Panzer Lehr on June 8th

[RichTO90]

Originally posted by John McGillivray
I think that you have confirmed my suspicions.


It appears that the Panther Battalion was reorganized for its move to the Eastern Front, with the companies reduced from 22 to 17 tanks. The organization shown in the Bernage’s book is probably what was being sent to the Eastern Front to rejoin the 3rd Panzer Division. If 76 or 79 (with three Panthers in the Regt. HQ) were in fact being transferred, then Panzer Lehr would still be holding ten or thirteen surplus Panthers.

Actually no. The whole process in which the Panzer divisions changed over to the Freigliederung is rather complex and especially so for Lehr. The original 20 January 1944 organization for I/Panzer-Lehr-Regiment included three companies of 22 Panthers and one company of 22 Jagdpanthers, with Panzer-Kompanie (FKL) 316 incorporated with the regimental staff. But the Jagdpanthers were never actually available and on 21 January the battalion was ordered to be organized under the Freigliederung (dated 1 March and modified 1 April) with 17 Panthers per company.

But all that is moot to the discussion, because I/Panzer-Regiment 6 was a completely different unit that was attached to Panzer Lehr, while I/Panzer-Lehr-Regiment was being organized, and it was still organized under KSTN 1177 dated 1 November 1943, with 22 tanks per company. It wasn't until 7 August 1944 that the I/Panzer-Lehr-Regiment was actually activated and on 8 November 1944 the two battalions exchanged designations. And it wasn't until 20 August 1944 that orders were cut to withdraw Lehr for refitting, at which time it was planned to actually execute the conversion to the 17-tank Freigliederung organization for I/Pz.-Regt. 6 that had been ordered on 5 June. Of course by that time there were insufficent replacement tanks to accomplish that, so a temporary organization consisting of two 17-tank Panther and two 17-tank Panzer IV companies was substituted.

So as of 6 June 1944 Panzer Lehr's tank regiment was still operating under the old 22-tank company organization. There were 5 Panzer IV and 3 Panther with the Regiment Stab und Stabskompanie, II Abteilung had 96 Panzer IV (8 with the Abteilungs Stab and four 22-tank Kompanien) and I Abteilung had 86 Panthers (8 with the Abteilung Stab, and 78 in the four Kompanien), leaving it 10 short. It appears that the shortfall was dealt with by leaving two Zuge unorganized, but I am unsure which. Note that Panzer IV strength of 101 is exactly correct for the earlier 22-tank organization.

As has already been noted, the first five to arrive, from 2. Kompanie, were at Mondaye onthe afternoon of 10 June. Apparently they were either waiting to load in Paris on 6 June or were hurriedly unloaded then, the rest of the battalion having already departed for points east. AFAIK the only Panthers to arrive in Normandy as early as 8 June were from
1. and 4./SS-Panzer-Regiment 12.