Normandy '44

by James Holland

  Prologue

  Monday, 15 May 1944. Down by the River Thames at Hammersmith in west London, field marshals, generals, air chief marshals, admirals as well as the British king and prime minister had gathered at St Paul’s School for Boys for what the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, called the ‘final review’ of plans for the cross-Channel invasion of France. It was a warm, sunny day that seemed to augur well as grand staff cars gently purred up to the entrance of the Victorian red-brick main school building. Guards clicked to attention as staff officers greeted the dignitaries and ushered them into an assembly room, at the end of which stood a low stage. At the front a couple of comfortable armchairs had been set, and it was to these that the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and King George VI had been directed. Behind, on rather narrow, curved and somewhat inappropriate school benches, were the service chiefs and army and force commanders for this giant enterprise, as well as other war leaders, including a South African field marshal, Jan Smuts, who had once been Britain’s enemy but was now a trusted friend and advisor.

  The pupils had long since been moved elsewhere – back in 1940 when it was Britain that had been facing the prospect of invasion – but since January the school had been headquarters of 21st Army Group commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, an old boy of the school and the man who would be in overall command of all Allied land forces for the landings and for the immediate weeks that followed.

  Both the king and Churchill were smoking, the former a cigarette, the latter one of his cigars; this was a rarity, as Montgomery was a non-smoker and had strict rules that no one was allowed to smoke in his presence on his turf – that had even included General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been sharply reprimanded for doing so when the two had first met in the spring of 1942. But even Monty could hardly tell the prime minister to stub out his cigar and it was certainly not his place to admonish the king. What’s more, despite the somewhat unexceptional setting, with notices on the walls announcing that the sons of clergymen could apply for scholarships, this was a rather exceptional gathering. Rules could be bent on this occasion.

  On the stage was set a giant map that Montgomery had been using since taking over command of the main planning for Operation OVERLORD, as the invasion was code-named. The present form of the plan had taken shape from the moment the current team had been appointed in December 1943, and although Monty took the lead, it was very much a collaborative effort. The principles had first been discussed at the St George’s Hotel in Algiers, Allied Forces Headquarters in the Mediterranean, between Montgomery, then still British Eighth Army commander in Italy, Eisenhower, then newly appointed Supreme Allied Commander, and his chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Walter Bedell Smith. Back in England, Monty’s joint Anglo-US planning team had then got to work adjusting and refining earlier, more restricted plans for OVERLORD. These had quickly taken shape and on 21 January had been shared with Bedell Smith, who had then presented them to his boss, who had in turn shared them with the British and American chiefs of staff.

  When these plans had been broadly approved, they began to develop in detail, with the staffs of the various component parts all working on their own specific areas. Numerous conferences had been held to resolve the inevitable concerns and difficulties that had arisen. The Allies now commanded vast air forces and navies as well as land forces – coordinating these was a fraught and extremely difficult enterprise and often tempers flared. However, by 7 April a strategy for the ground forces had been agreed and confirmed, allowing detailed planning to continue in other areas. Those preparing the naval plan, Operation NEPTUNE, had two months in which to master the unbelievably complex shipping requirements.

  On 15 May, the invasion was now just three weeks away. The day of judgement was almost upon them. In the school assembly room, the atmosphere was palpably tense. So much rested on this enormous enterprise to which they were all committed. Failure was inconceivable, yet transporting armies across more than 80 miles of sea, through waters peppered with enemy mines and landing on beaches defended by armed forces that had cowed much of Europe just a few years earlier, and with secrecy of paramount importance, seemed a Herculean task. And so it was. Much could go wrong.

  The headquarters in which they were assembled might have been Montgomery’s, but Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, had called the meeting and it was he who opened proceedings. Eisenhower, known to his friends and colleagues simply as ‘Ike’, was a 53-year-old career soldier. Bald, with a kindly face and an air of imperturbability, he was, in many ways, an unlikely candidate for this most testing of jobs. Born in Texas, he had been raised in Abilene, Kansas, a small town in the middle of the flat plains of the Midwest. Despite these somewhat humble beginnings, he had gained a place at West Point, the United States Army’s officer academy, and had repeatedly proved himself as a highly able staff officer. Affable but resolute, clear-thinking and with rare skills of diplomacy, he had taken command of all US troops in Britain following America’s entry into the war in December 1941, had then been given overall command of Allied forces for the invasion of north-west Africa in November 1942, and a few months later had been elevated to the first Allied Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean. In this role he had overseen victory in North Africa, then Sicily and after that the invasion of southern Italy. His subordinate commanders, both American and British, all liked and respected him, he had proven theatre experience, and he had continued to show good judgement while also working valiantly to create an atmosphere of close partnership between the Allies.

  This was a term that sounded closer and more official than was the reality, because the ‘Allies’ weren’t actually allies at all. They might be fighting alongside one another, and agreeing strategy and even sharing arms and war materiel, but they were coalition partners, united in the desire to defeat the Axis powers yet not bound by a formal alliance. Directly under Eisenhower were unquestionably experienced, skilled and talented men, but most were strong characters with very different personalities. There were cultural divergences too, but more often than not tensions arose less on national lines than through differing levels of understanding of the complexities of modern warfare and all its rapid changes – changes that had been dramatically accelerated by the necessity of winning this current and catastrophic global conflict. These were men prepared to fight their corner, the strength of their convictions often driven by personal experience and by the knowledge that on their actions and decisions the lives of thousands, if not millions, might depend. That was a terrible burden. Keeping these disparate men on an even keel and unified in purpose was no easy matter. Tensions simmered. Personalities clashed. Suspicions and mistrust were easily aroused.

  They were, however, all largely singing from the same hymn sheet that morning in the assembly hall at St Paul’s School, and Eisenhower wanted to keep it that way, especially once the invasion got under way. All had been repeatedly consulted about the plan and there had been plenty of opportunities for each to say his piece, and this was what Eisenhower wanted to underline now. None of the men assembled there was born yesterday; they all knew the old adage that the first thing to go awry in battle was the plan, but clarity and a singleness of purpose were still needed and that was what was being delivered.

  The Supreme Commander stood before them, wearing his immaculate special short ‘Ike’ jacket based on the British battledress. Before he spoke he looked around at the men assembled in front of him and smiled – a smile of warmth and quiet confidence.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, ‘on the eve of a great battle to deliver to you the various plans made by the different force commanders.1 I would emphasize but one thing: that I consider it to be the duty of anyone who sees a flaw in the plan not to hesitate to say so.’ This was the crux of the meeting. ‘I have no sympathy with anyone,’ he continued, ‘whatever his station, who will not brook criticism. We are here to get the best possible results and you must make a really cooperative effort.’

/>   All those assembled knew these plans intimately already and had had ample opportunity to question and challenge what was being proposed, but to emphasize the point, the force commanders then briefly went through the separate land, naval and air plans once again: Montgomery in battledress and trousers with cut-glass creases, then Admiral Bertram Ramsay, commander-in-chief of the Allied Naval Expeditionary Force for the invasion, and then Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his opposite number for the air forces. Two further commanders stood up and spoke: Lieutenant-General Carl ‘Tooey’ Spaatz, commander of all US European Strategic Air Forces – the heavy bomber force – and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, his counterpart at RAF Bomber Command. Occasionally the prime minister interjected to clarify a point, but otherwise not one person there quibbled with the plans that had been drawn up.

  Later, after lunch, Churchill made a brief speech. It was no secret that he had had doubts about the invasion and the terrible cost in lives it might cause. But now his rallying cry was one of optimism and growing confidence. ‘Gentlemen,’ he told them, ‘I am hardening to this enterprise.’2

  No one there, however, was under any illusions. The task before them was a monumental one and their plan based on assumptions and variables over which they had little control. It was no wonder they were feeling the heat that warm early-summer day in London.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Atlantic Wall

  There were few places lovelier in Nazi-occupied Europe that May than Normandy in north-west France. It had not been fought over during the Battle for France four years earlier, and although it had always remained within the territory directly controlled by Nazi Germany rather than that of Vichy France under Maréchal Philippe Pétain, this coastal region had avoided the worst hardships of occupation, and that applied to both the occupied and the occupiers. Normandy had always been a largely agricultural area with its rich, loamy soils, lush fields and orchards; here, the harsh rationing that affected city dwellers was felt far less keenly. Normandy, even in the fifth year of war, was a land of plenty: the patchwork small fields – the bocage – were full of dairy cows; the more open land around its major city, Caen, still shimmered with corn, oats and barley; and its orchards continued to produce plentiful amounts of fruit. Now, in May, it looked as fecund as ever. Pink and white blossom filled the orchards, hedgerows bursting with leaf and life lined the network of roads and tracks. It looked, in some ways, a kind of Eden, with centuries-old farmsteads and quiet villages dotting the landscape, while beyond its coastline of rugged cliffs and long, golden beaches, the English Channel twinkled invitingly in the sunshine.

  For all this loveliness, however, the war was getting closer. Normandy that May was also now a scene of intense military activity as the beleaguered German defenders braced themselves for the Allied invasion they knew must surely come soon. To this end, a race against time was going on, because only since January had action really got under way to turn the Germans’ much-vaunted Atlantic Wall from a mere concept of propaganda into an effective defence against enemy invasion. Certainly, when Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel had begun his inspection of the north-west Europe coastal defences in December the previous year, he had been shocked by what he discovered. There were coastal batteries and defences around the major cities and in the Pas de Calais; parts of Denmark were well defended too; but there were far too many gaps for his liking and especially so in Normandy and Brittany.

  Nor had the troops manning these areas been much cause for confidence. The German Army had always had more than its fair share of poorly equipped and under-trained troops, even back in the glory years of the Blitzkrieg, but this part of north-west France seemed to have an excess of the very old and very young, and of ill-trained and unmotivated foreign troops in the Ost-Bataillone – eastern battalions – and of veterans recovering from wounds by eating way too much cheese and drinking far too much cider and calvados.

  One of those unimpressed by what he had seen so far was 24-year-old Leutnant Hans Heinze, recently posted to join the newly formed 352. Infanterie-Division. Heinze was a veteran of the Eastern Front and one of the few to have escaped the hell of Stalingrad, where he’d served as an NCO. Wounded three times before even being sent to an aid station, he had even then refused to leave his men. Only when slipping into unconsciousness had he been evacuated. That had been Christmas Eve 1942, only five weeks before the German Sixth Army’s surrender; most of those he had left behind at Stalingrad had since perished either in the fighting or in captivity.

  Having recovered from his wounds, Heinze was considered suitable officer material and so posted to Waffenschule – weapons school – and given a commission. In the pre-war and early war years, officers had to serve in the ranks as a Fahnenjunker – officer cadet – and only after nine months to a year would they then be sent for an intense and lengthy stint at a Kriegsschule, or war school. This process had been abolished, though, as manpower had dwindled along with everything else and standards had to be cut out of necessity. Heinze, however, was as good a bet to become a decent officer as any: he certainly had the experience and had already proved himself a leader, albeit a non-commissioned one. So it was that he now found himself in Normandy and posted to the Grenadier-Regiment 916, one of the 352.’s new infantry units.

  Although the division had its headquarters at Saint-Lô, some 20 miles south from the coast, Heinze had wasted no time in visiting the coastal defences in his sector. On arrival, he and his colleague could not find much evidence of the Atlantic Wall until eventually they spotted some bunkers surrounded by wire. Leaving their vehicle, they stepped through the wire with ease and without once snagging their trousers, and met a Landser, an ordinary soldier, who cheerily told them he had been based in Normandy since 1940. If the Tommies decided to invade, he said, they would soon roll out their guns and teach them how to feel scared. ‘We found no cheer or solace in this remark,’ noted Heinze.1 ‘It was clear that much work was ahead of us.’

  Soon after, Heinze was given 5. Kompanie and briefed to lick them into shape. The 352. had been given a good number of experienced officers and NCOs – some 75 per cent had been in combat, mainly on the Eastern Front – but only 10 per cent of the rest had any front-line experience at all. The first troop train delivering new recruits, for example, unloaded several thousand mostly 17-year-olds: Grünschnabel – greenhorns – fresh from a mere three weeks’ training in Slaný in the former Czechoslovakia. By contrast, barely a single Allied soldier waiting to cross the Channel had had less than two years’ training. A further 30 per cent of German troops were newly drafted conscripts from the Alsace region, or from Poland and various parts of the Soviet Union. Other infantry divisions in Normandy had an even higher number of foreign troops. Language barriers were a major issue, but so too was an inherent lack of trust; many German officers and NCOs worried that when the fighting began they might well find themselves with a bullet in the back rather than the chest.

  What’s more, these soldiers were hardly well equipped, and wore a variety of uniforms that had been cobbled together from stocks left over from the North African campaign, many of which were dark green denim as well as the more normal woollen field grey. They had barely enough weapons and certainly not enough transport. The artillery could not train to begin with, for example, because there were neither sights for their guns nor the correct harnesses for the horses who were to tow them.

  Another problem for the newly formed 352. Division was malnourishment. Rationing in Germany, and especially further east, was harsh, with a notable lack of fruit, meat and dairy products. One of the challenges for the division’s staff was not only training them properly but also feeding them up. Requests to 7. Armee for an increased dairy ration were refused, so Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss, the division commander, had authorized his staff to buy or barter for extra supplies of milk, butter, cheese and meat locally. It certainly helped, but standards of food supplied to the men, even in Normandy, were poor and most were dependent on buying
eggs and other luxuries to supplement rations. Gefreiter Franz Gockel was a young recruit serving in I. Bataillon of Grenadier-Regiment 726, part of the 716. Infanterie-Division. One day he helped bring a pot of soup from the field kitchen to their coastal bunker. His comrades all lined up in anticipation as he took a ladle and gave the soup a good stir. Feeling something substantial move at the bottom, he pulled out the ladle to discover the remains of a dead rat. They then found another in the second canister. ‘How is this possible?’ he wondered.2

  The 716. Division was even more poorly equipped than the 352. and, unlike the core of NCOs and officers in the latter, had no combat experience at all, having been based in northern France since its formation in May 1941. Infantry divisions had already been reduced from the 16,000 men that had been standard at the start of the war to just over 12,000, but the 716. was just 8,000 strong and until the deployment of the 352. had been holding the entire Normandy coastline from Carentan to the River Orne, a stretch of around 60 miles. The 716. had no vehicles of any note; its infantry were issued with bicycles and, like most infantry divisions in Normandy, it was largely dependent on horses and carts to bring forward supplies.

  The inherent weakness of the 716. Division along this stretch of coastline meant that the 352., considered to be of much higher quality despite its own obvious shortcomings, was given more to do than perhaps it should have been. On 15 March, orders had reached Generalleutnant Kraiss direct from Rommel. They were now to take over much of the 716.’s part of the coast, while that division would instead cover the stretch north of Caen. They were rapidly to improve the coastal defences, but also to build and maintain defensive positions further inland, all the way to Saint-Lô. In between all this construction work the 352. was also to continue training.