Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6 had been recently formed from a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs, and about a third of their number were combat-experienced paratroopers. The rest were all fanatically keen volunteers with an average age of just seventeen and a half, who had had a mere four months’ training. Despite its short duration, their training had been intense and their discipline, combined with a backbone of immense experience, ensured they were certainly among the very best German troops in Normandy. They were also among the best equipped, with each rifle Gruppe of ten men given two MG42 machine guns rather than the normal one, and with heavy weapons companies that had twelve heavy mortars and heavy machine guns – more than was normal in equivalent army companies. Light on vehicles, they had just seventy trucks for the entire regiment of 4,600 men, and these were a mixture of German, British, French and Italian manufacture, scrounged during the war and a nightmare to maintain because of lack of spares and the huge range of parts needed. ‘The regiment is completely fit for ground combat,’ Oberst Friedrich von der Heydte had reported at the end of May, ‘but only conditionally fit for ground combat because it does not have enough heavy anti-tank weapons and motor transport.’14
Pöppel had fought just about everywhere the Fallschirmjäger had been in action, from Norway and the Low Countries to the carnage of Crete, from the Eastern Front to Sicily and southern Italy. Along the way he had won the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, been promoted early to Oberjäger and then to Leutnant, and now finally, having been brought over from 1. Fallschirmjäger-Division, had been given his own company. Still only twenty-four, he was exactly the kind of battle-experienced, highly disciplined young officer on which the Wehrmacht was increasingly dependent.
Now, he hurried to his observation post with his Kompanie HQ personnel, the safety catches off their weapons as they waited to try to learn more. He gazed out into the night. The wind was getting stronger, but now and then the moon appeared and lit up the countryside. Occasionally, single rifle shots cracked out, but so far there was no massed attack. More Allied paratroopers were, however, on their way: another 6,420 men of the 82nd Airborne.
The ‘All American’ Division, as the 82nd was known, began arriving around half an hour after the first of the 101st started their drop, at 1.51 a.m. Whatever problems the 101st had faced were even worse for the 82nd because the Germans on the ground were now very much alert to what was going on. The hornet’s nest had been thoroughly stirred. Nor had the cloud bank dispersed. Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Alexander was aboard a lead serial C-47, seated by the open doorway at the rear of the plane. Looking down as they crossed the Channel, he had seen the awe-inspiring sight of hundreds of ships below, lit up by the creamy light of the moon. Then they hit the Normandy coast and remained in cloud until the red light came on. Pretty sure his plane had climbed, he worried about jumping into the path of C-47s that were lower than them. With the red light on and everyone standing up and hooked on to the static line, some of the men were now getting twitchy and Alexander felt certain they must have overshot the DZ. Suddenly the light went green and he jumped. Because of the excessive speed, the shock of the parachute opening was severe, but he was on the ground quickly in a small clearing in a wood, unhurt apart from the stock of his carbine hitting him in the jaw. Amazingly, the entire stick landed quite close together and within a short time all eighteen had gathered their equipment and joined Alexander. The 505th PIR’s drop zone had been to the north-west of Sainte-Mère-Église, but Alexander reckoned they had landed about 2½ miles north. It could have been a lot worse – and for many of the 82nd it was.
The other two drop zones were to the west and south-west on the far side of the River Merderet and the area Rommel had ordered flooded. Because the reaction of so many of the C-47 pilots to the cloud and flak was to speed up, this meant a lot had overshot. DZ T, closest to the Merderet, was where the 507th PIR were to drop, but far too many had come down in the flooded area. Although only a foot or two deep in most places, this was enough for a number of men, weighed down by excessive equipment, to drown.
Meanwhile, away to the east, Denis Edwards and his seven-man section at the western side of the Pegasus Bridge had taken up positions alongside a single-track tramway that ran beside the canal. Somewhere not far away, an air-raid siren began to wail. Others had now liberated the Buffet du Tramway, a café on the same Bénouville side of the bridge; it was the first French building to be liberated from the Nazi yoke. The owner, Georges Gondrée, promptly dug up ninety-nine bottles of champagne he had kept hidden in his garden and offered them to Major Howard and his men. While a much-appreciated gesture, it was important the men ensured that M. Gondrée and his family remained liberated.
Not far away on the Ranville side of the River Orne, about fifty men, Lieutenant Richard Todd included, had gathered around Lieutenant-Colonel Pine-Coffin at the pre-arranged rendezvous on the slight escarpment above the river. A bugler repeatedly sounded his clarion call, and more and more men began to appear. Back at the bridge, Howard had been blowing his own penny whistle in notes that corresponded to ‘V for Victory’ in Morse code. Soon enough, Brigadier Nigel Poett, the 5th Parachute Brigade commander, appeared, told Howard to hold firm, assured him that help was on its way, then melted away again to continue rounding up his men.
A defensive perimeter had been set up at both ends of the two bridges, with Howard bringing some of the men from Horsa Bridge back to the canal side. Lieutenant Brotheridge, Howard’s great friend in the company, had been taken to the makeshift casualty command post set up in the remains of a glider between the two, but he died soon after. He was a big loss.fn1 Firing could now be heard from the direction of Ranville and soon after a German patrol reached the Horsa Bridge and opened fire. They were immediately cut down, only for the defenders to discover they had also killed three of their own paratroopers who had been taken prisoner earlier.
Soon after that, a German staff car sped towards them from the same direction, through the outer defences and across the bridge, at which point it was raked with fire and slewed off the road. Three men jumped out and were killed, but the other, hit in the legs, was wounded. It turned out he was Major Hans Schmidt, the local commander of Infanterie-Regiment 736, and had been with a local French lady rather than supervising his men. Bleeding and distraught at the dishonour of losing the bridge, he pleaded to be shot. Instead, he was given a shot of morphine, which prompted him to pipe down and take a more sanguine view of the situation.
Just after 2 a.m., tanks could be heard rumbling from the village of Bénouville on the western side. From the Panzerjäger-Kompanie of the 716. Infanterie, they came clanking and squeaking towards the canal bridge. Denis Edwards, who had been furiously trying to dig in, stopped what he was doing and looked, spellbound. The first tank stopped and several crew got out to converse with some of the infantry following behind, as though unsure of where they were. At this point, Sergeant ‘Wagger’ Thornton, who had come over from the Horsa Bridge, ran forward and, when close enough, coolly fired his PIAT, a portable anti-tank weapon and generally not much liked for being too unwieldy. It did the job this time, however. There was a crack, followed a moment or two later by a huge explosion. ‘It burned very nicely,’ noted Edwards, ‘illuminating the bridge structure with a huge blaze of orange, red and yellow.’15 Hastily, the Germans pulled back. That single shot by Thornton had probably not only saved the bridges from being overrun, it had also bought them precious time.
Lieutenant Todd and more than 150 paratroopers from 7 Para finally reached the bridges at around 3 a.m. As they crossed the causeway between the two, Todd spotted his first dead German. The body was legless, but Todd could hear a groaning sound. Internal gases, he supposed, and passed on by, surprised by how little it had upset him. Although he was the battalion assistant adjutant, at the Gondrées’ bar he was directed north along the canal to the tiny hamlet of Le Port and told to set up a defensive outpost. Gathering a dozen men, he led them about half a mile to a small c
onical hill beside the canal, overlooking a chalk quarry. The hope was that more men from 7 Para would join the makeshift positions around the ends of both bridges as the night wore on, but for the time being Todd and his men were rather isolated and cut off from the rest.
The defenders of the bridges could do nothing but wait – for the enemy, for the Commandos, for whatever fate had in store.
Meanwhile, away to the east, at 2 a.m. Robert Leblanc had finally left Pont-Audemer in the lorries and headed to La Pilvédière, their prepared HQ. So far the news was mixed: the Feldgendarmerie had been successfully attacked and three Germans killed, but the rest had been out when the attack took place. En route to their new HQ, Leblanc picked up more food and, crucially, 25 litres of fuel. Finally, at La Pilvédière, he met up with three gendarmes, now working for him, and waited for the sound of aircraft overhead. It wasn’t long before they heard one circling nearby – and at the agreed time. ‘No mistake,’ wrote Leblanc, ‘quick, quick, let’s do the signals!’ Grabbing their electric lamps, he and the three gendarmes hurried outside, ran to the drop zone and switched on the lamps.16 Everyone was excited – this was it! They could barely contain themselves – yet Serpent and Bezo had not yet arrived back with the Citroën and that worried him. Then, at 3.15 a.m., instead of seeing canisters floating down, they heard a whistle and explosions. Instead of weapons, they had been on the receiving end of four bombs. ‘Nobody is killed or hurt,’ scribbled Leblanc, ‘but it’s not a good start!’ But whether an enemy bomber or friendly fire, they could no longer risk using La Pilvédière and so had to move again, this time to a small farm on the edge of some nearby woods.17
By now, the German troops all along the Normandy coast were being brought to full alert. At his billet inland, Leutnant Hans Heinze had only recently got to bed and had been fast asleep when he was roused and hurried to an observation post near Colleville, above the eastern end of Omaha Beach. Personally, he was not convinced this was anything more than a false alarm, so he was not unduly concerned. The men on the ground, however, were definitely alarmed. Gefreiter Franz Gockel had also been fast asleep in his bunker at WN62 after being on watch for the first half of the night. He and his companions had beds that folded down on chains from the walls in rows of three. Above him was a 35-year-old who had recently had all his teeth taken out and been given a false set, which, when sleeping, he kept in a glass of water. Below was another 18-year-old, who had lost an eye as a child and had been given a glass replacement.
‘Highest Alarm Status,’ shouted one of their comrades standing in the bunker entrance, ‘and you’d better damn hurry!’ As Gockel and the others rubbed their eyes and quickly roused themselves, an Unteroffizier yelled, ‘Boys, it’s for real!’ In a matter of minutes, Gockel and his fellows were at their posts, machine guns and rifles ready.18 But as they stared out into the inky darkness they could see nothing and wondered whether it was another false alarm. ‘In our lightweight uniforms,’ noted Gockel, ‘we stood shivering at our weapons.’19 The cook came around and gave them some hot red wine, what they called ‘the spirit of life’.
Further east along the coast, Oberleutnant Tauber had hurriedly made the thirty-minute walk from his barracks to the bunkers at Courseulles. The PAK gunners were ready and so were his five men in the Goliath bunker, with three Goliath machines, small remote-controlled tracked vehicles, loaded with explosives and enough petrol to travel about a kilometre. At the right moment, each would be sent down a camouflaged concrete tunnel and out on to the beach. Visibility was through a slit in the bunker and a periscope that could be extended up out of the slit. It was now 3 a.m., and all he and his men could do was wait anxiously in this cold bunker in the dark. They had started up the Goliaths to test their engines and now the fumes hung heavy in the air, stinging his eyes. He tried to keep calm, but he couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if there was a landing. It was also important to try to keep up the spirits of his men, who were either older fellows in their forties or still teenagers.
A little later, standing at his observation post on the bluffs and roughly halfway along Omaha Beach, Leutnant Hans Heinze was by now thinking it really must be just another false alarm. Mist rose off the sea and far to the east the very first grey streaks of dawn could be seen. Putting his field glasses to his eyes for one more sweep before making a report to his immediate superior, Hauptmann Grimme, he saw something far out on the horizon: a masthead. Then he spotted another. And another, until in just a matter of minutes the horizon appeared to be full of them. Heinze cleaned the lenses and looked again. There could be no doubting it: out at sea and approaching the coast was a truly vast armada. Quickly, he scribbled a message and gave it to his orderly. ‘Thousands of ships in front of us,’ he had written, ‘the invasion is at our doorstep.’20
CHAPTER 10
D-Day: Dawn
Along with the American and British airborne divisions dropping from the sky that night were around 400 dummy paratroopers, known as ‘Ruperts’ and equipped with ‘Pintails’ – crackers to simulate the sound of rifle fire. This was Operation TITANIC, part of the deception plan and split between four different locations to simulate an airborne drop around the Seine, to the east of the River Dives, to the west of Saint-Lô, and also near the Odon River south of Caen. Two six-man SAS teams were also dropped near Saint-Lô, landing around twenty past midnight, and immediately set up recordings of men shouting, small arms and mortar fire broadcast through loudspeakers. A number of ‘Jedburghs’ were parachuted into France as well – the three-man teams consisting of one Frenchman, one British and one American agent with the specific task of helping Maquis groups and ensuring the French Résistance did its best to restrict German movement to the front.
Out in the English Channel, meanwhile, the invasion armada was getting ever closer to Normandy. Among the American assault forces was Captain John Raaen, the commander of Headquarters Company of the 5th Ranger Battalion. Tall, fair-haired and stocky, Raaen was the son of a career army officer, and also bright, athletic and in possession of a sharp analytical mind. He had decided early on that he wanted to go to West Point and, despite short-sightedness and a perforated ear drum – which he managed to keep quiet – he won a place, entering in July 1939, just before Germany marched into Poland.
As a young officer, he joined the engineers and was then posted to the 55th Armored Engineer Battalion in the 10th Armored Division, but on the Tennessee Maneuvers decided he would rather be in the infantry. Soon after, he saw a recruiting advertisement for the 5th Ranger Battalion, applied and was accepted. They were, they told him, looking for an officer with engineering knowledge. So far, however, he had not done one minute’s work as an engineer. ‘They immediately made me a platoon leader,’ he said, ‘and I was in the infantry, which is what I loved.’1
The US Army Rangers had been formed in Britain in early 1942 from a cadre of the first troops to arrive in the country following America’s entry into the war. They were the brainchild of Captain William Darby and modelled on much the same lines as the British Commandos: they were volunteers and were highly trained for dashing hit-and-run raiding operations. Darby had intended his Rangers to be elite, special forces, and so they had become. Now a colonel, he had, until April, led the Rangers in Tunisia, in Sicily and in southern Italy, but new battalions had since been formed, including the 2nd and 5th, both of which had been specially created, trained and sent to England for the invasion of France.
John Raaen had arrived in England with the rest of the battalion on 19 January and training had continued with increased intensity. ‘We trained hard,’ he said, ‘I mean, the training was hard.’2 There had been Commando training in Scotland, then amphibious training in Devon. In between, he had enjoyed travelling all round southern England; as HQ Company commander he had accompanied the battalion S4 – supply – staff officer visiting various depots for equipment, weapons and other necessary material for the invasion. Seeing the fields crammed with tanks, trucks, artillery, ten
ts and millions of men, he wondered how it was that England hadn’t begun to sink.
Along the Normandy coastline a number of German gun batteries were considered particularly threatening. All had come in for attention from the heavy bombers prior to D-Day and were being targeted in the early hours before the landings as well. Those considered especially troublesome had been allocated to forces whose mission it was to destroy them manually in case the bombing failed either prior to the landings or soon after. Among these was the Merville Battery, east of the River Orne, which had been given to 9 Para to destroy. Another was at Pointe du Hoc, about 4 miles west of Omaha Beach, where the concave shoreline curved to a sharp point with sheer 100-foot cliffs either side. Reconnaissance photographs had revealed a battery of what appeared to be six 155mm guns atop Pointe du Hoc in what also looked like a well-prepared position with a number of concrete casements, linking trenches and a concrete observation post at the cliff’s edge.
The site, like many of the Normandy coastal defences, had been improved, with two of the guns under cover of concrete by mid-April. A few days later, on 25 April, it had been pummelled by bombers, then again at the end of May and beginning of June; subsequent photo reconnaissance suggested the site had been given a thorough going-over, but the planners were not prepared to take any chances. Its destruction early on D-Day had been given to the Rangers and was exactly the kind of special force operation they had originally been conceived to undertake.
On paper, the mission to scale the cliffs and destroy the guns looked suicidal, but actually there was some encouraging precedent for such an operation. The previous July, the SAS,fn1 led by Major Paddy Mayne, had landed by sea at a very similar cliff-faced promontory, the Capo Murro di Porco in Sicily, and had scaled the sheer rocks and destroyed several batteries of coastal guns. Admittedly, the batteries had been manned by poorly trained Italian troops, but there was nothing to suggest the guns at Pointe du Hoc were manned by much better; being German was no longer the stamp of quality it might once have been. Such a coup de main could be very successful – and in Sicily had proved considerably more so than any of the airborne operations; it had cost the SAS one dead and two wounded. What’s more, Pointe du Hoc was to receive further treatment both from the air and from naval guns off the coast. The raid in Sicily had had no such support.
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