Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  11. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1963), pp. 407–408.

  12. Adolf Galland, The First and the Last (New York: Ballantine Books, 1957), pp. 214–19; Alexander McKee, Last Round against Rommel: Battle of the Normandy Bridgehead (New York: Signet, 1966), p. 277; Morison, Two-Ocean War, p. 407; Craig L. Symonds, Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 312; Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1961), pp. 33–34.

  13. Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), p. 832.

  14. Ken Ford, Operation Neptune 1944 (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), pp. 86–87; Beevor, D-Day, p. 76; Nigel Cawthorne, Fighting Them on the Beaches (London: Capella, 2002), p. 185; Morison, Two-Ocean War, pp. 405–406; Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., The Desert Fox in Normandy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), p. 40; Barnett, Engage, pp. 830–32.

  15. Beevor, D-Day, pp. 226–27; Carrell, Invasion, pp. 174–75; Horace Edward Henderson, The Greatest Blunders of World War II (New York: Writer's Showcase, 2001), p. 368; Kennedy Hickman, “World War II: V-1 Flying Bomb,” ThoughtCo., August 12, 2015, http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/artillerysiegeweapons/p/v1.htm (accessed April 5, 2017). Later Hitler deployed the V-2, often called the “vengeance weapon.” It was the world's first ballistic missile, became the prototype for the US Redstone Missile, and paved the way for the Saturn V that took America's astronauts to the moon.

  16. Blumenson, Generals, p. 97; Beevor, D-Day, p. 185.

  17. Quoted in D'Este, Normandy, pp. 151–52.

  18. Quoted in Keegan, Normandy, p. 156.

  19. Rommel, Papers, p. 491.

  20. Diary entry, June 7, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 118.

  21. Message to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, June 11, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 129.

  22. D.K.R. Crosswell, Beetle: The Life of General Walter Bedell Smith (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), p. 634.

  23. Nigel Hamilton, Montgomery: D-Day Commander (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007), pp. 58–59.

  24. Stephen E. Ambrose, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. 428; Hastings, Overlord, pp. 37–38; David Eisenhower, Eisenhower: At War 1943–1945 (New York: Random House, 1986), pp. 210–12; D'Este, Normandy, p. 202.

  25. Letter to Major-General F.E. Simpson, June 8, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 122; Hastings, Overlord, p. 123; D'Este, Normandy, p. 161.

  26. Beevor, D-Day, pp. 188–94; Drez, “Their Road,” pp. 207–11; B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1970), p. 546.

  27. Cawthorne, Beaches, p. 141; Hastings, Overlord, p. 135; D'Este, Normandy, p. 197.

  28. Letter to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, June 13, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 141–43; Diary notes, June 15, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 145.

  29. Crosswell, Beetle, p. 640; D'Este, Normandy, p. 198.

  30. Keegan, Normandy, p. 152.

  31. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 153–55; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 252–55; Keegan, Normandy, pp. 152–53; Joseph Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead (Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999), pp. 159–61; Hastings, Overlord, pp. 166–67; Fred Majdalany, The Fall of Fortress Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 378–79; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Avon, 1968), p. 285; Antony Beevor, Second World War (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), pp. 597–99.

  32. Quoted in Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, vol. 3, The Liberation Trilogy (New York: Henry Holt, 2013), p. 111.

  33. Quoted in Jonathan Mayo, D-Day Minute by Minute (New York: Marble Arch, 2014), p. 275.

  34. Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaigns of France and Germany 1944–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), p. 76.

  35. Drez, “Their Road,” pp. 203–205.

  36. Robert Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015), pp. 22–29.

  37. Quoted in Gildea, Fighters, p. 23.

  38. Stafford, D-Day, pp. 80–81.

  39. Gildea, Fighters, p. 162.

  40. Stafford, D-Day, p. 81; Gildea, Fighters, pp. 23, 127, 162, 242, 271, 334, 342–44; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 16–17; Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2013), pp. 346–47.

  41. Dwight D. Eisenhower, memorandum dated June 3, 1944, box 137, Crusade in Europe Documents NAID# 12005079, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas.

  42. Quoted in Beevor, D-Day, p. 199; Jonathan Fenby, The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved (New York: Skyhorse, 2012), p. 242.

  43. Gildea, Fighters, pp. 18, 377; Smith, Eisenhower, pp. 369–71; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 197–99.

  44. Rommel, Papers, pp. 478–79.

  45. Quoted in Blumenson, Generals, p. 98.

  46. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 152–53; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 224–26; Keegan, Normandy, pp. 164–65; Speidel, Normandy, pp. 105–109.

  47. Quoted in Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill (London: Pan Books, 1948), p. 410.

  48. Barnett, Engage, p. 829.

  49. Morison, Two-Ocean War, p. 408.

  50. Jim DeFelice, Omar Bradley (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011), p. 198; Barnett, Engage, p. 828; Morison, Two-Ocean War, pp. 408–409; Crosswell, Beetle, p. 645; Symonds, Neptune, pp. 324–27; D-Este, Normandy, p. 230; Ramsay, Year of D-Day, pp. 86, 90–91; Barrett Tillman, D-Day Encyclopedia (Washington, DC: Regency History, 2014), p. 222.

  51. Quoted in Keegan, Normandy, pp. 163–64.

  52. Barnett, Engage, p. 835.

  53. Ibid.; Ford, Operation Neptune, pp. 78–81, 85; Symonds, Neptune, pp. 323–24.

  54. Denise Goolsby, “Navy's LST Ships Supplied Troops,” Desert Sun, June 6, 2010, p. G7.

  55. Andrew Gordon, “The Greatest Military Armada Ever Launched,” in D-Day, ed. Jane Penrose (Oxford: Osprey, 2010), p. 143.

  56. Directive (M504) to Lieutenant-General O.N. Bradley First US Army, June 18, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 154–55; DeFelice, Bradley, p. 206.

  57. Kenneth Edwards, Operation Neptune (Sabon, UK: Foothill, 1946), pp. 277–79; Symonds, Neptune, pp. 339–48.

  58. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 230–31; Patrick Dalzel-Job, Arctic Snow to Dust of Normandy (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Military, 1992), p. 153; Symonds, Neptune, pp. 336–50; Drez, “Their Road,” pp. 205–207; Hastings, Overlord, p. 163; DeFelice, Bradley, p. 206; Ford, Operation Neptune, p. 90.

  59. Quoted in William B. Brewer, Hitler's Fortress Cherbourg (New York: Stein and Day, 1984), p. 252.

  60. Ramsay, Year of D-Day, pp. 100–101; Ford, Operation Neptune, p. 91.

  61. Quoted in Hastings, Overlord, p. 166; DeFelice, Bradley, p. 206.

  62. Ramsay, Year of D-Day, pp. 91–92, 96.

  63. Ford, Operation Neptune, p. 91.

  64. Symonds, Neptune, pp. 351–52.

  65. Ramsay, Year of D-Day, p. 114.

  66. Barnett, Engage, p. 837.

  67. Beevor, D-Day, p. 229.

  68. Quoted in Horace Edward Henderson, The Greatest Blunders of World War II (New York: Writer's Showcase, 2001), p. 368.

  69. Directive (M502) to Lieutenant-General Omar M. Bradley, First US Army and Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, Second British Army, June 18, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 151.

  70. Diary notes, June 19, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 156; Message (M25) to Major-General F.W. de Guingand, June 20, 1944; Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 158.

  71. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 235–37.

  72. Message (M30) to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 25, 1944, in Montgom
ery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 164.

  73. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 240–45; Henderson, Blunders, pp. 368–69; Beevor, D-Day, p. 234; Beevor, Second World War, p. 595.

  74. Message to (M31) to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 26, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 164.

  75. Beevor, Second World War, p. 595.

  76. Ramsay, Year of D-Day, pp. 92–93.

  77. Letter to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, June 27, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 166.

  78. Message (M33) to the Prime Minister, June 29, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 172.

  79. Directive (M505) to Lieutenant-General Omar M. Bradley, First US Army and Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, Second British Army, June 30, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 176.

  80. Ibid., p. 174.

  81. Henderson, Blunders, pp. 366–69; Beevor, Second World War, p. 596; D'Este, Normandy, pp. 247–48; Blumenson, Generals, pp. 108–109.

  82. Beevor, D-Day, p. 243.

  83. Quoted in Hart, Other Side of the Hill, p. 411; Blumenson, Generals, pp. 98–99; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 214–15, 243; Alun Chalfont, Montgomery of Alamein (New York: Athenaeum, 1976), p. 240; Rommel, Papers, pp. 478–83.

  84. Quoted in Blumenson, Generals, p. 100.

  CHAPTER 8: BREAKOUT BLUES

  1. Diary, July 12, 1944, in The Patton Papers 1940–1945, ed. Martin Blumenson (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1974), p. 480.

  2. Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), pp. 237–38.

  3. Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals (New York: William Morrow, 1993), p. 100; Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill (London: Pan Books, 1948), pp. 411–13; Antony Beevor, The Second World War (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), p. 597; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 237–38; Erwin Rommel, The Rommel Papers, ed. B.H. Liddell Hart (London: Hamlyn Paperbacks, 1953), pp. 481–84.

  4. William Weidner, Eisenhower and Montgomery at the Falaise Gap (New York: Xlibris, 2010), p. 30; Jonathan W. Jordan, Brothers, Rivals, Victors (New York: Caliber, 2011), pp. 334–35; David Fraser, Alanbrooke (London: Harper Collins, 1982), p. 436.

  5. David I. Hall, “Much the Greatest Thing We Have Ever Attempted,” in D-Day, ed. Jane Penrose (Oxford: Osprey, 2010), p. 246.

  6. Jim DeFelice, Omar Bradley (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011), pp. 212–13.

  7. Jordan, Brothers, p. 341.

  8. Ibid.

  9. DeFelice, Bradley, p. 213; Jordan, Brothers, p. 341.

  10. Alun Chalfont, Montgomery of Alamein (New York: Athenaeum, 1976), p. 238.

  11. Blumenson, Generals, p. 116.

  12. “Operation Charnwood, 8–9 July 1944,” http://www/dday-overlord.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/operation_charnwood-1.jpg (accessed June 1, 2017).

  13. Carlo D'Este, Decision in Normandy (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1994), pp. 212–27, 314–20; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 272–73; Blumenson, Generals, pp. 116–17; Richard Holmes, The Story of D-Day (New York: Metro Books), p. 110.

  14. Alistair Horne and David Montgomery, Monty: The Lonely Leader, 1944–1945 (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), p.127.

  15. Blumenson, Generals, p. 115.

  16. D'Este, Normandy, pp. 259–60.

  17. David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War 1943–1945 (New York: Vintage, 1987), p. 213; Philip Warner, World War Two: The Untold Story (London: Cassell, 1988), p. 221; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 263, 305; D'Este, Normandy, pp. 259–60; John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 190.

  18. Montgomery to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, July 14, 1944, in Stephen Brooks, ed., Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy (Stroud, UK: History Press, 2008), p. 208.

  19. Chester Wilmot, interview, May 18, 1946, Liddell Hart Papers, King's College, London.

  20. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–45 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 13; D'Este, Normandy, pp. 284–89; D.K.R. Crosswell, Beetle: The Life of General Walter Bedell Smith. (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), pp. 635–36; Beevor, D-Day, p. 264; John Buckley, Monty's Men (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 144; Stephen R. Taaffe, Marshall and His Generals (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 2011), pp. 188–89; Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier's Story (New York: Modern Library, 1999), p. 260.

  21. Quoted in Chalfont, Montgomery, p. 236.

  22. Chalfont, Montgomery, pp. 236–37.

  23. Beevor, D-Day, p. 264.

  24. Max Hastings, Overlord, D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 228.

  25. Alan Brooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, ed. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (London: Phoenix Press, 2001), p. 566.

  26. Quoted in Fraser, Alanbrooke, pp. 530–31.

  27. Quoted in D'Este, Normandy, pp. 302–303; Quoted in Hastings, Overlord, p. 228.

  28. General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Montgomery, July 7, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 186–87.

  29. Montgomery to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 8, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 188, 190.

  30. Brooke, War Diaries, pp. 546, 575; Blumenson, Generals, pp. 110–11.

  31. Blumenson, Generals, p. 120.

  32. Quoted in Blumenson, Generals, p. 119.

  33. Message (M49) to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 12, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 201.

  34. Montgomery's Diary notes, July 13, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 204.

  35. Message (M53) to Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, July 14, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 204–205.

  36. Montgomery to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, July 14, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 208.

  37. General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Montgomery, July 14, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 205.

  38. Montgomery's Directive (M510) to Lieutenant-General O.N. Bradley, First US Army, Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey, Second British Army, Lieutenant-General G. Patton, Third US Army, and Lieutenant-General H.D. Crerar, First Canadian Army, July 10, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 195.

  39. Memorandum by Montgomery headed “Notes on Second Army Operations 16 July–18 July,” in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 213.

  40. Quoted in Buckley, Monty's Men, p. 96–97.

  41. Peter Caddick-Adams, Monty and Rommel (New York: Overlook, 2011), pp. 410–11.

  42. Beevor, D-Day, p. 314.

  43. Ronald J. Drez, “Their Road Will Be Long and Hard,” in D-Day, ed. Jane Penrose (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010), p. 213; Blumenson, Generals, p. 122; Beevor, D-Day, p. 315; D'Este, Normandy, pp. 370–76; Beevor, Second World War, p. 601; Mark Urban, Generals: Ten British Generals Who Shaped the War (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), p. 282; Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of History, Department of the Army, 1961), p. 48.

  44. Quoted in Drez, “Their Road,” p. 214.

  45. Ibid., p. 215.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Paul Carrell, Invasion! They’re Coming! (New York: Bantam, 1964), p. 253; D'Este, Normandy, p. 379.

  48. Quoted in Drez, “Their Road,” p. 215.

  49. D'Este, Normandy, p. 382.

  50. Drez, “Their Road,” pp. 215–16.

  51. Chalfont, Montgomery, p. 243; Horace Edward Henderson, The Greatest Blunders of World War II (New York: Writer's Showcase, 2001), p. 373; D'Este, Normandy, pp. 385–86.

  52. D'Este, Normandy, p. 387.

  53. Alexander McKee, Caen: Anvil of Victory (London: St. Martin, 1987), p. 217.

  54. Hastings, Overlord, p. 238; Weidner, Eisenhower and Montgomery, p. 281.

  55. Quoted in Harry Yeide, Fighting Patton, p. 226; Blumenson, Generals, p. 124.

  56. Quoted in Blumenson, Generals, p. 121.

  57. Hall, “Much the Greatest Thing,” p. 252.

  58. Ibid.; Buckley, Monty's Men, p. 144.

  59. Rommel, Rommel Pap
ers, p. 486.

  60. Ibid., pp. 486–87.

  61. Ibid., p. 486.

  62. Quoted in Caddick-Adams, Monty and Rommel, p. 421.

  63. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., The Desert Fox in Normandy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), p. 179; Caddick-Adams, Monty and Rommel, pp. 421–22.

  64. Keegan, Normandy, pp. 221–30; Hall, “Much the Greatest Thing,” pp. 253–54; Beevor, D-Day, pp. 330–35; William L. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 1048–76; Hans Speidel, We Defended Normandy (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1951), p. 87.

  65. Quoted in Shirer, Third Reich, p. 1077.

  66. Ibid.; Mitcham, Desert Fox in Normandy, p. 180.

  67. Manfred Rommel, “The Last Days,” in Rommel Papers, p. 500.

  68. Quoted in Shirer, Third Reich, p. 1079.

  69. Manfred Rommel, “The Last Days,” in Rommel Papers, p. 505.

  70. Quoted in Blumenson, Generals, pp. 124–25; Hall, “Much the Greatest Thing,” p. 254.

  71. Quoted in Buckley, Monty's Men, p. 110.

  72. Blumenson, Generals, p. 125.

  73. Message (M58) to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, July 18, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 218.

  74. Message (M60) to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 18, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 218.

  75. Quoted in Hastings, Overlord, p. 236.

  76. Chalfont, Montgomery, p. 243.

  77. Harry C. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), p. 531.

  78. Quoted in Buckley, Monty's Men, p. 111.

  79. Quoted in Keegan, Normandy, p. 217.

  80. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952) New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 320.

  81. Quoted in Chalfont, Montgomery, p. 244.

  82. Message (M49) to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 12, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 201; Keegan, Normandy, p. 215.

  83. Brooke, War Diaries, p. 572; Montgomery to Prime Minister, July 19, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, p. 221; Nigel Hamilton, Montgomery: D-Day Commander (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2007), p. 71.

  84. General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Montgomery, July 21, 1944, in Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy, pp. 228–30.