Rommel set his jaw. No. The division is his to command. Enough nonsense. Turning to his staff, he directs that the 2nd Panzer is to move forward, until its lead elements actually touch the coastal positions at Abbéville.
While he is in the mood, he decides that it is time to move the 21st Panzer Division as well. Right now, they are situated over a large area in Brittany, centered on Rennes. He needs them to be closer to the coast. Since OKW has grudgingly given him administrative control of them, he can put them wherever he wants. And that is exactly what he intends to do.
He stares at the map of Northern France and focuses on the Calvados coast. Marcks’ area. Currently, there is no armor nearby to back him up. Rommel makes up his mind. The 21st Panzer will move to the Normandy coast, just south of Caen.
In a conference at the Berghof in lower Bavaria, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff General Korten7 makes the same argument to the Führer that Speer’s assistant Karl Saur and Luftwaffe Air Inspector General Erhard Milch have been making for a while now: that they should shut down production of the new second vengeance weapon, the A-4 (Aggregat-4) or V2 rocket, and instead allocate precious production resources to fighter and tank production. “We won’t see the A-4 this year,” General Milch had predicted, and now General Korten is supporting this forecast.
Hitler refuses to do so (although he made the opposite argument yesterday to Dönitz when the admiral had wanted to increase priority to U-boat production), insisting that the V-2 development continue, because he sees a missile campaign against England as a critical way to smash the morale of the enemy troops getting ready to invade.
1Fifty-one-year-old Generalleutnant Erich Diestel, commanding. Diestel, a decorated World War I veteran who had fought in Poland, France in 1940, and then on the Russian Front, took over this static infantry division in September, 1942.
2The term was used to describe individual or paired dugout positions, from which non-armored infantry could fight against tanks. Named after General Hube, who had recently died in a plane accident leaving the Berghof (see entry for April 21).
3This action happened on June 10, 1940, one of the destroyers being HMS Ambuscade, which sustained some hull and splinter damage from Rommel’s panzers,. After evacuating troops, it returned to Portsmouth on the 12th and stayed there for three days of repairs.
4In the process of the evacuation, French shore batteries sank a couple of their own ships in the harbor. Among them was the French cargo vessel Granville.
5Just before the invasion, half the guns were moved into concrete positions on the side of the hill. When the invasion began, the three not moved were knocked out by naval fire from the British battleship Ramillies. The other half were camouflaged and moved around from time to time. Thus, they were able to fire against the British troops for a couple weeks after.
6Rommel took command of the 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment in October, 1933. At that time, a regiment’s third battalion was typically a Jäger (hunter) battalion. These were specially trained infantry battalions, authorized to wear green instead of the traditional white. He was posted as an instructor to the Potsdam Military Academy in 1935. Interestingly, it was during this time that Rommel met Hitler for the first time.
7GeneralOberst! Günther Korten, Chef der Generalstabes der Luftwaffe, the first general to campaign for a strategic bomber force in the Luftwaffe. He was appointed to chief of staff after his predecessor, Hans Jeschonnek, committed suicide in August 1943. Korten will die an agonizing death on July 20 when Stauffenberg’s bomb explodes directly under the conference table and a wood fragment pierces him.
Wednesday, April 26
It is a beautiful morning in Northern France; sunny, with a northeasterly breeze. It is 6 a.m. as Rommel sits in his study at the huge inlaid Renaissance desk. As usual, he slept no more than five hours. Now he goes over the morning message traffic. The Luftwaffe 5 a.m. weather forecast: a fine high-pressure weather front; the Kriegsmarine report: clear weather in the Channel, and the normal picket boats are out in force.
Today’s situation reports include an aerial recon message reporting several formations of enemy ships massing between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Could this be it? The invasion at last? A bit early. He puts Heeresgruppe B on alert, just in case.
Hans Speidel leaves for Paris to attend a chief of staff conference at St.-Germain. They discuss various subjects. General Hoffmann1 brings up von Salmuth’s request to disperse into combat groups the 12th SS Panzer Division and put them between elements of General Reichert’s 711th Infantry Division along the coast, between the Seine and the Dive Rivers. Speidel tells them that Rommel has denied the request. He knows well that von Rundstedt does not like the idea of the division close to the coast. Both agree on Rommel’s policy of keeping the division together instead of it being parceled out. Although Rommel wants the panzer divisions close to the coast to be able to react swiftly, he wants each to be able to move and operate as a unit, hitting the beaches en masse in a coordinated attack, as they have been trained to do. Distributed between the infantry units, they would not be able to do this, and their effectiveness would be all but neutralized. That was the same blunder that the French had made against them in 1940. This is no time to repeat old mistakes.
At the conference, General Christiansen2 asks Speidel for some reinforcements to help protect the west Frisian coastline.3 He also wants to have the power to assume full command of all naval training units in the area if there ever is an invasion, as well as acquiring two reinforced grenadier regiments from Germany. Speidel tells him that the requests will be approved and forwarded on to OKW, although up until now, the Navy has refused to allow these units to suspend their training and join the conflict.
The conference breaks up in the afternoon. Speidel leaves to return to the château, but not before learning that General Heinz Guderian will soon call on von Rundstedt to discuss the displacement of the panzers.
***
Rommel remains at the château, tied up with a number of items besides the 12th SS issue. Disturbed by so many coastal batteries being bombed from the air, he orders the construction of more dummy batteries to throw the Allied bombers off. There is to be at least one fake battery for every real one along the coastline. And to further throw off the bombers, he orders dummy foxholes to be dug in a 100-meter circle around the real guns.
Then there are the Öst units. Made up of “liberated” Russian POWs, their fighting ability is marginal at best. Rommel wants the placement of these battalions re-analyzed, and to make damned sure that they put a good German unit on each side of them.
Lunchtime. Rommel eats lightly. The French good life is getting to him, despite his often-hectic schedules, and he seems to have put on some weight.
That afternoon, because he has started horse riding again to try to lose some of that weight, his staff present him with a nice gray-white mount. Beaming, he takes a ride on the sturdy, tame animal around the area, and notes afterwards with some disappointment, that the horse would have been a nicer gift for a 70-year-old country parson. As he dismounts, he comments, “The horse has so little temperament that I got quite impatient.”
As his naval advisor looks at him in sympathy, he adds, “See, I also don’t like boring people either.” He pauses and adds with a slight smile, “But you most likely have already noted that.” Ruge grins. Rommel promises though, to continue taking regular rides on the animal around the grounds.
***
That afternoon, the bridges at Mantes, down the road and upriver from La Roche- Guyon, are bombed, and the raid makes a raucous commotion as distant enemy contrails cross the skies over the bridges. Later, Rommel finds out that luckily the damage is minimal. Just as well. Otherwise, when they went out again, Rommel and his vehicle would have to use the local ferries to cross the Seine.
***
It is evening. Speidel, returning from Paris, relays to Rommel General Christiansen’s request for emergency direct authority over the naval training un
its in his area. This has been an ongoing issue.4 Rommel approves that request and the one to transfer two grenadier regiments to Christiansen’s area. The approvals are forwarded on to OB West.
Early that evening, he writes letters to both Manfred and Lucie. To his son, he describes the thrill of having been on horseback again:
Just think, today I went riding for the first time since 1939…
To Lucie, he writes of his animals:
The thoroughbred would have been quite suitable for a seventy-year-old clergyman, but there are others too…
Last night the little one got away from Günther and came to sleep with me…
He writes her about the recent bombings and discord among the Western Allies:
The invasion preparations have now just about begun with large scale air attacks. The damage here at the front is still negligible, but at the same time, this is a good thing, because the troops can slowly get used to these concentrated attacks.
In England, morale is bad, one strike after another and the cries, “Down with Churchill and the Jews” and peace are getting louder. These are bad omens for such a risky offensive…
After dining, Rommel and his staff discuss having a special dinner. The idea is to invite a number of VIPs to the château to wine and dine them—to socialize and (of course) try to incur favors from them. Rommel though, does not like the idea of having them all come in for one big dinner. He worries that this will dilute their efforts with each individual, because the discussions will be varied and not centralized. It will be hard to concentrate on any one guest. No, he wants to be able to go one-on-one with them.
Their planning session over, Rommel takes time out to see a movie, something he rarely does with his men. He and some staff members walk downstairs into one of two large reinforced makeshift caves that have been blasted out of the chalk cliffs by the engineers. One has been turned into a game room. The other, a large chamber that can hold nearly 400 men, has been turned into a makeshift movie theater. The same movie has been played for two or three days now, but it relaxes him somewhat, and he is grateful for the diversion.
His evening is ruined though after he returns upstairs. Stopping by the operations room on the way back to his quarters, he casually asks for a status report on the 2nd Panzer Division’s progress as it repositions closer to the coast. Checking on his request, a staff officer finds out that the division has not yet started to redeploy.
His good mood quickly vanishes. Is von Lüttwitz5 stalling on him? He would not dare. Is Rommel’s order being countermanded? If so, by whom? Is Geyr von Schweppenburg trying to go around him? Maybe it was even Guderian. He is in-theater, and has seen von Rundstedt today. In any case, the delay is probably not the division commander’s own initiative. Damn these people! Why can’t they let him do his job?
Verbally he begins in front of his staff members to denounce all of those accursed “obstructionists.” He is fed up with the lot of them. Stupid armchair generals! They are all just a bunch of administrators.
He angrily thumps his fist down on a table. “The panzer divisions are going to be moved forward,” he growls, “whether they like it or not!”
The room goes silent. He glares straight ahead, waiting for someone to challenge him. Naturally, no one does.
With a final grunt, he leaves the room and stomps off to retire for the night.
1Forty-nine-year-old Generalleutnant Rudolf Hofmann, Chief of Staff, Fifteenth Army. A World War I veteran, he later fought in Poland, France and Russia with the Ninth Army. After a period of illness, he was on May 1, 1942, promoted to chief of staff for the Fifteenth Army in France.
2General der Flieger Friedrich Christiansen, Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces, Netherlands.
3Frisia is a stretch of coastland along the North Sea extending from northwestern Holland, through northwestern Germany, to Denmark. West Frisia corresponds to the northern part of Holland.
4See entry for March 26.
5Forty-seven-year-old Generalleutnant Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz.
Thursday, April 27
By now, the Allies are deep into their preparations for the invasion. A steady stream of men and supplies has been unloading onto the British Isles for many months. Planning has advanced considerably, and intelligence reports are being harvested regularly so that landing site information is not only definitive, but also updated.
The army brass has argued for months that an early-morning landing at high tide would provide minimum exposure to fire for the men as they charge across the beaches. On the other hand, the navy strategists have countered that striking at low tide would be better for the landing craft. They would be better able to avoid the underwater mines and obstacles. A compromise is reached. The Allies will hit the beaches about an hour after dawn, and between one to three hours after low tide. Since the tide will be rising, it will give later incoming landing craft draft to maneuver (assuming many obstacles would be cleared by the assault engineers). And a mid-morning high tide would allow for a second one in the evening, thus giving better opportunity to unload supplies.
There are dozens of problems associated with the tide issues. High and low tide vary in time from one beach to the next, since the tide advances up the Channel. Total variance is 40 minutes from beaches Utah to Sword, so each beach will require its own H-Hour. This time factor discrepancy means that the beach furthest east, Sword, will be in broad daylight for the longest time between dawn and H-Hour, while the one furthest west, Utah, will only have about 40 minutes of daylight to pound the shore defenses before the troops land. The second high tide, needed to maximize off-loading, will not occur until well into the evening. Maximum favorable conditions for the air drop require light as well, but not so much early on in the evening, so that aircraft could still approach in darkness. Thus a full moon, rising around 1 or 2 a.m. would be best.1 And low winds are vital, to minimize scattering; no greater than Force 3 (8—12 m.p.h.) on shore and Force 4 (13—18 mph) offshore. Although previous major landing operations (almost all of them in the Mediterranean) have begun in the dark early-morning hours, Eisenhower’s top planners agree that this invasion must begin in daylight. There will be too many small craft operating over an expanse of five major landing locations. Daylight will be needed to simplify navigation and keep accidents to a minimum.
Another problem will be identifying targets from offshore. A huge armada of warships is being readied to provide an initial bombardment and subsequent naval fire support to the assaulting troops. The gun directors will have to be able to readily spot the targets if they are going to guide quick and accurate fire onto them.
The same is true in the air. For bombardiers to pinpoint enemy positions to knock them out, they will need daylight to see them. Naval and air planners calculate that least an hour of daylight is needed to neutralize enemy coastal positions enough for a successful landing. They want to have two hours, but army planners insist on a landing right at dawn.
The invasion, designated “Y-Day, “ has been targeted for June 1. The next two periods in June that fulfill all of these requirements are June 5—7 and June 18—20, although the latter period would have a new moon.
It is another warm, beautiful spring day at La Roche-Guyon. Mid-morning. Rommel is back in his study again, evaluating some reports that have come in. Boulogne was bombed again. One unusual (and disturbing) note was that the British for the first time bombed the offshore defensive obstacles as well. Was this the start of a new enemy tactic? He will have to watch this carefully.
A Naval Group West message reports the loss of the torpedo boat T-29.2 The report of course states that the crew had fought valiantly against an overwhelming enemy force.
The latest orders from OKW have caused a stir. The Führer seems to be trying to kill two birds with one stone. He has decided to beef up the Brittany peninsula, and to reorganize the paratroop forces at the same time. He has ordered the II Parachute Corps, under the command of General der Fallschirmtruppen Eugen Mendl,
to be relocated to France. This includes the 3rd and 5th Parachute Divisions, and the 6th Parachute Regiment from the 2nd. Rommel calls in Speidel and tells him to send a message off to OKW at once, requesting that the paratroopers be put near Rennes, so that they can move towards either St. Malo or Lorient if one or the other is ever threatened.
Admiral Ruge is gone today, off to Paris to see Admiral Krancke. Rommel hopes that meeting goes well. The two have had problems with each other.
***
After first meeting with navy fortress engineers to find out their plans to implement protective shields for their concrete emplacements, Ruge reluctantly goes to Krancke’s headquarters.
Krancke’s small minelaying fleet, between shortages and bombing attacks on them, has only been able to put down a couple of shallow water minefields off the coast of Dieppe. A couple of temporary minefields have also been laid in the Bay of the Seine, but these will only be effective for a little over a month.
The meeting with Krancke surprisingly goes rather well, all things considered. Krancke seems to have gotten over the fact that Ruge is not in his chain of command. They discuss an intelligence report that Eisenhower had taken command of the combined Western Allied strategic air forces on April 13. Well, that made sense.
Turning to naval matters, Krancke gives his reasons for not yet mining the Bay of the Seine and his plans for Blitzsperren3 to be laid after the invasion had begun. They talk about other things too, including camouflage patterns, and the fates of the lost T-29 and the damaged T-27. Once more, Ruge pleads with him to start laying the new Type-A coastal mine.4
Krancke pulls out several photographs of some ports of southeast England and the Thames estuary, taken at a distance by German air reconnaissance. He comments that they show little activity. He tells Ruge that as far as he is concerned, Cap Gris Nez and the northeast coast are not threatened by an invasion. He states that, in his opinion, the invasion when it comes will probably be somewhere between Boulogne and Cherbourg.
Countdown to D-Day Page 51