Heavy Artillery the Schutzstaffel (SS) in November 1934, and oversaw training of the first small military units that later grew into the Waffen-SS He was an SS division commander in France in 1940, and again at the head of the Das Reich division in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 He lost an eye in October 1941, but took over as commander of SS-Panzerkorps in May 1942 His command saw heavy fighting at Kharkov in early 1943, and again at Kursk that summer In March 1944, Hausser led an expanded II SS-Panzerkorps in defensive fighting in Galicia Transferred with his men to the Western Front in June, Hausser and II SS-Panzerkorps fought the British along the Odon River in Normandy, countering Operation EPSOM When Hausser took command of 7th Army following the suicide of General Friedrich Dollmann, it marked the first elevation of an SS man to command of so large a Wehrmacht force Hausser was wounded again while leading his troops out of the Falaise pocket He replaced Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Upper Rhine in late January 1945 A few days later he was given command of Army Group C, the highest command of any SS officer in the war, though by then a German “Army Group” was a shadow of what it once had been Not even a dedicated SS man like Hausser could survive the twists of rage and vengeance that coursed through Hitler in the final month of the war He was dismissed in early April 1945 He testified in defense of the SS at the Nuremberg Tribunal, without success He remained active in SS veterans organizations long after the war His memoir, Waffen-SS im Einsatz (1953), was a long apologia arguing that Waffen-SS men were just like any other soldiers in the war Most were not HAW HAW, LORD See William Joyce HEAVY ARTILLERY A subclassification of artillery referring to the largest guns available to ground forces, usually under the control of an HQ at the corps or army level See artillery; field guns HEAVY BOMBERS See anti-aircraft weapons; bombers HEDGEHOG “Anti-Submarine Projector.” Developed by the Royal Navy from 1941 and in service from 1943, the Hedgehog forward-firing spigot-mortar solved the problem of loss of U-boat location when deploying stern-only depth charges Its rod or spigot racks held 24 mortar bombs, each triggered by a contact pistol When fired ahead of the ship on a known U-boat location, they fell in a controlled circle 40 meters in diameter This was highly effective because the bombs hit the area around a U-boat before it could dive deeply or turn hard This markedly improved the kill-per-attack ratio of escorts The recoil of the Hedgehog placed real strain on smaller ships, and it was initially much disliked by ships’ captains Only once its deadly impact on U-boats became known did it rise in popularity The kill ratio 498