Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  Fig. 9.2. Hitler and Admiral Erich Raeder in discussion at a map table. Also present are (left to right) Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, General Alfred Jodl, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and an unidentified Kriegsmarine staff officer.

  Operation Lüttich was launched soon after midnight on August 7. The panzer divisions were short of tanks, men, and oil. They were poorly briefed and worn out. The counterattack was doomed before it even began. The 116th Panzer Division never left its jump-off position. The First SS and Second SS Panzer Divisions did overrun Mortain and Saint-Barthelemy. But on the key Hill 314, seven hundred men from the US 120th Infantry Division refused to give ground to the German attackers. Surrounded for five days and supplied only by air drops, the 120th fought valiantly, suffering three hundred casualties. (See Map 20.)

  An attack by the Second Panzer Division managed to advance within two miles of Avranches before being halted by the Third Armored Division and the Thirty-Fifth Infantry Division. The Allied air forces had been grounded by fog, but at midday on August 7 the skies cleared. Rocket-firing Typhoons of the RAF Eighty-Third Group remorselessly destroyed columns of German tanks, guns, and vehicles strung out along the roads and byways. Overhead, American Mustangs ruled the skies and shot down or drove off the feeble Luftwaffe air support. Many German fighters were destroyed as they took off from their bases. This was the largest fighter-bomber attack of the Normandy campaign. Paul Carrell states, “[F]or the first time in military history a…land offensive was eventually halted from the air.”56

  By August 8 Kluge's attack was literally dying in its own tracks as continuous air attacks caused panzer personnel to begin abandoning their tanks and equipment. Hitler refused to acknowledge the ground-air situation and instead ordered a renewal of the offensive for two more days. Hitler's final ice-cold, lunatic judgment on Operation Lüttich was, “Success only failed to come because Kluge did not want to be successful!”57

  The overwhelming defeat of the German counterattack left what remained of the Wehrmacht's panzers and mobile infantry in a completely exposed pocket of Hitler's own making. Now Patton raced east and hooked northward to cut off the Germans. The British needed to complete the pincer movement by thrusting southward to ensnare the entire German Seventh Army and potentially end the war.58

  “I believe that…the XV Corps…could have gone on to Falaise…and definitely and positively closed the escape gap.”

  —General George S. Patton1

  “Some questions being asked in London as to why Patton could not try to close the gap from the south.”

  —Group Captain F. K. Winterbotham, chief of Air Department, Secret Intelligence Service (Ultra)2

  IKE'S FRONT ROW SEAT

  The Falaise operation of August 1944 remains one of the most controversial of World War II. Could the pocket have been closed earlier, entrapping most of the German forces in northwestern France? This chapter will explore how rivalries and faulty communications among the Allied commanders shaped the outcome of this pivotal campaign.

  On August 7 to keep pace with the breakout and rapid advance of the Allied armies, Eisenhower established an advanced command post (code-named SHELLBURST) in Tournières, Normandy. (See Map 13.) His proximity to the commanders would enable Ike to actively participate in decision making as the Falaise operation developed, and as OVERLORD's supreme commander he would have direct responsibility for the decisions that were made during the next ten crucial days.3

  As stated previously, Allied ground forces regrouped on July 25 to accommodate the activation of Patton's Third Army. His command and that of General Courtney Hodges of the First Army became part of the US Twelfth Army Group under General Bradley. At the same time, Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group was expanded to now include the First Canadian Army commanded by Lieutenant General Henry Crerar and Dempsey's Second British Army. (See Chart 3.) At this time Marshall pressed Eisenhower to finally assume command of OVERLORD's ground forces. He resisted by telling Marshall that a “woeful insufficiency in Signal troops made it impossible to discharge all the [SHAEF]…responsibilities and at the same time take over the broad operational coordination necessary between Army Groups.”4 This left Montgomery in charge for another fateful month. Eisenhower would soon regret his hasty decision not to assume command of the ground forces as the crucial events at Falaise unfolded.

  THE BIG PICTURE ON THE FORMING OF THE FALAISE POCKET

  By early August the disposition of Hitler's armies in France and northwestern Europe had radically changed. Only three divisions of the Fifteenth Army remained east of the Seine, where there had been fifteen in mid-July. The German panzer divisions clustered around Caen had moved westward for the abortive Operation Lüttich around Mortain. Along the coast north of the Seine, only five divisions remained to repel the illusionary second invasion. In the interior of Normandy ten infantry divisions faced the Canadian and British forces. Another five were scattered to oppose Patton's eastward drive from Le Mans to Paris.

  The majority of the Wehrmacht force's nineteen divisions had been severely ravaged. The present field of operation had become so confined that the panzers were incapable of waging a war of maneuver. The Falaise Pocket was thus born and offered the Allies an opportunity to deliver a potential knockout blow through the strategic envelopment of the German forces. (See Map 21.)

  While the German forces were shrinking, the Allied armies steadily increased. This included the addition of Free French and Polish Armored Divisions and the Canadian Fourth Armored Division, which with their two infantry divisions now formed the First Canadian Army. In the two months since the beginning of Normandy operations, the size of the US Army forces had grown ten times larger. The Twelfth Army Group now deployed fourteen infantry and six armored divisions.5

  The first evidence for a potential Allied envelopment of the German Seventh Army and the Panzer Reserve emerged on August 4. Both Patton and Eisenhower recognized this opportunity and redeployed the majority of American troops toward the east. Patton sent Walker's XX Corps southeast to the Loire River and Haislip's XV Corps from Laval to drive eastward in the direction of Le Mans. (See Map 21.) Patton also notified Haislip to get ready for bigger things.

  On August 8, Bradley confided in his aide, Chester Hansen, “The German is either crazy or he doesn’t know what's going on. I think he is too smart to do what he is doing. He can’t know what's going on in our sector. Surely the professional generals must know the jig is up.”6

  Hansen said, “Hitler is your greatest ally, sir?”

  Bradley replied, “Yes, perhaps he is.”

  That same day, the Third Army was advancing at almost all points of the compass from its central geographic position on the Normandy battlefield: west into Brittany, south toward the Loire, and most importantly east to Le Mans. Patton wrote to his wife, “This army had a big day.”7

  On August 7, twenty-four hours after the Germans began their counterattacks at Mortain, Montgomery launched Operation TOTALIZE, a Canadian Army assault toward Falaise. This operation had been planned prior to any discussion of the possibility of enveloping German forces in conjunction with the Americans.

  Eisenhower and Bradley met to discuss the potential of encircling the German army on August 8. First reports indicated that the Canadians had broken through on the Falaise road. If Patton's Third Army sprang northward from Le Mans through Argentan to Falaise, this short hook would trap the Germans inside a tight pocket. (See Map 21.) Eisenhower assured Bradley that the Allied Air Transport Service (ATS) could deliver up to two thousand tons of supplies each day to the American forces. A US armored division needed at least sixty thousand gallons of fuel a day, and its twenty-one thousand men required thirty-five tons of rations per day.8 Bradley thought this opportunity came “once in a century…. We’re about to destroy an entire hostile army.”9

  That same day Bradley called Montgomery to explain the new plan. After Bradley told Monty that Eisenhower agreed with this, Monty with a degree of reluctance ac
cepted the change to a shorter envelopment. He originally wanted a longer hook reaching to the Seine. Monty warned Bradley that full responsibility for the plan's success rested with him. Since the US objective was Argentan, twelve miles inside the British operational boundary, Bradley also received Monty's permission for this incursion in order to close the Falaise Pocket. This concession implied acceptance for doing whatever it took to entrap the Germans, boundary lines be damned.

  Montgomery immediately ordered Dempsey to conform to the new plan for a short hook. That afternoon Eisenhower drove over to Montgomery's headquarters to reinforce his understanding of the operation and make sure that Monty ordered the Canadian army to make a maximum effort to close their side of the pincer and meet Patton's XV Corps.

  Bradley ordered Patton's XV Corps north from Le Mans to the Army Group boundary at Argentan, where they were to hold this position. He told Patton that he didn’t want American troops running into the Canadian or British forces coming down from Falaise. Though, like Montgomery, Patton considered a longer hook to envelop more Germans a better strategy, he was elated to get an envelopment started. In a letter to his wife on August 8 Patton wrote, “I am the only one who realizes how little the enemy can do—he is finished.” He also speculated, “We may end this in ten days.”10

  Bradley also released to the XV Corps three divisions: the Thirty-Fifth and Eightieth Infantry and the French Second Armored Division that he had held back to meet the German Mortain counteroffensive. They would join Patton's one armored and two infantry divisions at Le Mans. Patton's spearhead would then attack from Le Mans to Alencon and finally Argentan and then meet up with the Canadians driving down from the north to close the entrapment.

  Ike pushed Bradley and Montgomery to “pull a Clausewitz,” i.e., to focus on destroying the enemy rather than just gaining more territory. On August 9, Eisenhower sent an enthusiastic letter to his boss General George C. Marshall: “Patton will march toward Alencon and Falaise…we have a good chance to encircle and destroy a lot of his [German] forces.”11 (See Map 21.)

  Patton now had the way and the means to carry out the historic order he had been waiting for since arriving in Normandy. In a memo to General Hugh Gaffey, his chief of staff, he wrote, “The purpose of the operation is to surround and destroy the German army west of the Seine.”12 In Patton's order to Haislip he stated that the mission was “to destroy Germans in your front [i.e., encirclement].”13 While the southern pincer of the Falaise encirclement was set to close, the northern pincer lacked a similar drive and focus.

  THE NORTHERN PINCER: CONFUSION REIGNS

  Montgomery had promised Eisenhower that he would mount a rush down the Falaise road to meet Patton at Argentan. Unlike Montgomery's earlier “colossal cracks,” Operation TOTALIZE was designed as a genuine breakthrough offensive with a frontal assault on the German lines. The greatly admired General Guy Simonds of II Canadian Corps planned and commanded TOTALIZE.

  TOTALIZE began (August 7) with a night attack by Crerar's First Canadian Army, the Polish First Armored Division, and the Fifty-First Highland Division. Seven mobile columns of tanks and infantry carriers attacked, proceeded by four tanks abreast. They advanced about six miles by the dawn of August 8. (See Map 21.)

  That morning a massed formation of over five hundred B-17 bombers attacked six defensive targets. Due to an appalling lack of communication between ground and air forces, some bombs fell short and killed or wounded 315 Poles and Canadians. The resulting confusion among the troops had the fatal effect of slowing down Simonds's day offensive. By the afternoon of August 8, TOTALIZE had ground to a halt ten miles short of Falaise, having reached only twelve miles south of Caen.14 (See Map 22.)

  However Montgomery had taken no steps to further reinforce the Canadian and Polish offensive toward Falaise. He seemed to have little sense of urgency. On August 9 he wrote to Brooke, “FALAISE itself is in reach of our guns…there are great possibilities in the present situation…we have a good chance of closing the ring.”15

  By midnight on August 11, their advance moved another three miles after costly fighting. Simonds then relieved the armor with infantry divisions. With another seven miles to reach Falaise, and another twelve miles to Argentan, the offensive ended. The troops believed they could not advance to Falaise without another heavy-bomber assault. Chester Wilmot believes that there is little doubt that if Montgomery had used his more experienced and available Seventh Armored Division to reinforce the Fourth and First Armored that TOTALIZE would have been completely successful in helping the Americans close the gap. Instead TOTALIZE failed to push aside two depleted German divisions that had but sixty tanks that had been reduced to thirty-five panzers by day's end.16

  Montgomery seems to have continued to vacillate about using a short hook versus a long hook. On August 10 he still ordered the taking of Falaise but also ordered the Canadian armored forces to close the pocket by moving toward Trun/Argentan, later again changed to Trun/Chambois on August 16.17

  Montgomery's inconsistency paralleled his lack of basic resolve in closing the Falaise gap itself. In an August 11 directive he told the Allied army commanders, “Obviously, if we close the gap completely we shall put the enemy in the most awkward predicament…. As the gap narrows the enemy is certain to re-act.”18 Why was Monty stating the obvious?

  He also changed his orders no less than five times on who would take Falaise: August 4 assigned to Crerar, August 6 to Dempsey, August 11 to both Crerar and Dempsey, August 13 to Dempsey, and finally August 14 back to Crerar.19 This parallels his previous actions during multiple battles around Caen when he repeatedly halted successful advances because of his fears over what was on the other side of the hill.

  Brooke did not help the situation as he did not encourage Montgomery to launch an immediate drive and close the gap. Instead he wrote to Monty on August 13, “I have been watching your battle with enormous interest. There are wonderful possibilities.”20

  From August 12 to August 13, the Canadian Second Infantry Division made a limited attack, but the six days after TOTALIZE Montgomery largely spent “tidying up” in preparation for Operation TRACTABLE, a set-piece assault on Falaise.

  THE SOUTHERN PINCER: GAINING FORCES AND SURGING FORWARD

  Patton's advance toward Falaise began on August 10 as the four divisions of Haislip's XV Corps attacked toward Argentan led by the Second French Armored and the Fifth US Armored Divisions. They borrowed trucks to mechanize Haislip's Seventy-Ninth and Ninetieth Infantry Divisions. The Ninetieth Infantry supported the Second French Armored, while the Seventy-Ninth Infantry supported Fifth Armored in their drive toward the town of Sées. (See Map 22.)

  Haislip's advance met only scattered German resistance. Kluge found it impossible to inject more German units from northwestern France to confront the Third Army. A series of brief, intense skirmishes reduced the Ninth Panzer Division to less than twelve tanks and decimated the 708th Infantry Division.

  As Patton's Third Army advanced north toward Alencon, scratch German combat units were thrown together from personnel at this major supply and maintenance base for the Seventh Army. Men from the supply depot, maintenance platoons, and panzer repair shops were mixed in with the remains of the Panzer Lehr Division. Cooks and mechanics were trained to use the Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons. Alencon's doom was sealed. The Wehrmacht in France was collapsing.

  On the morning of August 12, the French Second Armored seized a basically undefended Alencon. At the same time the Fifth Armored crashed into Sées, defended only by a bakery company. Both the Second and Fifth then immediately moved north toward Argentan. A mix-up of units traveling on the main access road into the town delayed their arrival until that afternoon. By the time a French patrol entered Argentan on August 13, the Germans had rushed in reinforcements. This precluded the town's capture for more than a week. However, Patton's advanced units reached a position that put them within twelve miles from closing the Falaise Pocket. (See Map 22.)

  That sam
e day Patton ordered Collins's VII Corps, the First Infantry, and Third Armored Divisions to close the gap between their positions at Mayenne and the XV Corps. This they did by driving over twenty miles that day northeastward until they reached the outskirts of Carrouges where they attacked the First SS Panzer Division. With their rapid advance VII Corps linked up with the left flank of the XV Corps, creating a solid wall between the US First and Third armies.

  The Allies had formed a solid Falaise Pocket about thirty-five miles long and fifteen miles wide, encircling the enemy with the British Twenty-First Army Group on the northern and northwestern portion and the American Twelfth Army Group along the southwestern and southern portions. (See Map 22.) Trapped inside were over 100,000 to 250,000 troops of the German Seventh Army and their surviving panzer forces. Patton was positioned to act as the proverbial cork in the bottle.21

  That day Patton wrote in his diary, “The XV Corps…has taken Alencon and the Sées-Argentan line and is in battle to the north. This corps could easily advance to Falaise and completely close the gap.”22

  At 9:30 p.m. on August 12, Haislip signaled Patton that the Fifth Armored was about to secure Argentan. Patton had previously told Haislip to ignore the constantly changing army boundaries and to go slowly beyond Argentan toward Falaise until he made contact with the Canadians. Patton had no intention of halting Haislip's advance. He had already been working hard at reinforcing Haislip's XV Corps. Patton deduced that if the Germans attacked, they lacked the organized strength, to break through before additional Third Army reinforcements arrived. The goal of this operation was to eliminate the German army west of the Seine. It was now within sight. In Patton's judgment, continuing Haislip's advance was worth the risk.23