The truth was, there were simply neither the troops nor the time to rectify a situation that was rapidly escalating out of control. Marcks was desperately firefighting and hoping to put right his earlier errors of judgement. His men were under pressure all along the front, but he had committed both 21. Panzer and the corps reserve far too prematurely and was now trying to plug the holes in the dam. Repeatedly changing his orders, however, was only making the situation worse, because by the time the units involved had changed direction, yet more precious time had been lost, and with every passing hour the Allies’ foothold was getting stronger.
It didn’t seem that way to the beleaguered British airborne troops guarding the bridges across the Caen Canal and River Orne. Earlier that morning, Denis Edwards and his seven-man section from D Company, the Ox and Bucks, had been ordered down to the village of Le Port to shore up the men from 7 Para. Colonel Pine-Coffin and Major Howard had tried to create a ring of defence around the two bridges so that every approach was covered. By defending Le Port, they were protecting the approaches on the western side of Pegasus Bridge from the north.
En route to the village, Edwards and his men had briefly paused under a tree. They had not eaten since leaving England and were both tired and hungry. Suddenly a long burst from a German machine gun rang out and bullets spattered the branches above them, showering them with twigs and leaves. A moment later, Colonel Pine-Coffin himself appeared with a young officer Edwards did not recognize. It was Lieutenant Richard Todd, sent earlier to defend Le Port.
‘That is not too healthy, old boy,’ said the colonel, turning to Todd.4 ‘We had better deal with them, eh?’
Edwards watched them hurry off through a gap in the hedge, then heard several bursts from Sten guns. Silence ensued, until a few minutes later the two officers reappeared.
‘Well, lads,’ said Pine-Coffin. ‘That’s fixed him up.’
Edwards and his men followed them to the village, where they were told to defend a row of cottages to the south of the church. Only once they had scampered up to the second floor of one of the buildings did they realize the Germans were in the houses just on the other side of the street. They threw a couple of grenades across the road and through the windows opposite, then hurried out of the back of their cottage and into the next before realizing they would be better off getting clear altogether. As they jumped a brick wall at the end of the garden behind the houses, the garden behind was raked by machine-gun fire.
Lieutenant Richard Todd, meanwhile, had been moving about quite a bit, trying to help organize the depleted men from his company and ferret out snipers. At one point, two patrol boats had motored gently down the canal from the direction of the sea. As they drew near, Todd and his men had raked them with fire. After a brief return of shots, the German crews emerged from the wheelhouses with their hands in the air. ‘So to add to our battle honours that day,’ noted Todd, ‘we were able to claim a naval victory.’5
By about 10 a.m., Todd was starting to worry. Ammunition was low and he knew from conversations with Colonel Pine-Coffin that everyone was running short. Casualties were mounting too. German snipers had proved particularly deadly and effective.
Denis Edwards and his men were also wondering whether the Commandos would ever turn up. They were now in a field just to the south of the church at Le Port, where they were protected by the wall, but from where they could cover the gateway and wall around the churchyard. Soon a German appeared in the church gateway, then another and, after peering round, they stepped out into the field. At that moment, Edwards and his men opened fire, killing the men instantly. Soon after, they heard a German voice barking orders from the far side of the church, beyond the wall that separated it from the road. Hurrying into the churchyard and scampering from grave to grave, Edwards and one other reached the front wall, lobbed over several grenades, then ran back.
‘You English in the church,’ shouted a voice.6 ‘You are surrounded and cannot escape. Leave your weapons behind and come out through the church gate and no harm will come to you.’
Two more of Edwards’ men now ran into the churchyard and lobbed the last of their grenades. ‘Have these then,’ one of them shouted in riposte. ‘That’s all we’re giving up.’
For the time being. None of them was sure how much longer they could hold out. All their grenades had gone and they had no idea what else was happening – either with the invasion or elsewhere around the bridges. Suddenly, the noise of battle quietened and a still descended over Le Port. It was strange, but then, faintly at first but becoming louder, Edwards heard a thin, reedy sound carrying across the air until it sounded like a mournful banshee wail.
‘It’s them!’7 shouted one of the men. ‘It’s them – it’s the Commando!’
Relief swept over them, but they soon realized that in their excitement they had taken their eye off the ball: from the church tower, a German machine-gunner opened up, firing in the direction of the Commandos. They shot a few rounds up at the tower and were just considering rushing the church when they heard the low rumble and squeak of a Sherman tank. Moments later, two tanks were firing their 75mm guns directly at the tower. A large hole was knocked out, stone and rubble fell down, and it was the end for the machine-gunner. Hurrying through the churchyard, Edwards and his men emerged into the road to meet Lord Lovat’s Commandos.
Soon after, they reached the two bridges, where both Commandos and armour poured across and joined the battle for Ranville and the Bréville Ridge beyond the DZs. It had seemed touch and go, but the men guarding the bridges had held on, justifying Montgomery’s and Dempsey’s plan to bolster 3rd Division with Lovat’s brigade. Although fighting was going on, so far there had been no sign of any concentrated counter-attack. It was, though, surely only a matter of time.
A concentrated counter-attack was exactly what General Marcks was trying to organize with General Kraiss, the commander of the 352. Division, but with very little success. Oberst Karl Meyer’s men were still battling their way back across Normandy when they were given new orders to attack towards Caen and secure the lateral road that linked the city with Bayeux. Any troops from the 716. Division he came into contact with were to be absorbed into his Kampfgruppe. Also promised to him was a company of the 352. Division’s Panzerjäger-Abteilung (tank destroyer battalion) with their StuG and Marder assault guns – tracked armoured vehicles with a fixed rather than a turreted gun. In response to these latest orders, Meyer quite reasonably argued that his men were strung out, battling against attack from the Jabos and until the assault guns arrived there was a limit to what could be achieved.
An hour later, at around 11 a.m., Meyer was called yet again. Kraiss had now decided there would be a massed and coordinated counter-attack at midday all along the invasion front. One of Meyer’s battalions was to go towards Omaha to help with the attempt to throw the Americans back into the sea. The rest were to strike towards Crépon as had been earlier ordered. This was hopelessly over-optimistic, however, because Meyer’s troops were still spread out, dodging Allied aircraft, and there was still no sign of the assault guns, which were struggling to move even more than were the infantry. Midday came and went and the massed counter-attack was delayed by a further two hours. By that time the Germans at Omaha were struggling simply to plug the gaps in the line, let alone to mount a serious counter-thrust.
The problems were escalating rapidly. The divisional artillery were running short of shells – by midday they were down to their emergency reserve, which meant just three per hour. A number of officers and NCOs had been killed or captured, which meant there was a growing shortage of small-unit commanders. Leutnant Hans Heinze had been called back to take command of 5. Kompanie of Grenadier-Regiment 916, which was fortunate as, soon after, WN64 where he had been stationed had been overrun. He soon found his new company, which had also absorbed much of 8. Kompanie as well. They were in reasonable shape, but a lot of the men were Russians and morale was not good; they were particularly agitated by the num
ber of Jabos overhead. Of the Luftwaffe there was absolutely no sign. Nor were the American prisoners brought in doing anything to help. The bountiful equipment, rations and cigarettes only underlined just how short their own supplies were.
The Americans were, by this time, pushing quite a distance from Omaha. The village of Colleville, a mile inland, fell at around 12.30 p.m. Franz Gockel might have been just about still firing, but WN62 was now, in effect, isolated. Among those pushing inland were the Bowles twins, who had climbed the bluffs through a path that had been cleared. ‘Achtung Minen’ signs were all around and they passed a wounded man sitting up but with half a leg blown off. ‘He was just sat there warning us about the mines,’ said Tom Bowles.8 ‘Guess he was still in shock or something.’
From the USS Augusta, however, it was very difficult to make much sense of what was going on. Everywhere he looked, Captain Chet Hansen could see an enormous concentration of craft, while the heavy warships, a little further back, continued to pound the coast. Hansen had already taken a ride on board a PT – patrol – boat close to the beach, but apart from seeing a mass of landing craft jammed up on the shore, it had been hard to tell what was happening. Heading back to Augusta, he had reported to General Bradley and then headed on a launch with General Kean to USS Achernar, the command ship. After scanning the intelligence and initial radio reports, they were not much the wiser. ‘Apparently,’ noted Hansen, ‘the situation is still very obscure.’9
Back aboard, after eating a sandwich, Hansen and Kean were sent off on another PT boat to get on shore and report back. After switching mid-journey to a Higgins boat, they reached the shore and jumped down into 4 feet of water and on to Omaha Beach at around 1.30 p.m. Quite a sight greeted them: smashed landing craft with their backs broken, innumerable tetrahedrons and other obstacles, and debris everywhere – ammunition boxes, discarded assault vests, and lots of dead bodies, lying where they had fallen or washed up by the rising tide. One body floating in the water had a leg missing. Hansen could hear sporadic small-arms fire and watched a single file of soldiers heading up the bluffs along the cleared path in the minefields.
They met the beach master, a young naval captain who told them his CO had been wounded. As they were talking, an enemy artillery shell landed amid a concentration of more landing craft. Troops hurriedly scrambled ashore. Another shell came over and hit a truck that had just landed, throwing the driver some 30 feet into the air, where for a brief moment he seemed to hang before falling lifelessly back down on to the sand. The beach master told them a bulldozer driver had recently been similarly blown skywards, but had landed back all right, dusted himself down and then clambered on to another vehicle. This was the inexplicable lottery of war. ‘There was continual though not severe artillery fire on the beach,’ noted Hansen.10 ‘While it was sporadic, it was not harassing the troops too badly.’
Kean reckoned they had seen enough, so they headed back out to sea and reported to Bradley, whom they found in the war room on board Augusta. A slightly clearer picture was emerging. The Utah landings had gone well. At Omaha, on the eastern, 1st Division side, the 18th Infantry was landing behind the 16th, but casualties had been high among both divisions. Too many officers and commanders had been killed or wounded, with a subsequent loss of control and, although they were now cleaning up the central part of the defences, the western end was still firing and causing further casualties and difficulties unloading.
‘Bradley shows no sign of worry,’ noted Hansen.11 Later, many years after the war, Bradley claimed he had been so worried he had privately considered evacuating the beach. This seems unlikely and probably has more to do with the post-war retelling of ‘Bloody Omaha’ than what he was feeling at the time. Of course he was worried. Lots of his men were being killed and wounded. Such things weigh on any commander, especially one as fundamentally decent as Bradley. But the truth is, up until around 2 p.m., Bradley had very little idea of just what was going on, and by the time he did, the outcome of the battle on Omaha was no longer in doubt, nor had it been for some time. As soon as strongpoints began to be knocked out, the defences at Omaha, only ever skin-deep, were going to unravel. Once again, it was a question of simple mathematics. The numbers of men and the amount of fire-power the Allies were hurling at the Germans were immense. The weight of fire the Germans were returning was not.
By this time, Karl Wegner was also struggling to keep going. Earlier, a frightened young conscript from a neighbouring strongpoint had arrived at their bunker, distraught. His officer had been shot in the back by some Russians who wanted to flee and, fearing for his own life, he had run to the next position, WN71, where Wegner was based, but had been wounded in the leg by shrapnel. Obergefreiter Lang had been incensed, and in a fit of mad anger had dashed back, lobbing several grenades into the bunker. Running back, he had been almost cut in two by machine-gun fire from the beach. Wegner and the two remaining comrades in the bunker had watched appalled.
That had left Wegner in charge – a responsibility he did not want. Soon after, they realized they had just one fifty-round belt of ammunition left – all that remained from 15,000 rounds. He decided he would use these to try to help them get away. They had two grenades, which they would throw out of either side. When they exploded, Wegner would use the smoke to cover him as he dashed for the nearest trench, then he would use his final rounds to cover the other two in turn. ‘We all crouched in the entry way,’ said Wegner.12 ‘I took a deep breath and nodded to them. Both grenades flew out at the same time, explosions followed. I sprang through the doorway.’
Leutnant Hans Heinze had finally launched his counter-attack at around 1.30 p.m., but it was far from coordinated; instead it amounted to a more localized action to retake WN62b, the support bunker complex to WN62 further inland. He and his men managed to push back small groups of Americans who were pressing inland between WNs 62 and 64 and then recaptured WN62b, but were hammered by American naval gunfire. Heinze held on as long as he could, hoping the massed counter-attack would relieve them, but it never materialized. He was out of radio contact too, which didn’t help. ‘After a long time I knew we couldn’t hold out any longer,’ he said.13 ‘I ordered the men to try and get out through the shelling by themselves, not in groups. This was the only possible way through that terrible fire.’
By 3.50 p.m., Oberst Karl Meyer was finally able to report that his infantry had linked up with the long-promised assault guns and that they were now on the attack in the direction of Asnelles and Crépon – the area inland from Gold Beach. To begin with, they pushed back the British troops, but the Tommies quickly dug in, reinforcements arrived, offshore shelling continued and Jabos played merry hell, so Meyer’s men were soon falling back. At 5.30 p.m., a further signal reached 352. Division Headquarters. Kampfgruppe Meyer were now withdrawing or else would be overrun. Contact between the Fusilier-Bataillon and I. Grenadier-Regiment 915 had been lost. And there was worse news. ‘The CO, Oberst Meyer,’ the signal continued, ‘is probably seriously wounded and in enemy hands.’14 In fact, he was dead, yet another German commander cut down that day.
Among those fighting Meyer’s counter-attack had been the Sherwood Rangers, who had helped capture the village of Ryes and then had pushed on. The objective for Stanley Christopherson’s A Squadron had been the higher ground overlooking the town of Bayeux, which they were to assault with infantry but also with the artillery of the Essex Yeomanry. Christopherson, however, could not find the Yeomanry’s CO, who had failed to make the arranged rendezvous. The thought of a painfully slow and cumbersome journey in his tank didn’t appeal, but then he came across a fully saddled horse tethered outside a house. Taking it, Christopherson galloped off. ‘Never in my wildest dreams,’ he noted, ‘did I ever anticipate that D-Day would find me dashing along the lanes of Normandy endeavouring, not very successfully, to control a very frightened horse with one hand, gripping a map case in the other, and wearing a tin hat and black overalls!’15 But he did find the CO of the Essex Yeomanry, who
was somewhat startled to see him on horseback. Christopherson suggested they attack right away and take Bayeux that evening, but the commander of the Essex preferred to wait until morning.
At Juno, the Canadians were making good progress, although Bob Roberts experienced an extraordinary event after they had cleared Saint-Aubin. Later in the afternoon, they were corralling some prisoners when suddenly they were surrounded by civilians offering them drink and thanking them for liberating them. A girl whom Roberts reckoned was perhaps eighteen or nineteen suddenly stepped forward and asked to have a look at one of the men’s Sten guns. One of Roberts’s mates handed it over and she brought it up to her face and was aiming it when an old Frenchman suddenly stepped forward and shot her. ‘Shot her right between the eyes,’ said Roberts.16 ‘He said, “She was about to shoot you. She’s a collaborator, she was about to shoot you.”’ It made a deep impression on Roberts. ‘Suddenly we realized we were really at war.’
A little to the west, the Queen’s Own Rifles had also pushed on, taking first Bernières and then pressing inland some 7 miles. ‘We followed the fields,’ noted Charlie Martin, ‘picking out draws, sloughs and low ground when we could.’17 Later in the afternoon, the remnants of his A Company, alongside C and D Companies, captured the village of Anguerny and D Company that of Anisy. They had reached their D-Day objectives.
On the whole, the day was going pretty well for the Allies, with the ground troops all getting ashore and having spectacular support from the offshore naval guns and the air forces, which appeared to be marauding the skies at will, dropping bombs and strafing anything that moved. At Sword Beach, the Commandos had achieved their objectives, justifying their heavy front-loading on to 3rd Division, but the passage towards Caen, a major D-Day objective, was not going quite so well. Huge criticism has been poured on both Montgomery and Dempsey for giving 3rd Division an over-ambitious objective without the tools or plans in place with which to carry it out. The argument has been that far too much emphasis was placed on getting on to the beaches and not enough on then pushing inland.
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