The Boy Who Went to War

by Giles Milton

  The drawback to this strategy was that there were many natural obstacles to overcome. The Meredet and Douve rivers, as well as strong German positions on the ridges of high ground, made the American advance a daunting one for the newly landed troops. Yet it was conducted with gritty determination on two flanks.

  The front line kept moving with every hour that passed and Wolfram and his men were obliged to move with it. Even though they were the ones relaying all the battlefield signals, they could get no clear idea of what was happening.

  As the Americans drove westwards, the plight of the German forces in the Cotentin grew desperate. The loss of Carentan, a strategically important town in the south of the Cotentin, came as a heavy blow. This was quickly followed by the American capture of the Quinville ridge in the north.

  The Allied control of the skies was also presenting a growing threat. Not only were they continually strafing and killing troops on the ground, but they had also managed to cut all the supply routes into the Cotentin peninsula. The German army stationed in the Cotentin required 5,250 tons of food each week to keep its soldiers fed. By mid-June, it was receiving just 200 tons.

  Ten days had now passed since the Allied landings and the German forces in the peninsula were facing disaster. It was at this moment of crisis that Hitler decided to take personal control of the situation. On 16 June he made a trip to Soissons, east of Paris, in order to discuss strategy with the senior commanders of Germany’s western forces, including Rommel and Rundstedt.

  ‘He [Hitler] looked sick and tired out,’ wrote Hans Speidel, Rommel’s chief of staff. ‘Nervously he played with his spectacles and with coloured pencils which he held between his fingers.’ Speidel thought he resembled a broken man. ‘His old personal magnetism seemed to have gone. After brief and cool greetings, Hitler, raising his voice, first expressed sharp dissatisfaction with the successful Allied landings, found fault with the local commanders and then ordered that Fortress Cherbourg be held at any cost.’

  Rommel and Rundstedt begged Hitler to rethink this approach. It made no strategic sense to keep troops holed up in positions that were not under attack. What was needed was for troops to confront the American invasion head-on, hitting hard at every spearhead into new territory.

  Rommel eventually decided, without Hitler’s explicit approval, to use elements of Wolfram’s 77th Infantry Division to construct a defensive wall on the western bank of the River Meredet. In that way, he hoped to forestall the American plan to cut the Cotentin peninsula in two.

  Wolfram and his men began their deployment on 16 June, the same day as Hitler’s visit to Soissons, by which time the American advance had proved so successful that the defensive wall had to be moved even further west, to La Haye-du-Puits, a little village just a few miles from the coast.

  They were dug in along the road that linked Montebourg and Valognes. It was Sunday morning, 18 June, and there was a lot of gunfire, for the Americans had taken the land just to the south. Wolfram and the other men were told to pack up and get on the move as quickly as possible. Schnell! Hurry! Hurry! They were in great danger of being completely isolated by American troops.

  The withdrawal took place amid scenes of absolute chaos. Wolfram’s unit had no news of what was happening, nor did they have any maps. Even the road signs had been removed, so they had no idea where they were going. It was only by memorising the names of some of the villages that Wolfram was later able to work out where he had been.

  The 77th Infantry Division took everything with them as they tried to escape the clutches of the Americans, including artillery, armoured vehicles and tanks. What they did not know was that their retreat southwards would lead them through territory that had already been captured by advance units of the American army.

  Among the little market towns that Wolfram and his comrades passed through was Briquebec, which lay some eight miles from the coast. As they made their way down the main street in the early-morning sunshine, they were wholly unaware that the Americans had already dug in and were watching the German retreat from their foxholes.

  The men passed through the town without seeing a single American soldier. There was no one around, not even civilians. The place was deathly silent and eerily deserted. The only sign of conflict was the dozens of abandoned parachutes that had blown into the trees and were billowing from the branches.

  Wolfram and his comrades were by now in serious trouble. American forces had reached the western coast of the Cotentin peninsula and captured the resort of Barneville-sur-Mer. It was an extraordinary achievement. Twelve days after landing on Utah Beach, they had succeeded in entrapping tens of thousands of German soldiers stationed on the northern coastline.

  The Americans had no intention of engaging the enemy as they moved south. Instead, they were planning to lure them towards the hamlet of Le Vretot, which was the perfect place for an ambush.

  Wolfram was blissfully ignorant of the danger as he and the other men marched through the rich farmland. The country lane that led to Le Vretot seemed little different to the thousands of other byways that criss-crossed the peninsula: it lay below the level of the fields and was lined with flowering hedgerows. The foxgloves and cow-parsley proved a source of constant temptation for the horses, which kept trying to munch on these vergeside snacks. The men were thankful that the weather was crisp and bright, unaware that the clear sky was about to rain death upon them.

  Panzers, artillery, horses and men – all were making their way along the road to Le Vretot. Their path was frequently blocked by crippled and burned-out vehicles, which halted their progress. Each one had to be dragged away before the men could continue. It was during one of these enforced halts that Wolfram happened to notice a subtle change in the landscape. The road no longer passed through the bocage. On one side there was a steep bank and on the other a sharp drop. They were suddenly very exposed.

  Then, quite without warning, there was a screeching roar in the sky to the north. Scores of American fighter-bombers hurtled towards them at extremely low altitude.

  Wolfram flung himself into a low ditch and buried his head. As he did so, all hell broke loose. Exploding shells, grenades and machine-gun fire rattled down on the men, cracking through the air with a hail of fire and shrapnel. The artillery column came to an abrupt standstill as soldiers leaped from their vehicles in blind panic and urgently sought cover. Only now did they realise why the Americans had chosen this spot to launch their attack. With its steep drop and sharp bank, it was a death trap, making it almost impossible to avoid the fragments of flying metal.

  As Wolfram lay cowering in the ditch, tanks, guns and mortars exploded around him. At one point he raised his head slightly and saw that the little lane had been turned into a scene of bloody carnage. The horses were neighing and whinnying in terror and pain, desperately trying to escape their harnesses. Unable to break free, they were being ripped to pieces.

  The attack was relentless. Wave after wave of fighter-bombers screamed overhead, peppering everyone on the ground with machine-gun fire. Survival depended on potluck. Some of the best-concealed men were killed instantly. Others, more exposed, managed to escape with their lives.

  Wolfram lay in the ditch for what seemed like an eternity as the jabos – the dreaded fighter-bombers – strafed everyone. His Morse equipment lay scattered across the road, smashed into hundreds of pieces, and he had no idea whether his fellow funkers were dead or alive.

  ‘You lie there, helpless…’ wrote one German soldier after surviving a similar attack just a few days earlier, ‘pressed into the ground, your face in the dirt – and there it comes towards you, roaring. There it is. Diving at you. Now you hear the whine of the bullets…Not till they think they’ve wiped out everything do they leave. Until then you are helpless. Like a man facing a firing squad.’

  At one point there was a slight let-up in the shooting. During the raid, Wolfram had been lying next to another lad and exchanging a few words with him. When the bombing relented for a
moment, he shouted to him: ‘Quick! Let’s get out!’ When there was no answer, he realised that the lad was dead.

  Wolfram knew the planes would soon be back so he got up quickly, clambered out of the ditch and ran ahead to slip down a side road. As he crouched in a ditch that was deeper and less exposed, there was another roar of planes and the strafing started all over again. The soldier next to him had a piece of his earlobe neatly shot off. If he had been hit just a few millimetres to the left, he would have been killed instantly.

  The fighter-bombers seemed determined to destory everything on the ground below. A sergeant who had previously fought on the Russian front lay next to Wolfram and told him that his experiences in Normandy were far worse that anything he had experienced in the East. In Russia, the shooting was slow and measured because of a need to conserve weaponry. Here, the Americans loosed off everything they had – a massive quantity all at the same time.

  In less than one hour, the 77th Infantry Division was decimated. It suffered such heavy casualties, along with the loss of almost all its vehicles and artillery, that it was no longer a viable fighting force.

  Only one group of men attempted to fight back, attacking the advancing American infantry in the fields around St Jacques-de-Néhou. They were firing at close range and, for a short time, caused severe damage. However, the Americans soon counter-attacked, pounding them with 81-millimetre mortars. Some 250 Germans were killed and a further sixty taken prisoner. Among the dead was the 77th Infantry Division’s commander, General Rudolf Stegmann. He was driving along the road when a fighter-bomber swooped down from the sky and opened fire with such force that Stegmann’s car was torn open like a tin can. The general was killed instantly – the fourth senior commander to lose his life since the landings of 6 June.

  Then, after about two hours, the bombardment suddenly stopped. The planes retreated towards the horizon and silence returned to the countryside. The only sound came from the terrible moans of the wounded and dying.

  The survivors were in a daze for there was a sense of unreality to what had just happened. One minute they had been walking along a country lane in the sparkling sunshine; the next, they were being torn apart by bullets and exploding shells. Stunned by the intensity of the battle, as well as completely lost, they were unsure where to go. All they knew was that they were trapped inside American-controlled territory and would have to fight their way out if they were to avoid death or capture.

  The next thing Wolfram heard was German motorbikes roaring towards him, the riders shouting out orders as they drove through the wreckage. ‘Get to the next woods! Regroup up there! You’ll be protected there.’

  Wolfram and the other survivors made their way to the woods, pausing momentarily to take stock of the carnage. There were bodies everywhere. Corpses that already stank, and scores of horses with their bellies ripped open and their guts spilling on to the road. And everything was still burning. It made for a terrible sight.

  Dusk had fallen by the time the survivors had made it to the relative safety of the woods. They sought comfort in the penumbral shadows, aware that no American soldiers would risk their lives in coming to attack them here. It was eerily quiet, for no one dared to speak. The only sound was the whispering of the leaves and the occasional muffled rumble of a distant explosion.

  Command of these shell-shocked survivors had fallen to the most senior regimental commander, the Pforzheimer, Colonel Rudolf Bacherer. He was determined to save the remaining men under his command and presided over an impromptu meeting of the few unit commanders who could be found. Several of them proposed retreating northwards towards Cherbourg in order to assist in the defence of the port. Bacherer refused to countenance this idea and wanted to continue to resist the American advance, still hoping for final victory. ‘Every house must become a fortress,’ he had said just a few days earlier, ‘every stone a hiding place, and for every stone we must fight.’ He ordered a breakout through the American lines that was to take place that very night.

  Wolfram and the others were ordered to bind together all their possessions. It was crucial that there was no sound of banging or clattering. They were also told that no one was to say a word while they were on the move. The men were also forbidden from eating – a precaution in case they were wounded and needed emergency medical treatment.

  They walked and walked in total silence, passing through villages that had already fallen into American hands and now sported a few banners declaring Victoire. At one point, they stumbled across thousands of American propaganda leaflets calling upon all German soldiers to surrender. Filled with pictures of beautiful women, the pamphlets claimed that life was better in America, adding that even prisoners travelled in Pullman carriages.

  Although the majority of villages were deserted, in one the men sighted a few American troops who were relaxing and caught off their guard. A brief shoot-out instigated by the German vanguard left all of the Americans dead. Then the telephone cables that they had laid were cut. Wolfram and his comrades passed on unopposed through the village.

  They were by now utterly exhausted and could go no further. The order for rest was given and everyone slumped on to the banks of the sunken lane. A few men were posted as sentries, keeping a watchful eye on the American positions ahead.

  Colonel Bacherer knew that he could not risk leading his weary men into nearby Barneville-sur-Mer. Instead, he decided to punch his way southwards, hoping to break through the American forward lines on the banks of the River Ollande. In a radio signal sent to the German 243rd Division, less than three miles away, he requested armoured support.

  They responded within minutes, bombarding the American positions and enabling Bacherer to lead his men down to the river. However, as they reached the muddy estuary and peered through their binoculars, they realised that there was a new problem to be overcome. The only bridge, which they had to cross, was already being patrolled by heavily armed American sentries.

  All of a sudden, Wolfram heard shooting up ahead. Bacherer’s forward units – men from the 1st Battalion, 1050th Infantry Unit – had started to engage the Americans at close range. It was a bloody, hand-to-hand struggle fought with fixed bayonets under the cover of light machine-gun fire.

  The battle did not last long, perhaps twenty minutes, at the end of which news came that the bridge had been captured. The American soldiers, quickly grasping they were massively outnumbered, had beaten a hasty retreat, leaving their fallen comrades on the bridge. Bacherer ordered his men to cross as quickly as possible, before the Americans could bring up reinforcements.

  More than 1,400 German troops managed to escape from their trap that morning, taking with them 100 American prisoners. Once they had crossed the bridge, they were told to head southwards, away from danger.

  They reached a village with a big manor house that had been commandeered by the German army. When Wolfram walked into the great hall, which was now serving as a field hospital, he saw battled-wounded Americans and Germans lying side by side – some with fractured bones, others suffering from shrapnel injuries or burns. The doctors were hastily examining each one in turn, trying to work out who was most in need of treatment.

  Wolfram had remained with Miggel, his fellow funker, during their flight from the American zone. When they first arrived at the manor house, Miggel had darted down into the cellar. A few seconds later he was back upstairs with a broad grin on his face. ‘Look what I found,’ he said to Wolfram, holding up two pots of jam. Wolfram was struck by the incongruity of the scene. On the one hand there were the wounded and dying; on the other there was the triumphant Miggel with his jars of preserve.

  The men were told to regroup outside and to start heading southwards, away from the front. They passed through rich pastureland and meadows, whose bucolic beauty was marred by a constant and ghastly noise. The cows in the fields were emitting low and anguished wails of pain, not having been milked for many days. Among the conscripts marching with Wolfram were several farmers who could
not bear these terrible cries. As they walked, they would run into the fields and milk the cows, in order to relieve them from their misery. With no time to collect the milk, they just let it run into the earth.

  Many of the animals were also suffering from festering bullet wounds sustained during the constant raids by Allied fighter-bombers. These animals were shot to put them out of their misery.

  There was no sense of order or discipline as the men trudged along the country lanes. Indeed, they made their way southwards in complete disarray. Men would drift away and disappear, never to be seen again. On other occasions, Wolfram and his group would find themselves joined by troops who had become separated from their commanders or lost their way. At one point, the bridle path they were following divided into two. Miggel said to Wolfram: ‘Carry on. I’ll catch up with you.’ He never did so. It was the last Wolfram ever saw of him.

  Later in the afternoon of 19 June, Wolfram learned that the postal service between Normandy and Germany was still working. He hastily scribbled a letter to his parents in order to let them know he had survived the breakout and was back in German-held territory. He also revealed that he was deeply shaken by the horrific scenes he had witnessed. ‘The many fallen comrades,’ he wrote. ‘I can still see them in my mind. I now know the meaning of “fallen in battle”.’

  Like so many who survived intense firefights, he was left with a feeling of both guilt and gratitude. ‘They have fought and fallen for us, just for us – to give us something more beautiful; a better life.’

  However, he also knew that his current situation was far from secure and we was particularly upset to have been separated from Miggel and two other close friends. ‘I’ve got nothing left except what I’m wearing. And I’m missing my comrades – especially the three who I’m always thinking about – the sergeant Matusiac, the artist, Miggel, and Lang…I keep thinking of these three and I’ll never forget them. I miss them so much. Hopefully – maybe – I will see them again soon. Hopefully this horrible materialistic battle will soon come to an end. All I see is planes and devastation.’