The Cost of Courage

by Charles Kaiser

  — Marie-Madeleine Fourcade

  ACROSS THE CHANNEL, on the southeastern coast of England, the Allies have assembled a gigantic collection of airplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, and more than two million men. “All southern England was one vast military camp,” Eisenhower recalled.

  By the eve of the invasion, fifty-two million square feet are filled with supplies, including almost half a million tons of ammunition. Soldiers joke that if the invasion doesn’t happen soon, the southern edge of England will sink into the sea beneath the weight of their preparations.

  “The southernmost camps where assault troops were assembled were all surrounded by barbed-wire entanglements to prevent any soldier leaving the camp,” Eisenhower remembered. “The mighty host was tense as a coiled spring, and indeed that is exactly what it was — a great human spring, coiled for the moment when its energy … would vault the English Channel in the greatest amphibious assault ever attempted.”

  The Germans have fifty-five divisions assigned to the defense of France, while the Allies have only thirty-five divisions assembled for the invasion. But not all the German soldiers can be used to defend the northern coast of France. Some of them must remain in the south to defend the Mediterranean coast, and the Russians have promised to begin a new offensive on the eastern front when the invasion begins, to discourage the Germans from sending any reinforcements.

  In the weeks before the invasion, the Allies do their best to cripple communications in the north of France, to isolate the Normandy beaches from the rest of the country. Between May 24 and June 6, British and American bombers destroy all nine railroad crossings and a dozen highway bridges in the region. The Allies keep them closed by repeatedly bombing the boats and the temporary bridges the Germans try to put in their place. This will severely limit the Germans’ ability to send in reinforcements after the invasion begins.

  Meanwhile, the Allies are continually leaking false invasion plans to prevent Hitler from figuring out that Normandy is their real target. They make a special effort to convince the Germans that they will land near Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk, and many of Hitler’s generals are taken in by the ruse.

  The British even create a fictitious 4th Army headquarters at Edinburgh Castle, which pours out phony radio messages to convince the Nazis that the Allies are also about to invade Norway, where the Germans have stationed twenty-seven divisions. Again, the deception works: Those German divisions never leave Norway to defend France.

  Realizing that it will be crucial for the French to participate in the liberation of their own country, Churchill makes a special appeal to Eisenhower to find enough transport to allow the 2nd French Armored Division to land in Normandy during the summer of 1944. Eisenhower agrees to his request. This will eventually make it possible for French soldiers commanded by General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc to spearhead the Liberation of Paris.

  On the last day of May, 245 minesweepers begin clearing the English coast. Then they start to create paths to the landing sites on the French coast. Two days later, two British submarines leave Scotland to head for the Normandy coast. Their task is to mark the approaches for the landing craft that will arrive there four days later.

  On June 3, Dwight Eisenhower gives de Gaulle his first briefing on Operation Overlord, the code name for the Normandy invasion. This is the first official information the Frenchman has received about the gigantic operation that will liberate his country — a good indication of the “warmth” between the two generals.

  IN THE WEEKS before the Normandy invasion, Resistance leaders in Paris are notified how they will be alerted to the great event. The Allies apparently believe this is necessary because so much depends on the extensive sabotage of railroad tracks and other communication channels that the Resistance has been ordered to carry out just as the invasion begins.

  At the moment when the French should begin to ready themselves for the invasion, the BBC will broadcast the first lines of “Chanson d’automne,” one of France’s best-loved poems, by Paul Verlaine, one of its most celebrated nineteenth-century poets. On June 1, the chosen French listeners who know the code are riveted when they hear these seven words traveling across the channel from the BBC:

  Les sanglots longs

  Des violons

  De l’automne

  (The long sobs of autumn violins)

  Someone with a literary sensibility, a decent knowledge of French culture, and a fine sense of history has clearly made this selection. The melancholy poem comes from the “paysages tristes” (sad countrysides) section of Verlaine’s first volume of poetry. When the next stanza is broadcast, the Normandy countryside will be drenched with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Allied and German soldiers, and at least fifteen thousand French civilians, most of whom will be victims of Allied bombardments.

  After the first lines are broadcast, Christiane, Jacqueline, and scores of their confederates in the Resistance know that the moment they have been waiting for since the bleakest days of 1940 has finally arrived. Within days, Allied troops will return to French soil, to try to expel the Germans.

  From Belgium and the Netherlands to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Greece, millions of freedom lovers are praying for the success of the invasion, without knowing yet exactly when or where it will begin.

  Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, and Hitler* all agree about the importance of this moment. Each believes that this will be the crucial event of the war. The fate of the “Thousand-Year Reich” is about to pivot on the skill, the bravery, and the good fortune of 156,000 mostly British, American, and Canadian soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Additional troops will hail from Belgium, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Australia, New Zealand, and, of course, France.

  They will use nearly 7,000 ships, 2,395 aircraft, and 867 gliders to land in and around French beaches, which have been given the code names Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. It will be the largest naval armada in the history of the world.

  After eleven years of Nazi atrocities metastasizing across Europe, this is the moment of truth in a global contest between democracy and tyranny. The main thing that muddles the idea that this is simply a conflict between good and evil is the role of Stalin. Like Hitler, Stalin is responsible for genocides that have killed millions of innocent people. But now, destiny has made him the essential ally of the Western democracies.

  No one but Stalin is willing to sacrifice so much to defeat the Nazis: a staggering twenty million men and women. World War II will kill ten million Soviet soldiers and ten million Soviet civilians.† That is nearly five times the losses sustained by the Germans — and fifty times the losses of the United States.

  Ten million civilians is also ten million more than were killed at home in America during the entire war. The United States and Canada are the only major combatants that suffer no losses at home, apart from those killed at Pearl Harbor. In France, on the other hand, 350,000 civilians will perish between 1940 and 1945.

  The worst per capita civilian losses of all are in Poland, where 5.7 million will die, including 2.8 million Jews, out of a prewar population of just under 35 million — more than one-seventh of all Polish citizens.

  ON JUNE 4, Eisenhower’s meteorological committee predicts low clouds, high winds, and formidable waves, and the American general decides to reject a June 5 invasion date, against the advice of British field marshal Montgomery. “The tension continued to mount as prospects for decent weather became worse and worse,” Eisenhower remembered.

  Driving to the next meeting of the meteorological committee, at three thirty on the morning of June 5, “our little camp was shaking and shuddering under a wind of almost hurricane proportions and the accompanying rain seemed to be traveling in horizontal streaks.” Under those circumstances, Ike thought it wasn’t even worth discussing the situation. But when the meeting began a half hour later, the weathermen had a welcome surprise.

  They were now confident of thirty-six hours of relatively good weather,
beginning on the morning of June 6. At four fifteen A.M. on June 5, Eisenhower tells his colleagues he has decided to proceed with the massive invasion the following day.

  With the fate of the entire war weighing on his shoulders, Eisenhower pauses to write a resignation letter, to be released in the event that Operation Overlord is a failure: “If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” Then he orders the gigantic operation to go forward. “I hope to God I know what I’m doing,” he tells his staff.

  At eleven fifteen on the evening of June 5, Christiane is sitting in her secret apartment with her confederates, listening to the “personal messages” on the BBC, when the magic words crackle out of the radio:

  Blessent mon coeur

  D’une langueur

  Monotone.

  (Wound my heart with a monotonous languor)

  Everyone in the room jumps up to embrace one another. Then Christiane’s boss, Rondenay, dispatches her into the blacked-out streets of Paris, to deliver the joyful tidings to their colleagues. She rides her bicycle without any lights. It is thrilling to be the bearer of such happy tidings.

  Some days earlier, a leader of the Maquis, as the Resistance is known in the countryside, has been arrested — after he has learned that the invasion will be heralded by the Verlaine poem. Unbeknownst to the Allies, after being tortured by the Germans, the Maquis member has revealed the existence of the code.

  As a result, when the poem’s lines are read on the night of June 5, the commander of Germany’s 15th Army in the Pas de Calais immediately puts his troops on alert.

  But the Allies’ vast disinformation campaign has a completely unpredictable — and quite miraculous — effect on the German officers at Army Group B’s headquarters at La Roche–Guyon. There have been so many false reports of so many imminent invasions before, for them the truth is transformed into a mirage. And thus they decide to pay no attention at all to the secret gleaned from the tortured Maquis leader.

  Why would the BBC possibly broadcast the time of the invasion in advance? these Germans ask themselves.

  Obviously this is just another feint on the part of the Allies!

  So the commanders of the 7th Army — the one defending Normandy — are never warned on the night of June 5 of the imminent attack. Two other factors contribute to the lackadaisical attitude of many of the German commanders. During May there have been eighteen days when the weather, the sea, and the tides have been perfect for a landing, and the Germans obviously noticed that Eisenhower has not taken advantage of them.

  And on June 4, the German Air Force meteorologist in Paris has predicted that inclement weather means that no Allied action could be expected for at least a fortnight.

  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had been shifted from Italy to northern France by Hitler in January 1944, where he became commander of Army Group B, which has the main responsibility for repelling an Allied invasion. On the basis of everything he has been told, the Desert Fox writes a situation report on June 5 stating that the invasion is not imminent. Then he sets off to Germany, first to celebrate his wife’s birthday and then to meet with the Führer. The second meeting will not occur.

  Around one A.M. on June 6, one British and two American airborne divisions begin descending by parachute and glider right into the middle of the German 7th Army. But even this isn’t enough to convince Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the German commander in chief in the west. At two forty he sends word to the chief of staff of the 7th Army that he does “not consider this a major operation.”

  Hitler himself has been up until three A.M. with his deputy, Heinrich Himmler, “reminiscing, and taking pleasure in the many fine days … we have had together,” Himmler recorded. When three of his generals call his headquarters to beg for permission to rush two tank divisions to the front, word comes back that Hitler wants to wait and see what develops. Then he goes to bed and sleeps undisturbed until three o’clock the following afternoon.

  Even after the gigantic Allied armada starts arriving later that morning, the chief German general in the west remains convinced that the main invasion is going to happen elsewhere.

  At five fifty on the morning of June 6, the Allies open a massive naval bombardment on beach fortifications and nearby Normandy villages. The main American landings take place forty minutes later at Utah and Omaha beaches.

  There is heavy fighting everywhere, but the Allies are particularly successful at Utah, where 23,000 men get ashore with only 210 dead and wounded on the first day. After the 101st Airborne manages to block four exits from the beach, the only regiment facing them from the German 709th division surrenders in large numbers.

  At Omaha, the situation is catastrophically different. This is the site of by far the largest landing of D-day by Americans. Here, 34,250 troops face the Germans dug in on bluffs 150 feet above the beach, and the inward curvature of the coast also allows German fields of fire to overlap.

  The disasters for the Allies begin at six A.M., when waves of American B-24 bombers drop thirteen hundred tons of bombs intended for German defenses at Omaha and completely miss their targets, bombing too far inland.

  The official history of the 116th Infantry, 29th division, was written by S. L. A. Marshall, a World War I veteran who rejoined the army in 1942 as a combat historian. In his notebook he recorded the horrific conditions faced by the men who hit the beach at Omaha at six thirty that morning:

  ABLE Company riding the tide in seven Higgins boats is still five thousand yards from the beach when first taken under artillery fire. The shells fall short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives …

  At exactly 6:36 a.m.… the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man’s head. This is the signal awaited by the Germans atop the bluff. Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach …

  The first men out … are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down … All order has vanished from Able Company before it has fired a shot.

  Already the sea runs red. Even among some of the lightly wounded who jumped into shallow water the hits prove fatal. Knocked down by a bullet in the arm or weakened by fear and shock, they are unable to rise again and are drowned by the onrushing tide. Other wounded men drag themselves ashore and, on finding the sands, lie quiet from total exhaustion, only to be overtaken and killed by the water. A few move safely through the bullet swarm to the beach, then find that they cannot hold there. They return to the water to use it for body cover. Faces turned upward, so that their nostrils are out of water, they creep toward the land at the same rate as the tide. That is how most of the survivors make it. The less rugged or less clever seek the cover of enemy obstacles moored along the upper half of the beach and are knocked off by machine-gun fire.

  … From the cliff above, the German gunners are shooting into the survivors as from a roof top.

  In spite of the huge initial casualties, the terrible handicaps of Omaha’s topography, and the almost total lack of cover, seven hours after the first troops hit the beach, General Leonard Gerow signals General Omar Bradley that “troops formerly pinned down on the beaches” are finally “advancing up heights behind the beaches.”

  At a cost of two thousand Americans killed at Omaha, by the end of the first day more than thirty thousand men have made it ashore. Two Ranger battalions scale the hundred-foot-high Pointe du Hoc with rope ladders, only to discover that the Germans have already dismantled their big cannon.

  It isn’t until four o’clock that afternoon (one hour after he was finally awake) that Hitler agrees to send two more Panzer divisions into the battle to bolster the 12th SS and 21st Panzer Divisions. “But the reinforcements dribbled into the invasion front were never enough,�
� writes the historian Gerhard Weinberg, “and the Allied air forces as well as the sabotage efforts of the French resistance and Allied special teams slowed down whatever was sent.”

  Indeed, the actions of the Resistance were probably just as important to the success of the invasion as the incredible bravery of the men storming the beaches. “We were depending on considerable assistance from the insurrectionists in France,” Eisenhower reported.

  During the first twenty-fours of the assault, nearly one thousand acts of sabotage paralyze the French railways. Locomotives are destroyed, trains are derailed, and more bridges are blown up, reducing rail traffic by 50 percent. For a week after the invasion, every train leaving Marseille for Lyon is derailed at least once, and in the department of Indre, which includes the line from Toulouse to Paris, there are eight hundred acts of railroad sabotage in June alone.

  This is vital to the success of the Allies, because 90 percent of the German Army is still transported by train or horse. The disruptions achieved by the Resistance give the troops on the beaches crucial additional hours, and then days, to prevail, before significant German reinforcements can arrive.

  Across the French coast, by the end of the first day, there are 9,000 Allied casualties, of whom one-half were killed: 2,500 Americans, 1,641 Britons, 359 Canadians, 37 Norwegians, 19 Free French, 13 Australians, 2 New Zealanders, and 1 Belgian. British air chief marshal Arthur Tedder had predicted a casualty rate of 80 percent for the airborne troops, but the actual number was 15 percent.

  Rommel finally makes it back to the front from his wife’s birthday party at the end of the first day of the invasion, after canceling his meeting with Hitler. By the time he returns, one of his earlier predictions is well on its way to coming true. Unlike General von Rundstedt, who thought it was impossible to prevent an Allied landing and hoped to fling the invaders back into the sea with a counterattack, Rommel had been certain they had to be prevented from coming ashore at all. “The first twenty-four hours will be decisive,” he said.