Normandy '44

by James Holland

  Away to the south-east, the fighting around Caen had continued with heavily mounting casualties for both sides. Lance Corporal Ken Tout was still without a tank after his Honey had been taken, but the rest of 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry had been in battle. Tout had talked to Michael Hunt, one of the drivers in 4 Troop. ‘We got clobbered,’ Hunt told him.26 ‘It’s the bocage, you see. The fields are so small. You go through one great hedge into a field and within fifty yards you have to cross through another hedge even thicker. And the orchards. And farm buildings. Ideal places for Jerry tanks to hide.’ Hunt then reeled off a long list of those who had been killed or wounded. ‘And three of Frank’s crew,’ he had continued. ‘Brewed up. Didn’t stand a chance. And Len Wright with a wound in his skull, and tanks going up on mines, and Jerry tanks with their great guns waiting behind the hedges …’ So it went on. Tout was appalled, although the losses meant he was now attached as a gunner in a Sherman crew in 3 Troop, C Squadron.

  By dusk on the 28th, both Dempsey and Dick O’Connor, the VIII Corps commander, were beginning to realize that EPSOM had almost run its course. They agreed that the following day they needed to both widen and deepen the Scottish Corridor across the Odon Valley. ‘Until this is done,’ noted Dempsey, ‘the armd bde will not be pushed forward to R. Orne.’27 Then he added a little ominously, ‘During the day two more Pz Divs came into action on the Army front – 2 SS Pz Div from St Lo and 1 SS Pz Div from the Paris area.’

  Instead, though, they could use EPSOM to chew up these newly arriving panzer divisions and make sure there could be no coordinated panzer counter-thrust as General Geyr von Schweppenburg was planning. What’s more, by morning on the 29th, the skies had cleared, which meant the Allied air forces could finally join the battle in strength. In fact, Standartenführer Kurt Meyer was awoken that Thursday by shells from offshore naval guns screaming over. As he tried to move up to the front from his CP, he soon found himself lying prostrate on a road in Verson, taking cover from the Jabos, which seemed to be swirling around the sky like hornets. Not far away, an artillery truck had been hit and was burning, its ammunition exploding and zapping about wildly. ‘The street was too narrow to pass around it,’ he wrote, ‘and we had to wait for the vehicle to burn out.’28 An ambulance had also been hit and was on fire, the occupants all burned alive.

  Dempsey, who was privy to Ultra decrypts of German radio traffic, knew the freshly arrived II. SS-Panzerkorps was planning to mount a series of counter-attacks all around the base of the bulge that day, which was why he ordered O’Connor to move troops up into the Scottish Corridor and hold firm. The original plan for a decisive breakthrough had developed into an opportunity to grind down the enemy. It was why Sergeant Walter Caines of the 4th Dorsets was briefed at an O Group that morning to take over from the 5th Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry – or 5th DCLI – at what remained of shattered Cheux. The order was to have this completed by 3 p.m. Caines was later heading up with the first-line transport and troops, riding his trusty motorbike, when urgent orders were shouted for them to halt and quickly disperse. Doing as ordered, he was wondering what was happening when suddenly they were shaken by the thunderous roar of their guns. Word soon got around: the enemy was attacking directly towards Cheux and the flanks of the Scottish Corridor. Their own anti-tank guns were hurriedly called forward to help the 5th DCLI, who were still holding out in the rubble of the village.

  German troops were now less than a mile distant, their armour, artillery and mortars hammering away, but ferocious counter-fire again ensured they were unable to break through and, at Cheux, by late afternoon the battle had died down, allowing the 4th Dorsets to take over from the 5th DCLI, as had been originally planned. Sergeant Caines had begun setting up their telephone system and exchanges when the enemy launched another attack. Shells fell all around, although with nothing like the intensity of the response from their own artillery. Even so, Caines and his fellows were already wondering what would happen if the Germans broke through. Even with extra support, the 5th DCLI had yet to move out; in places the Germans were overrunning their positions. ‘There was no time wasted,’ noted Caines.29 ‘Every precaution was taken and men were digging in like hell as shells were falling all around the battalion’s positions.’

  The Germans tried again on the 30th, but again made no headway. Kurt Meyer was desperate. ‘It was impossible to gain ground against this superior firepower,’ he noted, ‘not to mention the absolute air supremacy.’30 His own division was in tatters after the past three weeks’ fighting. Since then, he had not received one single replacement tank. Within twenty-four hours, meanwhile, the Sherwood Rangers, for example, would be back up to their full complement. ‘The constant use of piecemeal tactics enraged me,’ Meyer added.31 ‘What had happened to the days of the big armoured offensives?’ But what other choice had Geyr and Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, the II. SS-Panzerkorps commander, had? The Führer had insisted they should not give up a yard, which meant they could not buy time by falling back and organizing themselves for a counter-thrust. The only way to prevent the British building up their bridgehead and then pushing on towards the Orne was to attack the moment leading units reached the front. As Dempsey and the British commanders were well aware, the moment the Germans counter-attacked, as they always did, they could then hammer them with their superior fire-power. That was exactly what happened.

  On the 30th, Dempsey and O’Connor took the decision to pull back from Hill 112 and so lose the vital high ground that had been so hard fought for, although a narrow bridgehead across the Odon was maintained. This has been repeatedly cited as a poor decision by weak-minded British commanders lacking the cut and thrust of their German opposite numbers. Neither O’Connor nor Pip Roberts, the 11th Armoured Division commander, could be described as lacking drive, however. It is possible they could have held on to Hill 112, but by the 30th there were no fewer than five panzer divisions surrounding the bridgehead and the danger of it being pinched out and severed was considerable. Had that been the case, the leading elements isolated there would have been surrounded and annihilated, and historians would undoubtedly have been even more unforgiving. On balance, the risks probably did outweigh the benefits of potentially being able to hold on.

  By the end of 1 July, the EPSOM battle had effectively run its course for both sides. Kurt Meyer headed up to the top of Hill 112 that day and marvelled at the destruction he saw. Wrecked tanks from both sides littered the landscape, while of the trees that just a few days earlier had covered the hill there was now nothing left. Barely a square metre of earth lay untouched. The two-dimensional map gazed upon from afar and the violent reality on the ground were poles apart.

  Both here and where the Americans were fighting in the bocage, it was becoming clear already that set-piece operations could rarely last more than four days; after that neither side had the strength or reserves to keep going. At that point, there had to be a pause while the remnants of the attack units took stock of their losses and retired to lick their wounds. The key factor then was which side could replenish their casualties – both men and equipment. In Normandy, the Allies were winning this hands down, and this is where their big war vision and operational brilliance really kicked in. Tactical elan definitely had a part to play, but it was as nothing compared with the ability to provide replacement tanks, guns, rifles and, of course, men. Already, in twenty-four days of fighting, the Germans had lost 62,603 men, which amounted to 2,608 per day.

  EPSOM has often been seen as a failure. Surely, the critics have argued, with all that fire-power, the British should have been able to bludgeon their way through. And where was the imagination, where was the tactical flair? It is worth pointing out that 12. SS ‘Hitlerjugend’ Division, fresh to the front, despite having six times the strength of the Canadians, could make no headway over much the same ground back on 7 June, and also faced a counter-attack followed by stalemate. The critics of British fighting ability cannot have it both ways; they cannot claim the Germ
ans were better trained, tactically more flexible and equipped with better weapons and then not chastise them for failing to break through the British and Canadian lines. At EPSOM, the British faced no fewer than seven panzer divisions in their sector. Against them, the British – the attackers, after all – had just one. And it is important to understand that the panzer divisions the British were taking on were among the very best military units left within the German Armed Forces. The British did not achieve the decisive breakthrough, but they pushed them back a good distance, resisted the counter-attacks of five panzer divisions and chewed up the enemy so badly that any further offensive action by the Germans in Normandy was unthinkable.

  EPSOM, then, finished off for good any further chances of the Germans launching a decisive and coordinated counter-attack, formally acknowledged by Geyr von Schweppenburg on the 30th when he cancelled the attack he had been planning. If the outcome in Normandy had still been remotely in doubt before the battle, it most certainly no longer was now. The Allies would be victorious; it was a matter of when, not if. Tensions were understandably growing within the German command as it became increasingly clear they were losing the battle, but frustrations were mounting in the Allied command too. As June finally gave way to July, both sides were unquestionably feeling the strain.

  CHAPTER 24

  Trouble at the Top

  Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel had been devastated by the Allied drives towards Cherbourg and around Caen. ‘We are always told to save ammunition,’ he complained bitterly over breakfast one morning at La Roche-Guyon, ‘while the others save blood.’1 The ‘others’ were the Allies. It angered him that ongoing hopes rested on a handful of special weapons; V-1s and even V-2s, when they were finally brought into action, were not going to win them the war. Poor people, he added, should not be at war, and Germany was now most definitely poor, impoverished by long years of bitter conflict and, it seemed, facing an enemy of infinite materiel wealth. He had time and again relayed the critical situation to the OKW, but his warnings had fallen on deaf ears. No one in the OKW was going to tell Hitler what he did not want to hear.

  On the evening of 25 June, Rommel had once more gone for a post-dinner walk in the grounds with his trusted naval commander, Admiral Ruge. The situation was now hopeless due to the enemy’s overwhelming materiel superiority, Rommel told him. In terms of manpower, the Germans were scraping the barrel; the average age of the men in most of the infantry divisions was thirty-five and even thirty-seven, while the panzer divisions were mostly filled with boys. Panzer-Lehr had already lost 2,600 men from its fighting strength. Then there was the lack of fuel and other supplies, and those lackeys at the OKW were trying to blame him for this downturn of events! Nothing was to be gained at all from the Führer’s order to hold out to the last man. Even fortresses like Cherbourg lost their strength when the Allies could bomb and pummel at will from the air and from the sea. But he had to be careful; he could disobey orders or cry dissent only so far. ‘Caution had to be exercised,’ noted Ruge, ‘with regard to commissars and the Sicherheitsdienst.’2

  Whatever hope Rommel had had before the invasion of kicking the Allies back into the sea had now gone and he was once again consumed by deep despair. It was Alamein all over again, but worse. Resigned to the inevitable defeat that must surely come in Normandy, he hoped instead to play for time so there might be a political settlement. What he meant by that, exactly, is not quite clear. Probably, Rommel was unsure himself, but he was certainly feeling torn. German officers were brought up to believe in honour, and oaths of allegiance were taken incredibly seriously. All had sworn solemn allegiance to Hitler. Duty came first, above politics, and most believed it was their task to fulfil their orders, not question them. Yet the Wehrmacht, in allying themselves to Hitler and the Nazis, had sold themselves down the river; they had collaborated in a monstrous nationalist movement that had brought millions of deaths and led the country of which they were so proud to the very brink of the abyss. Rommel had been fortunate not to have commanded in the East, where violence and the slaughter of innocents had been raised to a terrible level, yet he had risen to field marshal; he was still a part of it, for all his insistence on fair play and behaving honourably. He had continued to hope Germany would win the war, and then what would have become of the world? Only now, with the spectre of defeat hanging over them, was he starting to think of a time when there would be no Hitler, no Nazis. Like his fellow Wehrmacht commanders, he had colluded with the regime and had been in thrall to the Führer. For all the soul-searching now over matters of honour, oaths and allegiance, there had been plenty of times when he and others could have done more to stop the madness. Instead, they had been willing and even enthusiastic participants.

  Late on the evening of the 27th, Rommel and von Rundstedt were both summoned to see Hitler at Berchtesgaden, a ludicrous decision at such a crucial moment in the battle and one that was compounded by news the following morning that General Dollmann had suffered a fatal heart attack. At least, that was what his chief of staff, General Max Pemsel, reported; Pemsel later claimed Dollmann had taken cyanide. At any rate, his death coincided with the fall of Cherbourg and the rapidly deteriorating situation for his 7. Armee. During the British attack around Caen, Dollmann had repeatedly shown his ineptitude, constantly changing his mind, issuing wild orders and insisting that II. SS-Panzerkorps throw its newly arriving units into the fray piecemeal rather than allowing them to form up and counter-attack en masse as suggested by Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, the II. SS commander. This meant now, as the Germans desperately tried to withstand the British assault, there was no army group commander, a hiatus over command of 7. Armee and another over command of II. SS-Panzerkorps. A lack of leadership – or, at least, a fractured and confused chain of command – at critical moments was not conducive to battlefield success.

  Having met up with von Rundstedt en route to Berchtesgaden, Rommel told him he planned to speak frankly to the Führer and urge him to give up the war. When he was finally before Hitler, however, at around 6 p.m. on the 29th, the Führer refused to let him speak about the wider conflict; he was to stick to the military situation in Normandy only. When Rommel protested, he was asked to leave the room. He left Berchtesgaden soon after, having barely said anything at all; he had been pulled from the battlefront for a wasted purpose. In his absence, though, Hitler ordered the navy to send midget submarines, a thousand fighters and to line all the roads to Normandy with hidden anti-aircraft guns. This was to happen immediately, although how exactly was anyone’s guess. The midget submarines were, to all intents and purposes, human torpedoes and the pilots could only function inside them by taking an appalling cocktail of methamphetamines and cocaine, drugs that had been trialled at the behest of the Kriegsmarine by inmates at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. That a handful of midget submarines would be able to turn the tide against the immense fleets lying off the Normandy coast showed just how disengaged the regime had become from reality. ‘Then, if everything goes well,’ Hitler added, ‘perhaps we can launch a counter-attack on the Americans after all.’3

  Rommel was back at La Roche-Guyon on the evening of the 30th, but in his absence Geyr von Schweppenburg had, with Speidel’s support, ordered the evacuation of the area around Caen and put in plans for the withdrawal of both SS panzer corps to a new line out of range of the Allies’ offshore naval guns. His hope was that such a move would also buy them some time to reorganize the panzer divisions, rather than have them chewed up in static defence as was currently the case. Rommel, however, now countermanded this decision, but in the meantime von Rundstedt had forwarded Geyr’s orders to abandon Caen to the OKW in Berchtesgaden. A furious Hitler immediately ordered Geyr’s dismissal, although, paranoid that the panzer general might defect to the Allies, he quickly issued further instructions that he should not be told until his replacement had reached the front. This was to be the 48-year-old General Heinrich ‘Hans’ Eberbach, another Eastern Front man. He was, however, a hugely ex
perienced soldier and commander. Having fought during the First World War, where, in 1915, he lost much of his nose, after the war he had joined the police before returning to the army in 1935. He fought in Poland and in France in 1940, before serving under Geyr during the invasion of the Soviet Union. He had remained on the Eastern Front ever since, repeatedly proving himself and rising up the ranks as he did so.

  Nor was Geyr the only one to go. Von Rundstedt was also sacked and replaced by Feldmarschall Günther von Kluge, who had commanded an army in Poland and against France in 1940, but who since then had been commanding army groups on the Eastern Front. When he arrived at La Roche-Guyon on the afternoon of 3 July, he and Rommel argued, with von Kluge urging greater aggression and drive and Rommel pointing out that his new boss had never fought the Western Allies and had no idea of the degree to which enemy air power stifled their own offensive chances.

  Although Allied air power was the matter about which the Germans seemed most obsessed, it was also an aspect that was causing tension in the Allied command. On 13 June, Lieutenant Joe Boylan had been one of the 391st Bomb Group pilots ordered to fly over to Normandy and hit Périers, a small, country market town some 10 miles south-west of Carentan. Home to around 2,600, it sat at a crossroads on the road heading north to Cherbourg and the Cotentin. If Périers was blocked, then a key supply route north would be denied to the enemy. With Collins’s VII Corps still battling their way across the peninsula, this would definitely be a help. The first bombers had come over the day before, and now Boylan, his crew and a number of other B-26s flew to the town to finish the job. ‘For us in the 391st,’ wrote Boylan, ‘it wasn’t a significant target and one that didn’t look like it would give us any problem in bombing.’4 He was proved right – they were untouched by either flak or enemy aircraft and all made it back safely. It had been a milk run. They had also done as ordered pretty efficiently; after they had gone, there wasn’t much left. Some 127 locals were killed and almost all made homeless as Périers was reduced to rubble. The town had been sacrificed in the cause of liberation from the Nazi yoke.