Countdown to D-Day

by Peter Margaritis

  “Remember, I’ve seen first-hand what overwhelming enemy airpower can do to ground units. Towards the end in Tripoli and Tunis, the bombs were dropped in such concentrations that even our best troops were demoralized. And if you cannot halt the bombing, all the other methods to stop them will be ineffective—even the barriers.” Perhaps he had gone too far.

  The Führer’s immediate reaction startled him. Hitler broke out into a big smile and gently grabbéd Rommel’s sleeve. He said eagerly, “Here is something I wanted to show you today in that connection, Field Marshal.”

  Hitler guided him over to an open range for his next appointment with the new Armaments Minister, Albert Speer, and his assistant, Karl Saur. A short distance away, there was what appeared to be some sort of experimental heavy-duty truck. It was lightly armored, and mounted in the back was an 88mm Flak-41 gun, nearly identical to the ones Rommel had used so effectively against the British armor in North Africa.

  They stood silently and watched as an army officer got in the truck and drove it around the range to demonstrate its mobility. Saur began explaining the unit’s features to them. After a few laps, the truck was parked. More soldiers rushed over to it and deployed the flak gun. It was fired several times into the air, as if against enemy aircraft, to show its rapid rate of fire. Stabilizing features that prevented the truck from lurching sideways when the gun was fired were pointed out.

  Rommel watched the demonstration patiently, unimpressed. This makeshift weapon was all right, but it did not solve his problems. To counter just the air threat, he would need a thousand or more of those flak vehicles. And it surely would not be the definitive answer to defeat the invasion. No, Rommel needed hundreds of fighters and bombers along the coast, ready in a flash to tear into an invasion fleet and to protect his supply lines from bombing raids.

  Unlike Rommel, Hitler was excited by the demonstration. He turned to Saur, and asked, “How many of these can you deliver in the next few months, Herr Saur?” Saur vowed that they could make three or four hundred. Animated, Hitler turned back to Rommel, searching to see the optimism he was feeling. “You see, Feldmarschall?” he had said proudly. “With this armored flak weapon, we can take care of the concentration of bombers over our divisions.”

  Rommel stared back at the Führer, clearly unconvinced. To him, this flak truck was a totally inadequate remedy. Knowing that the Führer was waiting for a reaction, he finally smiled, but the doubt was plain on his face.

  Hitler read his response, and his smile abruptly vanished. Grumbling, “Good day, Feldmarschall,” he angrily stomped off towards his bunker, Speer and Saur following him as they talked. Rommel silently watched the Führer depart. While he regretted his reaction, he still knew that Hitler clearly was not facing reality. A few flak trucks were not going to do the trick.

  Rommel’s optimistic mood had been shaken, especially since he became aware of a rumor that the Führer’s protégé was never going to get a combat command again. He had lost North Africa, and the Italians did not want him in their theater, because his occasional negative remarks about the incompetence of certain Italian officers had branded him an “Italian hater.” No, to some, this was just Hitler’s way of putting him in semi-retirement, as had happened to so many other generals before.

  Saddened by the rumor, he wrote to his wife Lucie on November 9:

  I am in a depressed mood. I am not sure whether my new assignment does not mean that I have been shelved. It is being judged that way in some quarters. I refuse to believe it. The Führer gave me an altogether different impression. But so many people are jealous of me. And yet the times are so serious there is really no room for envy and quarrel.

  He left the next day to gather his staff. It took them about a week to wrap things up in Northern Italy and get organized for the move to Western Europe. Finally, on November 21, he was ready to leave the Italian peninsula. He officially turned over his few responsibilities for this area to Albert Kesselring and then made a brief stop in Rome to tell Mussolini ciao. At that point he was finished, and departed. He would first go home on leave though, before starting his new task.

  He was taken over to the Villafranca airfield, where he boarded his two-engine green and yellow Heinkel 111, designated DH-YA, his pilot Leutnant Hermann Giesen.3 It took off from a partly cloudy airfield, escorted by two ME-109s, which were needed because of the real danger of being attacked by enemy aircraft. Three years ago of course, they would not have been necessary. But now it was late November 1943. The Allies ruled the skies.

  He flew home to rest before starting his task in Western Europe. He and Lucie would celebrate their 27th anniversary on November 27. Maybe the numerical coincidence would be a symbol of good luck for them in the next year. He hoped so. He needed some luck.

  In early December, Rommel’s inspection tour would begin.

  1Hitler was referring to military technological improvements that he felt would turn the tide of war. One was a long-range bomber that could fly across the Atlantic, bomb the US, and come back again. Another was the schnorkel device that allowed a U-boat to remain submerged, and yet still run on its diesel engines. In addition, this category included new German jet aircraft, supertanks and one of superbattleships, glide bombs, a sun gun that could focus intense sunlight on one spot, and of course the Vengeance weapons (V-1 and V-2).

  2Heeresgruppe B—zur besonderer Verwendung. “Army Group B—For Special Purposes.” See Glossary.

  3Rommel’s He-111, classified as a medium-range bomber, had been converted to carry passengers in comfort—in this case, one particular army commander.

  PART ONE

  Der Atlantikwall

  December 1943

  Wednesday, December 1

  After a restful ten-day leave at his beautiful cottage home in the quaint town of Herrlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel had traveled for two days by car to Munich the night before to meet his chief of staff and his skeleton army group staff. This morning, he joins them and rides with them to the railroad station, where a special train that has been set aside just for him is waiting. They all board the train with their luggage and boxes of supplies, and are shown their accommodation.

  Now in the conference car, Rommel formally meets with his staff, and they all sit down to finalize the schedule that they had laid out the night before. Shortly thereafter, Heeresgruppe B.z.v.b’s special train sets off for a 1,100km trip to the coast of Denmark.

  Aside from scheduling a number of administrative meetings, they go over more details for their inspection tour at various times that day, As the countryside rolls by, Rommel has occasion to talk to each member of this experienced staff of experts, these trusted officers that he will heavily rely on over the next few months.

  His army group chief of staff, fondly called Der Chef by the others, is Generalleutnant Alfred Gause. He has been with Rommel since North Africa as his chief of staff.1 He is dependable, intelligent, resourceful, and a decent man. He is a good friend, very familiar with the field marshal’s moods and temperament. Rommel in turn trusts him and knows that Gause is completely dedicated to him.

  Handsome, debonair, 36-year-old Oberst!leutnant Hans-Georg von Tempelhoff is their Ia, the chief operations officer.2 Rommel had first met him back in 1938, when the young man was still a member of the Hitlerjugend, 3 although not what could be considered an ardent Nazi. Interestingly, his wife Marianne is English-born, a point that von Tempelhoff is often ribbed about; sometimes though, in a more serious tone. He is a good soldier, having distinguished himself on the Russian front. Joining Rommel in Italy in 1943, he accompanied the field marshal on many inspections, and on a number of occasions they had candidly discussed the progress of the war. Over those months, they had formed a good relationship. Rommel will now count on von Tempelhoff to help him in Western Europe as he did in Italy.

  Fifty-four-year-old Generalleutnant Ernst Gehrke is their Höherer Nachrichtenführer.4 Gehrke in the early part of 1943 had served under
Rommel in North Africa in that same role for the Panzerarmee Afrika. Besides commanding and overseeing the staff’s signals unit, all theater reconnaissance operations and reports, all communications channels, and radar activities, he will also command the headquarters reconnaissance personnel; that is of course, when he is eventually assigned more men.

  Oberst! Freyberg is the IIa, their adjutant, in charge of assigning those personnel. Generalmajor Dr. Wilhelm Meise will advise Rommel on engineering matters. Even though Meise is a professional engineer, he is constantly amazed at the technical knowledge that Rommel displays about setting up defensive structures.

  Oberst! Hans Lattman is in charge of the weapons branch and is also Rommel’s artillery specialist. Lattman has been a personal friend of the Rommel family for several years, and his admiration for the field marshal is undeniable.

  Rounding out the staff is Oberst!leutnant Wolfgang Queissner, their Luftwaffe operations coordinator, and Rommel’s aide, Leutnant Norbert Hammermann, a decorated Eastern Front veteran who was badly wounded in the summer of 1942 and lost one eye.

  A further member of the staff who will join them in a day or two is their naval advisor, Vizeadmiral Friedrich Ruge. Rommel chose the affable 49-year-old admiral less than a month ago because he has an impressive background.5 Ruge had organized the naval defensive forces in France, before being transferred to Italy in mid-1943. There he took over command of the scant German naval forces on the Italian peninsula and oversaw their valiant but unsuccessful operations against the enemy invasions. It was during that time that Ruge had met the field marshal. Ruge, also a Swabian, was an uncomplicated man, and so it was no surprise that the two of them had quickly become good friends. And the admiral seemed to be an officer that the field marshal felt he could confide in. So when Gause proposed appointing him their Obermarineberater, 6 Rommel did not hesitate to give Ruge the job.

  Also soon to join the army group staff on the train will be Oberst! Anton Staubwasser, their Intelligence Officer (Ic).7 Recently recruited from the English Section of the Fremde Heeres West, he had been a student of Rommel’s some thirteen years ago at the Dresden Infantry School. Staubwasser is an easy-going fellow, not a schemer, and considered an authority on the British military. He will be a welcome addition to the staff, although his section only consists right now of a couple interpreters and some clerks. Hopefully, he will be able to get more personnel in a few weeks.

  All of Rommel’s officers are military men. Although he himself is a loyal member of the National Socialist Party, Rommel (strangely to some) does not want a political officer in his group. This is unusual, because an edict had just come down last week from OKW instructing that a political officer was now required for each command staff. Still, Rommel chooses to ignore the directive to allow his men the flexibility to show initiative, to speak their minds, and to better work together. A sort of harmony has emanated from these men because of their freedom to speak their minds in front of him, and he is not going to change that by including some die-hard Nazi in the team.

  Another personal rule of his is that he never has a woman on his staff. The field marshal is always extremely polite to ladies, treats them with great respect, and does not consider himself a chauvinist. However, to him, they have no place in the army, and certainly not in his headquarters staff.

  The train travels on all day and stops that night for the men to get out and find quarters in town.

  ***

  British bombers for months have steadily pounded German cities by night. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring grits his teeth at the thought of Germans contemptuously calling him “Meier” behind his back.8 Today, in a desperate attempt to get his once-vaunted Luftwaffe back in good standing, he will start planning a new blitz against the English cities.

  His decision is partly the culmination of a massive enemy campaign that has targeted large German urban centers in the last six months—the devastating raids on Hamburg in July and Schweinfurt in August and October, Wilhelmshaven in early November. More than anything though, this new German counteroffensive is to be in direct retaliation for a series of five recent, devastating RAF raids on Berlin that had started on November 18. Thousands of Germans had been killed. Several historic buildings had been destroyed, including the famous Kaiserhof Hôtel. Even the Führer’s own Chancellery had sustained a great deal of damage.

  Making matters much worse though, had been the snafu that occurred late on November 24.

  On that night, nearly 200 German night fighters had been dispatched to intercept the enemy bomber formations headed for the capital. To let them do their job effectively and keep them from being shot at by their own ground units, Göring had ordered the Berlin flak batteries to withhold their fire until the bombers were right over the city. The flak units had reluctantly complied. As it turned out though, the intercepting fighters had arrived too late to effectively interdict against the raiders. Thus, the bombers had come in nearly untouched, even though they had used the same flight path as the night before. When the flak units had finally opened up, it was too little, too late. The resulting damage from the raid had been devastating, and several intensive firestorms had broken out in the city center, slaughtering hundreds.

  By the end of November, Hitler had pretty much had enough. He had angrily ordered the Reichsmarshal to violently reply in kind, no matter what air assets would have to be diverted from their other missions.

  So today, Göring on his special train Asia meets with his two planning officers to exhort them into immediately gathering the forces necessary to strike back at England. Planning the operation with Göring is his Chef der Luftwaffenführungsstab, 9 Karl Koller.10 In charge of the operation will be 29-year-old Oberst! Dietrich Pelz, 11 the commander of the IX Fliegerkorps and the currently designated Angriffsführer England.12 Göring tells them to gather whatever bombers they can.

  Pelz replies, “Anything that can carry bombs is good enough for me.”

  Their campaign calls for some nine Kampfgruppen representing a wide assortment of bomber types to take part in the assault. The first night’s raid will consist of three waves of attacks. The first wave of 300 bombers will target industrial complexes and key ports, followed by a second wave of 200 more. A third pre-dawn wave of 150 bombers will hit wherever the first two have missed.

  Pelz suggests that ten specially-equipped Heinkel 177s13 be loaded with a pair of Trialen-filled14 2,500kg S-bombs—called “Big Max”—to specifically target Parliament. Göring of course eagerly agrees. “Just imagine the effect,” he sniggers, “of twenty Big Maxes thumping down with this super explosive in them!”

  ***

  Today, Field Marshal Keitel, chief of staff for Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, releases orders to activate a new Army unit, 65th Corps, for a special assignment. Its mission is to “prepare and execute the long-range engagement of England with all such secret weapons as might come into consideration for that purpose.”

  The new corps will oversee the creation and operation of all of the Vergeltungswaffen, from the V-1s to the V-3s, in the new offensive against England.15 It will be a singular OKW command directly under the authority of OB West. The corps’ first commander is to be an older artillery officer, Generalleutnant Erich Heinemann. Oberst! Max Wachtel will command Flak Regiment 155, overseeing production of the V1 flying bombs. Forty-eight-year-old Generalmajor Dr. Walter Dornberger, the head of the V-2 rocket project, will devote his efforts to its development. Generalleutnant Erich Schneider will concentrate on the V-3 development.

  1Gause was wounded in the desert in 1942. He later came back and served Rommel in Italy in the newly formed Heeresgruppe B staff.

  2The Ia was the First General Staff Officer (Generalstabsoffizier) in a unit headquarters. See Glossary.

  3The “Hitler Youth.” A paramilitary youth association created and strictly controlled by the Nazi Party in 1933 to indoctrinate and motivate male teenagers into Nazi culture and ideals and prepare them for military service, especially into
the SS (Schutzstaffel). Membership was initially suggested, then increasingly coerced through peer pressure, until it became mandatory in 1939. The 12th SS Panzer Division later took this title, since it was composed mainly of young men from this organization.

  4Chief Signals Advisor, in charge of signal units for signal communications.

  5Ruge, while serving on a destroyer in World War I, had become an expert on mine warfare. Since 1939, he had commanded various minesweeper squadrons along the English Channel.

  6Chief Naval Advisor.

  7The Ic, the Third General Staff Officer (Generalstabsoffizier) in a unit headquarters, was the critically important chief Intelligence officer. See Glossary.

  8On August 9, 1939, less than a month before the start of World War II, Göring, now the head of the largest, most modern, most powerful air force in the world, had been talking about potential war with England and France to an audience of Luftwaffe officers. When the subject of possible air raids over Germany had come up, the bombastic Reichsmarshal had haughtily bragged that, “The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring: you can call me Meier!” The name “Meier” (and its variants, e.g., “Meyer”) of course was very common, and many considered it Jewish in ethnic origin. Thus, reference to it carried a considerable amount of derision in the Third Reich, and using the phrase, equivalent to the American idiom of “then you can call me a monkey’s uncle,” was a promissory boast.

  Naturally, German cities were bombed (some as early as the fall of 1939), and as the war progressed and urban areas and industries began to get hammered from the air, the quote came back to haunt him. His reputation in the Armed Forces and his standing in the Nazi party (and of course with Hitler) plummeted. People began calling him “Herr Meier” or “Hermann Meier,” even hissing it to his face or in catcalls. As a result, he started avoiding being seen in public and shunned public engagements. To further their contempt, the air raid sirens that now went off frequently during the day to warn of American bombers, and again at night to signal incoming British formations, began being bitterly referred to by those seeking shelter below ground as “Meier’s trumpets” or “Meier’s hunting horns.” When Göring complained, Hitler told him that he had brought this scorn on himself, even more so because had also early on in the war made several other such idiotic boasts, including once claiming that if one enemy bomber ever reached the Reich capital, he would “eat a broomstick.” Thus, late in the war, he was also referred to sometimes as “Meier the Broom.”