Military Model Scene

Title: The Waffen-SS in Normandy
Author: Yves Buffetaut
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 978-1-61200-605-5

June 1944, The Caen Sector. New in the Casemate Illustrated series, another English language edition of a book first published in French back in 2013 by Histoire & Collections. The two publishers have worked together to produce this new 128-page soft-cover edition, while there is also a digital version available.
It opens with a timeline of the period covered by the book, before going through the structures of the 6 SS Panzer Divisions involved in the battle. These were 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 12th and 17th SS Panzer Divisions, and it tells us the stories of each one in the battle and their various encounters in Normandy. From the early counterattacks on the invasion forces by the 12th SS 'Hitlerjugend', while 17th SS faced the Americans at Carenten, through the encounters of British 7th Armoured Division, 'the Desert Rats' and the Tigers of Michael Wittman at Villers-Bocage. It goes on through Operation Epsom and the Scottish Corridor, taking us up to the end of June 1944. Throughout the book there are plenty of call outs, featuring profiles of not only the various types of armoured vehicles, with some fine colour artwork, but also a number of the different German commanders, such as Gunter Blumentritt, Geyr von Schweppenburg, Erwin Rommel, Kurt Meyer and more.
Add to all this appropriate maps and a large number of well chosen archive photos, along with useful captions, this gives a good coverage of the story of the Waffen-SS Panzer Divisions in Normandy in the first month of the campaign. A slightly different view of things in that this all comes from a French historian, who will of course have their own take on the story. A brief 1 page 'Afterword' gives a neat summary of the situation at the end of June, though of course a good deal of hard fighting was yet to come.
Thanks to Script Books for the review copy.

Robin