Normandy '44

by James Holland

Successful exploitation tactics, going hell for leather with no regard to the flanks, usually says as much about those trying to defend against such an onslaught as it does about those attacking. It brought great successes for the Germans during the Blitzkrieg years at the start of the war, working brilliantly in France in 1940 because the French had a very top-heavy command structure that stifled initiative and its troops were not trained for either tactical flexibility of any kind or operational speed. Once the Germans burst through the crust, the French reserves, who had been trained for a far more ponderous and deliberate rate of manoeuvre, had neither the levels of command nor the communication to be able to respond and were defeated in detail. The Germans, on the other hand – or the mobile forces, at any rate – most certainly were trained for swift manoeuvre. Bewegungskrieg – the war of rapid manoeuvre – was their modus operandi; even in 1944 and handicapped by the lack of air power, tactical flexibility still lay at the root of the German way of war. They also had the added advantage of considerably better and more powerful anti-tank guns that could operate at great distances and with higher velocities than had been the case for either side back in 1940.

  This all meant German troops were very unlikely to respond to a rapid thrust of the kind they had practised back in 1940 in the same way as, say, the French had done. Far more likely was a rapid organization of their strongest forces into a swift counter-attack. This would not be head-on, but at the base of the thrust – a decapitation, in effect. It would then leave the spearhead surrounded, cut off and very effectively removed from any further part in the battle, with all the ensuing disadvantages of having lost key manpower and equipment and all the effects on morale of having a spearhead annihilated. It might not have happened that way; the British might have achieved a decisive breakthrough, but, on balance, it was unlikely. And so was it worth the risk? Again, on balance, probably not.

  There was, though, a reason why the Allies rarely operated with lightning speed or with the kind of tactical agility for which the Germans were renowned, and this was largely down to the constraints of their materiel wealth. The Allies had developed a method of beating the Germans that relied very heavily on fire-power and a huge number of support personnel, and which also ensured that the number of men at the coal-face of battle was, in the big scheme of things, comparatively small. Infantry, for example, made up just 14 per cent of the British and Canadian Army servicemen in Normandy, and armour even less. This was a good thing, because it unquestionably saved lives; the fewer men at the front line, the fewer became casualties. The Red Army and the Wehrmacht were proof of how inefficient and costly it was to have so many front-line divisions; it was why their wartime casualties were so much higher, even though the global effort of both Britain and the United States in the war so far had been far greater than that of the Soviet Union.

  The flip-side of this fire-power, support-heavy way of war was that it took longer to organize. The rule of thumb was a simple one: the greater the fire support, the longer it took to both allocate and get into action. The artillery took time enough, but any kind of heavy air support took considerably longer. In Normandy, front-line troops had to coordinate efforts with the artillery, with the air forces and with the navy. As the Canadians demonstrated on 7 June, it was quite possible to hold up superior forces such as 12. SS, but it wasn’t until the following couple of days, with all the artillery brought up and systems and communications properly in place, that they were able to drive the Waffen-SS men back. Perhaps this approach lacked a bit of tactical flair, but that is hardly a reason to criticize. What mattered was winning campaigns – which the Allies had been doing since the late summer of 1942 – and then ultimately the war. This required clear strategic thinking, superbly efficient supply lines and a mastery of the operational level of war – the level that has been so often relegated in the narrative of the Second World War. However, with good strategy, and superior control and understanding of the operational level, the tactical level of warfare would, to a very large extent, sort itself out as a matter of consequence. Shooting up a few British tanks single-handedly might seem very impressive, but that wasn’t going to win the Germans the battle for Normandy, let alone the war as a whole, especially not if they were unable to manage the bigger picture very well, which they most certainly were not doing at present.

  Nor were brilliant, highly experienced generals and commanders much of an advantage if they were hamstrung in their efforts to bring that flair and experience to bear. Allied generals have been repeatedly criticized over the years for being dull and methodical, and not as tactically ruthless as their German counterparts. At least, though, they were operating under very clear chains of command. The political leaders at the top, while sometimes meddlesome, were not totalitarian despots. Both Churchill and Roosevelt also had quite exceptional geo-political understanding and far-sighted strategic vision, and were supported by government ministers and by the Chiefs of Staff – the most senior commanders in their respective services – who were free to voice their opinions even if contradictory to those of their political chiefs. These also worked together as the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and operated as rational debating and balancing committees who were able to draw on and bring in others when necessary. Then there was Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, a wonderful administrator and diplomat, who was also a superb facilitator and enabler, and collegiate in his approach. Under him were the component commanders, and while no one could deny that Montgomery was a difficult character, at least the channels of communication were clear and uncluttered. For the most part, an Allied divisional, corps, army or even army group commander knew where they stood, to whom they were subordinated, and they also knew they were being superbly supported by the long tail of supply and logistics behind them. This applied to the air forces and navy as much as it did to the army. Finally, while there were inter-service rivalries, for the most part the different services were all driven by a common goal. The quite exceptional coordination of effort between naval, air and ground forces in the first week of the invasion had enabled the Allies to overcome the many crises and challenges that had been thrown up so far. In fact, it was only by the harnessing of such a combined effort that an invasion of this scale had had even the slightest chance of succeeding.

  The Germans enjoyed no such spirit of cooperation, as the men on the ground had not been supported by any naval forces worth talking about and almost no Luftwaffe. Throughout the war so far, the conflict had been fought in the air, on land and at sea. That Germany had never had the naval forces required to take on the West was because of faulty pre-war planning and strategy. Creating a large U-boat arm had been the only conceivable way of taking on Britain’s – and America’s – maritime power, yet they had chosen to build a surface fleet that could never hope to rival the Royal Navy, let alone that of the US Navy. Over the past six months, their Luftwaffe had also been ground down by British and especially American air forces that were better equipped, better trained, better supplied, and tactically and operationally superior. As German troops in Normandy were painfully discovering – and as they were in Italy too – an enemy with overwhelming air superiority has a huge advantage. The combatants able to fight in three different spheres were always likely to have the edge over a warring nation fighting in just one.

  And then there was the chain of command.20 At the top was Hitler, master of all, whose word was final on absolutely everything. He was also by turns lazy, a control freak, overly obsessed with detail, and a hypochondriac who was taking a horrific cocktail of prescribed drugs on a daily basis, including a mixture of cocaine and methamphetamine given to him by his personal doctor. Hitler was also prone to irrational mood swings and changes of heart – perhaps unsurprising considering his daily intake – and used to his sycophants confirming his genius and to having his way on every single matter. The reverses in the war fed his paranoia and irrationality. He had a Combined Services General Staff in the OKW, but they didn’t operate in the same way as the All
ied Chiefs of Staff; rather, they were merely Hitler’s mouthpiece. Nor did Hitler have geo-political understanding at all; he’d not travelled the world, he didn’t speak other languages, his education was limited and he viewed everything – others, his enemies, the world – through the narrow prism of his own myopic vision. He commanded total subservience and discipline, and, as a result, his commanders were fighting a war with one hand tied behind their backs.

  Another feature of his command style was his penchant for divide and rule, an old despot’s trick to ensure he reigned supreme. In the military, this led to numerous factions and parallel command structures, so that unlike the Allies, where the chain of command flowed downwards in straight and clearly defined lines, German commanders were very often unsure of where exactly the buck stopped. This had been demonstrated glaringly in the disagreement between Rommel and Geyr von Schweppenburg, but now, a week into the invasion, it meant there was still a very muddled structure of command and control. On D-Day, it was General Marcks at LXXXIV. Korps who ordered 21. Panzer into action, but it was General Dollmann at 7. Armee telling Bayerlein when to march. On the other hand, by D plus 1, I. SS-Panzerkorps was telling 21. Panzer what to do. Geyr took overall command of Panzergruppe West on 10 June, but that did not include 21. Panzer – or did it? – while Panzer-Lehr, which was part of Panzergruppe West, had already been ordered into its position west of 12. SS at Rommel’s behest. ‘The chain of command from Panzer Gruppe West up was most unfortunate,’ commented Geyr. ‘At a moment everything depended on rapid action, orders were issued to just two and three-quarters panzer divisions by the following headquarters: I SS Panzer Corps, Panzer Gruppe West, Seventh Army at le Mans, Army Group B, OB West and OKW.’ It was an absolute mess.

  On top of that, Allied command of the sky and their very effective efforts at radio jamming and the pre-invasion destruction of radar and communications stations had also handicapped the Germans. The Allies could fly over at will and observe what was going on below, but with so little Luftwaffe, the Germans had nothing like these eyes over the battlefield. Bayerlein, for example, had insisted that not a single vehicle go within 500 yards of the Panzer-Lehr’s divisional command post for fear of being targeted by Allied air forces.

  Nor were others quite so successful at keeping their command posts secret. On the afternoon of 9 June, Geyr’s Panzergruppe West HQ at the Château la Caine, 4 miles north-east of the town of Thury-Harcourt, was attacked by Jabos. General Sigismund Ritter und Edler von Dawans, the chief of staff, along with twelve other staff officers, were killed. Geyr, who was with General Max Pemsel at the time, escaped only by chance. Then, early on 12 June, when General Marcks heard that Carentan had fallen, he hurried off in his staff car – against the advice of his staff – to oversee personally a counter-attack against the town that had little chance of succeeding. Speeding along the main road north of Saint-Lô in broad daylight, his car was spotted by Jabos and shot up. With his wooden leg, he was not able to get out of the car quickly enough and was hit in the groin by a piece of cannon shell. Soon after he bled to death. So that was another general out of the picture.

  On the other hand, the Germans in Normandy did still have a lot of very good, well-trained and, especially, highly disciplined troops, with more on their way, and despite the shortage of equipment among the infantry divisions, the German Army in the West did have a considerable amount of very good weaponry. Yet because of the comparative paucity of fire-power when compared with the Allies, they were often able to organize themselves more quickly. There were no air or naval forces to coordinate, nor, once at the front, huge columns of vehicles for which to find routes. There was, in fact, a freedom of manoeuvre in their comparative materiel poverty which gave them a flexibility the Allies could not share.

  What’s more, the terrain unquestionably favoured defence. In the west, the dense network of fields and hedgerows – the bocage – meant the Germans had a flexible defensive system that was, in many ways, more effective than any bunker. They provided cover and shelter and if a field or hedgerow was lost or about to be lost, they could simply fall back to the next one. One negative for the Germans operating in the bocage – and it was a major one – was their inability to see ahead very far. For much of the time they had little idea of what was coming towards them, or in what strength, although when it was dry the dust raked up by approaching Allied troops helped. Never had church towers been more used.

  In the eastern part of the battlefield, however, around Caen, where the land was more open, there were plenty of places in which to dig in and take cover, whether it be dips in the ground, woods, villages or snaking valleys, but there were plenty of vantage points too. The Allied planners had identified this as the area the Germans would view as being of greatest strategic importance, and so it was proving. Geography from the invasion threat to Britain in 1940 meant that most British and Canadian troops had been on the eastern side of southern England, and so the Americans, when they began arriving in early 1942, moved into the western half. As they moved across the Channel, they kept the same orientation. It meant, though, that the British and Canadians were now facing the brunt of the panzer divisions being moved up to Normandy and could most likely expect even more.

  Dempsey could see that the front was starting to congeal. The Allies also now knew that Hitler had declared his men must not give up an inch of ground and should fight to the last man, which meant they were less likely to retreat in stages as the Germans had practised elsewhere and were now doing in the battle north of Rome. If there was any lasting significance attached to Villers-Bocage, it was the realization that the Allies now faced a grinding and attritional slog against the growing German forces arrayed against them. The key would be to make sure the Germans could never mount a coordinated massed counter-attack. ‘In the past twenty-four hours,’ noted the Second Army Intelligence Summary No. 10, the day after Villers-Bocage, ‘the enemy has remained on the defensive and shown no inclination to use any of the reinforcements which have reached Second Army sector in an attempt to regain the initiative.’21 That assessment was entirely correct.

  Montgomery also recognized that the chance for the swift capture of Caen had passed. Early on 13 June he had still thought it might be possible; the abrupt halt of the leading elements of the Desert Rats put paid to that and he revised his plans. The emphasis was now to be on drawing the enemy panzer forces on to Second Army and so keeping them away from the Cotentin. ‘Caen is the key to Cherbourg,’ he told Bradley, which had prompted much derision at First Army Headquarters.22 One of Montgomery’s great failings was his inability to explain himself to his peers and subordinates either eloquently or with tact and charm, and yet, in essence, he was quite right. So far, the best enemy troops were homing in towards Caen rather than the western end of the bridgehead.

  It was vital, though, that Dempsey’s Second Army continue to chew up those German panzer divisions in the Caen sector and also the new units as they arrived, and to ensure the enemy could never mass their strength effectively, all the while building up his own forces to such a level that he could launch a major offensive of his own in the Caen area. Montgomery never launched any all-out offensive until he had such overwhelming materiel superiority that he knew his forces were going to win – or rather, until there came a point where they would not suffer a major reverse. Although this attitude has often brought criticism, actually it was simple good sense. Until that point arrived, however, all his troops could do was press forward, pushing and probing and grinding the enemy down with a never-ending assault of naval, air and artillery fire-power.

  The pattern for the rest of the campaign had been set.

  CHAPTER 19

  Behind the Lines

  Feldmarschall Rommel was spending his days hurtling from one headquarters to another. On 10 June he had visited Geyr von Schweppenburg and during the journey enemy air activity had been so bad he had had to take cover some thirty times. He had only just missed the air attack that hit Panzergru
ppe West’s HQ that day and had not even been able to reach Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich at I. SS-Panzerkorps. The following day, Rommel had visited von Rundstedt to discuss the worsening supply situation, as the railway network, upon which the Germans were so heavily dependent, had all but collapsed due to the weight of Allied air attacks. He was also deeply frustrated that more men were not being sent to him. A number of units were on their way, including the II. Fallschirmkorps, and 77. Infanterie-Division from Brittany and 17. SS-Panzergrenadier had started to reach the front. Only on 7 June had Hitler agreed to release all mobile divisions in France, but none of them was progressing well. The OKW had not sent any of 15. Armee’s units from the Pas de Calais, however, still for fear the Allies might launch a second landing. How on earth the Allies could possibly achieve such an operation was not explained. Von Rundstedt could do little to soothe Rommel’s concerns.

  Later that day, 11 June, and back once more at La Roche-Guyon, Rommel went for a walk with his friend and colleague Admiral Ruge. They ambled through the garden then up the hill behind the old castle in what became a two-hour chat in which Rommel gave full vent to his concerns. They had not prevented the landings, the initiative had been lost and, as far as he was concerned, the best solution would be to stop the war while Germany still had some bargaining power. He believed the antagonism between the Americans and Soviets was where they had a chance to negotiate. He was aware Hitler wanted to fight to the end, but Rommel believed firmly that the nation came before the individual. They discussed what would happen when the war ended. The SS would have to be abolished and so would the Hitler Youth, which could be replaced by something else. The reconstruction of cities would need to be the first priority. Hitler also had blood on his hands. ‘The butcheries were a heavy guilt,’ Rommel told Ruge.1 ‘The conduct of the war had been amateurish.’ That was one way of putting it. It was, of course, just chat – and pie in the sky chat at that.