The headquarters had recently taken over the château at La Caine, about 12 mi (19 km) to the south-west of the city of Caen, north of Thury-Harcourt.

Eighteen staff officers were killed in the attack and the commander, General der Panzertruppen Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg was wounded.

On 9 June 1944, three days after the beginning of Operation Overlord, the invasion of France by the Western Allies, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, commander of Heeresgruppe B (Army Group B) with responsibility for the defence of northern France, drove to the HQ of Panzergruppe West and gave orders for a counter-offensive against the Allied landings in Normandy.

[2][b] The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) code-breaking organisation at Bletchley Park read German radio signals encrypted by the Enigma cypher machine and was part of the system of wireless listening posts, traffic analysis and direction finding used against Germany during the war.

The site of the source was identified by High-frequency direction finding (huff-duff) as the château in the commune of La Caine, about 12 mi (19 km) to the south-west of the city of Caen.

[9] Early on 10 June, the RAF Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF) was ordered immediately to attack the château with every available aircraft.

The officers hurried outside to see and watched the Typhoons through binoculars, not aware that they were the target until the last minute; Schweppenburg arrived by car just before the attack.

[12] The attack destroyed the only German army organisation in the western theatre capable of handling a large number of mobile divisions; the survivors of Panzergruppe West were withdrawn to Paris and were not ready to resume operations until 28 June.

In the 2009 edition of a history of the use of Ultra information, Ralph Bennett wrote that an armoured counter-attack against the Allied beachhead planned for 10 June, was postponed for 24 hours and then cancelled.

The appointment of new staff commanded by General Heinrich Eberbach, delayed the plans for the German armoured counter-offensive by three weeks when it was overtaken by events.

The château was not badly damaged but the nearby orchard, in which the HQ vehicles were parked, was thoroughly bombed and communications equipment was destroyed.