The Allied landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, was an important moment for Britain and the United States, who saw it as the beginning of an all-out offensive against Nazi Germany from the west. For the French serving alongside them, it offered the prospect of liberating their country from German occupation. For another contingent, the exiled men of Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Maczek’s Polish 1st Armored Division, it revived the distant hope that Western Allied forces might yet liberate their long-suffering country before the Soviet army did.

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When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, then-Colonel Maczek’s 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade had been the only fully mechanized unit in the Polish army. Reorganized in France, the 10th Brigade fought with distinction until that country was overrun in June 1940. Resurrected once more on British soil, in 1942 the unit was expanded to division strength, with 885 officers, 15,210 enlisted men, 381 tanks, 4,050 other military vehicles and 473 artillery pieces. By the time they returned to France, Maczek and his men were eager to resume the fight.

The Germans were happy to oblige. For six weeks they had stalled the American advance in the hedgerow country of Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula, while British units were repeatedly stymied in a series of violent tank battles around Caen. Then, on July 18, St. L fell to the American 29th Infantry Division, and on July 25 Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s First Army launched Operation Cobra, an offensive that broke free of the hedgerows. On that same day, German armored forces facing the British, depleted through weeks of steady attrition, were forced to abandon Caen. But Adolf Hitler ordered the Germans to strike back on August 7, hoping to eliminate 11 American divisions before Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.’s newly activated Third Army could begin its follow-up offensive. Thanks to a stubborn defense by the 30th Infantry Division at Mortain, the German counteroffensive was halted by August 12-and, as both U.S. and British forces continued their advances, the Germans found themselves overextended and vulnerable to entrapment between two Allied pincers.

Joining the British advance on August 8 was the Polish 1st Armored Division. The division was a component of Lt. Gen. Guy G. Simonds’ II Canadian Army Corps of the Canadian First Army, under Lt. Gen. Henry D.G. Crerar. The Poles made gradual progress southward on the western side of the Caen-Falaise road, along the II Corps’ right flank. Then, on August 14, Simonds’ II Corps began Operation Tractable, a renewed effort to take Falaise. The Polish 1st and the Canadian 4th Armored divisions were given the task of breaking through German lines in order to cut off enemy supply lines and road junctions. They advanced only three miles on the first day before the Germans-reinforced by the arrival of SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) Kurt ‘Panzer’ Meyer and his 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend-counterattacked south of Cramesnil and threw the Poles back.

On August 15, the Polish 1st Armored Division was transferred to the eastern flank of the II Canadian Corps. That maneuver, which would put it at the forefront of the corps’ advance, involved crossing formations of another division while engaged in battle-no mean feat under the circumstances. The Poles had to break through enemy defenses at the crossings on two rivers, the Laizon and the Dives. The Canadian 4th Armored Division was supposed to make a parallel advance toward Trun but failed to do so, thus exposing the Polish right flank to enemy attacks. In consequence, the 4th Armored Division’s commander was relieved of command.

Meyer spent the 15th conducting an organized withdrawal to the Laizon, covered by the German 85th Infantry Division. The Canadians broke through and scattered the 85th Division, but the 12th SS Panzer again managed to stop their advance and, by the morning of August 16, was still holding the line three miles south of Falaise. The 12th SS was by then down to only 11 tanks, a dozen 88mm anti-tank guns and 300 infantrymen. Later that day, the Canadians finally took Falaise.

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