Normandy '44

D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France

James Holland

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780802147097
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

A history of World War II's Operation Overlord, from the campaign's planning to its execution, as Allied forces battled to take France back from Germany. D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the seventy-six days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west—the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the Overlord campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge. Drawing freshly on widespread archives and on the testimonies of eye-witnesses, Holland relates the extraordinary planning that made Allied victory in France possible; indeed, the story of how hundreds of thousands of men, and mountains of materiel, were transported across the English Channel, is as dramatic a human achievement as any battlefield exploit. The brutal landings on the five beaches and subsequent battles across the plains and through the lanes and hedgerows of Normandy—a campaign that, in terms of daily casualties, was worse than any in World War I—come vividly to life in conferences where the strategic decisions of Eisenhower, Rommel, Montgomery, and other commanders were made, and through the memories of paratrooper Lieutenant Dick Winters of Easy Company, British corporal and tanker Reg Spittles, Thunderbolt pilot Archie Maltbie, German ordnance officer Hans Heinze, French resistance leader Robert Leblanc, and many others. For both sides, the challenges were enormous. The Allies confronted a disciplined German army stretched to its limit, which nonetheless caused tactics to be adjusted on the fly. Ultimately ingenuity, determination, and immense materiel strength—delivered with operational brilliance—made the difference. A stirring narrative by a pre-eminent historian, Normandy '44 offers important new perspective on one of history's most dramatic military engagements and is an invaluable addition to the literature of war. Praise for Normandy '44 An Amazon Best Book of the Month (History) An Amazon Best History Book of the Year "Detail and scope are the twin strengths of Normandy '44.... Mr. Holland effectively balances human drama with the science of war as the Allies knew it." —Jonathan W. Jordan, Wall Street Journal "A superb account of the invasions that deserves immense praise.... To convey the human drama of Normandy requires great knowledge and sensitivity. Holland has both in spades." — Times (UK)

Part I

---

THE BATTLE BEFORE D-DAY

CHAPTER 1

The Atlantic Wall

THERE WERE FEW PLACES lovelier in Nazi-occupied Europe that May than Normandy in north-west France. It had not been fought over during the Battle for France four years earlier, and although it had always remained within the territory directly controlled by Nazi Germany rather than that of Vichy France under Maréchal Philippe Pétain, this coastal region had avoided the worst hardships of occupation, and that applied to both the occupied and the occupiers. Normandy had always been a largely agricultural area, with its rich, loamy soils, lush fields and orchards; here, the harsh rationing that affected city dwellers was felt far less keenly. Normandy, even in the fifth year of war, was a land of plenty: the patchwork small fields – the bocage – were full of dairy cows; the more open land around its major city, Caen, still shimmered with corn, oats and barley; and its orchards continued to produce plentiful amounts of fruit. Now, in May, it looked as fecund as ever. Pink and white blossom filled the orchards, hedgerows bursting with leaf and life lined the network of roads and tracks. It looked, in some ways, a kind of Eden, with centuries-old farmsteads and quiet villages dotting the landscape, while beyond its coastline of rugged cliffs and long, golden beaches, the English Channel twinkled invitingly in the sunshine.

For all this loveliness, however, the war was getting closer. Normandy that May was also now a scene of intense military activity as the beleaguered German defenders braced themselves for the Allied invasion they knew must surely come soon. To this end, a race against time was going on, because only since January had action really got under way to turn the Germans’ much-vaunted Atlantic Wall from a mere concept of propaganda into an effective defence against enemy invasion. Certainly, when Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel had begun his inspection of the north-west Europe coastal defences in December the previous year, he had been shocked by what he discovered. There were coastal batteries and defences around the major cities and in the Pas de Calais; parts of Denmark were well defended too; but there were far too many gaps for his liking and especially so in Normandy and Brittany.

Nor had the troops manning these areas been much cause for confidence. The German Army had always had more than its fair share of poorly equipped and under-trained troops, even back in the glory years of the Blitzkrieg, but this part of north-west France seemed to have an excess of the very old and very young, and of ill-trained and unmotivated foreign troops in the Ost-Bataillone – eastern battalions – and of veterans recovering from wounds by eating way too much cheese and drinking far too much cider and calvados.

One of those unimpressed by what he had seen so far was twenty-four-year-old Leutnant Hans Heinze, recently posted to join the newly formed 352. Infanterie-Division. Heinze was a veteran of the Eastern Front and one of the few to have escaped the hell of Stalingrad, where he’d served as an NCO. Wounded three times before even being sent to an aid station, he had even then refused to leave his men. Only when slipping into unconsciousness had he been evacuated. That had been Christmas Eve 1942, only five weeks before the German Sixth Army’s surrender; most of those he had left behind at Stalingrad had since perished either in the fighting or in captivity.

Having recovered from his wounds, Heinze was considered suitable officer material and so posted to Waffenschule – weapons school – and given a commission. In the pre-war and early war years, officers had to serve in the ranks as a Fahnenjunker – officer cadet – and only after nine months to a year would they then be sent for an intense and lengthy stint at a Kriegsschule, or war school. This process had been abolished, though, as manpower had dwindled along with everything else and standards had to be cut out of necessity. Heinze, however, was as good a bet to become a decent officer as any: he certainly had the experience and had already proved himself a leader, albeit a non-commissioned one. So it was that he now found himself in Normandy and posted to the Grenadier-Regiment 916, one of the 352.’s new infantry units.

Although the division had its headquarters at Saint-Lô, some 20 miles south from the coast, Heinze had wasted no time in visiting the coastal defences in his sector. On arrival, he and his colleague could not find much evidence of the Atlantic Wall until eventually they spotted some bunkers surrounded by wire. Leaving their vehicle, they stepped through the wire with ease and without once snagging their trousers, and met a Landser, an ordinary soldier, who cheerily told them he had been based in Normandy since 1940. If the Tommies decided to invade, he said, they would soon roll out their guns and teach them how to feel scared. ‘We found no cheer or solace in this remark,’ noted Heinze.1 ‘It was clear that much work was ahead of us.’

Soon after, Heinze was given 5. Kompanie and briefed to lick them into shape. The 352. had been given a good number of experienced officers and NCOs – some 75 per cent had been in combat, mainly on the Eastern Front – but only 10 per cent of the rest had any front-line experience at all. The first troop train delivering new recruits, for example, unloaded several thousand mostly seventeen-year-olds: Grünschnabel – greenhorns – fresh from a mere three weeks’ training in Slaný in the former Czechoslovakia. By contrast, barely a single Allied soldier waiting to cross the Channel had had less than two years’ training. A further 30 per cent of German troops were newly drafted conscripts from the Alsace region, or from Poland and various parts of the Soviet Union. Other infantry divisions in Normandy had an even higher number of foreign troops. Language barriers were a major issue, but so too was an inherent lack of trust; many German officers and NCOs worried that when the fighting began they might well find themselves with a bullet in the back rather than the chest.

One of the many German Army troops from the east was twenty-one-year-old Kanonier Alois Damski, a heavy-set Pole serving as a private in Artillerie Regiment 352. Attached to the III. Bataillon based at La Noé and Tracy-sur-Mer just to the west of Arromanches, he was part of the fire-control team. To say he was a less than enthusiastic soldier was an understatement.

Damski had been born in the town of Bydgoszcz, renamed Blomberg under the Germans, which was around a hundred miles south of Danzig. Like most Polish families, tragedy had never been far away. His father had died during the war, and so too had his older sister; it had been typhus that had done for her, while a prisoner of the Gestapo. Damski had been working for the Germans in a munitions factory until February 1943, when he’d been called in by the factory manager. With the manager was a German official who told him he was needed in the Wehrmacht. He didn’t have to join, but if he refused he would be considered ‘politically undesirable’, and although Damski was a somewhat naïve young man, he knew enough to understand what that meant: a concentration camp was the very best he could expect.2 ‘I was only twenty,’ he said, ‘and loved life.3 I did not know much about what was going on but thought the army would be preferable.’ After basic training he was sent to Normandy and joined the Artillerie Regiment 352, among a mixed unit of Poles, Russians and Czechs and under the command of German officers and NCOs. His treatment was reasonably fair, he reckoned, and life was made tolerable because, since being in Normandy, he had been billeted with an old French lady who was sympathetic towards him because of his Polish background and who gave him extra food.

In fact, by May 1944, Damski had reason to feel he had more than made the right decision to join the Germany Army. He had dated local French girls, was allowed into Bayeux from time to time and was paid enough to buy plenty of local beer and calvados. At their observation post on the cliffs they would often listen to the BBC on the radio, even though it was strictly forbidden to do so. The German lieutenant would rail against it, decrying British claims as rubbish and nothing more than propaganda. On one occasion, the battery hauptmann had collared Damski and asked him how German he now felt. ‘I am speaking to you not as a captain but as a man,’ he had said.4

‘Well, since we are talking like this,’ Damski replied, ‘I will tell you the truth. I was born in Poland, had ten years education, my parents are Polish and live there now and how can I feel anything but Polish?’ The hauptmann did not reply, but Damski had noticed he’d been more reserved since that conversation. In truth, it must have been very hard for German officers in charge of eastern troops. Integrating them into the culture and ethos of the Wehrmacht was always likely to be more wishful thinking than reality.

None of these troops defending the Normandy coast were well equipped, and they wore a variety of uniforms that had been cobbled together from stocks left over from the North African campaign, many of which were dark green denim, as well as the more normal woollen field grey. They had barely enough weapons; these were a mixture in any case, and included Russian, French and other rifles, submachine-guns and machine-guns. The French MAS rifle, for example, was perfectly good, but it fired a different calibre bullet to that of the German K.98, which, of course, only added to the difficulties of the quarter-master.

Nor was there remotely enough transport. The artillery could not train to begin with, for example, because there were neither sights for their guns nor the correct harnesses for the horses who were to tow them.

Another problem for the newly formed 352. Division was malnourishment. Rationing in Germany, and especially further east, was harsh, with a notable lack of fruit, meat and dairy products. One of the challenges for the division’s staff was not only training them properly but also feeding them up. Requests to 7. Armee for an increased dairy ration were refused, so Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss, the division commander, had authorized his staff to buy or barter for extra supplies of milk, butter, cheese and meat locally. It certainly helped, but standards of food supplied to the men, even in Normandy, were poor and most were dependent on buying eggs and other luxuries to supplement rations. Gefreiter Franz Gockel was a young recruit serving in I. Bataillon of Grenadier-Regiment 726, part of the 716. Infanterie-Division. One day he helped bring a pot of soup from the field kitchen to their coastal bunker. His comrades all lined up in anticipation as he took a ladle and gave the soup a good stir. Feeling something substantial move at the bottom, he pulled out the ladle to discover the remains of a dead rat. They then found another in the second canister. ‘How is this possible?’ he wondered.5

The 716. Division was even more poorly equipped than the 352. and, unlike the core of NCOs and officers in the latter, had no combat experience at all, having been based in northern France since its formation in May 1941. Infantry divisions had already been reduced from the 16,000 men that had been standard at the start of the war to just over 12,000, but the 716. was just 8,000 strong and until the deployment of the 352. had been holding the entire Normandy coastline from Carentan to the River Orne, a stretch of around 60 miles. The 716. had no vehicles of any note; its infantry were issued with bicycles and, like most infantry divisions in Normandy, it was largely dependent on horses and carts to bring forward supplies.

The inherent weakness of the 716. Division along this stretch of coastline meant that the 352., considered to be of much higher quality despite its own obvious shortcomings, was given more to do than perhaps it should have been. On 15 March, orders had reached Generalleutnant Kraiss direct from Rommel. They were now to take over much of the 716.’s part of the coast, while that division would instead cover the stretch north of Caen. They were rapidly to improve the coastal defences, but also to build and maintain defensive positions further inland, all the way to Saint-Lô. In between all this construction work the 352. was also to continue training.

This was expecting a lot, particularly since the division still had to be on permanent standby to be moved elsewhere, which Kraiss and his staff assumed would be the Eastern Front. This in turn meant they could keep on hand only what they could easily transport should the division be suddenly redeployed. However, because the area they were covering was far greater than it had been, it meant a lot of time, manpower and fuel were being wasted in never-ending trips to the supply depots of the LXXXIV. Korps, to which they were attached.

Clearly, the standby alert should have been taken off the division; that it wasn’t was typical of the mess in which the German Army now found itself. Quite simply, the Germans no longer had enough of anything with which they could realistically turn around the fortunes of the war. They didn’t have enough food, fuel, ammunition, guns, armour, men, medical supplies or anything needed to fight a rapidly modernizing war. They knew the Allies would attempt a cross-Channel invasion, although where, when and in what manner remained the subject of fevered debate.11 The Atlantic Wall, protecting Fortress Europe, was thousands of miles long: Germany had been building coastal gun positions, bunkers and defences all the way from the Arctic Circle in northern Norway to the southern Atlantic coast of France. It was no wonder Normandy and Brittany had looked a bit light on defences; there was only so much manpower, steel and concrete.

Supply shortages were one thing, but there was no doubt that Germany was making life even harder for its put-upon commanders by the convoluted and muddle-headed command structures that had blighted the army ever since Hitler had taken direct command back in December 1941. The Führer remained utterly convinced of his own military genius, but a key feature of his leadership, first of the German people, then for the past two and a half years of the army, was his iron control. Naturally lazy, he none the less had a gift for absorbing detail and, while he left much of the day-to-day running of the Reich to others, he would, conversely, often stick his nose into the kind of minutiae of military operations that simply should not have concerned him. He also liked to operate through a policy of divide and rule, creating parallel command structures that tended to pit subordinates against one another, while also making predictions and command decisions that defied military logic but from which he could rarely, if ever, be dissuaded.

The German Army of the early years of the war had achieved its successes largely because it had created a way of operating in which both speed of manoeuvre and striking with immense concentrated, coordinated force were the key components. Tied in with this had been the freedom of commanders on the spot to make swift decisions without recourse to higher authorities. That had all gone as Germany’s armed forces found themselves horrendously stretched and with almost all major decisions now requiring consultation with the Führer. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – OKW, the combined General Staff of the Armed Forces – was merely his mouthpiece and neither Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the OKW, nor General Alfred Jodl, the chief of staff, was willing to play any role other than lackey to Hitler’s megalomania. To say that the Führer himself was a handicap to Germany’s war aspirations was, on so many levels, a massive understatement.

Battling the endless supply challenges, as well as a particularly counter-productive command chain, was Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel, now fifty-two and, as of 15 January 1944, the commander of Heeresgruppe B – Army Group B. Rommel’s war had so far been one of extraordinary highs but, like many of the Wehrmacht’s senior commanders, of lows as well. He had rampaged across France in 1940 as a panzer division commander, and had then been feted by Hitler and become a pin-up back home for his dash and flair in North Africa. Awards and promotions had followed in swift succession, so that by the summer of 1942 he was the Wehrmacht’s youngest field marshal – despite not commanding enough men for such a rank, nor having achieved enough to warrant such an accolade.

Then things began to go wrong, as British generalship improved along with their supply situation and dramatically more effective Allied air power. At Alamein in Egypt, Rommel was twice defeated, the second time decisively enough to send his Panzerarmee Afrika all the way back across Egypt and Libya into Tunisia. There he made one last striking attack in February 1943, forcing the bewildered and still-green US forces back down the Kasserine Pass. But Rommel pushed too far, ...