These included, at around 10 a.m., the men of the 18th Infantry Regiment of the Big Red One, the US 1st Infantry Division, coming ashore at Easy Red and Fox Green. The identical twins Tom and Dee Bowles were on the same landing craft. Suddenly the ramp was down and out they went on to the sand of Easy Red, just to the east of the E1 draw. With the tide in, the stretch to the sea wall was only 40 yards, but on this section of the beach, below Franz Gockel and the men of WN62, there was still plenty of enemy fire. ‘You could see bullets hitting in the sand there,’ said Tom Bowles, ‘the sand flying up all over the place and mortar shells bursting around, and, of course, in the water, the bodies floating in the water and lying all over the beach.’16 He paused behind an obstacle but quickly realized the only thing it was good for was getting him killed, so he got up and carried on. Dee Bowles had done the same and both men managed to reach the wall in one piece. There they paused, pinned down by MGs, mortars and 50mm gun emplacements from WN65.
Help, however, was at hand. As elsewhere along the invasion front, the naval fire support was immense. At Omaha, there were two battleships, four cruisers and twelve destroyers. USS Texas, one of the two battleships, had ten 14-inch guns of 356mm calibre, substantially bigger than any German gun anywhere along the Normandy coastline. In addition it had a further twenty-one 127mm guns. As the Bowles twins crouched beneath the sea wall, they saw a destroyer, USS Harding, had already moved in close, to within 1,000 yards of the shore. This ship was now firing vast numbers of broadsides at WN65 and 62 with its four 5-inch guns, four 40mm quick-firing Bofors and six .50-calibre machine guns. This one ship alone was firing more at the defenders than the Germans were at the men on the beaches. ‘You could see the shells going in,’ said Dee Bowles, ‘he was throwing them right at this pillbox.’17 By 10.30 a.m., WN65 had fallen, which meant the E1 draw was now open.
At Gold Beach, fighting continued around the Le Hamel strongpoint, but the British troops were all off the beach ahead of schedule and by 11 a.m. lead troops of 50th Division were pushing well inland. They had done well against coordinated and organized German defences. Unquestionably, the array of ‘funnies’ that accompanied them on to the beaches had helped. Subsequent waves of troops and armour had also landed pretty much on time, including 47 Royal Marine Commando, who came ashore around 9.20 a.m. There were 420 of them in all and they had been given an extraordinarily tough challenge: to ignore any beach fighting as far as possible and then head west for 10 miles through enemy-held territory and take some high ground, Hill 72 on their maps, before attacking and capturing Port-en-Bessin to the east of Omaha Beach. This was where the American Mulberry harbour was due to be created, so there was an urgency about taking the village swiftly, but a number of strongpoints and gun positions meant it was far from undefended. The 10 miles from Hill 72 to Port-en-Bessin was the same distance as from Sword Beach to Caen.
Lance Corporal Frank Wright was understandably nervous on the LCA heading to the shore. They all were. No one said much. He was in X Troop, one of six platoons in the Commando, and along with most of his mates he reckoned the chances of them pulling off their mission ranged somewhere between unlikely and downright impossible. As they neared the beach plenty of enemy shelling came their way. Suddenly, he heard an almighty explosion about 30 yards to his right. He could feel the vibration through his boots and saw a huge column of water rise into the air. One of their LCAs had been hit, killing twelve from Q Troop, including the troop commander, and wounding fourteen others. As they were landing, a second LCA hit a mine and sank, killing another eight in Y Troop, including the commander, and wounding others. It was not a good start.
As the ramp went down, Wright was thinking, ‘I am not ready for this.18 I AM NOT …’ but then he was out, his boot into just 2 inches of water and the driest landing he had ever experienced. Nor was anyone shooting at him. Ahead, however, was a burning tank. He ran past, noticing one of the crew dead by its tracks, his crushed head a bloody pulp. By the sea wall they waited, keeping their heads down, while some sappers cleared a path through the minefield away to the right and while the battle around Le Hamel continued to rage. Some seventy-six officers and other ranks were missing, including their commander, Colonel Charles Phillips. The beach looked a mess, but at last they were on their way and, mercifully, the colonel had reappeared as well. Through the minefield they went, as the battle at Le Hamel finally died down. Frank Wright, weighed down by his pack, double bandoliers, extra Bren magazines and a Bangalore torpedo, wondered whether they would ever make it to Port-en-Bessin. It was around midday, and it seemed a very long way to march.
Meanwhile, after de-waterproofing their tanks, Major Stanley Christopherson and the rest of A Squadron, the Sherwood Rangers, were rumbling down the road away from the beach towards the village of Ryes, a couple of miles to the south-west. It fell quickly, without much opposition, but this was the first time since the closing stages of the Tunisian campaign that they had driven tanks through villages and close country. ‘It was not altogether pleasant,’ noted Christopherson, ‘as we found once again that a 30-ton tank with a crew of five is extremely vulnerable to one German infantryman who simply had to conceal himself in a ditch while the tank went past, and then either fire a “bazooka” or throw a sticky bomb on the engine of the tank, which he could write off most easily and then slip away without being seen.’19
Further east along the coast at Juno Beach, the Canadians were also doing well. Around 10 a.m., the Canadian 7th Brigade had landed two battalions at Courseulles and all the shoreline enemy defences had been knocked out. Shermans, infantry from the Regina Rifles and AVREs followed behind and were now advancing to attack WN30, a few hundred yards inland at the southern edge of the town. This was where Oberleutnant Cornelius Tauber had fled. There was a Tobruk old French 7mm tank turret, several machine-gun posts and thick belts of wire and mines, and all the positions were linked by trenches. Tauber’s blood was up. He was angry, adrenalin was pumping, and he urged the men around him to fight. ‘I had a feeling,’ he said, ‘that I might make a name for myself in this battle.’20
Soon after, a Sherman appeared at the edge of the minefield and opened fire, its second shell hitting, but not destroying, the Tobruk. The German gunners in the Tobruk fired back, the first shell deflecting off the front armour. Beginning to reverse, the tank was hit on one of the front tracks, which shattered and flew off. Desperately, the crew tried to pull back, but as they swivelled around they exposed their much more vulnerable and less armoured sides. Another Tobruk shell went straight through, sending the engine covers hurtling into the air with flames erupting behind. Three of the crew managed to jump out as the German machine-gunners opened fire, but as they tried to get away were cut down. The last two then emerged from the tank turret and were immediately shot, their bodies draping over the barrel. ‘Our gunners in their enthusiasm kept firing,’ recalled Tauber, ‘and those two tank men over their gun were ripped to shreds, with their limbs falling off and their bodies exploding with spurts of flame.’21 He yelled at them to stop – they were wasting valuable ammunition – but then a second tank appeared, a Churchill Tauber did not recognize. It pushed past the Sherman seemingly nonchalantly. The Tobruk fired again, but the shells bounced off the Tommy tank, which now opened fire in turn. High-explosive shells destroyed one machine-gun position, throwing two of the men into the air and on to the wire, where they writhed and cried out for help.
The Tobruk gunners were panicking. Twice they missed completely and then the Churchill fired at them, its shell knocking the turret clear off its concrete base. The gunner remained standing there, stunned, his uniform smoking. Tauber watched this pathetic figure, then saw that the tank had halted. A moment later, a jet of flame burst from below its turret, but it fell short, setting the grass on fire in front of the strongpoint. It took about a quarter of an hour for a Crocodile to reach full operating pressure, but when it fired again it seemed that moment had been reached, because this time a much longer jet of fla
me burst out, creating a curtain of fire that swallowed up the two wounded men on the wire. The men in the front trench were also enveloped. Tauber could smell it from where he was, about 20 yards away, and could feel the heat burning his skin and hair. He saw the whole front trench saturated with flame; it was so intense he could barely breathe. Panic now gripped the survivors. Tauber leaped from his trench, as did all the other men around him. Some were cut down by machine-gun fire as they ran. Tauber fled, and only he and two other men made it safely to a sunken lane. On they ran, desperately trying to get to the next position. ‘I looked back,’ said Tauber, ‘and I saw a huge column of smoke rising from the area of the resistance point, which I assumed was burned up completely.’22
Further to the east, the infantry were pressing inland from Sword Beach, while Lord Lovat’s Commandos moved towards the bridges and the link-up with the airborne forces. No. 4 Commando, meanwhile, with the French taking the lead, were pushing along the back streets and railway line towards Riva Bella, where the old casino had become the focus of an extensive strongpoint, WN18. The casino had been demolished by the Germans and rebuilt as a concrete casement, and a number of the sea-front villas had been reinforced and incorporated into the web of defences. An anti-tank ditch surrounded it, as well as MG posts, sniping positions, and the usual network of wire and mines. This entire sea-front part of Ouistreham was now a ghost town, with the civilians evacuated back behind the lateral road a few hundred yards inland. Although already knocked about by bombing and shelling, winkling out the defenders was never going to be easy, especially since it had to be done so swiftly.
Armed with PIATS (portable anti-tank weapons), grenades and flame-throwers as well as machine guns, Stens and rifles, the Commandos dumped their heavy kit for the attack and then pushed on inland, using the main lateral road and railway line as their axis of advance. To begin with, they simply bypassed a lot of the German forward bunkers, but as they neared the casino they came under heavy fire and began suffering casualties once more. Capitaine Philippe Kieffer was wounded in the thigh and had to be taken to get treatment. How exactly to reach the casino and mount an attack was a conundrum: they had no idea which houses were empty and which were occupied. Hubert Fauré now met an old Frenchman, M. Lefèbvre, a civilian living to the south of the lateral in the still civilian-occupied part of the town, who offered to guide them. He led Fauré and a few others to within sight of the casino. On the concrete top was a 37mm cannon. Fauré ordered one of his marksmen to climb on to a nearby garage and snipe the gunners. ‘He missed the gunner,’ said Fauré, ‘but the gunner didn’t miss him.23 He was shot dead.’
Kieffer rejoined his men, his thigh bandaged. German snipers were hitting men every time they got close. One of the younger Commandos, Rollin, was hit. Dr Lion went to help him, but was shot too and collapsed, his brains seeping from his skull, though Fauré could see he was not yet dead. They could hear Allied tanks not far away and Fauré suggested to Kieffer that he try to get them to come and help. Shortly after, Kieffer returned, riding on the turret of a Sherman. The gun atop the casino was swiftly knocked out, but the French captain was hit a second time. ‘Kieffer was not very prudent,’ admitted Fauré.24 The arrival of the tanks had changed the course of the battle, however. Charges blasted a route through the wire and mines, and the Commandos were able to work their way into the trenches and bunkers of the strongpoint. By late morning it was over, the casino captured, and it was time for the Frenchmen and their comrades in 4 Commando to move on towards Bénouville to help the airborne forces at the bridges.
Only at 9 a.m. did 352. Division Headquarters manage to make contact with Oberst Meyer. He and his men had already travelled over 30 miles, many of them on bicycles and without either rest or rations. Now they were being told to cut back eastwards and be ready to counter-attack from Crépon, where the 6th Green Howards were headed. Off they set once more, but it was now daylight and, despite low cloud, there were plenty of Allied Jabos about. All too frequently, his men had to ditch their bicycles and take cover. What’s more, the weather was improving; by mid-morning, the cloud was starting to thin. Jabos now seemed to be overhead incessantly, and none of them was from the Luftwaffe. Still 15 miles from their destination, Meyer ordered his men to ditch their bicycles. They would continue on foot, although whether any of them would be in a fit state to fight if and when they did finally reach their objective was a moot point.
But was counter-attacking the British at Gold Beach the best use of Meyer’s men, or should they have been sent to Omaha? After all, it was closer. When Ziegelmann eventually spoke to Oberst Ernst Goth, commander of Grenadier-Regiment 916 at Omaha, he was given a description of utter mayhem on the beach – dead Americans everywhere, burned-out tanks and landing craft. To begin with, Goth’s report made it sound as if they had the situation in hand and so sending Meyer’s Kampfgruppe to Crépon had been the logical decision. But then came a more sobering part to the report. ‘Some of our battle positions have ceased firing,’ Goth told Ziegelmann.25 ‘They do not answer any longer when rung up on the telephone.’
In truth, Meyer’s men were needed everywhere, because at every invasion beach the Allies had successfully got ashore. Even at Omaha, where the blood of young Americans could be clearly seen upon the sand, the German defenders had nothing to compare with the awesome fire-power of the Allied naval forces, or with their sheer weight of numbers. By 10 a.m., the defence at Omaha was already rapidly unravelling and the outcome was not seriously in doubt. Would some exhausted men on bicycles have been able to compete with the fire-power and fitness of the American attackers? Almost certainly not. What was needed to save the unfolding German catastrophe was fire-power: heavy fire-power from mobile artillery with the kind of speed and flexibility of manoeuvre that only well-trained, well-equipped and highly motivated panzer divisions could provide. Frightened young recruits, middle-aged men, Poles and Russians were not enough.
CHAPTER 14
D-Day: Foothold
Fritz Bayerlein, commander of the Panzer-Lehr-Division and only recently promoted to Generalleutnant, had been woken at 2 a.m. by a call from General Walter Warlimont of the OKW, who ordered him to put his division on alert and await instructions to move towards Caen. Having issued his own orders, Bayerlein took a car and hurried to see General Dollmann at 7. Armee Headquarters, who relayed to him new orders that the Panzer-Lehr should be ready to start moving at five that afternoon. Bayerlein protested – it was too early, too dangerous to move in daylight, he argued. If they were not to move right away, they should wait until dusk at the very least. Dollmann, however, was adamant. It was essential, he said, that the Panzer-Lehr be near Caen by the morning of 7 June. He also told Bayerlein to take completely different march routes to the ones his division had already carefully reconnoitered. At this, Bayerlein put his foot down.
Bayerlein was forty-five, thick-set and swarthy, and vastly experienced in fighting the western Allies. He was also a friend and trusted colleague of Rommel’s, having served alongside him in North Africa. Bayerlein was not only experienced at commanding armoured units – he had commanded the Afrikakorps, for example – but also understood the devastating effects of Allied air power. ‘In training,’ he noted, ‘I placed every emphasis on camouflage against air attack.1 We trained to move at night and dispersed in small detachments in woods and villages.’ So good had been their camouflage discipline in the previous weeks, not once had any of his troops been attacked by Allied aircraft. He had made it absolutely verboten to move on any road during daylight. Now, however, he was being told to set off in broad daylight. It was madness. Bayerlein understood the need to move to the front swiftly, but he wanted his division to arrive full strength, not ravaged on the way there. The trouble was, getting to the front safely, in one night, simply wasn’t possible.
‘The nights were very short,’ Bayerlein pointed out.2 ‘We could move a maximum of only 10 or 12 kilometres during the hours of darkness.’ This meant the most they could
travel in darkness was 60–70km – about 40 miles – which was not enough. This was the fatal weakness of leaving the Lehr and other panzer divisions, such as the 12. Waffen-SS, so far behind the coast. ‘I proposed that we rest during the day and resume the march the next evening,’ said Bayerlein, ‘but Generaloberst Dollmann, who underestimated the Allied air forces, said we had to keep moving.’
Confusion also reigned over the deployment of 21. Panzer. At Marcks’s behest, General Feuchtinger had ordered his division to attack British airborne forces east of the River Orne. Major Hans von Luck, commander of the II. Bataillon, had become increasingly angry about the lack of orders. The hours of darkness were the ideal time to move – the whole division should have charged, hell for leather, towards the coast! But by the time Feuchtinger’s orders arrived at around 8 a.m., half of von Luck’s battalion was already engaged in defensive operations and he believed the critical moment to strike swiftly had all but passed. ‘Too late, much too late!’3 he wrote. ‘We were dismayed and angry.’
Then, at 10.35 a.m., new orders arrived from Marcks’s corps headquarters. The division was now to attack to the north of Caen and to the west, not east, of the River Orne. This total change of plan threw the division into disarray. Already en route to the area east of the Orne, they had to stop and completely change their march routes. This was in no way a straightforward task. First, all units, which were inevitably spread out, had to be informed and then they had to manoeuvre heavy vehicles in the right order through narrow roads with enemy aircraft overhead. Those already east of the Orne could use only two bridges if they wanted to avoid a massive detour – one was in the suburbs and the other was a railway bridge near Colombelles. Already Caen was burning, with huge fires and thick smoke in the air. Rubble covered many of the streets in the Vaucelles suburb, while refugees were fleeing south and against the flow of traffic of 21. Panzer. A swift advance was impossible. Realizing this, Oberstleutnant Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski, commander of Panzer-Regiment 22, ordered his men to bypass Caen altogether; if that meant a longer journey, then so be it – better that than risk gridlock and possible annihilation in Caen.
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