Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  In March and April, all five Allied assault forces participated in the culmination of the joint army/navy training program with full-scale rehearsals of the beach landings. Troops and their assault equipment were loaded on the same ships and mostly the same ports that would be used for embarkation on D-Day.

  On April 27 Eisenhower, Ramsay, Montgomery, and the other principal commanders watched the first day of Exercise TIGER. It was staged at Slapton Sands Beach in Lyons Bay in the southwest of England, a site that was chosen for its similarity to Utah Beach. The plan was for Rear Admiral Don Pardee Moon's amphibian command to put most of General Joseph Collins's Fourth US Infantry Division ashore. They would then advance twenty-five miles inland and “capture” the city of Okehampton. The beaches were mined and strewn with barbed wire and steel boat obstacles. Moon's landing force consisted of twenty-one LSTs, twenty-eight LCI (L)s, sixty-five LCTs, and almost one hundred other smaller ships with a warship escort.69

  In the first wave due to part of the flotilla's late arrival, a signal mix-up caused the British heavy cruiser Hawkins to open fire on the beach among the American landing craft. This resulted in a number of friendly-fire casualties. This communication breakdown was soon remedied, and the amphibious assault proceeded. Ramsay commented, “It was a flop…much to criticise but the main thing was the lack of senior naval or army officers on the beach to take charge and to supervise.”70 A greater disaster was to follow.

  The next morning (April 28), eight LSTs and two pontoons escorted by only one British corvette set out for the second wave of the exercise. Prior to the departure for the exercise, the Scimitar, an older destroyer, was struck by an American landing craft while inside Plymouth Harbor. Though the damage was minor, the British commander in chief of Plymouth ordered the Scimitar into the repair yards. Unfortunately, no one communicated this information to the US Navy Commander Bernard Skahill, the commodore of the convoy, because he was not in the Royal Navy chain of command. The convoy was down to only one escort.71

  British radar noted the departure of German E-boats from Cherbourg. But due to the two separate communication systems, Skahill was not warned. It was not until after midnight that the single British escort was even notified. By then the British Admiral commanding in Plymouth belatedly dispatched a second destroyer as a relief escort, but was too late to intervene.

  Nine E-boats closed in on the Allied convoy. Each was armed with 40mm guns and four torpedoes. About 2:00 a.m. the first torpedo was launched. “All of a sudden, the whole sky is lit up [tracer rounds],” wrote Andy Korosi assigned to LST-511. “Shortly after that, we heard another explosion. The [LST] 507 got torpedoed. Another one got hit with two torpedoes—that one sunk in seven to ten minutes…. Two other LSTs caught fire—one was abandoned and the other limped back to the shore.”72

  Both LST-507 and LST-531 were sunk, and LST-289 was damaged. The final death toll from Operation TIGER was 198 sailors and 441 soldiers killed, which paradoxically was more than died five weeks later during the landing of American forces at Utah Beach on D-Day.73

  The news of this disaster was withheld from the public for fear that it might undermine public support for the actual D-Day invasion. The full story of this tragedy was not revealed until many years after World War II.

  Rear Admiral Moon began an investigation immediately after the event. Ultimately his recommendation for future exercises was that “at least” four escorts should be assigned to any convoy or even more for longer convoys.

  The British naval commanders on the scene had a major responsibility for the communications failure that caused the Slapton Sands tragedy. However in a broader view of the OVERLORD operation it shows how difficult it was for the separate Allied army, navy, and air services to achieve a seamless level of communications and cooperation on an operational level that might have prevented the many other strategic and tactical errors that occurred throughout this campaign.

  As a result of Slapton Sands, Admiral King ordered eight more US Navy destroyers to bolster Ramsay's command. Many operational lessons were learned from this incident, and corrective measures were implemented that did save lives the day of the actual invasion.

  About a week later on May 3, the Allies began FABIUS, a final series of training exercises. Dempsey's Second British Army practiced landings on the beaches east of Portsmouth. Everything went smoothly, with no E-boat attacks. Ramsay communicated to Eisenhower that the NEPTUNE force was now ready for action.74

  DRESS REHEARSAL—MAY 15

  On May 15 at St. Paul's School in Hammersmith, West London, a dazzling array of commanders and leaders gathered for OVERLORD's final full-scale briefing. It was the largest meeting of Allied military leaders ever assembled during the entire war. Those present included King George VI, Churchill, Eisenhower, Tedder, Montgomery, Ramsay, Leigh-Mallory, Brooke, and the other British Chiefs of Staff; the major American commanders, Bradley, Dempsey, Patton, Hodges, Smith, and Simpson; the top Canadian commander Crerar; other British, Canadian, and US corps and division commanders; naval and air task force commanders; and a multitude of SHAEF and Whitehall senior officers. One hundred forty-six engraved invitations and security passes had been distributed a month earlier.75

  At 10:00 a.m., Eisenhower introduced the program to the leaders who would soon assault Nazi Fortress Europe. He had just chosen June 5 as D-Day. Behind him was a huge top secret three-dimensional plaster relief map of the invasion beaches on the Normandy coast. Thirty feet wide, it was on a tilted platform visible throughout the room. This model of what would become one of the world's best-known battlefields was on a scale of six inches to the mile and showed Normandy's cities, towns, rivers, beaches, and upland features in bright colors. As each commander spoke, he walked around the display, pointing at key features.76

  Eisenhower was brief, stating, “We are here to get the best possible results.” Then he called on General Montgomery to begin the briefing.77

  As Montgomery rose to speak, pointer in hand, a loud pounding started at the door. The hammering grew louder. Monty angrily ordered the door opened. In marched General Patton. Ignoring Monty's withering gaze, he sat in the second row. Another concession forced upon Monty was allowing those in attendance to smoke. This announced concession brought muffled gasps from some in the room. Perhaps he remembered chain-smoking Eisenhower from two years prior, and of course, there sat cigar-puffing Churchill.78

  In forceful tones, Montgomery then outlined the entire NEPTUNE-OVERLORD operation. The invasion plan has been previously covered in this chapter. Patton's Third Army was to land between D-Day+15 and D-Day+60. Its mission was to capture the Brittany region and its important seaports. Later it would support the advance of the First US Army toward Paris.

  The OVERLORD operation was planned for ninety days. After the breakout from the invasion lodgment area itself, OVERLORD planning was very minimal. On May 3 SHAEF planners presented Eisenhower with several alternative courses of action. These included the capture of Germany's industrial Ruhr or the capture of Berlin. Eisenhower rejected the Berlin option and considered seizing the Ruhr through either a frontal assault or a double envelopment. However, no specific operational plan was prepared.79 (See Map 3.)

  Montgomery's presentation offered a very accurate prediction of Rommel's potential counterattack plan. The greatest danger was that the panzer divisions close to the coast would be used by the Germans to throw the Allies back into the sea during the first days of the invasion.

  In this presentation and in his May 8 planning document, Monty emphasized that the Allies must quickly move forward and keep the initiative:

  We must blast our way on shore and get a good lodgement before the enemy can bring sufficient reserves to turn us out. Armored columns must penetrate deep inland, and quickly, on D-Day. This will upset the enemy plans and tend to hold him off while we build up strength. We must gain space rapidly, and peg out claims well inland.80

  He stressed that the main D-Day objective of the Second British
Army was to take Caen. “Once we can get control of the main enemy lateral [corridor], Granville-Vire-Argentan-Falaise-Caen, and the area enclosed in it is firmly in our possession, then we will have the lodgement area we want and can begin to expand,” he assured his audience.81

  The army that quickly gained control of this Caen-Falaise corridor would control the battle. This was borne out by subsequent events. A slow, safe advance would give Rommel the time he needed to reinforce and shift his troops across the battlefront to keep the Allies contained inside their bridgehead. That is exactly what Rommel did!

  In rapid succession Omar Bradley, Carl Spaatz, Bomber Harris, and Bertram Ramsay laid out the roles of their forces. All made clear their complete determination to win the war in Europe beginning with an OVERLORD victory.

  The question not answered that day was, “What then?” OVERLORD assumed that on reaching the Seine River the Allied armies would pause and regroup. What actually occurred was that the Germans confined the invasion bridgehead longer than expected, and then collapsed rapidly, catching the Allies by surprise. Other than targeting the German Ruhr industrial heartland using a broad-front advance on the road to Berlin, SHAEF's post-OVERLORD scheme was a vague outline. This failure would cause a number of major operational disagreements among the commanders that helped to delay ending the war in Europe.

  In his diary entry for that day Alan Brooke made one of the more perceptive evaluations of the plans outlined in the May 15 briefings:

  The main impression I gathered was that Eisenhower was a swinger and no real director of thought, plans, energy or direction! Just a coordinator—a good mixer, a champion of inter-allied cooperation, and in those respects few can hold a candle to him. But is that enough? Or can we not find all qualities of a commander in one man? Maybe I am getting too hard to please, but I doubt it.82

  Even accounting for Brooke's frustration at not being named OVERLORD's supreme commander, his impressions proved on target regarding Eisenhower's relationships with his principal commanders during the Normandy campaign.

  Ultimately the Allies would discover four major flaws in their overall OVERLORD invasion planning:83

  They overestimated their ability to quickly establish a substantial bridgehead, particularly in the failure to seize Caen.

  Training was defective especially in not preparing tactical measures to deal with the difficult bocage terrain.

  The troops were not prepared to cope with the intense German resistance that caused a stalemate in the Allied advance.

  After the Allied breakout, they lacked the command ability for quickly formulating action plans that took full advantage of battlefield opportunities.

  COUNTDOWN TO D-DAY

  As D-Day neared, tensions among its leaders rose to high levels. Eisenhower knew that the D-Day operation in its present form could be undertaken only one time. American resources were sufficient to bear the consequences of a defeat in Normandy, but Britain's physical and political capital was stretched to the limit. An OVERLORD failure would threaten Churchill's government and the future careers of the OVERLORD commanders. A defeat might significantly lengthen the Nazi occupation of Continental Europe. Events both planned and unforeseen heightened the war of nerves in the countdown to D-Day.

  MAY 25—WHERE IS MONTY?

  Operation COPPERHEAD was one of Fortitude's deception plans. Meyrick Clifton James was a member of the British Army's Pay Corps Drama and Variety Group who was given the starring role of playing Monty's double.

  On May 25 in an attempt to divert German attention away from northwestern Europe, James flew from England to Gibraltar on Churchill's private plane. The British spread false rumors that Montgomery was traveling to Gibraltar and North Africa to prepare for a major Allied invasion of southern France.

  On May 26, “Monty” was dutifully greeted by Gibraltar's governor Sir Ralph Eastwood. Later a reception was held at the governor's house. “Plan 303,” the landings in the south of France, was a topic of conversation heard by Ignacio Molina Perez who was the liaison officer between the Spanish government and the British and also a Nazi spy code-named Cosmos.84

  At just the right moment Perez saw “Monty” get into his car. The Spaniard was told it was the commander in chief on his way to Algiers. Perez dutifully reported the incident to Berlin.

  James then flew to North Africa where for several days he made a number of appearances as Monty with General Maitland Wilson, the Allied commander in the Mediterranean theater. He was then flown to Cairo, where he remained hidden until after D-Day.

  Though German intelligence was fooled into believing it really was Montgomery, they still guessed that “Plan 303” was an Allied deception. British intelligence MI5 only declassified the full details of this deception operation in 2010.85

  MAY 26—UNNERVING NEW INTELLIGENCE

  Ramsay noted in his diary, “Disturbing features of Overlord have arisen in the strengthening of German divisions in the Neptune area, particularly opposite the west flank of the Americans. This makes their task very much more difficult & particularly that of the Airborne Divs & may necessitate a change of plan.”86

  Over the past three weeks Allied intelligence had learned of German reinforcements that shifted the Ninety-First Infantry Division to a position behind Utah Beach. This necessitated a change in the drop zones of the US Eighty-Second and 101st Airborne Divisions.

  Also the Twenty-First Panzer Division was moved to an area south of Caen. However, Montgomery did not make any new provisions for ensuring that the British could take Caen on D-Day as he planned by either briefing the officers involved or reinforcing the thrust to take this city.

  Unfortunately the intelligence services failed to discover that part of the battle-hardened German 352nd Infantry Division had been relocated to a position just behind Omaha Beach. This had near disastrous consequences for D-Day that we will discuss in the next two chapters.

  MAY 28—NEPTUNE UNLEASHED

  On a glorious hot summer day Ramsay flashed out the order, “Carry out Operation NEPTUNE.”87 A huge fleet of warships, landing craft, and landing ships sailed from harbors throughout the United Kingdom to their assigned invasion embarkation ports. There they rendezvoused with the million-man army that had been streaming into southern England. In eight days they planned to be in France. All the crews were now sealed in their ships

  MAY 29—A “FUTILE SLAUGHTER?”

  This was one of Eisenhower's worst days before the invasion. Leigh-Mallory, his air chief, sent a hand-delivered letter challenging the paratroop drop. Because of the German Ninety-First Infantry's shift in location, Leigh-Mallory feared the airdrop of both the Eighty-Second and 101st Airborne would be a “futile slaughter” and should be canceled.88

  Under the OVERLORD plan, prior to the beach landings, two American and two British paratroop divisions were to be flown to Normandy for an early-morning drop. On the eastern end the initial American objective was the little hamlet of Sainte-Mere-Eglise due to its location along the main road, Route Nationale 13, that connected Cherbourg to Bayeux, an important axis for German reinforcements.

  Meanwhile at the western end of the bridgehead, the British were to seize important bridges for the armored advance into Caen later that day. The airborne divisions were to blow up key bridges, mine the appropriate roads, and prevent the German counterattack from reaching the troops arriving by sea.

  That night Eisenhower dictated a formal letter confirming his decision for the airborne assault to go forward. Both Bradley and Montgomery concurred with Ike's decision.89

  MAY 30—“NO ILLUSIONS”

  On this day over two thousand aircraft destroyed every bridge over the Seine River between Paris and the coast. Also smashed were railroad lines, airfields, radar/radio installations—any target that might impede D-Day.

  Rommel saw the staggering results. When he returned to his headquarters at La Roche-Guyon that night after a rocket launcher demonstration, Rommel had to cross the Seine by boat. He harb
ored no illusions about the potential effects of Allied air power.90

  JUNE 1, A.M.—VISIT TO THE BEACH?

  Churchill wanted to be part of D-Day's historic movement. “I thought it would not be wrong for me to watch the preliminary bombardment in this historic battle from one of our cruiser squadrons, and I asked Admiral Ramsay to make a plan.”91

  Upon hearing of this request, Eisenhower told Churchill it was a crazy idea. Churchill defied him. No American general had the power to prevent the prime minister from viewing D-Day from the deck of a Royal Navy ship that in effect was British soil. Ike backed down. When Montgomery heard of this controversy, he was apoplectic. He exploded, “Why in the hell doesn't he go and smoke his cigar at Dover Castle and be seen with the Lord Mayor? It would fix the Germans’ attention on Calais.”92

  On June 1 Ramsay went to the Cabinet Office to see Churchill. To his astonishment there with the prime minister was King George VI. “The P.M. [prime minister] explained that H.M. [His Majesty] wished to embark on the same venture as the P.M. namely to go over with the Assault Forces…. I said that I considered the risk was unacceptable.” The king agreed to this, but Churchill said Ramsay's ban didn't extend to him. Ramsay told Churchill “he had no job over there.”93 They left it that he would think it over.

  Fortunately the king stopped Churchill's embarkation with a skillful June 2 letter:

  My dear Winston, I want to make one more appeal to you not to go to sea on D-Day. Please consider my own position. I am a younger man than you, I am a sailor, and as King I am the head of all the services. There is nothing I would like better than to go to sea but I have agreed to stay at home; is it fair that you should then do exactly what I should have liked to do myself?