the campaign to push the allies into the sea, which was the divisions assignment. Battle writes up are excellent, the maps are numerous and clear and the personal accounts add much to the narrative without being repetitive. Great read, if you are interested in the Normandy Campaign, get this book!
August 27, 2024
My father was with the 14th field regiment RCA 34 battery, 3rd Div. This book explained a lot to me I didn't know that went on in those first 4 days of the invasion and filled in some the gaps left in The History of the 14 Field Regiment book by Ruffie. This book along with The Guns of Normandy by Blackburn are priceless to the understanding of the significant Canadian role in the Normandy invasion and their heartbreaking losses of true heroes.
Thanks to Marc Milner for factually preserving this decisive part of history that may never have been recorded else wise.
Thanks to Marc Milner for factually preserving this decisive part of history that may never have been recorded else wise.
December 13, 2018
I really enjoyed reading this book. Dr Milner is a skilled story-teller, and this tale that started out as a personal history, of sorts, turned into an important tale of the Canadian Army in Normandy. This is easy to read and really brings to light the important role the 3rd Canadian Division played in defending the beaches during the important stage of building up.
September 13, 2025
Marc Milner is owed a great debt. He has reshaped my understanding of the Canadian WW2 effort and done a lot to right the misinformed wrongs about the Canadian's record in the war. Marc, I don't know if you read these, but thanks. I think that what you are doing could reshape our self-image and be part of the reason Canada recovers from its current malaise.
July 27, 2020
An excellent book, corrects so much repeated, but incorrect history
If your have an interest in the Normandy Campaign, this is an absolute must read.
Providing the terrain analysis performed by COSSAC is just so important to the story
Very, very good book.
If your have an interest in the Normandy Campaign, this is an absolute must read.
Providing the terrain analysis performed by COSSAC is just so important to the story
Very, very good book.
June 9, 2020
In depth telling of soldiers who held back the tide, should definitely get more exposure as if they hadn't the D-Day landings may have gone entirely differently.
October 24, 2017
informative view of Canadian input into D Day and explains how 3rd Armoured held the line. A bit repetitive in parts but the breakdown of tactics coupled with personal anecdotes works well. a few maps and b&w photos help the narrative. An essential book that adddresses the traditional narrative that ignores Canadian contributions in Normandy.
March 11, 2015
Good book - a little repetitive - author had a point and made great argument for it. And then showed multiple examples to prove his point.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews