LET us survey the enemy’s dispositions and plans as we now know them. Marshal Rundstedt, with sixty divisions, was in command of the whole Atlantic Wall, from the Low Countries to the Bay of Biscay, and from Marseilles along the southern French shore. Under him Rommel held the coast from Holland to the Loire. His Fifteenth Army with nineteen divisions held the sector about Calais and Boulogne, and his Seventh Army had nine infantry and one Panzer division at hand in Normandy. The ten Panzer divisions on the whole Western Front were spreadeagled from Belgium to Bordeaux. How strange that the Germans, now on the defensive, made the same mistake as the French in 1940 and dispersed their most powerful weapon of counter-attack!
It is indeed remarkable that the vast, long-planned assault fell on the enemy as a surprise both in time and place. Early on June 5 Rommel left his headquarters to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden, and was in Germany when the blow fell. There had been much argument about which front the Allies would attack. Rundstedt had consistently believed that our main blow would be launched across the Straits of Dover, as that was the shortest sea route and gave the best access to the heart of Germany. Rommel for long agreed with him. Hitler and his staff however appear to have had reports indicating that Normandy would be the principal battleground.* Even after we had landed uncertainties continued. Hitler lost a whole critical day in making up his mind to release the two nearest Panzer divisions to reinforce the front. The German Intelligence Service grossly overestimated the number of divisions and the amount of suitable shipping available in England. On their showing there were ample resources for a second big landing, so Normandy might be only a preliminary and subsidiary one. It was not until the third week in July, six weeks after D Day, that reserves from the Fifteenth Army were sent south from the Pas de Calais to join the battle. Our deception measures both before and after D Day had aimed at creating this confused thinking. Their success was admirable and had far-reaching results on the battle.
But the enemy fought stubbornly and were not easily overcome. In the American sector the marshes near Carentan and at the mouth of the river Vire hampered our movements, and everywhere the country was suited to infantry defence. The bocage which covers much of Normandy consists of a multitude of small fields divided by banks, with ditches and very high hedges. Artillery support was hindered by lack of good observation and it was extremely difficult to use tanks. It was infantry fighting all the way, with every little field a potential strong-point. Nevertheless good progress was made, except for the failure to capture Caen.
This small but famous town was to be the scene of bitter struggles over many days. To us it was important, because there was good ground to the east for constructing air-strips, and it was also the hinge on which our whole plan turned, and on which Montgomery intended to make a great left wheel by the American forces. It was equally important for the Germans. If their lines were pierced the whole of their Seventh Army would be forced south-eastwards towards the Loire, opening a gap between it and the Fifteenth Army in the north. The way to Paris would then be open. Thus Caen became the scene of ceaseless attacks and the most stubborn defence, drawing towards it a great part of the German divisions, and especially their armour. This was a help as well as a hindrance.
The Germans, though the reserve divisions of their Fifteenth Army were still held intact north of the Seine, had of course been reinforced from elsewhere, and by June 12 twelve divisions were in action, four of them Panzers. This was less than we had expected. Our tremendous air offensive had destroyed every bridge across the Seine below Paris and the principal bridges across the Loire. Most of the reinforcing troops had to use the roads and railways running through the gap between Paris and Orleans, and endured continuous and damaging attacks by day and night from our air forces. Their divisions arrived piecemeal, short of equipment, and fatigued by long night marches, and were thrown into the line as they came. The German command had no chance to form a striking force behind the battle for a powerful, well-concerted counter-offensive.
By June 11 the Allies had formed a continuous front and our fighters were operating from half a dozen forward air-strips. The Americans thrust westward and northward, and after sharp fighting stood before the outer defences of Cherbourg on the 22nd. The enemy resisted stoutly till the 26th so as to carry out demolitions. These were so thorough that heavy loads could not be brought in through the port till the end of August.
Beyond the battlefield other events influenced the future. On the night of June 12-13 the first flying bombs fell on London. They were launched in Northern France from places remote from our landed armies. Their early conquest would bring relief to our civil population, once again under bombardment. Part of the Strategic Air Force renewed attacks on these sites, but there could of course be no question of distorting the land battle on this account. As I said in Parliament, the people at home could feel they were sharing the perils of their soldiers.
On June 17, at Margival, near Soissons, Hitler held a conference with Rundstedt and Rommel. His two generals pressed on him strongly the folly of bleeding the German Army to death in Normandy. They urged that before it was destroyed the Seventh Army should make an orderly withdrawal towards the Seine, where, together with the Fifteenth Army, it could fight a defensive but mobile battle with at least some hope of success. But Hitler would not agree. Here, as in Russia and Italy, he demanded that no ground should be given up and all should fight where they stood. The generals were of course right.
We were meanwhile consolidating our strength. In the first six days 326,000 men, 54,000 vehicles, and 104,000 tons of stores were landed. An immense supply organisation came rapidly into being. By June 19 the two “Mulberry” harbours, one at Arromanches, the other ten miles farther west, in the American sector, were taking shape. The submarine pipe-lines (“Pluto”) were to come into action later, but meanwhile Port-en-Bessin was being developed as the main supply port for petrol.* But then a four-day gale began which almost entirely prevented the landing of men and material, and did great damage to the newly sunk breakwaters. Many floating structures which were not designed for such conditions broke from their moorings and crashed into other breakwaters and the anchored shipping. The harbour in the American sector was ruined, and its serviceable parts were used to repair Arromanches. This gale, the like of which had not been known in June for forty years, was a severe misfortune. We were already behind our programme of unloading. The break-out was equally delayed, and on June 23 we stood only on the line we had prescribed for the 11th.
In the last week of June the British established a bridgehead south of Caen. Efforts to extend it southward and eastward were repelled and the southern sector was twice attacked by several Panzer divisions. In violent conflicts the Germans were severely defeated, with heavy losses from our air and powerful artillery.† It was now our turn to strike, and on July 8 a strong attack on Caen was launched from the north and north-west. Royal Air Force heavy bombers dropped more than 2,000 tons on the German defences, and at dawn British infantry, hampered unavoidably by the bomb-craters and the rubble of fallen buildings, made good progress. By the 10th all of Caen on our side of the river was gained, and by the middle of July thirty Allied divisions were ashore. Half were American and half British and Canadian. Against these the Germans had gathered twenty-seven divisions. But they had already suffered 160,000 casualties, and General Eisenhower estimated their fighting value as no higher than sixteen divisions.
An important event now occurred. On July 17 Rommel was severely wounded. His car was attacked by our low-flying fighters, and he was carried to hospital in what was thought a dying condition. He made a wonderful recovery, in time to meet his death later on at Hitler’s orders. In early July Rundstedt was replaced in the overall command of the Western Front by von Kluge, a general who had won distinction in Russia, and on the 20th there took place a renewed, unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life. According to the most trustworthy story, Colonel von Stauffenberg had placed under Hitler’s table, at a staff meeting, a small case containing a time-bomb. Hitler was spared from the full effect of the explosion by the heavy table-top and its supporting cross-pieces, and also by the light structure of the building itself, which allowed an instantaneous dispersal of the pressures. Several officers present were killed, but the Fuehrer, though badly shaken and wounded, arose exclaiming, “Who says I am not under the special protection of God?” All the fury of his nature was aroused by this plot, and the vengeance which he inflicted on all suspected of being in it makes a terrible tale.
Montgomery’s general offensive, planned for July 18, now approached. The British Army attacked with three corps, preceded by an even greater bombardment by the Allied air. The Luftwaffe was totally prevented from interfering. Good progress was made to the east of Caen, until clouded skies began to hamper our planes and led to a week’s delay in launching the break-out from the American sector. I thought this was an opportunity to visit Cherbourg and to spend a few days in the “Mulberry” harbour. On the 20th I flew direct in an American Army Dakota to their landing-ground on the Cherbourg peninsula, and was taken all round the harbour by the United States commander. Here I saw for the first time a flying bomb launching-point. It was a very elaborate affair. I was shocked at the damage the Germans had done to the town, and shared the staff disappointment at the inevitable delay in getting the port to work. The basins of the harbour were thickly sown with contact mines. A handful of devoted British divers were at work day and night disconnecting these at their mortal peril. Warm tributes were paid to them by their American comrades. After a long and dangerous drive to the United States beach-head known as Utah Beach I went aboard a British motor torpedo-boat, and thence had a rough passage to Arromanches. As one gets older sea-sickness retreats. I did not succumb, but slept soundly till we were in the calm waters of our synthetic lagoon. I went aboard the cruiser Enterprise, where I remained for three days, making myself thoroughly acquainted with the whole working of the harbour, on which all the armies now almost entirely depended, and at the same time transacting my London business.
The nights were very noisy, there being repeated raids by single aircraft, and more numerous alarms. By day I studied the whole process of the landing of supplies and troops, both at the piers, in which I had so long been interested, and on the beaches. On one occasion six tank landing-craft came to the beach in line. When their prows grounded their drawbridges fell forward and out came the tanks, three or four from each, and splashed ashore. In less than eight minutes by my stop-watch the tanks stood in column of route on the highroad ready to move into action. This was an impressive performance, and typical of the rate of discharge which had now been achieved. I was fascinated to see the D.U.K.W.s, the American amphibious load-carriers, swimming through the harbour, waddling ashore, and then hurrying up the hill to the great dump where the lorries were waiting to take their supplies to the various units. Upon the wonderful efficiency of this system, now yielding results far greater than we had ever planned, depended the hopes of a speedy and victorious action.
On my last day at Arromanches I visited Montgomery’s headquarters, a few miles inland. The Commander-in-Chief was in the best of spirits on the eve of his largest operation, which he explained to me in all detail. He took me into the ruins of Caen and across the river, and we also visited other parts of the British front. Then he placed at my disposal his captured Storch aeroplane, and the Air Commander himself piloted me all over the British positions. This aircraft could land at a pinch almost anywhere, and consequently one could fly at a few hundred feet from the ground, gaining a far better view and knowledge of the scene than by any other method. I also visited several of the air stations, and said a few words to gatherings of officers and men. Finally, I went to the field hospital, where, though it was a quiet day, a trickle of casualties was coming in. One poor man was to have a serious operation, and was actually on the table about to take the anaesthetic. I was slipping away when he said he wanted me. He smiled wanly and kissed my hand. I was deeply moved, and very glad to learn later on that the operation had been entirely successful.
At this time the orders which had held the German Fifteenth Army behind the Seine were cancelled, and several fresh divisions were sent to reinforce the hard-pressed Seventh. Their transference, by rail or road, or across the Seine by the ferry system which had replaced the broken bridges, was greatly delayed and injured by our air forces. The long-withheld aid reached the field too late to turn the scale.
The hour of the great American break-out under General Omar Bradley had come at last. On July 25 their VIIth Corps struck southwards from St. Lô, and the next day the VIIIth Corps, on their right, joined the battle. The bombardment by the United States Air Force had been devastating, and the infantry assault prospered. Then the armour leaped through and swept on to the key point of Coutances. The German escape route down that coast of Normandy was cut, and the whole German defence west of the Vire was in jeopardy and chaos. The roads were jammed with retreating troops, and the Allied bombers and fighter-bombers took a destructive toll of men and vehicles. The advance drove forward. Avranches was taken on July 31, and soon afterwards the sea corner, opening the way to the Brittany peninsula, was turned. The Canadians, under General Crerar, made a simultaneous attack from Caen down the Falaise road. This was effectively opposed by four Panzer divisions. Montgomery, who still commanded the whole battle line, thereupon transferred the weight of the British attack to the other front, and gave orders to the British Second Army, under General Dempsey, for a new thrust from Caumont to Vire. Preceded again by heavy air bombing, this started on July 30, and Vire was reached a few days later.
On August 7 I went again to Montgomery’s headquarters by air, and after he had given me a vivid account with his maps an American colonel arrived to take me to General Bradley. The route had been carefully planned to show me the frightful devastation of the towns and villages through which the United States troops had fought their way. All the buildings were pulverised by air bombing. We reached Bradley’s headquarters about four o’clock. The General welcomed me cordially, but I could feel there was great tension, as the battle was at its height and every few minutes messages arrived. I therefore cut my visit short and motored back to my aeroplane, which awaited me. I was about to go on board when, to my surprise, Eisenhower arrived. He had flown from London to his advanced headquarters, and, hearing of my movements, intercepted me. He had not yet taken over the actual command of the army in the field from Montgomery; but he supervised everything with a vigilant eye, and no one knew better than he how to stand close to a tremendous event without impairing the authority he had delegated to others.
The Third United States Army, under General Patton, had now been formed and was in action. He detached two armoured and three infantry divisions for the westward and southerly drive to clear the Brittany peninsula. The cut-off enemy at once retreated towards their fortified ports. The French Resistance Movement, which here numbered 30,000 men, played a notable part, and the peninsula was quickly overrun. By the end of the first week in August the Germans, amounting to 45,000 garrison troops and remnants of four divisions, had been pressed into defensive perimeters at St. Malo, Brest, Lorient, and St. Nazaire. Here they could be pemied and left to wither, thus saving the unnecessary losses which immediate assaults would have required.
While Brittany was thus being cleared or cooped the rest of Patton’s Army drove eastward in the “long hook” which was to carry them to the gap between the Loire and Paris and down the Seine towards Rouen. The town of Laval was entered on August 6, and Le Mans on the 9th. Few Germans were found in all this wide region, and the main difficulty was supplying the advancing Americans over long and ever-lengthening distances. Except for a limited air-lift, everything had still to come from the beaches of the original landing and pass down the western side of Normandy through Avranches to reach the front. Avranches therefore became the bottle-neck, and offered a tempting opportunity for a German attack striking westward from the neighbourhood of Falaise. The idea caught Hitler’s fancy, and he gave orders for the maximum possible force to attack Mortain, burst its way through to Avranches, and thus cut Patton’s communications. The German commanders were unanimous in condemning the project. Realising that the battle for Normandy was already lost, they wished to use four divisions which had just arrived from the Fifteenth Army in the north to carry out an orderly retreat to the Seine. They thought that to throw any fresh troops westward was merely to “stick out their necks”, with the certain prospect of having them severed. Hitler insisted on having his way, and on August 7 five Panzer and two infantry divisions delivered a vehement attack on Mortain from the east.
The blow fell on a single U.S. division, but it held firm and three others came to its aid. After five days of severe fighting and concentrated bombing from the air the enemy were thrown back in confusion, and, as their generals had predicted, the whole salient from Falaise to Mortain was at the mercy of converging attacks from three sides. The Allied forces swept on to the crowded Germans within the long and narrow pocket, and with the artillery inflicted fearful slaughter. The Germans held stubbornly on to the jaws of the gap at Falaise and Argentan, and, giving priority to their armour, tried to extricate all that they could. But on August 17 command and control broke down and the scene became a shambles. The jaws closed on August 20, and although by then a considerable part of the enemy had been able to scramble eastwards no fewer than eight German divisions were annihilated. What had been the Falaise pocket was their grave. Von Kluge reported to Hitler: “The enemy air superiority is terrific and smothers almost all our movements. Every movement of the enemy however is prepared and protected by his air forces. Losses in men and material are extraordinary. The morale of the troops has suffered very heavily under constant murderous enemy fire.”
The Third United States Army, besides clearing the Brittany peninsula and contributing with their “short hook” to the culminating victory at Falaise, thrust three corps eastwards and north-eastwards from Le Mans. On August 17 they reached Orleans, Chartres, and Dreux. Thence they drove north-westwards to meet the British advancing on Rouen. Our Second Army had experienced some delay. They had to reorganise after the Falaise battle, and the enemy found means to improvise rearguard positions. However, the pursuit was pressed hotly, and all the Germans south of the Seine were soon seeking desperately to retreat across it, under destructive air attacks. None of the bridges destroyed by previous air bombardments had been repaired, but there were a few pontoon bridges and a fairly adequate ferry service. Very few vehicles could be saved. South of Rouen immense quantities of transport were abandoned. Such troops as escaped were in no condition to resist on the farther bank of the river.
Eisenhower, now in supreme command, was determined to avoid a battle for Paris. Stalingrad and Warsaw had proved the horrors of frontal assaults and patriotic risings, and he resolved to encircle the capital and force the garrison to surrender or flee. By August 20 the time for action had come. Patton had crossed the Seine near Mantes, and his right flank had reached Fontainebleau. The French Underground had revolted. The police were on strike. The Prefecture was in Patriot hands. An officer of the Resistance reached Patton’s headquarters with vital reports, and on the Wednesday morning these were delivered to Eisenhower at Le Mans.
Attached to Patton was the French 2nd Armoured Division, under General Leclerc, which had landed in Normandy on August 1, and played an honourable part in the advance. De Gaulle arrived the same day, and was assured by the Allied Supreme Commander that when the time came—and as had been long agreed—Leclerc’s troops would be the first in Paris. That evening news of street-fighting in the capital decided Eisenhower to act, and Leclerc was told to march. The operation orders, dated August 23, began with the words “Mission (1) s’emparer de Paris …”
On August 24 the main thrust, led by Colonel Billotte, son of the commander of the First French Army Group, who was killed in May 1940, moved up from Orleans. That night a vanguard of tanks reached the Porte d’Orléans, and entered the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Early next morning Billotte’s armoured columns held both banks of the Seine opposite the Cité. By the afternoon the headquarters of the German commander, General von Cholitz, in the Hôtel Meurice, were surrounded. Von Cholitz was taken before Leclerc. This was the end of the road from Dunkirk to Lake Chad and home again. In a low voice Leclerc spoke his thoughts aloud: “Maintenant, ca y est”, and then in German he introduced himself to the vanquished. After a brief and brusque discussion the capitulation of the garrison was signed, and one by one their remaining strong-points were occupied by the Resistance and the regular troops.
The city was given over to a rapturous demonstration. German prisoners were spat at, collaborators dragged through the streets, and the liberating troops feted. On this scene of long-delayed triumph there arrived General de Gaulle. At the Hôtel de Ville, in company with the main figures of the Resistance and Generals Leclerc and Juin, he appeared for the first time as the leader of Free France before the jubilant population. There was a spontaneous burst of wild enthusiasm. In the afternoon of August 26, de Gaulle made his formal entry on foot down the Champs Élys ées to the Place de la Concorde, and then in a file of cars to Notre Dame. There was some firing from inside and outside the cathedral by hidden collaborators. The crowd scattered, but after a short moment of panic the solemn dedication of the liberation of Paris proceeded to its end.
By August 30 our troops were crossing the Seine at many points. Enemy losses had been tremendous: 400,000 men, half of them prisoners, 1,300 tanks, 20,000 vehicles, 1,500 field-guns. The German Seventh Army, and all divisions that had been sent to reinforce it, were torn to shreds. The Allied break-out from the beach-head had been delayed by bad weather and Hitler’s mistaken resolve. But once that battle was over everything went with a run, and the Seine was reached six days ahead of the planned time. There has been criticism of slowness on the British front in Normandy, and the splendid American advances of the later stages seemed to indicate greater success on their part than on ours. It is therefore necessary to emphasise that the whole plan of campaign was to pivot on the British front and draw the enemy’s reserves in that direction in order to help the American turning movement. By determination and hard fighting this was achieved. “Without the great sacrifices made by the Anglo-Canadian armies in the brutal, slugging battles for Caen and Falaise,” wrote General Eisenhower in his official report, “the spectacular advances made elsewhere by the Allied forces could never have come about.”