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UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY AND GOOD NIGHT
By Bill Fawcett
D-Day Normandy could have been a disaster.
There were a number of reasons why the Allied landing in Normandy succeeded. Two of them were mistakes that in any other context would be considered trivial. One was made by the commander of the defending German forces on the Atlantic Wall. Erwin Rommel had worked for months improving and expanding the beach defenses all along the French coast. Millions of mines had been laid, bunkers had been prepared to protect cannon and machine guns from naval bombardment, and Rommel had coaxed additional panzer units from Hitler. If the Allied landing could be crushed, it would be at least another year before they could try again. Logistics and weather guaranteed a long delay after any failure. This would free up strong forces to be shifted to the Eastern Front, and the Germans hoped a loss would lead to a negotiated peace.
The Germans knew that the Allies were preparing to land, but they didn’t know where. A brilliant series of deceptions convinced many of the German generals that the attack would cross the English Channel at its narrowest and land at Pas de Calais. A fake army was created, and perhaps the only armor commander capable of matching Rommel was put in command. This was General George S. Patton. False orders were planted on a body that would wash ashore and be found by the Germans. These deceptions succeeded in tying up two panzer divisions in the first hours of the landings. Despite this, D-Day Normandy was several times so close to failing that Eisenhower considered pulling everyone back. But what really allowed D-Day Normandy to succeed were two mistakes in judgment about what appeared to be trivial matters.
Because Hitler fell for the subterfuge used by the Allies, two panzer divisions were held near Pas de Calais. Being fooled was a mistake but not an irretrievable one. The first mistake that guaranteed the Allies’ success happened because Hitler had gotten tired of Gerd von Rundstedt and Rommel arguing over tactics. Von Runstedt wanted to gather all the panzers and infantry divisions first and then strike at the beachhead with the maximum force possible. Rommel wanted to attack immediately with whatever was at hand against what would be disorganized and hard-to-supply beachheads. Rather than choose one strategy or the other, an irritated Hitler tried to choose both. So the mobile divisions in France were split under three commanders. Rommel got three panzer divisions, but two were required to remain north of the Seine River so they could turn toward either Normandy or Pas de Calais as needed. This meant they were near the landing beaches. Von Runstedt got direct command of everything in France and Denmark, but was hesitant to act without the Führer’s approval. Finally, Hitler had his personal military headquarters, OKW, take overall command of four elite divisions, 1st SS, 12th SS, 17th SS Panzergrenadier, and Panzer Lehr. They could have made a difference, but they didn’t.
The first trivial but war-changing mistake was one of timing and temerity. The four elite SS divisions Hitler personally controlled were supposed to join in the counterattack if the Allies landed, but could not act without orders from OKW. OKW acted on everything only after they had Hitler’s personal approval. No one wanted to challenge the Führer’s authority. It had not been long since an assassination attempt had led to the execution of a large number of officers. No one wanted to be the next one shot.
Hitler was not healthy, and he had been sleeping erratically. There is some evidence that he was getting juiced with narcotics. He often stayed up talking most of the night and did not go to bed until dawn. When the news came and OKW received the request for the four powerful formations to move toward Normandy, the Führer was asleep. Once asleep, Hitler reacted badly to being awakened. And when Hitler reacted badly, the Gestapo tended to make people disappear. So no one in OKW was willing to wake the Führer, and four of the most powerful and best-equipped divisions in France sat idle. Much of a day was lost. This was a day when the Allied landing turned aggressive, a day when tens of thousands of men, tanks, and guns landed on the Normandy beachhead—one day that made all the difference.
The second mistake in judgment denied the German defenders their best general. This was the man Hitler had brought in to ensure that the landing failed. He was the Führer’s favorite general, one who had shown in North Africa that he could defeat the Allies—Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Rommel had definite ideas about delaying the landing and about using panzers to divide and overwhelm each of the beachheads.
The weather was blustery and the seas rough on June 5, 1944. There were only a few moments in the day when the tide would be right for the invasion. All of the Allied commanders had concerns about the weather. Just how close Eisenhower was to delaying the landing is a matter of record. Then the weathermen in England saw a break long enough for D-Day to succeed. Seeing the same weather while at his headquarters in France, Erwin Rommel decided that any Allied landing would be impossible. That meant he could take advantage of the break to fly back to Germany. The sixth of June was his wife’s birthday, and he could be home to celebrate it. The next morning, Rommel woke in his home to the news that the Allies had landed. His first comment was “How stupid of me.” He had made the classic mistake of expecting the enemy to act as he thought they should. Field Marshal Rommel rushed back to Normandy, but he arrived too late to drive the Allies back into the Channel, as he had planned to do.
Had the Desert Fox been at his HQ in command of Army Group B, the 21st Panzer could have attacked sooner. The two other panzer divisions he had direct command of, the 2nd and the 116th, might have rushed over the Seine River and arrived much sooner than they actually did. Under Rommel’s dynamic leadership, and according to his plan, significant counterattacks would have begun just hours after the first landings. The American landings on two of their beaches were going so badly that the troops on them were almost withdrawn. Had those beaches been hit by the 2nd SS or the 21st Panzer divisions, it would have been a slaughter. During the first hours of the landing, the beachhead the Americans held was only yards wide. The entire invasion could have ended badly.
It is always tough to confront the boss with bad news when he is in a bad mood. Had someone woken Hitler when news of the D-Day landings arrived, he would have had only a few hours’ sleep, but fifty thousand veteran soldiers and two panzer divisions could have arrived near Normandy much sooner. By adding those divisions to his, Rommel would have had an attack force that was strong enough to drive in the beachheads, even a day later.
So, two seemingly minor decisions changed the war. If Rommel had not assumed that Eisenhower would not order the landing because he, personally, would not have, history might read very differently. The Desert Fox could have used Hitler’s four divisions, and his own seven mobile divisions, to counterattack the Normandy beachhead sooner and in greater force. All those who were in charge of D-Day have written how it was a near thing, at first. So, how would it have been if the Desert Fox had thrown five panzer and two panzer grenadier divisions at an Allied landing while the men were still struggling to get ashore, land sufficient supplies, and move clear of the beaches?
If D-Day had failed, there would have been no chance that the Allies could try again before the winter weather made the Channel impossible to cross. Russia, already feeling it was being forced to do all the fighting, might well have balked at carrying the load another year. A separate peace was possible. Certainly, Stalin had no loyalty to his Western allies. Without a Russian front, the Reich would have been impregnable and no more landings would have been feasible. The Nazis, at least until the truce with Russia unraveled, would control virtually all of Europe. If they had managed to revive and use the industrial strength of the continent, the Third Reich would likely have grown proportionally stronger than Russia. We could be dealing with a Nazi Germany even today.
Many things contributed to the Allied success in Normandy. Brave men, heroic sacrifices, air superiority, and amazing improvisation, from the Mulberry harbour to the flail tanks. These and tens of thousands of brave men all made vital contributions. But if it was not for a birthday party and an unwillingness to wake a grouchy boss, the Allies would have suffered more significantly and might even have been trapped on the beachheads. If those two mistakes had not been made and the D-Day landing had failed, the Nazi Party might still rule Europe today.