Panzer Leader: Memoirs of an Armoured Car Commander, 1944-1945

The armored reconnaissance units were the spearheads of Hitler’s Panzer divisions, moving stealthily ahead of the tanks to locate the enemy. Otto Henning’s armored car unit of the elite Panzer—Lehr—Division fought throughout the campaigns in the West in 1944 and 1945, arriving in Normandy a few weeks before D—Day and finally surrendering in the Ruhr pocket in mid—April 1945.

Henning describes the difficulties that reconnaissance forces such as his faced in the close terrain of the Normandy b...