Battle Recovered Helmet From the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Recovered from The Region of Combat Between The SS Panzer Divisions Against The 61,715 British Infantry & 21,400 Canadian Army Infantry, and 209 Free French Infantry

Souvenir of a collector who acquired it from Normandy many years ago. It is an M40, German 1940 pattern, combat helmet with serious multi bullet penetration damage, possibly 3 or 4 .303 rounds, and this was likely due to the close grouping, that the {the German} was hit by a burst of British or Canadian Bren gun fire, from a good reasonably long range. The Bren was famously accurate even at long range. The helmet was from the SS Hitler Jugend Panzer combat area, however, the single SS decal is almost certainly a later enhancement.

This particular site of the action in Normandy saw combat between the Ist Panzer Corps , from D Day +1, against 61,715 British Infantry, 21,400 Canadian Infantry {and if we include all the Free French Infantry that landed at Normandy} 209 French Infantry.
The D-Day Landings involved 7,000 ships and vessels, with 11,590 supporting aircraft, and 156,000 troops landing upon the five assault beaches - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
23,000 men of the US 4th Infantry Division landed on Utah beach, Nearly 25,000 men of the British 50th Division landed on Gold beach, on Omaha the 1st US Infantry assault experienced the worst ordeal of D- Day operations. The Americans suffered 2,400 casualties, but 34,000 Allied troops. Sword had 28,845 men of British I Corps had come ashore. On Sword beach, the Canadians and British suffered 1,200 total casualties out of 21,400 troops landed with 6,400 British Infantry, 209 French infantry landed on the 6th of June.
With the launch of Operation Overlord, the allied invasion of France on 6 June 1944, the corps was ordered to Falaise. The Hitlerjugend Division engaged British and Canadian troops to the north of Caen on 8 June. The corps was tasked with holding the area of Caen and saw heavy fighting around the villages of Authie, Buron, and the airport at Carpiquet.

From early June to late August 1944, no fewer than six Waffen SS divisions—1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen—were joined by the 101st and 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalions in the death struggle.

Churchill wanted to be involved on the actual day of D Day the 6th of June, and he pushed very hard {as did the King} to be on board one of the Naval ships that was bombarding the Normandy coast, however, President Roosevelt with assistance from King George VIth, ensured he understood, he was the most important European leader present, and was needed in London, however, it was only six days later on the 12th June (D-Day+6) he sailed across the Channel to the coast of France aboard the HMS Kelvin, accompanied by South African Field Marshal Jan Smuts, and visited the beaches at Normandy surveying the destruction. Churchill's group, was upon his insistence regarding their safety, so small, that Field Marshall Smuts acted as Churchill's photographer.
Later, on the 14th June {D Day + 8} General de Gaulle and 14 of his generals and subordinates, landed in Normandy, {including, his Generals Koenig and Béthouart (commander of the F.F.I., chief of staff of the French Fighting Forces), Admiral d'Argenlieu (commander of the F.N.F.L.), François Coulet, future Regional Commissioner of the Republic, and Colonel de Chevigné, military delegate of the provisional government}, in order to be appraised of just how his 209 valiant infantry fought from the 6th of June onwards. He was thus able to view the Normandy combat area, as it was now liberated from German occupation. Therefore, General De Gaulle and his group of 14, including his generals, an admiral, and various colonels would now be perfectly safe on their visit.
King George VI later convinced Churchill to let him go, and he did, on D Day+10. The King's bravery in the war was legendary, especially when he remained with his people in the capitol, at Buckingham Palace. The Palace was bombed nine times during the war, yet he never wavered in his determination to stay.
The late beloved Queen's mother, the previous well beloved Queen Elizabeth, was once asked by an American reporter during the war
'why they didn't send their heirs, {the children of the King and Queen} the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, to the safety of Canada?'. Her iconic reply was,
" The girls wouldn't go without me, and I won't leave the King's side, and he will never go"

King George VIth, King Charles' grandfather, is said to have constantly kept by his side, 24 hours a day, a briefcase containing his loaded pistol, and if the Germans invaded, over-ran the palace, and attempted to capture him, or the Queen, he would take his own life, in order to never, ever, be a puppet of the Fuhrer, and thus used to manipulate his people. Unlike King George, the abdicated former king, Edward, George VIth's brother, would likely have been a willing participant in the German defeat of the country, and he was eagerly supported by his former divorcee wife, Mrs Simpson. For those who are not familiar with 20th century British history, King George Vth, King Charles' great grandfather, had two sons, one, later became King George VIth. He was quiet retiring and absolutely devoted to his country, loyal to his family, and a great and a well beloved king. His other son, the abdicated former King, Edward, was vain, self centred, and incredibly disloyal to both his family and country. He was also, amongst his other failing’s, easily manipulated by his divorcee wife, and subsequently, after his abdication, they both fled his previous life of service to his country, in order to live a life of well funded, lazy luxury abroad, yet still beloved by some, although but not by most of his people, but by much of the American media. It is strongly conjectured that he would have been incredibly eager to replace King George, after his death, enabled by Hitler's defeat of Britain, if we had lost the war, and thus he would have then become the ultimate traitor to his family, his people, the empire and the commonwealth, and fully complicit in the expansion of Hitler's Third Reich.

The 10,000-strong Hitler Jugend division was officially established on June 24, 1943. The division was attached to the 1st SS Panzer Corps and sent to Normandy under the command of SS-Brigadefuhrer Fritz Witt. The Hitler Jugend division was ground to a pulp in Normandy.

Raised in 1943 with seventeen-year-olds from the Hitler Youth movement, and following the twin disasters of Stalingrad and 'Tunisgrad', the Hitlerjugend Panzer Division emerged as the most effective German division fighting in the West. The core of the division was a cadre of offices and NCOs provided by Hitler's bodyguard division, the elite Leibstandarte, with the aim of producing a division of 'equal value' to fight alongside them in I SS Panzer Corps. During the fighting in Normandy, the Hitlerjugend proved to be implacable foes to both the British and the Canadians, repeatedly blunting Montgomery's offensives, fighting with skill and a degree of determination well beyond the norm. This they did from D+1 through to the final battle to escape from the Falaise Pocket, despite huge disadvantages, namely constant Allied air attack, highly destructive naval gunfire and a chronic lack of combat supplies and replacements of men and equipment.

Code: 25163