Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942–43 (An Alternative History)

by Alexander M. Grace

  By late in the morning of the next day, the situation had hardly improved. The two landing zones had finally been securely joined, and the line had pushed out toward the brooding hills that paralleled the coast, completing the capture of Grosseto, but there had been no breakthrough. In fact, it was only now that the attackers had apparently reached the primary enemy defensive line, cleverly concealed strongpoints fronted by clear fields of fire and manned by veteran infantry. The first serious armored attack, by at least a battalion of the deadly Tigers, had only just been repulsed after inflicting devastating losses on the hopelessly undergunned Valentines of the 44th Tank Regiment, and then only by a massive concentration of naval gunfire. More troops were pouring ashore, but it was now clear that the enemy had every square inch of the landing zone registered for artillery, with the entire coast open to observation by enemy spotters along the ridge. The German guns were dug into the hills, safely out of range of all but the largest naval guns, and the ships were basically firing blind, scoring an occasional hit largely by luck.

  Clearly this invasion was not going to be the walkover that everyone had anticipated. As the sun set on the first day, Kirkman could still distinctly hear the rattle of machine-gun fire not far from his command post on one side, and the murmur of the waves on the other. He received a report from 8th Army Headquarters just after dark that the 2nd New Zealand Division, a unit of nearly corps size with some 25,000 men, mostly veterans of the North African campaign, would be added to the invasion in XXX Corps sector the next day. While the reinforcements would be welcome enough, Kirkman could not help but be reminded of the Australian-New Zealand amphibious disaster at Gallipoli in the last war. That had not been the New Zealanders’ fault, of course. It had been the fault of the high command, and notably a much younger Winston Churchill, disturbingly the same person who had masterminded this campaign.

  1400 HOURS, 8 MARCH 1943

  MANTUA, ITALY

  As Kesselring sat in his new headquarters in northern Italy, he had some cause to be satisfied with his performance over the preceding two weeks. Despite the sudden defection of the Italians, he had managed to avert a mortal danger to the southern borders of the Third Reich. At the same time he had essentially added a new conquest to the empire, that of about two thirds of their former ally’s territory, which was then being stripped of every moveable item of any value. He had overseen the disarmament of more than half a million Italian troops, many of whom had been shipped off to labor camps inside the Reich. He had even captured, intact, several hundred tanks, as many war-planes, 2,000 artillery pieces, and half a million rifles, the best of which would be incorporated into the Reich’s armory, the remainder being used to equip the miniscule army of Blackshirts remaining loyal to Mussolini in the little puppet republic that had been set up in the foothills of the Alps, or to help arm the ragtag armies of Germany’s other allies. He had even recovered 1.6 million gallons of fuel oil that the Italians had secreted in tunnels around La Spezia, and this after their navy had insisted that they could not escort supply convoys to Rommel’s army in Africa the previous year due to a shortage of fuel!

  Of greater importance, he had effectively bottled up more than two full British corps in a narrow strip of land on the western coast of Italy. Grabbing even that thin slice of territory had cost the British heavy casualties, although spirited counterattacks by the 14th and 24th Panzer Divisions had ultimately been beaten back through massive naval gunfire support and air attacks, just when it had appeared they would smash through to the sea. At least the British showed no sign of being able to crack the new German defenses any time soon. One regular infantry division and the 3rd Parachute Division now manned the complex of concrete fortifications that had been hastily constructed along the ridge hemming in the British landing zone, with the panzer and panzer grenadier divisions backing them up and conducting vigorous counterattacks whenever the British gained ground, all supported by an impressive concentration of artillery. In fact, Kesselring, a man not noted for his flights of wit, had casually referred during a conference at Berchtesgaden to the Italian beachhead as the largest POW camp run by the Germans, and one in which the prisoners at least fed themselves. Goebbels had picked up on this phrase and begun to use it in his propaganda broadcasts.

  Kesselring had had to use all of his persuasive power to convince Hitler and his hand-wringing generals on the OKH that it would be necessary to abandon Sicily and Sardinia, which he had effected without the loss of a single German soldier. Even more difficult had been convincing them of the inevitability of the loss of southern Italy. Kesselring knew that Montgomery could pump enough forces into the lodgment that they would break out by sheer force of numbers—the only tactic that Montgomery apparently knew, right out of the pages of World War I—or he could launch another amphibious invasion that would turn the defenders’ flanks. Consequently, Kesselring had lobbied for, and eventually won approval for devoting his limited resources to constructing an impressive line of fortifications across the peninsula farther north, running from the mouth of the Serchio River north of Pisa, southeast along the line of the Apennines to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. His primary combat units were concentrated north of that line or directly confronting the British north of Civitavecchia, with the rest of the territory sparsely garrisoned by infantry divisions supplied with commandeered Italian trucks for rapid movement to what Kesselring had dubbed his “Gustav’’ line if the British should break out. He knew that he could not hold on indefinitely, but he could hold onto northern Italy, where nearly all of Italy’s substantial industrial complex was located, which was being retooled to produce tanks, guns, and planes according to German specifications and with German efficiency. This he could do for months, if not years, if only he were given even minimal support.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE BULGE

  1100 HOURS, 25 MARCH 1943

  NEAR BRIVE-LA-GAILLARDE, FRANCE

  ABRAMS WAVED TO the combat engineers as his Sherman rolled off the Bailey Bridge over the Dordogne River, and they gave him a hearty thumbs-up in return. He had finally begun to think that they might really be home by Christmas 1943 after all.

  After weeks of frustratingly slow progress, I Corps had finally broken through the last river line the Germans would be able to erect short of the Loire. Now the Americans could hook right around the end of the Massif Central and pocket half of German Army Group B that had been fending off the French in the Rhone Valley, and liberate half of France, if not all of it, in a matter of days. On the left flank, the newly arrived Polish Corps had mopped up German forces along the Spanish border to the sea and had even captured Bordeaux against surprisingly little resistance after only two days of fighting. The port had been made useless by German demolition, but engineers would soon set that aright and greatly facilitate the resupply of this wing of the army. More Allied troops were arriving too, with the Poles now on the far left, and a new American corps including the 90th Infantry and 6th Armored Divisions forming, while the French steadily built up their strength as did the Canadians and British.

  Abrams had noticed for some days that the German resistance was beginning to crack. At the start of the offensive, after the Americans’ transfer to the left flank of the Allied lodgment area, very few prisoners had been taken, and those mostly wounded. Recently, however, Germans had been surrendering as soon as it appeared that their position had been flanked or their retreat cut off—not exactly a flood, but a definite trend. As the advance picked up speed, the Germans had less and less time to organize their defenses in new positions, which made it even easier to overcome them, thus further speeding the advance. More and more enemy guns were being overrun before they could withdraw, which meant fewer guns to face at the next defense line.

  The only thing that concerned Abrams a little was the lack of enemy armor. Not that he looked forward to facing any more Panthers or Tigers, to which the Shermans which now equipped almost all the American tank units were decidedly inferior. It was j
ust that he would have liked to know where they were. The Germans had certainly taken some losses in the Rhone Valley fighting, but there had been no massive battles of annihilation or huge pockets like Stalingrad, so where was their armor? He would have liked to think that it was all going to face the Russians, but that didn’t seem likely. They hadn’t even seen the armored units they had faced during the German counterattack, like the Hermann Göring Division, just mobile nests of infantry backed up with anti-tank guns and artillery, and perhaps the occasional assault gun.

  Still, the war was going well for the Allies. The Russians expected to resume their offensive as soon as the roads dried out, perhaps next month, and this time the Germans had already been bled white and were facing two fires now. The Axis had lost the whole of the Italian Army, and news reports had it that Sardinia and Sicily had simply declared for the Allies, as had the Italian Navy, bringing thousands of troops into the Allied camp. Germany was now cut off from Spain, from which they had obtained grain and a great deal of valuable resources, like wolfram, some kind of metal used in airplane construction, as Abrams understood it. And Montgomery was again promising his long awaited breakout drive, coupled with another amphibious assault south of Rome, although his campaign was looking more like the trench warfare of World War I than the lightning armored thrusts of the Germans and Russians in this war. Abrams thought it was a shame that all of the Allied landing craft were committed now in Italy, not only eliminating the chance of an end run on the Germans in northern France, but also freeing up those reserves for the Germans to use in the south; but wiser heads than his had made that decision.

  Abrams had merely to focus on the task at hand. He braced himself in the turret of his Sherman, watching through his field glasses as best he could as the recon platoon of the lead battalion raced ahead along the highway toward a distant tree line. He no longer had one tank company pause to cover the advance from one cover to the next. It seemed secure enough just to leave a good interval between units now. He would probably have to pay for this at some point between here and Berlin, when the Germans decided to turn and fight, but for now speed was the best armor his command had, and he planned to make the most of it.

  1500 HOURS, 25 MARCH 1943

  WEST OF CHAMALIERES, FRANCE

  Jean Pierre Belmont lay in a narrow depression in the earth, just behind a mossy log, trying not to shiver with the cold, and trying to make himself smaller. There were other members of his FFI guerrilla cell somewhere nearby in these woods, but he could not even risk turning his head to look for them. He was afraid to exhale lest the mist of his warm breath reveal his position to the dozens of German soldiers who had set up camp just on the other side of his log and who were noisily talking and eating as they waited for something to happen.

  After sabotaging the vehicles of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division, Belmont had made it to the Vichy border, but the speed of the German advance had cut him off, and once more he had found himself in occupied territory. He had dreamed of still making his way south and joining one of the new regular divisions of the French Army that the nightly radio broadcasts on the BBC said were forming. But he had not shirked his duty when his FFI guides had incorporated him into this guerrilla unit. It had only seemed a temporary measure in any case. The Allies had come in force, and the Germans would soon be on the run. But that had been months ago, and here he still was.

  The unit had been sent to monitor the transportation net around the important crossroads of Clermont-Ferrand, and they had set up an observation post with four men, including Belmont, on a lightly wooded ridge near the village of Chamalieres, just west of Clermont-Ferrand. The Germans would be using the highway that ran east and west here to shift troops along the front, and it was important to keep tabs on them.

  They had been watching a column of tanks, new Tigers Belmont guessed, much newer than anything the old 3rd Panzer Grenadiers had possessed, as they moved west along the highway just before dawn, when the tanks suddenly swerved, all in unison, and plowed through the young trees along the road and up into the thicker woods. The Frenchmen had been well concealed where they were, but, while the evergreen trees provided a canopy against detection from above, the floor of the forest was almost bare of undergrowth. If they had attempted to run up the slope to get away, they would certainly have been seen and killed, so they had been forced to dive for the nearest cover and lay still, for over eight hours so far. Belmont was certain that none of them had been discovered, or there would have been shooting, but how much longer could that last? It had been pure luck that the crew of the nearest tank had stopped just a few feet short of his position, and any one of the other guerrillas could crack at any moment and make a break for it, and then the search would be on for the rest of them.

  The minutes passed, although with agonizing slowness. Tears came to Belmont’s eyes as he struggled to remain still while a battalion of ants explored his body for hidden treasure. He was certain he would be discovered, especially when one German strolled away from the camp to relieve himself, stepped directly over Belmont’s log, but the drab brown clothing of the guerrillas and the dull half-light of the woods let them pass unnoticed once more.

  Finally, mercifully, night came, and the drone of German conversation and the rattle of equipment died down to be replaced by a chorus of snores. Belmont carefully moved his cramped arms and legs and began to crawl, inch by inch, away from the camp. He paused to tap the heel of one of the guerrillas, and he could see the shadowy forms of the other two also beginning to make their way off into the woods. He could see the red tip of the cigarette of a sentry about twenty yards away, but he wondered if there were any other non-smokers nearer at hand. There was nothing for it now, however, but to keep going, and he clutched his Sten gun to his chest as he crept up the hillside.

  The small group had hoped to make their way to a logging road less than a mile back where they had hidden bicycles under a pile of brush, and then to head south, sticking to the deep woods, but the forest was now alive with Germans. The main lines between the Germans and the Allies, with the French holding this sector, were some fifty miles to the south, and fairly sparsely held in the thick woods and rough terrain of the Massif Central. Although this was hardly the Alps, vehicular traffic was pretty much restricted to the roads, and there were few of those. A thin line of infantry posts had held this part of the front, on both sides, with the heavier armored forces being concentrated either in the Rhone Valley to the east or the open, rolling country which ran west to the sea. It should have posed no particular problem for this small band to drift through the lines, but things had definitely changed.

  The hills and woods now seemed to be alive with the crumpled forms of sleeping men and the hulking dark shapes of tanks, guns, and trucks under camouflage netting. Mile after mile, paralleling the road south from Clermont-Ferrand, and tucked well back under the trees, were thousands of men and vehicles, and Belmont noticed that none of the German camps had a fire lit despite the crisp chill in the air. These Germans were definitely up to something.

  The group of guerrillas plunged ever deeper into the woods and scrambled up the steeper slopes, preferring the more difficult terrain to the chance of stumbling on an enemy picket. During that first night they only made eight or ten miles and holed up for most of the next day. But a sense of urgency drove Belmont and his men on. They had never seen such a concentration of enemy forces, all of them armored, and they could see from the vehicle markings that they belonged to several divisions, including at least one from the elite Waffen SS. They were not in this area, so close to the front, just for rest and recuperation. They were preparing for an offensive, and the French Army needed to know as soon as possible. So, ignoring their own safety, the group moved on, even in daylight, with two men heading west toward Bort-les-Orgues, where a clandestine radio had been set up, although the Germans had been very effective with their radio direction finding equipment in locating and eliminating these posts if they did not move after
every brief transmission. Belmont and the other man, a fellow named Maurice from a town that had been burned out by the SS weeks before, continued south toward the main lines.

  They stayed west of the main highway, on which they could hear constant heavy traffic during the night, but which remained eerily silent during the daylight hours. Even though there had been a heavy, low blanket of clouds overhead for days, the Germans were clearly not taking any chances on being spotted by Allied aircraft. By the next morning they had reached the only major east-west road, heading toward the town of Aurillac on the western edge of the Massif Central, and they knew that the French lines lay just a few miles to the south. Now, instead of hidden tanks, they found the woods full of carefully dug in and camouflaged artillery, all pointed south, and jammed almost hub to hub in every fold of the ground, and this discovery spurred them on all the faster.

  At the highway they faced a dilemma. If they tried crossing in daylight, there was a distinct chance that they would be seen by a hidden watcher in the woods. Yet, if they waited until night, the traffic along this road would certainly resume, making it just as likely that they might be discovered. Besides that, Belmont and Maurice agreed that they could not afford to waste another twelve hours in getting word to the French of the impending attack. The Allies would need every moment to shift units to meet the threat, and the lives of two men hardly mattered in that equation. So they picked a sharp bend in the road, limiting the view in either direction, and spent long minutes sitting in the underbrush, gathering their strength and their courage, and watching for any sign of German presence. When all appeared quiet, they simply made a dash for it.