Normandy '44

by James Holland

  Since November 1942, all of France had been occupied by German troops, but the day-to-day running of the country was left to the French government based in Vichy under the ageing dictator Maréchal Pétain and his prime minister, Pierre Laval. Resistance in France had been disorganized, isolated and disjointed until Jean Moulin, a former regional official, had managed to make his way to England to meet Général Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French and the self-proclaimed head of the French government-in-exile in London. Although Moulin was left-wing, he decided the best course of action was for all resistance to follow the banner of the right-wing de Gaulle and he returned to France to try to bring these disparate movements into a more organized and coordinated whole. In this quest, Moulin was incredibly successful, until he was betrayed, captured, tortured and killed in July 1943. Since then, the Résistance had begun to splinter again, especially because of the increasingly brutal measures taken by both the Germans and Vichy to try to stamp it out. In addition to the 200,000 German occupying troops, the Vichy government had, by the start of 1944, more than 50,000 gendarmes, 25,000 Gardes Mobiles de Réserve and some 30,000 Milice française, a new paramilitary fascist militia whose members were ill-trained, often ill-disciplined but dedicated to a campaign of brutal repression. In the first half of 1944, France was, in many respects, gripped by civil war.

  Controlling and coordinating outlawed young men, as well as agreeing how resistance should be carried out among extreme and differing political motivations, egos and expectations, was no easy matter, especially with many leaders already dead and with others abroad in London or Free French North Africa. However, by the spring of 1944 matters were improving. The Commission militaire d’action (COMAC) had been set up to help unify but not control armed resistance and then formed a common command structure called the Forces françaises de l’ intérieur – the FFI – which soon took hold in public consciousness. FFI armbands were widely worn and the initials were daubed liberally on buildings, leaflets and even vehicles. Nominal leadership of the FFI was given to Général Pierre Koenig, a Free French commander who in 1942 had led their heroic stand against Rommel’s forces at Bir Hacheim in Libya and who had later fought at Alamein. His appointment had been an enlightened decision, even though in practical terms it accounted for little, as Koenig was in England, not France. None the less, by May 1944 both COMAC and the creation of the FFI had done much to give the Résistance movements a sense of unified purpose, even if political aims remained wildly divergent.

  To be head of any resistance organization remained, though, an incredibly challenging and dangerous task, as Robert Leblanc, the unchallenged leader of the Maquis Surcouf, had discovered. He now had some 2,000 men under his direct command, was under constant threat of betrayal, never had enough arms or ammunition and only a tentative link to higher authorities and British supply drops via third parties. Yet in the coming invasion, he and his men were expected to do all in their power to halt the flow of German forces. Much was anticipated from very little and with the prospect, if caught, not of a POW camp, but of torture and death.

  Across the sea in Britain, just what to do with the French was one of many conundrums and challenges facing the Allies on the eve of the invasion. The British had housed and supported de Gaulle ever since his arrival in London in June 1940, and in July 1942 both the British and Americans had given cautious acknowledgement of the Comité français de libération nationale – or CFLN – and de Gaulle’s political organization, but refused to accept it as the provisional government. While de Gaulle was unquestionably brave, dedicated and a natural leader, he did little to endear himself to those helping him and his country in these dark days of war. Haughty, touchy and quick to flare up, and in possession of a pride and ego the size of Paris, he rarely showed any gratitude for the help given him and instead projected a spectacular sense of entitlement.

  Churchill and the British were broadly tolerant, but the Americans, and President Roosevelt in particular, were deeply mistrustful. Roosevelt’s greatest concern was that the liberated French should choose their new political leader democratically and he was not convinced that the CFLN had a mandate, nor that de Gaulle was the leader to whom the liberated French wanted to flock. He had a point. Moulin might have believed resistance should follow de Gaulle’s flag, but since his death plenty of Résistance leaders had thought otherwise. In fact, even in March 1944, the Conseil national de la résistance (Committee of National Resistance), set up by Moulin on Gaullist lines, had dismissed out of hand de Gaulle’s claim that COMAC and the FFI should be controlled by him from his headquarters in Algiers.

  Eisenhower had asked permission to open negotiations with the CFLN, which had eventually been granted by Roosevelt, but only for help in restoring law and order in France. Liberated areas, however, would be administered by the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories, AMGOT, which had run civil affairs in Italy. There was to be no recognition of the CFLN as the provisional government and no sharing of any of the details of OVERLORD. The CFLN’s cipher system was also ludicrously easy to crack – which added to the concerns over a potential intelligence leak. To add fuel to the fire, the British had quite sensibly imposed a travel and uncensored communications ban on all diplomatic representatives of any neutral or allied country except those from the British Dominions, the United States and the Soviet Union. The security risk was simply too great. Because de Gaulle’s CFLN was not included in those exempt, it could no longer freely communicate from Algiers with its own forces now in England. These were not insignificant – French aircrew were flying with the RAF; French naval vessels were operating with the Allied navies; and an entire armoured division under Général Philippe Leclerc was training in England and attached to General George S. Patton’s US Third Army. That, however, was not due to be sent to France until much of Normandy had already fallen.

  All this spelled out a humiliating reality for de Gaulle: that he would have no part in the invasion, nor could he hope to return to his country as the head of a liberated France. He responded angrily, forbidding Koenig to have any more communications with Eisenhower or his staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). For Eisenhower, the growing breakdown of relations with de Gaulle and the CFLN was an added headache. He needed the cooperation of Koenig because of the role of the Résistance and, of course, other French forces in OVERLORD. Koenig was also in an invidious situation. ‘If our planning does not get ahead,’ wrote Eisenhower to his friend General Joe McNarney, ‘we are going to be sadly embarrassed.1 Moreover, if we had somewhat closer relationships with the French, I think they could do much to alleviate the resentment that is undoubtedly growing up in France against our bombing operations.’

  Eisenhower’s suggestion was to bring de Gaulle to London for a meeting with Churchill, who was far more sympathetic than Roosevelt. Whether de Gaulle could be persuaded to go was another matter, however, and in the meantime he had provocatively announced the CFLN was to be renamed the Gouvernement provisoire de la République française – the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Roosevelt was not impressed. The impasse continued.

  While de Gaulle was being sidelined, the Allies had begun to take the Résistance more seriously. After a series of meetings with its leaders, first Churchill and then Eisenhower decided in favour of arming the Résistance in France, which had previously had low priority compared with the support given to partisans in Italy and the Balkans. Arms drops over France were increased considerably, both through de Gaulle’s organizations and through the Special Operations Executive – SOE – the British sabotage and resistance organization, which was now also brought under the control of Eisenhower. Between February and May 1944, more than 76,000 Sten sub-machine guns, nearly 28,000 pistols, almost 17,000 rifles, 3,400 Bren machine guns and hundreds of mortars and bazookas were dropped to the Résistance. Robert Leblanc’s Maquis Surcouf benefited from this, though the aid was nothing like enough to create the kind of mass insur
rection the Résistance were dreaming about.

  However, the last thing the Allies wanted was either the mass of French people out of control and erupting into full-scale civil war or any group trying to take political control of the country – not, at least, until the battle for France was won. Instead, Eisenhower wanted to use the Résistance for a surge of activity in which primarily they supported the work of the Allied air forces in stemming the flow of German men and materiel to the front. A series of plans had been put forward by the FFI and endorsed first by Général Koenig and his team in London and then accepted by Eisenhower: Plan Vert to sabotage the railways; Plan Tortue, the main roads; and Plan Violet, communications. Instructions about when to activate these plans would be delivered by coded messages broadcast by the BBC, the details of which had been passed on by Allied agents dropped into France. In addition, three-man teams, known as ‘Jedburghs’, would be parachuted into France, each containing one British SOE agent, one American OSS agent and one Frenchman, and equipped with a radio. Jedburghs would act as training and liaison teams with the various Maquis and as the point of contact for the Allies. In addition, the SAS would also be sent deep behind enemy lines to further help and organize the FFI. In this way, the Allies would be better able to coordinate and, more importantly, maintain some control over resistance activities.

  The leaders of the Maquis Surcouf, meanwhile, were holed up in a small room at the Château de la Bivellerie in Tourville-sur-Pont-Audemer, just 8 miles from Saint-Étienne-l’Allier. Robert Leblanc and his most trusted men were on standby, glued to their radio set waiting for the signal to activate the plans. Leblanc’s men had already won the respect and thanks of the Allies for responding to a request from Koenig’s staff to find and execute Violette Morris, a former gold-medal-winning French athlete who had become a particularly effective and sadistic agent for the Gestapo. On 26 April, Leblanc’s men had ambushed her and two collaborator colleagues on a country road near Épaignes. All had been killed and her car, a Citroën, taken as a highly sought-after prize.

  Now, though, Leblanc and his comrades were sure the invasion was close; on 1 June they received a series of coded messages via Radio Londres warning them that they needed to remain alert. Finally, the day for which they had been waiting so long was almost upon them.

  If one of the Allies’ headaches was relations with the French, another was the continual fear of an intelligence leak by which the Germans would learn when and where the invasion was to be launched. This was why only those with special clearance were in the know. In an effort to keep the Germans guessing, an elaborate deception plan had been put into action, known collectively as Plan FORTITUDE. Every German agent attempting to infiltrate Britain had been caught, imprisoned and either turned or executed, but German intelligence was not aware of that. Double agents, overseen by the XX Committee of MI5, were busily spinning large amounts of false information in amongst the real but unimportant intelligence. One of the ways the Allies knew this was hitting home was because ‘Axis Sally’, an American radio broadcaster working for the Nazis, would mention much of the information that had been fed by the Double Cross operation. It was unnerving for the Allied troops who heard the broadcasts, but reassuring to those managing Allied intelligence.

  In the field of wartime intelligence, it unquestionably helped that the western Allies were democracies. In Nazi Germany, intelligence organizations tended to operate independently of one another, generally mistrusted each other and rarely pooled their resources. Intelligence was power and so all too often jealously guarded. The only time it came together was at the very top. The SS, for example, increasingly had a grip on much of the internal intelligence within the Reich that came under the control of the RSHA, the Reich Security Office. The Abwehr was the Wehrmacht’s intelligence organization, but was already embroiled in plots to overthrow the regime and was loathed by the RSHA. Each of the services had intelligence units but they tended not to cooperate much. Incredibly, Göring also had his own private intelligence system, the Forschungsamt, but this was primarily for keeping him one step ahead of his enemies – and those were within the Nazi hierarchy, not outside it.

  The British and Americans, on the other hand, pooled their intelligence very effectively. Much, rightly, has been made of the code-breakers of Bletchley Park cracking the German Enigma machines used to send coded Morse messages; but the cryptanalysts at Bletchley had also broken the Lorenz cipher machines attached to teleprinters, which the Germans used between Berlin and major headquarters and commanders in the field. In the run-up to OVERLORD, this decoded traffic, known as ‘Fish’, gave the Allies a pretty clear picture of troop dispositions in Normandy and throughout OB West. In addition to the British cryptanalysts, US code-breakers had also cracked the codes used by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, while a host of other agencies contributed to the intelligence picture, such as the Y Service (a radio-listening organization), photo reconnaissance, the various British military intelligence services such as MI5, MI6 and MI14, plus divisions within those like MI5’s XX Committee and also agents in the field, whether MI6, SOE or the American Office of Strategic Service (OSS). All this intelligence was swiftly and effectively pulled together and collectively it added up to considerably more than the sum of its individual parts. Via the BBC, British civilians had also been asked to send in any postcards and photographs people might have kept from France before the war. Millions poured in and those from Normandy were carefully put to one side and analysed to help create a clearer picture of the cities, towns, villages, beaches and countryside from the ground.

  Another part of FORTITUDE was the creation of a fictitious US First Army Group and various other fake units, divisions and corps headquarters. Dummy airfields and tank parks were created too. Had the Germans stopped to think about it, they might have realized FORTITUDE was too clever for its own good. After all, there was simply not the space in Britain for the number of units being suggested. The need for secrecy, however, also worked against the Allies. For every photo reconnaissance mission flown over the invasion front, for example, two others were flown elsewhere over France, when tactically it would have been far more helpful to have done it the other way around; but quite rightly, strategic secrecy trumped tactical intelligence. Planners had a very good picture of what enemy units were where, though little understanding of their quality or precise size, and they continued to monitor changes and troop movements up to the last moment. In fact, the final intelligence picture before D-Day came on 4 June, but before that the Allies were aware of considerable enemy reinforcements in Normandy, with the arrival of divisions such as the 91. Luftlande in the Cotentin Peninsula.

  By this stage, though, little could have been changed, since the plan had been largely set in stone since 7 April in order to give the naval planners the chance to organize NEPTUNE. Furthermore, the number of beach obstacles and defences had grown exponentially since Montgomery had presented the first outline of the plan back in January. The commanders preparing for OVERLORD simply had to gulp and hope for the best. Montgomery’s steadfast confidence, regardless of whether it was misplaced or not, was crucial to morale.

  These German reinforcements were certainly causing Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory sleepless nights. Not only had the 91. Luftlande-Division been moved up into the Cotentin, so too had Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6, the highest-quality infantry unit in Normandy. It was also known that the 352. was now very near the coast. Leigh-Mallory couldn’t shake from his mind the conviction that these reinforcements spelled disaster for the airborne drop. The plan was for the 82nd and 101st Airborne to be dropped quite far apart, with the 82nd on the west side of the Cotentin and the 101st protecting Utah, but with the knowledge of these reinforcements, the plan was scrapped on 26 May and instead it was agreed that the 82nd would be dropped around the town of Sainte-Mère-Église and, at the request of VII Corps (to which they were attached), also on the western side of the Merderet Valley, from where they could establish bridgeheads across the
river. This way, they would be dropped apart, but at a distance from which they could still be mutually supporting.

  Leigh-Mallory, though, wanted the entire airborne operation scrapped. The American paratroopers did not fall under his command, but the IX Troop Carrier Command, part of US Ninth Air Force, did. The plan was for the 915 transport planes involved to cross the peninsula from west to east at just 1,000 feet directly over where there were now concentrations of enemy troops. The airborne drop would take about three hours in total, plenty of time for the enemy to adjust his aim. With neither armour plating nor self-sealing fuel tanks, the C-47 Skytrains transporting the airborne troops – or Dakotas, as the British called them – were certainly vulnerable, and Leigh-Mallory foresaw carnage: burning planes plunging to the ground, formations scattering and what troops were dropped being so badly spread as to be unable to fulfil their mission.

  He put his concerns to Bradley, but the US First Army commander was having no truck with this; nor was either Major-General Matthew Ridgway, commander of the 82nd, or Major-General Maxwell Taylor of the 101st. And so Leigh-Mallory turned to Ike. ‘I hesitate to increase your problems at the present difficult time,’ he wrote to Eisenhower on Monday, 29 May, ‘but I feel I should be failing in my duty to you if I did not let you know that I was very unhappy about the US Airborne Operations as now planned.’2

  Eisenhower replied with the kind of firm but diplomatic rebuttal that made him such an ideal Supreme Commander. Leigh-Mallory was quite right to express his concerns; he was worried about the risks himself. ‘However,’ he added, ‘a strong airborne attack in the region indicated is essential to the whole operation and it must go on.’3 All concerned must do everything possible to diminish the hazards, he added, and then firmly warned Leigh-Mallory to spread no more negative talk. ‘It is particularly important that air and ground troops involved in the operation be not needlessly depressed,’ he wrote. ‘Like all of the rest of the soldiers, they must understand that they have a tough job to do but be fired with determination to get it done.’ The American airborne drop would go ahead.