The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  “Could be, Ike. But every indication is that we caught them completely by surprise.”

  “Except right out there. What happened?”

  Bradley leaned on the ship’s rail and stared at the distant beach, low clouds of smoke drifting across. There were thumps, the ongoing fight that had spread inland, but on the beach itself the landing craft continued to pour out men and equipment.

  “We stumbled into a mess. We were too blind to what was waiting for us.” He looked at Eisenhower, a hard scowl. “I’m not casting blame anywhere. Be clear about that. This was my ballpark, and I got my people whacked hard. Most of the prisoners we picked up are from the Three-fifty-second Division, and we hadn’t heard they were there at all until early yesterday. By then, it was too late to change anything, too late to prepare anything different. The whole operation was in full motion. The opposition at Utah was pretty much what we had hoped for, enemy units we knew weren’t up to snuff. But here? The Three-fifty-second is one of the best German outfits in the theater, and they were sitting up there on those bluffs.

  “I sweated blood out here, Ike. Saw most of it myself. Had to push Gerow a little bit, but I can’t really blame him. The First Division had experience under their belts and we sure as hell needed that. And the Twenty-ninth fought like madmen. They lost most of their field officers and still kept fighting. I heard that General Cota took charge and did one hell of a job getting his people off the beach. Nothing like this at Utah. Over there, Collins was ready for anything. Anybody who’s spent time in the Pacific knows what kind of hell these beaches can be, and Collins had his men in tip-top condition. But here…none of the senior people had been through anything like this before.”

  “We’re all supposed to be in tip-top condition, Brad. Gerow is a good man, and his division commanders are first-class. That doesn’t explain what happened here.”

  “You’re right. The other fellow was up there waiting for us. I’m not saying he knew we were coming, but they had their best people in the right place at the right time.”

  “Bad luck?”

  Bradley stared at the beach again, fingered his binoculars, kept them at his chest. “It’s supposed to be my job to eliminate luck. We had a tough fight here, but dammit, we’re getting the job done. The First and the Twenty-ninth took heavy casualties all day yesterday, and they’re still taking them now. But we’ve pushed up past the bluffs, and the villages are fairly secure. We’re in about a mile and a half. The Rangers took Pointe-du-Hoc, and it looks like they knocked out the big guns that were up there. At least, it seems so; enemy artillery hasn’t been a factor at all. We don’t know how many Rangers are left up there, because no one can get through to them. The enemy is still close, heavy-machine-gun emplacements and some deeply entrenched strongpoints. That’s awfully high ground, and the infantry moving off the beaches hasn’t been able to reach it. Those are Rudder’s people, toughest sons of bitches in the army. We’re pushing like hell to support them, but it’s a slow go. The other fellow is giving us all we need, Ike.”

  The other fellow. Eisenhower knew Bradley’s term, no insulting slang for the enemy. The Germans were simply…the other fellow.

  “You been to the beach?”

  “This morning. My own staff raised hell with me, but I had to see it.” Bradley paused. “Keep the damned reporters away, Ike. We don’t need pictures of that place on the newsreels, not yet. I saw Ernie Pyle out there, and I told him he better keep his damned dispatches to himself until we clear it. Not even sure how he got onshore so quickly, but he was as sick to his stomach as I was.” Bradley paused again, seemed to search for words. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The dead…they were rolling up on the beach like seaweed. Our boys were still taking heavy fire, so for half the day we couldn’t even pull the casualties out of the water. The troops in the later landings were stepping through…pieces. It’s a little better now, but a lot of the seriously wounded are still on the beach, pulled into cover as much as possible. And the wrecked equipment is still playing hell with the landings. We kept the Augusta about two miles out from the beach, and we were bumping through debris even there. I asked the captain to put a bunch of men up in the bow to search for survivors, but it was mostly busted-up landing craft, pieces of God knows what. The engineers are telling me that right now we need bulldozers on that beach more than anything else. We were supposed to land sixteen of the damned things here; three survived. The rest either sank or got blown to hell before they could do the job. Not sure what the engineers were expecting. Too many rehearsals probably. They learned it’s a lot harder to build your damned road when somebody’s dropping mortar shells on your head. This morning, they were working up on the bluffs trying to flatten out a landing strip. We’re getting there, Ike, but any idea of a timetable’s been tossed out the window.”

  Eisenhower heard no complaint, no excuses in Bradley’s voice. And Bradley would not exaggerate.

  “Monty give you any orders?”

  “Well, yes. He didn’t want to hear much about what these boys ran into here. Called it a bloody tiff, said his boys had one at Sword. Like I said, he pushed me to link our left flank to his right, to seal the landing zones into one secure sector. He’s afraid Rommel will punch through and keep us separated. Collins is doing what he can at Utah to drive some people this way, help us break through to the Rangers from the other direction.” He paused. “That wasn’t the plan, Ike.”

  Eisenhower nodded, thinking of the maps. The primary goal of the troops at Utah Beach was to drive hard to cut off the entire Cotentin Peninsula, isolating the crucial port of Cherbourg. Once the peninsula was cut, new troops would land at Utah to drive toward the city itself. One of the essential objectives of the entire operation was to grab a major port city, which would serve as the conduit to feed and equip the ever-growing army.

  “Plans change, Brad. That’s what Monty does best. He makes damned sure he’s ready before he orders a move. We’re not ready until these beaches are secure, and a mile and a half of bridgehead is not secure. Cherbourg will wait. It’ll still be there. The floating piers should be coming in pretty soon, and that’ll help a hell of a lot.”

  “Floating concrete boxes. Yeah, I saw those things. Pretty impressive, if it works. Mulberries. Who thought of that name?”

  “Morgan’s people. Pure genius, if you ask me. Until we grab Cherbourg or Antwerp, these beaches will be the best ports we have. No way the enemy could suspect we’re bringing our own docks with us. I don’t think I could have made it as an engineer. I’m like you. Never thought so damned much concrete could float. But it’s floating right now, out there somewhere, big damned blocks of it, and as quick as they get it hauled in here, they’ll sink those things right offshore, and—bang! A port. Mulberries.”

  Bradley seemed distracted, so Eisenhower stopped talking; it was just nervous energy. Bradley raised his binoculars, then lowered them quickly; there was nothing to see in the smoke.

  “I hate to say this,” Bradley said, “but somebody did a half-assed job with intelligence. Every report tells me how difficult the countryside is, and this is the first I knew anything like that. I saw a little of it myself this morning, beyond one of those villages: hedgerows tall as a house and just as thick. Every damned farmhouse and cow pasture is guarded by a wall of dirt and brush, and the enemy knows exactly how to use shelter there. Why the hell didn’t we know about it?”

  “We know about it now, and we’ll do what we have to.”

  “Ike, the paratroopers are out there in the middle of miles of that stuff. It’s probably why we didn’t hear from Taylor until noon. Ridgway—well, we haven’t heard much of anything from the Eighty-second. They’re holding on to Sainte-Mère-Église, best as we can tell. Collins is pushing his people that way as fast as they can bust through the countryside, but there’s plenty of the other fellow scattered all over hell. Monty was all puffed up about the British paratroopers and what a fine job they did. Can’t fault him for that. He also say
s Dempsey’s been able to push his infantry seven miles inland near Bayeux. Then he looks at me like he’s asking, What the hell is your problem? I wanted to ask him if he knew what the hell a hedgerow was, maybe take him out there myself and show him the damned things.”

  Eisenhower kept his eyes on the beach. “Just do your job, Brad. I’ll hear all that from Monty. I agree we’ve got to link up these beachheads. But he had big plans, all those damned maps. I’m wondering how much more he’s been able to accomplish this morning.”

  “He won’t tell me any of that, Ike. Unless it’s good.”

  “He’ll tell me.”

  “Oh, by the way. I did ask him about Caen. He didn’t like the question.”

  ON BOARD APOLLO, OFF GOLD BEACH

  JUNE 7, 1944

  “Bloody magnificent day, Ike! I’ll be setting up the command post on shore straightaway! Let the boys know we’re right there with them.”

  “You been ashore?”

  “Oh, no, not yet. Soon enough, though. Don’t want to distract the boys from the job at hand. Keep them pointed toward Berlin, as it were.”

  Eisenhower couldn’t fault Montgomery for his high spirits. The ship rolled slightly, in reaction to a larger cruiser passing by a half mile to one side. Eisenhower grabbed the rail and looked toward Montgomery’s transportation, a British destroyer. Sailors were lining the deck, some with cameras. They’re photographing me! Eisenhower realized. Well, no, not just me. Maybe not me at all. They might not even know who I am. He glanced at Montgomery, the ever-present sweater, the black beret. They love this man. All right, good. We need that. Eisenhower thought of Bradley, his barely hidden dislike for Montgomery. Patton feels the same way, doesn’t hide it at all. That’s one reason why Bradley has the job.

  Montgomery seemed to notice the cameras now, stood straight, tugged at the sweater, a slight pose. Eisenhower said, “What’s your plan to get through to Caen?”

  “Ah? Yes, bloody nose on that one. Jerry surprised us. Didn’t expect to run into the panzers so quickly. We’re bringing up our own armor, and I expect we’ll return the favor. Jerry did us a favor, though. Threw his tanks in piecemeal, gave us some fun.” Montgomery looked at Eisenhower now, seemed to test his mood. “Jerry did us another favor as well. By having his available armor positioned on this flank, it means that for now he has very little on the other flank. That should be of help to your boys, eh? I tried to explain that to General Bradley—well, not in so many words.”

  Eisenhower thought of a response but let it pass. Monty was a lot of things, but he was usually right. He saw another ship moving past, a large landing craft—tanks, likely, or heavy armored trucks. He thought of Montgomery’s words. Yep, bring up our own armor.

  Montgomery seemed to read him, said, “Soon enough, Ike. We’ll hit him in the soft spot, and keep hitting him until he calls it off. That’s the idea, eh?”

  “Any estimate how long it will take you to grab Caen?”

  “You know I can’t tell you a date. Bradley doesn’t know when Cherbourg will be in our hands, does he? Not meaning to lecture you, of course, but these things have to be done in their own time. Soon enough. Remember, I’ve handled this chap Rommel before.”

  * * *

  28. ADAMS

  * * *

  With significant manpower and more heavy armament pouring across Utah Beach, the American beachheads were becoming more secure by the hour. Most of the heaviest German resistance was anchored in the east, the British sector, Rommel’s desperate attempt to prevent the city of Caen from falling into Allied hands. Though the fate of the port of Cherbourg was equally important to the Germans, Rommel didn’t have enough power at his command to launch a counterattack that would be effective against the infantry and armor that continued to land at Utah. The hedgerow country was in fact a detriment to both sides, preventing anyone from assembling a massive strike force, and most of the hedgerows were in the American sector, a difficult barrier to Bradley’s goal of cutting across the Cotentin Peninsula. Worse for the Germans, the pockets of American paratroopers tied down much of Rommel’s available strength in scattered fighting, keeping the Germans from amassing the kind of punch they would need to strike back in any meaningful way toward Utah Beach.

  As Montgomery had insisted, the two American beaches were finally linked up, and increasing numbers of troops began to come in at Omaha Beach as well. In time the artificial harbors, those strangely named Mulberries, would be in place. Other artificial breakwaters were being created by using scrapped and damaged transport ships, which were sunk offshore in a carefully designed pattern. From these artificial piers, the off-loading of even more men and equipment would proceed at a much faster rate.

  Bradley was forced to acquiesce to Montgomery’s more plodding approach. Despite his impatience to get on with the original goals of the Overlord plan, Bradley had to concede that those objectives could only be reached when sufficient power could be brought toward the front lines. Local fighting by the paratroopers around Sainte-Mère-Église had mostly cleared that area of significant German opposition, and American infantry from Utah Beach continued to move toward the flooded Merderet River. Both sides recognized that the river was a formidable obstacle. The various attempts by one side or the other to drive the enemy away had resulted in unacceptable casualties for anyone attacking across the flat open ground. But the paratroopers who hunkered down on the eastern side of both causeways could hear ongoing firefights across the river, evidence that a sizable number of beleaguered paratroopers were still holding out in isolated pockets on the western side of the river. For Adams, and for the officers above him, the sounds of that fighting tore at their frustration, no one certain how many of those troopers had survived.

  With Sainte-Mère-Église in American hands and the infantry moving forward from Utah Beach, Ridgway and Gavin were suddenly faced with an annoying reminder of what their original mission had been. The Fourth Infantry Division had made the first landings on Utah and had been assigned the task of driving up the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, pushing toward Cherbourg from the right. They had been followed ashore by the Ninetieth Division, whose job it was to press westward, across the Merderet. The Ninetieth would be followed closely by the American Seventy-ninth and Ninth divisions, a force sufficiently powerful to cut across the peninsula at its base and then drive northward to engulf Cherbourg.

  The Fourth and the Ninetieth were part of the Seventh Corps, commanded by Lightning Joe Collins, a rugged veteran of campaigns in the Pacific, where he had earned a reputation for pushing his forces into battle with a little more tenacity than some of his subordinates found comfortable. But Collins had the absolute support and confidence of Omar Bradley, and with Utah secured so quickly, Collins had done nothing to harm his own reputation. It was natural for Collins to take the next step, to drive his infantry across the flooded Merderet River as quickly as possible.

  At Sainte-Mère-Église, Matthew Ridgway began to feel pressure from behind. Collins was pushing hard, implying that his forces could do what the paratroopers could not. For men who had repeatedly traded hard blows with the Germans across the river, that sort of boast didn’t go down smoothly. Worse, the Ninetieth Division was completely untested in battle, and both Ridgway and Gavin realized that their inexperience could lead to disaster in the field. Though Collins was following the original Overlord plan, to Gavin and Ridgway he was showing a bit too much bluster by assuming his fresh infantry was certain to sweep across the Merderet, and he unwisely gave the paratroopers the impression that they should now stand aside while his infantry cleaned up their mess.

  Though pride was a dangerous motivation for launching an attack, there was another problem for Jim Gavin at La Fière. The troops most fit to launch the necessary frontal assault were the newly arrived 325th Glider Infantry, one more part of the Eighty-second Airborne. Though Gavin agreed with Ridgway that there was too much risk in allowing the green Ninetieth Infantry Division to make the assault, Gavin kn
ew that the glider troops had no more experience than Collins’s infantry. With so much pressure coming from behind to resume the drive across the Merderet, Gavin positioned as many of his veteran paratroopers behind the glider men as he could muster. If the glider troops faltered, at least he would have veterans to back them up.

  To the south of La Fière, a growing number of mixed forces continued to trickle into the positions at Chef-du-Pont, including more scattered elements of the 101st. The added manpower gave Gavin confidence that the stalemate could be broken, that he finally had the strength to drive across and link up with the troopers on the west side of the river. At the same time, a shallow sunken road was discovered to the north of La Fière, giving the Americans a third avenue across the marshes. To gain as much advantage as possible, Gavin ordered the assaults to begin at dark, but the attacks were uncoordinated and ineffective. Though the paratroopers did push across the river at both places, the Germans were too strongly entrenched and still outnumbered them. By early morning on June 9, the attacks were called off, many of the troopers returning to the east side of the river. Gavin had no choice but to admit failure, and his assessment of several of his inexperienced field commanders had changed for the worse. If the paratroopers were to make a successful push across the Merderet, it would have to be more than just some artful maneuver. Ridgway agreed. The Americans would have to drive hard across the causeways, straight into the German positions. The center of that push would be La Fière.