by Unknown
Nothing, I realise, could be more tedious than to follow its fortunes in such detail. Some day some military historian may do so in the way of duty, though it seems unlikely that the French will care, the British take the trouble, the Americans be interested or the Germans look backwards, to fight these old battles over again. Nevertheless, having spent a week end on the record, page by page, I venture to think that not even General Patton's advances will show armour more boldly handled or a commander more ready to take risks and quicker to exploit success. General von Thoma has said that Rommel was really an infantryman at heart, that he never understood the “technique” of tanks but merely the tactics. (He admits that he was an infantry tactician of the first order.)
Since General von Thoma himself fought in 192 tank engagements during the Spanish Civil War alone, many of them against Russian tanks under Marshal Koniev, and, after commanding a tank brigade with great dash and skill in Poland, was Chief Staff Officer of the German Mobile Forces, he ought to know. But when one reads the story of the “Ghost Division” it is not surprising that Rommel taught us a trick or two in Africa about the use of tanks.
On his return from Poland he remained at the F�hrer's H.Q. and was again responsible for his safety. But he was aching for a fighting command and by this time knew Hitler well enough to ask him for it. Hitler, for his part, had taken a fancy to Rommel, who was not of the aristocratic type of Junker officer with whom he felt ill at ease, however much he bullied them, perhaps because he knew they secretly despised him. “What do you want?” he asked and the reply was naturally “command of a Panzer Division.” Rommel took over the 7th Panzer Division at Godesberg, on the Rhine, on February 15th, 1940, succeeding General Stumme, whom he was to succeed again when Stumme died of a heart attack at the beginning of the battle of El Alamein. Frau Rommel remained with Manfred in the house at Wiener Neustadt. Rommel had just time enough to make himself known to every officer and man in the division and to get to know at least the officers personally, before they were on the move. In two months' intensive training he also had time to work out his own theories of tank tactics on the ground and to apply the lessons he had learnt in Poland. (Both he and Guderian had already studied the writings of General Fuller and Captain Liddell Hart with more attention than they received from most British senior officers.) When the order came for the advance into Belgium, the division was fighting fit and knew that it was under a commander who, whatever mistakes he might make, would make none through hesitating to “have a go.”
On May 10th the frontier was crossed about thirty miles south of Liege. On May 13th the division had its first big task, to effect a passage of the Meuse. The Belgians fought well from houses which had been put into a state of defence and from pill-boxes. They had anti-tank guns in concrete positions and plenty of covering artillery. A bridge had to be built under heavy fire and Rommel was up to his waist in water helping to shift baulks of timber. “I'll give you a hand,” he said, and stayed with his men until he was sure that the job would be done. Divisional commanders doubtless have no business to be messing about in the front line. But it was a story which did not take long to go round the division. Rommel had already re-earned his old reputation of never asking men to do what he would not do himself. Towards evening the French counter-attacked with tanks and infantry but the attacks were beaten off and by nightfall the first tanks were across, with Rommel's tank leading.
The next day was nearly the end of him. He drove in his tank into a sand quarry and came under heavy anti-tank fire. The tank was put out of action, Rommel was hit in the face and French native troops were advancing to capture him when Colonel Rothenburg, commanding 25th Panzer Regiment, who won the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during the operations and was afterwards to die in Russia, came up in his own tank and drove them off.
By May 15th, 7th Division was far ahead of 5th Panzer Division on its right flank and during the night, Rommel, still in front, captured a French battery when it was moving up into what its commander supposed to be a supporting position.
The following night the division broke through the extension of the Maginot line in the fortified zone west of Clairfay. The rearward positions, with their artillery and anti-tank guns under concrete, were smothered with artificial fog and artillery fire; the villages to the flanks were blanked off by the same means. At 11 P.M. the attack was launched by moonlight, the tanks and the motor-cycle battalion leading. The mass of the division followed. The higher command had laid down that tanks should not fire while on the move. Rommel disregarded this order and encouraged his tank crews to do so, saying that loss of accuracy and consequent waste of ammunition were more than compensated by moral effect under such conditions.
“We'll do it like the Navy,” he said, “fire salvoes to port and starboard.” As they broke into and out of Avesnes around midnight, leaving it still occupied by French troops, with French tanks firing wildly in all directions and heavy street fighting continuing, the German tanks fired on the move at batteries on both flanks. A French mechanised division retreating westward along the road, crowded with refugees, and French tanks parked alongside it were overrun before they could come into action. An artillery regiment followed the tanks through Avesnes during the night and captured forty-eight tanks intact. French infantry ran, throwing away their weapons and spreading panic before them. Had all stood fast the Germans would have been in trouble, for the guns of their tanks and the ported anti-tank guns of the motor-cycle battalion could at first do nothing in Avesnes against the heavy armour of the French tanks.
“Vous etes anglais?” asked a French woman of Rommel, patting him on the arm as he stood beside his tank in a village street beyond Avesnes. “Non, Madame, je suis allemand,” replied Rommel, who had a smattering of several languages, though he was no linguist. “Oh, les barbares!” cried the woman and, throwing her apron over her head, ran into her house.
Meanwhile all communications were interrupted and even the infantry brigade was not aware of the break-through. Nevertheless, Rommel determined, on his own responsibility, to launch the whole division in an attack towards the west, in an endeavour to reach the Sambre, secure a bridgehead and keep it open. The attack began about 5:30 in the morning (this after a night's continuous fighting), with 25th Panzer Regiment pushing towards Landrecies, where the Guards were first engaged in World War I. They were attacked by motorised columns from both flanks but the French infantry were shocked into surrender by the sudden appearance of the German armour. By 6 A.M. Landrecies was captured, large numbers of French troops were caught in their barracks and a bridge over the Sambre was seized intact. Rommel made the French throw down their arms, over which he drove a tank. The regiment pushed on to Le Cateau, where it was halted by Rommel, for the advance had been made by only two of its battalions, with part of the motor-cycle battalion, and the mass of the division was far behind.
While 25th Panzer Regiment took up a position on high ground east of Le Cateau, Rommel himself went back in an armoured car to bring it up. All day the 25th Panzer Regiment was heavily attacked by tanks. Behind it, Pommereuil was recaptured by the French, who were thrown out again by the oncoming division. By the evening of May 17th the situation was sufficiently clear to allow the divisional artillery to move up into forward positions and another bridge over the Sambre had been seized at Berlimont, to enable 5th Panzer Division, now completely outdistanced, to come up and cross on the right.
If one looks at the map, one sees that Rommel had pushed forward a narrow salient, thirty miles long and only two miles wide, like a finger pointing into the heart of France. (From Avesnes to Le Cateau alone is nearly fifteen miles.) In doing so he had taken enormous risks; for there were strong French forces on both flanks. But he had broken through the fortified zone and had secured the vital crossings of the Sambre. The operations were rightly regarded as of great importance to the progress of the campaign and for his success and his personal bravery Rommel was given the Knighthood Cross.
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sp; That boldness pays is shown by the fact that the Division's total casualties were only 35 killed and 59 wounded, whereas it had taken over 10,000 prisoners in two days, and captured or destroyed 100 tanks, 30 armoured cars and 27 guns.
Though there were great difficulties in bringing up petrol and enemy tank attacks were still continuing on either flank, 25th Panzer Regiment pushed on at the same speed and by 5 A.M. on May 20th, by-passing Cambrai, it had crossed the Canal du Nord at Marcoing and taken up a position south of Arras. On the way, French troops had once more been captured in their barracks. Again the mass of the division was left behind and again Rommel went back to bring it up, taking with him two tanks, his signal section and an armoured car. On the Arras-Cambrai road, at Vise-en-Artois, he ran into the enemy, his two tanks were destroyed and he remained surrounded for several hours.
The fighting round Arras on May 21st is of interest because it was here that, for the first time in either war, Rommel bumped up against the British. It is pleasant to record that he found them a much tougher proposition than anything he had yet encountered. Debouching from Viny to the south and southeast, the 1st Army Tank Brigade attacked him around Achicourt and Agny. They broke through and his 42nd Anti-Tank Battalion was overrun, most of the gun crews being killed, for the Germans found, to their surprise, that they could not penetrate the armour of the “I” tanks, even at close range. The attack was only stopped by artillery fire from an artillery regiment, and from a flak (AA) battery armed with 88 mm. guns-a weapon which doubtless came as an equally unpleasant surprise to us. Even so, Stukas had to be called in before the British armour withdrew again to Arras.
Meanwhile 25th Panzer Regiment which, as usual, had pushed on and reached the high ground south of the Scarpe at Acq, was ordered by Rommel to turn round and attack the British tanks in the rear. In the tank battle which followed near Agnes, though the British lost seven tanks and six A.T. guns, 25th Panzer Regiment lost three Mark IV's, six Mark III's and some light tanks and thus had considerably the worst of it. Rommel, forced to fight a defensive action for once, had another narrow escape, for an officer was killed beside him while the two of them were looking at a map which both were holding.
That this was a harder day is shown by the fact that the division lost 250 in killed and captured alone, whereas its total bag of British prisoners was only 50, though it claimed 43 British tanks destroyed.
The next few days were tough, too. The division crossed the Scarpe on May 22nd but the diary records that British tank attacks were beaten off with difficulty, that mines had to be laid against them, that Mont St. Eloi was captured and lost and captured again and so on. In the advance to the La Bassee Canal on the 24th, British snipers are reported as being active in the bushes and hedges south of the Canal and difficult to dislodge. In spite of them, bridgeheads were secured on both sides of Guinchy on the 26th, the first tanks and guns went over on the 27th, on the 28th the division had taken up a line facing east towards Lille and on the 29th it was ordered out to rest west of Arras. Rommel, with his usual curiosity, celebrated his first day of rest after a fortnight's continuous fighting by driving into Lille. When he saw that the streets were full of British and French soldiers, he realised that he had made a mistake. Since they were as surprised as he, but for a second or two longer, he was able to turn the car round and drive out before any one had the presence of mind to interfere with him. Counting up his recorded escapes from death or capture during this period, apart from the ordinary risks which a divisional commander runs who insists on leading his advanced guard personally into action, one feels that we were a little unlucky to be bothered with Erwin Rommel in Africa.
Within a few days the division was pulled out of rest again and given a special task. The end was now in sight. The French were patently on the point of being driven out of the war and the British had already been driven out of France. Between May 29th and June 4th, more than 300,000 British troops had been embarked at Dunkirk-thanks to Hitler's refusal to allow the German armour to be put in against them. There remained the 51st Highland Division, about to take ship, after a fighting withdrawal, from St. Valery. It was for Rommel to stop them. He had first to cross the Somme and break through what was left of the Weygand Line.
A race against time was the sort of thing that appealed to him and he wasted none of it. Having made a personal “recce” with his regimental and battalion commanders, he crossed the Somme on the morning of June 6th. That day and the next he met with opposition and had to stage attacks to clear it. Then, right shoulder up, he squared away towards the East of Rouen.
The division moved at night and as the tanks rumbled and clanked through the silent villages, the French peasants, thinking them British, turned out to wish the crews “bonne chance.” They went on their way without speaking. On the night of June 9th they reached the Seine, ten miles south-west of Rouen. Next morning some bolder spirit found the heart to put up a fight at Yvetot. Whoever he was, he was thrust aside. By 2:15 in the afternoon the division had covered the twenty miles from Yvetot to Veulettes and reached the sea, between Fecamp and St. Valery. This time it was closed up and the divisional artillery was well forward.
At Fecamp, destroyers were lying off the shore when 37th Panzer Battalion appeared and, with its supporting artillery, at once engaged them. A British destroyer promptly closed for action and was straddled at 18,000 yards. A motor-torpedo boat was hit which steamed at 35 knots. So were other vessels and the little harbour was brought under heavy artillery fire. In such conditions, embarkation by daylight was impossible.
St. Valery was the real prize, for here were the headquarters of General Fortune, commanding the 51st Division, and it was here that the bulk of the division was preparing to embark. During the night of June 10th and the morning of the 11th Rommel seized the high ground to the west, from which he could bring the port under artillery fire. At 3:30 P.M. he himself led 25th Panzer Regiment and part of 6th Infantry Regiment in to the attack, under cover of his guns.
“The enemy fought back desperately, first with artillery and anti-tank guns and later with machine-guns and small arms: there was particularly hard fighting round Le Tot and on the road St. Sylvain-St. Valery,” says the record, and this and the tribute to the British armour around Arras are among the very few entries in which it is admitted that the Ghost Division had found the going hard.
By evening, Rommel had taken about a thousand prisoners and, what was more important, was in a dominating position west of St. Valery from which his guns could prevent embarkation from the harbour. Nevertheless, in the evening heavy fighting was still going on and first two (Pioneer) battalions and then the rest of the division were ordered up in support.
A written demand from Rommel to General Fortune to surrender and march out the 51st Division under white flags to the west was refused and the Germans could see that barricades were being erected on the harbour moles and that guns and machine-guns were being brought into position. At 9 P.M. a heavy bombardment was opened. The concentrated fire of the whole of the divisional heavy and light artillery was brought to bear on the northern part of St. Valery and the harbour and 2,500 shells fell in this small area. At the same time 25th Panzer Regiment was again put into the attack, with 7th Infantry Regiment and 37th Pioneer Battalion. The line was advanced nearer to St. Valery. But “in spite of the heavy fire the tenacious British troops did not give up. They hoped to be embarked during the night but the enemy was prevented by heavy artillery fire from loading. In the early morning hours the British are busy trying to embark from the steep coast to the east of St. Valery, under cover of fire from warships. But the divisional artillery first hinders this and later makes it impossible. There is a duel between a warship and the 88 mm. A.A. battery.... 8th Machine Gun Battalion attacks.... Parts of 6th and 7th Infantry Regiments attack and gain more ground near St. Valery.... On the left, Rommel, with 25th Panzer Regiment under Colonel Rothenburg and part of 7th Infantry Regiment, pushes into St. Valery itse1f and compels ca
pitulation as the enemy commander sees that further resistance is impossible.”
Twelve thousand prisoners were taken at St. Valery, of whom eight thousand were British. They included, beside Major-General Fortune himself, the commanders of the 9th French Army Corps and of three French divisions. Tanks to the number of 58, 56 guns, 17 A.A. guns, 22 A.T. guns, 368 machine-guns, 3,550 rifles (there must have been more in the harbour), and 1,133 trucks were amongst the booty. The divisional artillery claimed an armoured cruiser sunk, which would be an unusual victim for a panzer division, but I am advised by the Admiralty that this claim is unfounded.
Rommel never forgot General Fortune of the 51st Highland Division and often spoke of him to Frau Rommel and to his son Manfred as the gallant leader of a good division who had had bad luck. While he was in prison-camp in Germany, General Fortune was given the chance by the Germans of being repatriated to England on the grounds of age and ill-health. Because he felt that he could still do something for the morale of the officers and men of his division by sharing their captivity with them, he refused and remained a prisoner until the end of the war.
Rommel came to hear of this and it increased his respect for his former opponent. It would appear that General Fortune also remembered and respected Rommel. Two years or more after the collapse of Germany, a German prisoner-of-war, repatriated from a British prison camp in the Channel Islands, came to Herrlingen to see Frau Rommel. He had met General Fortune in the Channel Islands, he said, after the latter's return from Germany, and the general had asked him to visit her, if possible, when he himself returned home and to express his sympathy with her on her husband's death. I could not check this story with Major-General Fortune before he died but it would appear to be true, since a German soldier could hardly have invented it or, for that matter, have heard of General Fortune. I hope so, for I am one of those old-fashioned persons who regret that chivalry should be among the casualties of “total” war.