Montgomery and Bradley both remained in post and wrote post-war memoirs – in Bradley’s case twice over, with Chet Hansen ghosting one of the versions for him. Eisenhower served two terms as president of the United States. Pete Quesada remained in the air force and lived to old age, but Mary Coningham was killed in a plane crash over the Bermuda Triangle in January 1948, while both Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Admiral Bertram Ramsay were similarly killed in flying accidents, both before 1944 was out. General Patton also died prematurely, this time in a car accident in Germany after the end of the war, by which time he had become one of the most celebrated and well-known Allied generals of the war. Like Monty, however, he has remained something of a controversial figure ever since.
Robert Leblanc managed to survive the internecine spats and threats of betrayal, later commanding a semi-formal battalion of French troops. After the war he was feted as a hero of the Résistance. Geneviève Dubosq also survived the war, as did all her family. Général Charles de Gaulle did indeed become the democratically elected president and so the leader of free France after all.
Normandy, and indeed all of France, took some time to recover from the ordeal of the war. Normandy, especially, took long years to rebuild its shattered cities, towns and villages. For a while after, wrecked tanks and other detritus littered the countryside, and farmers were able to make a tidy sum from the large amounts of scrap metal they accumulated; the remains of Michael Wittmann’s Tiger ended up in a farmer’s barn for decades. Gradually, though, and especially once the combatant nations had created large cemeteries for the thousands slain in the battle, Normandy became an important place of pilgrimage. Its church towers were rebuilt, the tank tracks disappeared and normal life returned. Today it is a stunningly beautiful part of the world. On Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, there are now holidaymakers, kite-surfers and children enjoying the lush sands and sea. Old bunkers remain, however, while museums have sprung up all along the coast. The war is big business – Normandy thrives on the battle of 1944, not that anyone could possibly resent this burgeoning economy after all the suffering they endured.
The story of the battle itself has evolved, the narrative changing as the world changes, and much of it is mired in myth. It is important, though, to remember what happened there, back in 1944, and to recognize the enormous sacrifice and carnage. It was a terrible battle, and what followed, until the final surrender in May 1945, was every bit as horrific. Yet out of this tragedy a better world did emerge – and certainly a better Europe. For the main combatant nations, long years of peace ensued – a peace still enjoyed to this day.
Not so long ago, I climbed up to Mont Ormel, the site of the end of the Normandy battle. It is a gorgeous spot. From this wonderful vantage point it was possible to see the entire Falaise Gap laid out before me. It twinkled in the summery sun, a picture of tranquil beauty, of myriad fields, small villages, church spires and lush farmland. It was almost impossible to believe that down below and on the road just to the left of where I stood there had once been such terrible scenes of suffering and desolation. It was a reminder of the extraordinary regenerative power of the world in which we live, but also that we must look after it and remember how easily we can throw this haven back into turmoil.
The battle for Normandy began well before the invasion with the all-out effort of the Allied air forces to destroy bridges, railways and marshalling yards in France to make it as difficult as possible for German troops to reach the front. Top left: A B-17 of the Eighth Air Force heads out over Germany; and (top right) a Douglas A-20 Havoc of the Ninth Air Force hits railways on 5 June 1944. Above left: A railway bridge on the River Orne is destroyed, while (above right) the station at Cherbourg lies in ruins.
The 12. SS-Panzer-Division ‘Hitlerjugend’ being inspected in April1944.
Anti-invasion beach obstacles along the Normandy coast. Rommel insisted that the numbers of these were massively increased in the final weeks before the invasion.
US Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division aboard a C-47 en route to Normandy.
Nan section of Juno Beach, where Charlie Martin came ashore on D-Day.
Landing craft with the Bowles twins’ 18th Infantry Regiment heading towards Omaha Beach on D-Day; behind is USS Augusta, on board which was General Omar Bradley.
American 1st Division troops nearing Easy Red on Omaha at around 10.30 a.m. Despite the slaughter of the initial waves of troops and at certain points along the beach, many assault platoons landed and crossed the sand with minimal casualties.
HMS Warspite firing in support of the invasion off Sword Beach. Allied naval fire-power was immense and dwarfed the number of German guns opposing the landing.
Sword Beach on D-Day. Unloading became very congested with the higher than expected tide.
One of the many concrete casements, or Widerstandsnester, along the Normandy coastline. This is WN100 at Varreville on Utah Beach, still smoking after being knocked out on D-Day.
Rangers at Pointe du Hoc capture not only low-grade German soldiers but also labourers of the Organisation Todt still working on the Atlantic Wall at the time of the invasion.
DD Sherman tanks pushing inland from Gold Beach.
British troops just off the beach at Hermanville-sur-Mer, Sword Beach. The house behind is still there today.
Troops of the 12. SS-Panzer-Division ‘Hitlerjugend’ passing through Caen on 7 June.
Commandos digging in next to a Horsa glider near Ranville. The British airborne landings might have been chaotic, but they succeeded brilliantly in achieving their D-Day objectives and securing the eastern flank as planned.
The first two Allied landing grounds were built and in operation by evening on 7 June – an astonishing achievement. Here, an American machine-gunner scans the skies as rapid construction work continues behind him on A-4 at Deux-Jumeaux.
A flame-throwing Churchill tank, known as a Crocodile, fires a 120-metre jet of burning oil and rubber. Germans feared these terrible weapons even more than Allied troops feared the Tiger tank.
Pegasus Bridge on 7 June. On the far – Ranville – side, crashed gliders, landed so perfectly, lie where they came to a halt soon after midnight on D-Day.
Men of the 101st Airborne. They were not scattered in the drop anything like as widely as the popular narrative has claimed.
Many ‘German’ troops were not German at all. These are from the Ost-Bataillone – men from the furthest eastern extremes of the Soviet Union captured and forced to fight for Nazi Germany.
A big US 155mm gun in action.
Cromwells and Shermans of the 4th County of London Yeomanry heading inland from Gold Beach on 7 June. These were the tanks that would soon be in Villers-Bocage.
Port-en-Bessin, captured by 47 Royal Marine Commando in an often-ignored but vital operation. Mulberry A would be built here.
With no sizeable port to use, the British conceived, built and floated across the Channel two portable harbours, each the size of Dover.
Omaha Beach a week on from D-Day. In addition to the Mulberries, some 16,000 tons a day were being landed directly on to the beaches (right) using Gooseberry breakwaters and landing ships. Although behind schedule because of the weather, the Allies unquestionably won the race to build up the Normandy front.
Allied air power was absolutely vital to Allied success. The Germans’ ability to fight effectively was hampered massively by the immense weight of Allied air power. Above left: German troops of 12. SS ‘Hitlerjugend’ look skywards, while (above right) another German column hurrying to the front lies burning after being caught by the dreaded Jabos.
The Great Storm of 19–21 June. Here, waves smash into Mulberry A, which was left irreparably damaged.
The amount of rain hindered movement too, as the weight of Allied traffic quickly reduced roads and tracks to quagmires.
Any German vehicles trying to move by day were invariably hammered by Allied air power. It really was incredibly debilitating, sapped morale and hinder
ed their ability to fight.
A P-47 Thunderbolt climbs after attacking targets on the ground.
12. SS troops moving through the much-fought-over village of Rauray.
Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) moving by horse and cart. It was no way to fight a modern, mechanized war.
Robert Capa’s photograph of German troops surrendering in Cherbourg, as witnessed and reported by Ernie Pyle on 27 June 1944.
Churchill tanks and men of the 15th (Scottish) Division move forward through the mist and drizzle at the start of Operation EPSOM, 26 June 1944.
Fontenay-le-Pesnel, the scene of vicious fighting. A knocked-out Pak 40 75mm anti-tank gun alongside its dead gunner, 25 June 1944.
Shermans of the Sherwood Rangers near Rauray on 30 June 1944. The regiment was rarely out of the action.
THE BOCAGE
A Panzer IV well camouflaged in the hedgerows.
US troops of the 90th Infantry Division cautiously push forward over captured German positions in the Cotentin.
American Shermans line up along a hedgerow. Until they added dozers or hedge-cutters, they struggled to get through the bocage.
Tom Bowles’ foxhole near Caumont. This was home for long weeks in June and July.
British and American troops peer apprehensively through the hedgerows. Advancing through the dense bocage was enough to strain the nerves of any man. Danger literally lurked around every corner.
Canadian troops of Charlie Martin’s battalion, the Queen’s Own Rifles, pose by the city sign for Caen on 9 July 1944. By the time they finally took the town, there wasn’t much of it left. The level of destruction in Normandy and the number of towns and villages pulverized was horrific.
British troops awaiting a counter-attack in hastily dug trenches and foxholes between Hills 112 and 113 on 16 July 1944. One exhausted Tommy has a kip while his mates keep watch.
A Stuart light tank equipped with a hedge-cutter, conceived, developed and built with immense speed by the Americans in July 1944.
US troops street-fighting, July 1944. THE ALLIES’ MATERIEL STRENGTH.
THE ALLIES’ MATERIEL STRENGTH
The Mulberry B harbour at Arromanches, a phenomenal achievement and a huge contribution to continuing the flow of supplies.
Incredibly, railway tracks and carriages were run straight off landing ships. Allied logisticians were not afraid to think big.
Bulldozers were much needed in Normandy and were also shipped in huge numbers.
Vast numbers of trucks were brought over, then safely parked in huge fields like this one. Unlike the Germans, the Allies had little to fear from the skies above.
A convoy of supply lorries and fuel pipelines, swiftly laid to keep the enormous number of vehicles in the Allied armies running.
Never had armies in the field been so well serviced. Allied armoured units were supported by large numbers of low-loaders (above), tank-wreckers (above middle), mobile workshops and (right) field maintenance units.
Hedge-cutters being mass-produced in the field, using blow torches to cut up and weld Rommel’s beach obstacles into teeth to put on the front of the tanks.
While hedge-cutters could cut through hedgerows like butter, dozers were equally effective.
ALLIED FIRE-POWER
The Allied way of war was to use infantry and armour to goad the Germans into counter-attacking and then hammer them with their immense weight of fire-power. A British 155mm gun blasts enemy targets.
A US Sherman of the 3rd Armored Division with an up-gunned 76mm high-velocity gun and a hedge-cutter. In terms of the gun, this was on a par with the Panther and Tiger.
The same was true of the British Sherman Firefly, equipped with a 17-pounder anti-tank gun, which had a greater velocity than the fabled German 88mm.
An American M10 tank destroyer. Tank destroyers were developed by the Americans and were equipped with an anti-tank gun, were fast and manoeuvrable but lightly armoured.
A US M4 high-speed tractor tows a heavy 8-inch howitzer of the 153rd Field Artillery Battalion.
GERMAN FIRE-POWER
A camouflaged StuG, an effective low-profile assault gun on a Panzer Mk III chassis.
Panthers. Mechanically complicated but well armoured and powerfully gunned, they were understandably feared by Allied troops.
A group of Fallschirmjäger. Under-mechanized they may have been, but they were bristling with machine guns – more so than ordinary infantry units.
The panzer ‘ace’ Michael Wittmann in the turret of his Tiger.
A Panzer Mk IV – comparable with the Sherman and Cromwell, and the most common of German tanks by a considerable margin.
Not all ‘eighty-eights’ really were 88mms, but this is the classic dual-purpose anti-tank/anti-aircraft high-velocity gun in action.
An Sd.Kfz ‘Wespe’ assault gun, developed by adding a 105mm howitzer on to the chassis of an obsolescent Panzer Mk II.
A Pak 40 75mm anti-tank gun. The Germans were skilled at positioning and camouflaging such weapons.
THE BRUTALITY OF NORMANDY
The fighting in Normandy was absolutely brutal, with average daily casualty rates that exceeded the worst battles of the First World War. A British ammunition truck is hit and explodes during the EPSOM battle, 26 June 1944.
Lines of dead await burial.
German dead of 1. SS-Panzer-Division lie beside another column caught out in the open.
A dead soldier floats in the flooding around the base of the Cotentin.
Hungry French civilians carve up a horse that has been killed in the fighting.
Generals Bradley (left), Eisenhower (centre) and Ira T. Wyche of the 79th Infantry Division confer at Bradley’s tented HQ.
Villers-Bocage, briefly liberated by the Allies on 13 June, disappears under smoke as Allied strategic heavy bombers pulverize it on 4 August. Ninety per cent of the town was completely destroyed.
American troops of the US 4th Armored Division pass through Folligny on 31 July 1944 during the breakout after COBRA.
Saint-Lô. Two French children look down on the ruins of their shattered city.
By the time the ancient city of Falaise was finally captured by the Allies, the German armies in Normandy were imploding and desperately fleeing through the narrow gap still left open.
Operation TOTALIZE. Allied heavy bombers hammer German positions as planned on 9 August.
Long columns of Shermans of the Polish Armoured Division ready to move forward during TOTALIZE.
It is hard to overstate how important Allied air power was during the battle for Normandy, and no aircraft better symbolizes that dominance than the extraordinary rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon, here taking off from an airfield in Normandy (left) and (above right) firing a salvo of four of its eight rockets.
The Corridor of Death. One of the most beautiful areas of northern France was devastated by the terrible carnage of two annihilated armies trying to flee. The roads and lanes were clogged with dead men, horses and wrecked vehicles.
Glossary
ADC aide-de-camp
C-in-C commander-in-chief
CO commanding officer
Corncob individual blockship sunk to make an offshore breakwater
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