However, should the attack be deferred until June 19, there would be no moon at all. That would make matters for the paratroopers, already tough enough, even tougher, but since the other conditions would be met, it was at least passable as a date. To help make that pill a little easier to swallow, it was recognized that if June 19 were let go by, that not till July 3 would all the conditions wanted, including moonrise at the right time, occur once again—a delay of a month practically from June 6, if we didn’t go then.
Those were the conditions faced by Eisenhower as June 4 drew along. The gale whipping the Channel showed no signs of abating, and the question had to be faced as to whether by the next day, June 5, all the invasion forces should be allowed to set sail, or for a second time, the code word, BOWSPRIT—postpone for twenty-four hours—be sent.
For Eisenhower knew that a second postponement would be not for one day only, but for two weeks at least and possibly for a month, with all that that entailed—loss of morale, probably loss of secrecy, loss of two weeks to a month in summer campaigning weather in France, two weeks or more time for Rommel to set more obstacles, casemate more guns along the beachhead. But over and above all that, it entailed another fact never set down in the Overlord Plan, never even officially discussed in connection with it. That fact was Joseph Stalin who ruled Russia, an absolute despot who had already murdered all his rivals, standing now like a saturnine devil in the background to put the worst construction possible on every Allied move. Stalin, having no scruples himself, naturally enough considered his allies as being quite as unscrupulous as he.
Stalin did not believe we honestly meant ever to stage any invasion—so at least his sarcastic comments indicated. When at Tehran, he asked how many Nazi divisions we were prepared to tackle in the Overlord assault and was told we were landing troops (all we could find vessels to carry) to meet twelve Nazi divisions, which was twice more than we could expect Rommel to have in Normandy on D-day, his only comment was the cynical question:
“And what if there are thirteen?”
Stalin had also been told at Tehran the invasion would be staged in early May. When, as May approached, Eisenhower had found it imperative for his build-up to delay a month till June, the delay was met from Russian sources with contemptuous insinuations that it showed only we never meant to assault at all—we were only stalling.
Should Eisenhower now, on the very eve of the new invasion date, order a second major postponement because of bad weather, that would be something which Stalin, who knew nothing of the power of the sea, would never understand, and being Stalin, would never believe anyway. And then, indeed, the fat would certainly be in the fire. In the back of everyone’s mind who had any real understanding of either Soviet Russia or Stalin was the fear that Stalin might seize on a second delay as a valid excuse to make a separate peace with Hitler, quite acceptable to himself, and leave us in the lurch. Such a piece of treachery was easily within the possibilities, considering that those two totalitarian tyrants, Hitler and Stalin, though ostensibly deadly enemies, had enough in common to have done exactly such a thing in 1939. And they might well repeat that performance in 1944. Hitler, in a tight spot, would undoubtedly be glad to. And Stalin was quite capable of it should a second invasion postponement occur to give him any more basis for his belief that he had better double-cross us while yet he had the chance to profit greatly thereby, lest as he saw it, we do the same thing to him first.
Now should such a thing occur, in addition to the fifty-eight divisions von Rundstedt already had to defend Western Europe, there would suddenly be made available to him over a hundred battle-tested Nazi divisions from the Russian front. In the face of such a force, even to try to carry through an invasion of Europe would be inviting sure disaster. We might land, but no army we could muster in 1944 could hope to defeat immediately thereafter such an overwhelmingly reinforced Nazi army.
Those were the facts to be faced by Eisenhower and his top commanders, sea, air, and land, as all through that dismal June 4 the rain beat down on southern England and the gale, strong as ever, howled by to cover the Channel with foam-crested waves running five to eight feet high.
By 1600 June 4, the convoys from the Bristol Channel must sail again if on June 6 the assault was to be made. But by 1600 June 4, the weather was as bad as ever, with no indication whatever from the meteorologists that any improvement was in sight on the weather charts over the North Atlantic, which was the source of that gale beating all our hopes into the deep mud everywhere surrounding us. Should the Bristol fleet be held, or allowed to sail again?
Eisenhower decided to let them go. If by noon, June 5, the signal, BOWSPRIT, had to be made, they could again be recalled while at sea. And that, of course, would definitely put an end to the invasion for early June. But meanwhile, they might as well be on their way to permit the invasion to be staged on June 6, if by any miracle over the next twelve hours there should be any sign of a change in the storm.
The rest of June 4 went by with the storm as bad as ever. The rain beat down; the mud underfoot grew deeper; on the Channel, the storm-driven whitecaps grew higher and higher.
June 5 dawned. Clad in foul weather gear, I dashed out for a look at the weather seaward from the beach at Selsey Bill, as the first light broke. Gloomily I came back to join Barton indoors for breakfast. The weather was no better; possibly the wind was blowing even harder than the day before. I was confident that by noon, once again we would get from Portsmouth the word, BOWSPRIT—delay once more, for good this time.
Slowly the hours dragged along toward noon, the storm blew on, but no word came. Noon came and went and no word of any nature. Wonderingly Barton and I looked at each other. The instructions were that unless we heard affirmatively of a postponement, the party was on. But in such weather, it didn’t seem possible to proceed. Somehow we must have missed receiving the code to delay. Barton checked with Stanford in Portsmouth, but found there was no mistake—no signal for delay had ever been sent, the party was on.
I looked outdoors again at the wind-lashed waves and I couldn’t believe it. God help the poor G.I.’s sent to land through such seas!
But what I did not know, what none of us along the Channel, not even General Bradley or Admiral Kirk, poised in Plymouth for the jump-off, knew, was that at Southwick House, Admiral Ramsay’s naval headquarters on the bluffs overlooking Portsmouth, at 0400 that morning there had been a last forlorn hope meeting of the Supreme Command to check the weather. Fighting their way through mud and rain to that meeting were Eisenhower himself, Supreme Commander; Bedell Smith, his Chief of Staff; Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander; Admiral Ramsay, Royal Navy, Commander of Allied Naval Forces; General Montgomery, Army Commander; Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory of the R.A.F., Air Commander; together with the Chiefs of Staff to these last four.
Group Captain J. M. Stagg of the R.A.F., Chief Meteorologist for the combined squad of British and American weather forecasters, a tall and gaunt Scotsman, came in. For the last few days, Stagg and his men had been going through hell—the settled weather we had been blessed with all through May and for the first couple of June days had unexpectedly broken up on them. From now on, long range forecasting was impossible; twenty-four hours in advance was farther even than could wholly be relied on.
Stagg’s weather predictions for Britain were based on reports coming to him from as far west as Greenland, where beyond the North Atlantic, we had weather stations reporting hourly to Stagg. (It may be said here that earlier in the war, the Nazis, realizing Greenland’s importance weather-wise, had also set up weather stations on the isolated icy Greenland plateaus, but these our Arctic task forces had long since wiped out, leaving the Nazis blind weather-wise, so far as the Atlantic was concerned.)
The evening before, Stagg’s weather reports from Greenland and all points east of it in the Atlantic, including Iceland, had shown no cause whatever for any hope that any change was in sight. But during the night, something that startled Stagg
had come in. The low pressure area from around Iceland which, spreading southward against an Atlantic high, had caused the storm, was unexpectedly being pushed back now by a sudden reversal in trend of that high pressure belt in the region of the Azores. And that high pressure belt coming up from the Azores was now heading for England at amazing speed. There was going to be a change in the weather, and soon, unlikely as that might seem to anyone poking his head outdoors.
Captain Stagg smiled wanly. Then he called attention to the storm howling outside, as predicted, but he might just as well not have bothered. Everyone present knew perfectly well that had Stagg’s prediction of the day before been disregarded and the invasion fleet been sailed as scheduled for D-day on this morning of June 5, the invasion by now would have been an irretrievable disaster. Stagg, looking around to check that that point had registered with all his hearers, ventured now on a further prediction. Regardless of how hopeless the outlook had seemed to all of them as they came through the storm to the meeting, from the data now at hand he could safely promise a marked break in the weather. Commencing late that afternoon, June 5, there would be a break in the storm lasting through for twenty-four to perhaps thirty-six hours.
The weather on June 6, therefore, should be passable, with a drop in wind velocity and some break in the clouds. By evening of June 6, more bad weather with higher winds and rougher seas again, though not as bad as at that moment, could be expected when the Azores high had passed them by and the Iceland low took over again behind it. That was as far as his data, based on the reports covering the Atlantic from Greenland’s icy plateaus to the verdant slopes of the Azores, would let him go. We should soon have better weather—not good but better—for twenty-four hours starting late that afternoon, June 5. That was the gist of it. Stagg withdrew; what was done with his report was the business of others.
Eisenhower looked about at his commanders. All had heard; some had even questioned Stagg as to details on clouds and visibility. All were thinking deeply now on what effect going in under the conditions set out by Stagg would have on his part of the operation.
Eisenhower asked for comment. Should they go—or postpone for two weeks? Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander, was not sure. Leigh-Mallory, who actually commanded the joint air forces, also was most dubious. Both felt conditions would be poor for air support. General Smith was greatly concerned over whether poor visibility might not wash out naval spotting, exposing the first wave to unopposed enemy fire, a very serious handicap, but still he was for going in—delay was worse. General Montgomery, over-all troop commander for both British and American assaults, was unreservedly for attack—no delay for him. As for Admiral Ramsay, his position was that the Navy would manage either way; it was for the others to decide.
The choice obviously was only as between two repulsive-appearing evils. Which was worse—the dangers of delay, or the dangers of attacking under poor, but possibly tolerable conditions? As Eisenhower put it to them after all had expressed their opinions:
“The question is, just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there?”
Since no one but himself was in any position to answer that question, no one even tried, and the discussion ended abruptly while Eisenhower thought it over and the others looked on in silence. Finally, at 0415, in broken phrases showing the turmoil in his mind over his dilemma, he announced his decision:
“I’m quite positive we must give the order.… I don’t like it, but there it is.… I don’t see how we can possibly do anything else.”
So that was it. In fifteen minutes from the time the meeting had started, it was over. Eisenhower had decided the signal, BOWSPRIT, should not go out the second time. He would chance all on fitting the whole Overlord Operation into the twenty-four hour break in the storm promised him by Captain Stagg.
Silently the several commanders went out into the storm to proceed to their various stations for the assault. Eisenhower himself, soon wholly alone, was left with his thoughts. Had he made the right decision? The next few days would tell; till then, neither he nor anyone could know. He didn’t know himself—for sure. Was he wrong? Perhaps. He sat down to do that which there is no record in history of another commander ever having done on the eve of decisive battle—to admit culpability for disaster before it had taken place. So he wrote:
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.”
And then he slipped that unprecedented statement, known to no one else whatever, into his pocket to be released only should his decision to move in bad weather rather than risk the dangers of delay end in such a blood bath on the Far Shore that he would have no option save to withdraw the remnants to avoid complete massacre. That would be Dieppe all over again, except that his failure this time would be irretrievable and on a vastly grander scale.
But he might comfort himself with the thought that probably he should never have to release it. For in spite of the poor conditions unexpectedly thrown in his path by the weather, his margin of safety in the operation was tremendous. His intelligence reports, all based on accurate and detailed data from reliable men of the French Resistance in the Normandy area, showed a startling thing. The entire front of the Omaha Beach, in spite of all the labor put into its defenses by Rommel, was manned by one battalion only of the German 726th Regiment—of itself only a very mediocre fighting outfit composed 50% of impressed Poles and Russians, who could have little urge to die for Adolf Hitler. On top of that, since the 726th Regiment had to stretch itself along the Channel from Port-en-Bessin to Grandcamp, a front of twelve miles, it had been able to allot just one battalion, only 800 to 1000 of its men, to cover the actual three mile line of the Omaha Beach sands—scarcely men enough to man the fixed defenses, with no one at all left over for reserves or for casualty replacements.
Against such a weakly manned front, the beautifully organized and carefully rehearsed attack of the 34,000 men of the two superb American divisions, the 1st and the 29th, spearheading our assault on the Omaha Beach, should swiftly crash through and overwhelm their far-outnumbered opponents, even without any help from our Air Corps or from our Navy on the beaches. And while that was going on, the lone battalion defending the beachhead could expect no timely support. For the nearest mobile fighting force Rommel had to the Omaha Beach was the German 352nd Division, a tough outfit to be sure, but they were reported in reserve at St. Lò, over twenty miles inland. The 352nd Division could not possibly get to the beachhead till late afternoon of D-day. By then of course, we should have smashed well inland, and have reserves enough of our own ashore to fight off the whole of the 352nd—and much more.
Consequently, good weather or bad, as long as we achieved strategic surprise, there was really no cause for the Supreme Commander to worry about ever having to dig from his pocket that remarkable statement.
CHAPTER 19
So with the gale still howling, the Bristol flotilla, already underway, kept on through the night for the Channel. As dawn broke, the forces from all the ports round about Plymouth slipped to sea during the early morning of June 5. And as the day wore on, from all remaining Channel ports, in spite of the storm, the other squadrons sailed. From the heights behind Portsmouth, I watched the ships there weigh anchor—so many ships, so tightly packed into the wide waters north of the Isle of Wight, that the mere getting them underway without innumerable collisions was an unbelievable feat of seamanship.
Soon our 4000 ships, the largest armada ever in history to put to sea bent on invading an enemy coast, was streaming eastward along the shores of southern England, bound for the Channel rendezvous. This was a specially buoyed circle in the open sea, marked on everybody’s chart, and called YOKE, ten miles in diameter, well to
the southeast of the Isle of Wight. From YOKE, during the night, completely blacked out, that tremendous fleet moved silently on in ten columns abreast for Normandy, each vessel following the dim will-o’-the-wisp light faintly marking the stern of the ship ahead.
Over them, at from 3000 to 5000 feet, now flew Leigh-Mallory’s air umbrella of fighting planes alert to protect them from air attack, though it was hardly expected Goering’s badly pummeled Luftwaffe would come out. Ahead of them, with electronic, acoustic, and mechanical sweeps all in operation, covering the ten lanes in which they moved, steamed ten squadrons of mine-sweepers, sweeping en echelon for such mines as could be swept. Amongst the transports, vigilant to scurry toward the first sign of any explosion erupting beneath a troopship, tossing like corks as they fought the seas, came the fifty Coast Guard picket boats, the smallest vessels in the fleet, ready with life rings and scramble nets to drag from the water the floundering G.I.’s from such transports as were unfortunate enough to meet a mine that could not be swept.
Astern of the sweepers came the naval barrage vessels, by far the largest ships in the movement. First steamed the seven dreadnaughts—four British, Warspite, Nelson, Rodney, and Ramillies, to cover the three British beaches to the east; and three American, Texas, Nevada, and Arkansas, to cover Omaha and Utah Beaches. Then astern the battleships rode the cruiser force of four British and three American cruisers. Finally on the flanks steamed a mixed flotilla of over forty destroyers, British and American, to protect against both E-boat and U-boat attack. Later, close in on the Far Shore, these destroyers would join the battleships and cruisers in the naval barrage scheduled to precede H-hour. And finally, lending a bizarre effect to the armada, overhead floated thousands of barrage balloons, streaming astern each vessel to foul up any Nazi fighter trying to slip in beneath the air umbrella on a strafing mission.
The Far Shore Page 18