A few days before D Day, the Channel clearing plan started working. Allied destroyers and planes, with interlocking sweeps, covered almost every square yard of the English Channel while other forces bottled it up at both ends. U-boats were unable to surface long enough in the area to charge batteries without being detected. German E-boats and R-boats were driven back to bases whose approaches were mined nightly by planes to make impossible any sudden sortie against the invasion fleet. Heavier ships of the Home Fleet cruised through the North Sea approaches ready to intercept any bigger German warships. Intelligence reports, corroborated by photographs, described hidden big gun emplacements on the coast which had not previously been detected.
At the last minute a German sergeant deserted his Führer and at pistol point forced French fishermen to take him to England. He brought with him valuable details of the Atlantic wall defenses along the Normandy coast. But by that time the Atlantic wall had few secrets from us.
The British had long ago issued an appeal for snapshots taken in peacetime by trippers onto the Continent. From the thousands sent in, valuable details were ferreted out—a narrow lane not shown on any maps that led up behind a cliff on which the Germans had installed a heavy gun battery; a back alley that curves behind a tourist hotel which the Germans had made into a strong point.
As far back as March 29 troops began moving into staging areas, then closer to embarkation ports, then finally to their loading areas. Nearly 2000 special troop trains were run to coastal ports. In the great control room an illuminated map showed the progress of every convoy along the roads to the ports. Meanwhile, in large areas of Britain, evacuated by civilians, troops were training with live ammunition. Rommel’s beach obstacles were duplicated and demolition squads practiced taking the sting out of them.
As a result of the Dieppe experience, special landing craft fitted with rocket batteries were developed to mow down German beach obstructions. Tens of thousands of vehicles were waterproofed for beach landings and equipped with flexible tubing and steel chimneys that reared high above the engines to suck down air to the motors as they plunged through surf up to the drivers’ necks. Some 280 British factories were set working day and night and the entire output of Britain’s sheet steel rolling mills was taken over for this great job. The intricate task of loading the invasion ships took two years of expert planning.
The endless ammunition dumps built up along quiet English lanes actually contained more ammunition than was used in all of World War I. Tanks were parked track to track; aircraft stood wing-tip to wing-tip; miles-long convoys of trucks, bulldozers, ducks and self-propelled guns were parked in fields and at roadsides until Britons wondered if their little island would sink under the weight.
Just 30 days before D Day, the last full-scale invasion exercise was completed. Tired GIs and Tommies who had participated in a half-dozen such exercises complained that next time they were called out they wanted to go straight into action. Landing-craft crews who had frequently been sent out on feints to deceive the enemy felt the same. They got their wish.
Seven days before D Day, which was originally set for Monday, June 5, final loading up began.
As the days ticked off, the tension at SHAEF mounted higher and higher, but at the personal headquarters of the commanders there was an atmosphere of calm. Monty [Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the British Army] left to subordinates the detail work, which he abhors, and read his favorite author, Anthony Trollope.
Eisenhower refused to move into the big house but set up tent headquarters in the woods. He sleeps in what he calls his “circus wagon,” built on a 21/2-ton army truck chassis—an idea borrowed from Monty. Its one room is littered with an odd assortment of Wild West yarns and psychological novels.
On Friday afternoon, June 2, Prime Minister Churchill and Field Marshal Smuts dropped into Eisenhower’s camp after touring the coast to watch loading operations on the “hards.” The three men talked for an hour. Churchill suggested that he should go along with the assault forces on D Day.
General Eisenhower at first passed off the Prime Minister’s remark as a joke, but Churchill returned to the point and finally Eisenhower said flatly that Churchill could not go. He reminded the Prime Minister that if he were lost, things would be disorganized in Britain and the whole military operation would be endangered. “Besides,” continued Eisenhower, “the warship you’d be on would require more protection than we’d ordinarily give it.”
Churchill was persistent. “After all,” he said, “I am Minister for National Defense. I can put myself aboard a British warship as an officer. Even the Supreme Commander cannot dictate the complement of a British naval vessel.”
While Churchill was speaking in this vein, he was informed that Buckingham Palace was calling him on the telephone. It was the King, who had learned of his Chief Minister’s purpose in visiting Eisenhower.
Under no circumstances, said the King, was Mr. Churchill to consider going to France on D Day.
Churchill acceded, in downcast mood.
Saturday evening, June 3, General Eisenhower held the first of four conferences that were to determine D Day, H Hour. The conferees were Monty, neatly dressed for a change, in a new battledress just sent him from the United States; quiet, soft-spoken Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower’s brilliant deputy; Allied Naval Commander in Chief, small, peppery Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the man who had brilliantly improvised the “operation dynamo” that rescued the troops from Dunkirk.
Last to arrive was Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces. He had flown down from London in his private puddle-jumper aircraft.
Outside in the fading half light of an English summer day, the weather appeared good to a layman’s eyes, but to the weather experts at SHAEF the forecast was discouraging. There were three chief weather midwives assisting at the birth of the great invasion—two British officers and an American Air Force colonel. For weeks past they had been producing forecasts and charts almost hourly. Now their predictions were not favorable. Weather over the Channel and France would worsen steadily, bringing low ceilings which would cancel out air activity, also high winds and rough seas which would hinder beach landings.
Final decision was postponed until 4:30 next morning (Sunday, June 4), and the High Commanders separated to get a few hours’ sleep. When they met Sunday morning, the weathermen confirmed their earlier forecasts and it was decided to postpone the invasion at least 24 hours. If the weather continued bad, the whole operation might have to be set back for weeks until the tides and moon again would be right for landings. For only one day in any month would be really suitable. The moon must be full—to let airborne troops operate effectively, to give our fighter-cover and anti-aircraft a chance to keep the Luftwaffe away, and to make difficult the operation of the Nazis’ light-shy but very effective E-boats. The tide had to be at low ebb three hours before dawn to expose underwater obstacles for demolition and make the beach right for H-Hour landing.
On Sunday evening, June 4, the Prime Minister and Smuts—later joined by General de Gaulle—dropped in on Eisenhower and sat for a long time discussing aspects of the momentous decision that was Eisenhower’s alone to make. They left, and at nine o’clock, Eisenhower held another staff conference at SHAEF. The weathermen were called in singly. Their forecasts, arrived at independently of each other, tallied and they made a more favorable picture. There was every prospect that weather over France and the Channel would steadily improve during the next 48 hours.
The High Commanders and their Chiefs of Staff weighed the gamble they were about to take. After 45 minutes, tentative agreement was reached that the invasion would go on. But they decided to hold one last conference at 4:30 on Monday morning, June 5, for the final word.
Back at his caravan, General Eisenhower turned in and slept a few hours. At four o’clock, he went back to SHAEF. Around the table sat Tedder, Montgomery, Leigh-Mallory, Admiral Ramsay and their Ch
iefs of Staff. The first weatherman was called in. He stuck to his original forecast. There was good weather ahead. It might not come for a day or two. On the other hand it might come within 12 hours. The other two weathermen, separately questioned, agreed.
General Eisenhower summed up the position to his Commanders. Everything was ready. If they delayed much longer, German reconnaissance aircraft were bound to find out the extent of mass shipping and landing craft assembled off the ports. The American assault force and the United States naval task force were already under weigh, and the longer they stayed at sea, the more difficult it would be to keep the many landing craft shepherded into convoys. A few more days under German observation and the invasion might lose its chance of tactical surprise.
The weather was a gamble, General Eisenhower admitted, but it was up to himself and the High Commanders to rise to it, or turn away. They all knew what turning away implied—delay, perhaps of weeks; the intricate loading process to be done over again; bad effect on the morale of troops.
Eisenhower turned to Admiral Ramsay and asked, “What do you think?”
Ramsay replied, “I’d like to hear the ‘Air’ give his views.”
Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory spoke with deliberation but left no doubt that “Air” was willing to gamble on the weather experts’ predictions.
“All right,” said Admiral Ramsay, with mock belligerency, “if the ‘Air’ thinks he can do it, the Navy certainly can.”
General Eisenhower smiled, but only briefly. This was the moment the peoples of the Allied nations had sweated and toiled for. Looking down the table at his commanders, his face more serious than it ever has been or is likely to be again, he said quietly, “Okay, let ’er rip.”
Those around the table rose quickly and hurried from the room to set the operation in motion. Ike called after them, “Good luck!”
He was last to emerge from the room. He was walking heavily, and those who saw him remarked later that each of the eight stars on his shoulders seemed to weigh a ton. He drove quickly back to his “circus wagon” and turned in without waking his aides. . . .
• • •
With the mammoth operation at last under way, there was no one more useless than the Supreme Commander. During the long day before D Day, General Eisenhower had nothing to do but visit his troops. In the morning, he drove to a nearby port and chatted with British soldiers loading on their LCI’s. In the evening he drove to airfields where men of the 101st U.S. Airborne Division were loading in their transport planes and black gliders. As he rolled up in his four-starred Cadillac at airfield after airfield, the men were already coloring their faces with cocoa and linseed oil. He went about from group to group wisecracking with them, partly to relieve their tension, partly his own.
As the boys climbed into their dark planes, the General called out, “Good luck!” He was noticeably affected. To drop several divisions of airborne and paratroop forces miles behind the Atlantic wall, long before H Hour on the beaches, was a tremendous risk. Many of his own staff officers, British and American, had strongly advised against it. If the beachheads weren’t established securely it meant several divisions of superbly trained troops would be lost. The General took the risk. He knew that, in taking it, he was sending some of them to certain death. They knew it, too.
The first phone call on D Day, June 6, came to Eisenhower’s office about 7 a.m. Commander Harry Butcher, Eisenhower’s friend and naval aide, answered. It was Leigh-Mallory reporting that airborne and paratroop landings had been unbelievably successful and that the first assault landings had been successfully made. Butcher stepped across the cinders to Ike’s “circus wagon” expecting to find the General still asleep, but he was in bed propped up behind a Wild West novel. Butcher told him Leigh-Mallory’s news. “Am I glad!” breathed the General.
Admiral Ramsay reported that the naval part of the show was 100 percent successful, with few losses. In fact, the landings had taken the Germans entirely by surprise. Ramsay had craftily sent a decoy convoy up through the Channel late on the eve of D Day. The German coastal gunners had opened up with everything they had on the unfortunate decoy convoy and then shut down for the night. Whereupon the real invasion armada sailed unmolested right to its goal.
At breakfast that D-Day morning, General Eisenhower was animated and happy for the first time in months. He talked to Butcher about other D days he’d been on—North Africa, which he directed from Gibraltar; Pantelleria, Sicily, which he directed from Malta; and Salerno. Compared to these, said the General, the invasion of France had produced the quietest D day of all.
The weather remained his biggest worry, and even before Butcher had called him he had been out of his caravan, peering up at the skies through the trees. As the sun began occasionally to peep through the clouds he relaxed.
At the nerve center of SHAEF there was one chilling moment that morning, when the first signal came from the beaches. It was rushed to the Staff Chiefs. They opened the message and read that the first assault wave had drowned. Faces went white. Then someone asked hurriedly for a repeat on the message. For a minute or two they waited. Then came the repeat. There had been a mistake. The correct message was that the first assault wave had grounded.
Within 48 hours of H Hour, the invasion spearhead had established a foothold in France. And without the frightful toll of casualties that professional pessimists had predicted.
On D-plus-six, a week after the invasion began, more than 500 square miles of Europe had been occupied by Allied armies. The battle was by no means over. The lives of many of our bravest and best were yet to be taken. But the bridgehead into France had been established.
What Philip of Spain and Napoleon failed to do, what Hitler never had courage to try, the Allied armies under Eisenhower had dared and done.
II. Armada in Action
The Channel Crossing on the Flagship
BY FREDERIC SONDERN, JR.
Roving Editor of The Reader’s Digest, accredited to the U.S. Navy
This was it—D Day and almost H Hour. A few miles ahead on the low-lying coast of France, not far from Cherbourg, a lighthouse winked peacefully. The bridge telegraph tinkled and our engines stopped throbbing. The anchor chain rattled through its hawsehole. Our whistle roared a short, hoarse signal and all around us the silhouettes of dozens of other ships came to rest. It was very quiet there in the moonlight; much too quiet, I thought, as we waited for the first German gun to blast its challenge from the shore.
They could hardly believe it in the wardroom of the flagship. Turning from a big wall chart, the Admiral’s navigation officer shut his dividers with a snap. “On the nose, by God!” he announced. The intelligence officer rubbed his head. “Not a smell of them all the way across,” he said, “and if they knew we were here, they’d have opened up already.” The chief of staff smiled his wry smile. “Maybe they’re just waiting to give us a surprise when they get us figured out. We can’t be that good.”
But he was wrong. The big German coastal batteries remained silent, and as nerve-racking minutes ticked by, the battleships, transports and landing craft of our task force slid into their exactly prearranged positions unmolested.
It was very quiet in the ship, too. We had been steaming all day on a long zigzag course, designed to make the Germans think us heading for Pas de Calais rather than the Cherbourg Peninsula. Spirits were gay during the morning. The long, dull months of training were over at last, and the colossal spectacle we were watching took our minds off what lay ahead. Troops lined the rails as we picked up unit after unit of our tremendous convoy at various meeting places along the coast. There were endless rows of waddling tank and infantry landing ships—their barrage balloons bobbing crazily in the sky above them—flanked by escort craft of every kind.
And then over the horizon came the impressive line of our supporting warships. A deft maneuver brought us into column ahead of the battleship Nevada and the cruisers Tuscaloosa and Quincy. The big guns bristling behind us l
ooked very good. “Gee,” said a young soldier standing next to me, “that’s a lot of cannons.”
I agreed happily that it certainly was a lot of cannons.
As the afternoon wore on, tension grew. Everybody was being very polite. On the bridge, even the crusty officer who ran the ship gave orders less brusquely than usual. But there were no jitters, no traces of hysteria. A leathery Marine colonel, veteran of many battles, managed a wintry smile and said that, for green troops, the kids looked pretty promising. Coming from him, that was praise indeed.
When an alarm bell suddenly began to clang and a bosun’s rasping voice came over the intercom—“All hands man your battle stations!”—the call to general quarters was welcome relief. There really was a Nazi plane ahead this time. It was 10:30 p.m. But nothing happened.
In the combat intelligence room—nerve center of the Admiral’s command post—a vast picture of the big crossing was unfolding. We were one of two invasion forces—American, under Rear Admiral Alan Kirk, U.S.N., and British, under Sir Philip Vian, Royal Navy. Five thousand ships were moving across the English Channel, assembled from several dozen ports and routed on exact schedule through narrow lanes swept and marked by minesweepers several hours before. The two task force commanders were linked with each other and with Supreme Headquarters ashore by the most intricate military communications system ever devised.
There was surprisingly little activity, however. The operation plan covered all details of every ship’s movements and it worked like a clock.
It was about 1:30 in the morning of June 6 when an officer in the combat intelligence room suddenly barked: “Two hundred planes coming over.”
“Enemy?” shrilled a young officer. “No,” said the commander, “they’ll be the airborne boys.”
Reader's Digest Soldier Stories Page 2
