D-Day 1944 E-Book

Anthony Tucker-Jones

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 528

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

D-Day was unprecedented. An invasion of this scale and magnitude had never been carried out before. The landings in North Africa, Sicily and Italy were of limited scope by comparison; if they had failed it would not have been a complete disaster, whereas Normandy heralded the long-awaited Second Front. D-Day 1944: The Making of Victory investigates the great feats of unique problem-solving that enabled the success of such an important invasion. Military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones brings his expert eye to bear on the D-Day landings and subsequent Normandy campaign. He reassesses the technical ingenuity required through the eyes of those who fought there, and vividly reveals how each side managed, whether dealing with the challenges of crossing the Channel safely or in defence of the French coast. Including first-hand accounts, this book places the reader in the thick of the action.

Leseprobe

Cover illustrations

Main: Men of the US 1st Infantry Division heading for Omaha Beach (US Army Signal Corps)

Inset: Landing Ship Tank with amphibious DUKW (US Navy); An American truck being driven onto a floating pier (US Navy); A Sherman tank displaying its Crab flail (Author’s collection)

First published 2019

This paperback edition first published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Anthony Tucker-Jones, 2019, 2024

The right of Anthony Tucker-Jones to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75099 173 5

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction: Half-Man, Half-Beast

1 Absolute Disaster

2 Pouring Concrete

3 A Pleasant Chateau

4 The European Tour

5 The Fanatic

6 Get Monty

7 Weird & Wonderful

8 Send the Engineers

9 A Nice Lunch

10 Blinding the Enemy

11 The Weatherman

12 Broken Cricket

13 Orne Bound

14 Ashore with the ‘Funnies’

15 Touch & Go

16 Smashing the Mulberries

17 Cherbourg Captured

18 Caen Linchpin

19 Cobra Strikes

20 Going for Broke

21 Total Destruction

22 De Gaulle Pulls It Off

23 Hitler’s Great Escape

24 Novel Mechanical Contrivances

Appendices

79th Armoured Division ‘The Funnies’

Royal Marines Armoured Support Group

Principal D-Day Training Facilities

Force Mulberry

Allied Order of Battle

British and Canadian Forces

European Allies

American Forces

Allied Expeditionary Air Force

Allied Strategic Air Force

Allied Naval Forces

German Order of Battle

Notes & References

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

Half-Man, Half-Beast

The roar of the powerful engines was deafening as the flat-nosed landing craft bludgeoned its way through the choppy waves. On every drop the vessel and its occupants were deluged in fine spray. The overriding smell was of diesel, oil and brine. For delicate stomachs, this and the constant motion was not a good combination. Trying to ignore these conditions, the Royal Marines slithered over their rocking tank carrying out vital last-minute checks. At sea, the five-man crew travelled on the outside just in case of mishap with their struggling vessel.

Every vehicle involved in Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944 had been plastered in a greasy, putty-like substance called Compound 219. This was jammed into all crevices and openings in a desperate effort to keep out seawater when the vehicle waded ashore. On tanks the turret ring and gun muzzle were also sealed with a type of plastic covering. Tankers did not greatly mind the application of the compound as they spent most of their time covered in grease and oil anyway. Seawater, on the other hand, was not welcome as it played havoc with the electrics and the engine. At almost 30 tons, no amount of grease would make the Centaur float in deep water.

The Marines were working on their Centaur tank, of which almost a thousand had been built. However, this was specially designed for close support and one of less than 100 armed with a 95mm howitzer destined to see action on D-Day. It was a bunker-buster that could smash open concrete at close range. The driver and co-driver gave the Nuffield-built up-rated Liberty engine one last going over. If it failed to start or stalled when the landing craft ramp went down, then there would be hell to pay.

Although its official speed was about 27mph, with a bit of doctoring it was possible to manage almost twice that. If the driver had his way, he was going to sprint up the beach at full speed, assuming that the obstacles and mines had been cleared by the engineers and the ‘Funnies’. The crew had dubbed their tank Hunter, and its turret was marked in white with the degrees of the compass in order to bring all the guns of the troop to bear on a target as quickly as possible. The centaur of ancient Greek mythology, half-man half-horse, was often depicted with a bow in its hands, so Hunter seemed highly appropriate.

The men, swerving with H Troop, 2nd Battery, 1st Royal Marine Armoured Support Regiment were heading for a beach in Normandy codenamed Gold.1 Their orders appeared simple enough: provide covering fire from their landing craft, and once they were ashore continue to assist the assaulting infantry and commandos. They had fifty-one rounds for their turret-mounted howitzer, so it was vital they made every shot count.

Amongst the Centaur crews being buffeted by the waves was George Collard. He felt that they looked suitably nautical with their ration boxes and naval hammocks lashed up behind the turret. Also, on the way over, a naval rating had taken pity on one of the crew and ‘loaned’ them a waterproof oilskin coat that was much more weather-resistant than the sleeveless leather jerkins worn by some of the crews over their overalls, which dated back to the First World War. Looking out to sea, a smile came over his face as he remembered how, earlier in the year, they had pranged the tank before it had even seen combat.

Collard’s unit had decamped from Corsham to the estate of Lord Mountbatten near Romsey in Hampshire ready for D-Day. Going through Devizes they had suffered a mishap. ‘Our tank, driven by a three-badge Royal artilleryman,’ he recalled, ‘left the road and promptly crashed through the wall.’2 The latter was inevitably a write-off, while the tank barely suffered a scratch. Besides, no one cared if the front mudguards got ripped off. It was a funny incident that resulted in much swearing by the troop commander, but such accidents were commonplace. Now, though, was the time to put all their training into practice. Lieutenant-Colonel Peskett, Collard’s regimental commander, had pushed them hard, and for good reason.

During the night, the crossing had not been pleasant for the Centaur crews, or anyone else for that matter, because of the rough sea. Thanks to the weight of the tanks, the landing craft rode very low in the water. ‘We slung hammocks where we could, sometimes between the tanks,’ recalled Collard. ‘Many were seasick, including the sailors.’3 The Royal Marines did not take seasick tablets as ‘a point of pride’.4 Being sick as a Marine was not an option. From experience, Collard had learned that the best preventative measure against feeling nauseous was to fill your stomach with hard-tack biscuits, because it acted ‘like concrete in the stomach’.5

When they neared the French coast, the Marine gunners and loaders clambered back into the turrets. They quickly rammed a high explosive round into the gun’s breech. No one liked the idea of firing a tank from a moving landing craft – least of all the coxswain. The gunners knew they were unlikely to hit anything useful, but their actions added to the general bombardment of the enemy defences nonetheless.

Aboard a tank landing craft, Sub Lieutenant Frank Thomasson, with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, was amazed at how relaxed the Marines were. They had risen early to check their kit and seemed in no haste to disembark. Before marching off they removed their steel helmets, and one man donned a top hat and raised an umbrella. ‘This action by the Marines had a calming effect on all,’ observed Thomasson.6 Despite seeing some of his mates killed, Royal Marine Corporal Bernard Slack did not flinch, ‘You just get on with your job. This is what you’re trained for.’7

When Collard’s troop finally rolled into the sea off Gold Beach, water rushed into the turret ring and his troop sergeant could not get out of his hatch and was soaked. Collard poked his head out the turret and ‘looked with some admiration at the sight of the shells landing on the concrete strongpoints’.8 The Germans were getting a good ‘pasting’.

Directing the sodden driver, they managed to successfully negotiate the anti-invasion obstacles, only to have the left track blown off by a mine. ‘A number of wounded and dead were on the beach,’ noted Collard, ‘including some killed where our own tanks had run over them – pushing – it appeared – the bile in the liver up to their faces.’9 Having reached the cover of the dunes, his crew managed to repair their lame Centaur and get it back into the fight.

When Sergeant John Clegg’s Centaur rolled ashore he became aware of an unwelcome noise above the racket of the engine. ‘You can hear possibly bullets,’ he said, ‘splattering against the side of the landing craft and your tank: pitter-patter, pitter-patter.’10 In response, he and his crew were soon engaging their assigned targets.

Lieutenant-Colonel Peskett had a total of thirty-two Centaurs and eight Sherman tanks with which to support the landings east of Arromanches.11 He was not a happy man though, ‘Several of my landing craft, being heavily armoured, did not weather the crossing, and either sank or turned back to land on the Isle of White.’12 From a force of ten Centaurs supporting the attack on Le Hamel, only half reached the beach and these were destroyed straight away.13

Peskett’s own ‘landing was an extremely wet one’,14 with his waterproofed jeep drowning in 4ft of water. His second-in-command, Major Mabbott, was immediately wounded and had to be evacuated. After being rescued by a passing landing craft, Peskett toyed with the idea of taking a Royal Navy bicycle ashore but instead, along with his signaller Sergeant Harris and batman-driver Marine Collis, got a lift in a half-track.

Once inland, he commandeered an abandoned Ford which had been used as a German staff car. This was a choice he was later to regret when it drew the unwanted attention of the RAF. Two days later, one of Peskett’s missing lieutenants arrived at his headquarters. When the man was asked where he had been, he responded, ‘Bayeux’. A puzzled Peskett pointed out that was impossible as they had not liberated it yet. ‘Yes, that’s what I discovered,’ said the officer nonchalantly.15

‘Hunter’ survived the landings and was photographed on 13 June 1944 rumbling along Normandy’s dusty lanes with fumes belching out of its engine. Peskett’s Centaurs were supposed to stay in Normandy for a maximum of seven days, but instead they fought for three weeks until they were broken down and had run out of ammunition. Like their mythological predecessors, they died in battle.

The Centaur tank was just one of the many ‘mechanical contrivances’16 that were the making of victory on D-Day. There were far more weird and wonderful contraptions unleashed on Normandy’s shores that day. Second Lieutenant Stuart Hills, with the swimming Sherman tanks of the Nottinghamshire Sherwood Rangers, also landed on Gold Beach. He witnessed ‘the Centaur close-support tanks …, the flail tanks and the assault vehicles of the Royal Engineers and the underwater obstacle clearance teams from the Engineers and the Royal Navy.’17 It was these that got them inland.

General Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, and his staff were in awe of the unparalleled technical innovation shown in support of Operation Overlord. It was problem-solving on an unprecedented scale that helped ensure that D-Day was not a complete and utter bloodbath. Overlord was truly the appliance of science and a battle of the boffins.

1

ABSOLUTE DISASTER

Once Adolf Hitler had made himself master of western Europe, he faced the problem of how to defend 3,000 miles of coastline stretching all the way from Norway to Spain. As early as the end of 1941, when he was preoccupied by the fierce battle for Moscow, Hitler sought to tackle this challenge. He issued orders for the defence of the Atlantic coastline, designed ‘ultimately to be built into a “new West Wall”, in order that we can be sure of repelling any landing attempt, however strong, with the minimum number of permanently stationed troops’.1

He did not give the matter any real further thought until March 1942, when he warned, ‘The coastline of Europe will, in the coming months, be exposed to the danger of an enemy landing in force.’2 He was right, because the British and Canadians were planning their large-scale raid on Dieppe. While his long-winded directive was mainly about command and tactical responsibilities, it did form the basis for the Atlantic Wall. He stated that ‘the defence of fortified areas and strongpoints by infantry’ was to be treated as a priority.3 This task fell to Albert Speer and his troublesome deputy, Xaver Dorsch.4

General Adolf Kuntzen, commanding LXXXI Corps based in Rouen on the Seine in the summer of 1942, with responsibility for the 302nd and 336th Infantry Divisions, was charged with the defence of Dieppe and the surrounding region. It would fall to Kuntzen’s corps, with the assistance of the 10th Panzer Division, to counter any Allied seaborne attacks in the area. Kuntzen was an experienced panzer corps commander, having fought in Poland and on the Eastern Front, and had been sent to take charge in April 1942.

Field Marshal von Rundstedt had ensured that Dieppe was well defended. The port itself was held by Major-General Conrad Hasse’s 302nd Division, which included many foreign ‘volunteers’. Its equipment also included captured Czech, British and French weapons.5 The 302nd had a single French tank cemented into the sea wall, and French trucks were used to tow its 75mm anti-tank guns. Hasse’s real strength was his artillery and coastal gun batteries on the surrounding headlands. The 1,500m-long beach at Dieppe was hemmed in by two headlands; the western one dubbed Hindenburg and the eastern one Bismarck. Both had gun emplacements, creating a murderous cross-fire. It was not a good place for the Allies to probe Hitler’s defences.

The nearest German armour within striking distance belonged to the 10th Panzer Division, under General Wolfgang Fischer, stationed at Amiens 60 miles away. The 1st SS Panzer Division, under Lieutenant-General Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, was 80 miles away north-west of Paris. Both divisions had been sent to France for refitting following heavy fighting on the Eastern Front.

Operation Jubilee, conducted on 19 August 1942, was conceived by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of British Combined Operations, and his naval advisor, Captain John Hughes-Hallet, as a way of testing German defences prior to reopening the Western Front.6 It was green-lighted at the most senior levels by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt. In addition to frontally assaulting Dieppe, there were to be other landings, including Pourville to the west and Berneval to the east. Tanks would only be involved in the attack on Dieppe itself. Allied preparations and training on the Isle of Wight could not be completely concealed, and by mid-June 1942 Hitler’s intelligence was expecting some kind of large-scale assault on the French coast.

Supporting the 5,000 infantry of Major-General J.H. Roberts’ Canadian 2nd Division, 1,000 Royal Marine Commandos and fifty US Rangers allocated to the raid, was the Canadian 14th Tank Battalion, Calgary Tank Regiment, equipped with the British Churchill tank. Three flame-thrower tanks were also earmarked for the operation. To make the tanks waterproof up to a depth of 7ft for wading purposes, disposable exhaust and trunking extensions were added.

German exercises at Dieppe proved that it was not good tank ground after the gravel on the beach clogged a panzer’s tracks. The leading Canadian tanks were fitted with elementary bobbins with a rolled carpet of hessian and wooden paling strips. Also, to get the Churchills over the shingle, sappers were to unroll 4ft wide and 250ft long bundles of wired wood matting known as chespaling.

The Canadian tankers were not expecting to encounter any panzers; Dieppe was only garrisoned by infantry. However, it was recognised that it was likely to be a one-way trip for some if not all of the Churchill tanks. To that end, each was equipped with nitro-glycerine bombs to prevent them falling into enemy hands intact. Adjutant Austin Stanton of the Calgarys, upon reading that it was planned to re-embark the tanks and troops from in front of Dieppe, remarked drily, ‘The only thing they had forgotten to mention was that tea and cakes would be served on the beach.’7

This was not the first time the Allies had attacked occupied France. Churchill’s first major raids occurred at Bruneval to capture a radar and at St Nazaire to destroy the dry dock in early 1942. While both were successes, the latter saw 185 British troops killed and 200 captured from a raiding force of just 611 men.8 Things did not bode well for the forthcoming Dieppe raid.

This operation was a lot more ambitious and involved tanks. The Canadian 14th Tank Battalion had been mobilised on 11 February 1941, and by late June was en route to Britain. Initially, the Calgarys were equipped with the British Matilda II tank for training purposes. On 19 November 1941, the battalion’s war diary recorded:

Today the battalion took over its first Mark IV Tanks (Churchills). The Mark IIA Tanks (Matildas) with which the battalion is now equipped are being turned in as Mark IVs become available. Present indications are that the changes will be made quite quickly for more and more Churchills are being made available for issue to regiments.9

An inkling of the unit’s role in the Dieppe attack was gained on 4 December 1941, when its diary noted, ‘A special film called “Combined Operations” was shown to Officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in the ‘A’ Sqn NAAFI hut. This film showed the various types of landing craft built for assaulting a hostile coast, and also the various ways in which such a coast may be attacked.’10 As a result, the rumour that the Second Front was about to be opened quickly spread.

Throughout December, the Canadians continued to return their Matildas to the ordnance depots at either Aldershot or Bordon Camp while drawing Churchills to replace them. Taking delivery of the new tanks turned out to be a time-consuming process; not only did each item of equipment have to be checked, but also the greatest care had to be exercised in checking the lubrication, track tension and the remainder of the suspension and hydraulic lines before it could be safely driven away. The manufacturers, Vauxhall, sent its representatives to instruct the Canadians on how to handle the engine. Once fully equipped, planning efforts turned to Dieppe.

On 16 August 1942, the Calgarys transported eighteen Churchill tanks from Seaford to Gosport ready for embarkation; the rest moved to Newhaven under their own power. The following day they were loaded onto the landing ships, and by 0300 hours on the 19th they were 8 miles off Dieppe. The assault fleet comprised eight escort destroyers, nine landing ships, thirty-nine coastal craft and 179 landing craft; in the air, sixty-seven RAF squadrons provided cover, sixty of which were fighters.

While the port was to be stormed by six infantry battalions and an armoured regiment of the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, No. 3 Commando, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Durnford-Slater, was to silence the German Goebbels battery at Berneval to the east and No. 4 Commando, under Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Lovat, the Hess batteries to the west at Varengeville. Also, on the flanks, the Camerons and South Saskatchewans were to secure Porville and the Royal Regiment’s objective was Puits. The Essex Scottish, Fusiliers Mont-Royal and Royal Marines, supported by the Calgary tanks, were to barge their way into Dieppe itself.

Sergeant George Cook of No. 4 Commando, upon hitting the beaches, got over the wire and was relieved to find the German machine-gunners in the pillboxes were firing high. After that their luck was in short supply as a mortar took out four men. Cook remembered:

Sergeant Horne and I had cut some barbed wire. He started cutting, and then I heard an ‘Urgh’ – and when I looked, there was Sergeant Horne, blood spurting out of his chest. He looked as though he was dead – which was a bit of a shock to me, because he was about the toughest fellow I ever knew, was Geordie Horne. Then I got hit in the face and the shoulder. That was me out of it.11

No. 4 Commando scored one of the few successes at Dieppe, destroying the Varengeville battery, though it cost them twelve dead and twenty wounded. In contrast, No. 3 Commando ran into a German convoy on the run-in and only twenty men got ashore. The air cover provided by the RAF also received a rough reception. ‘We were taking some Canadians to drop them on a quay at Dieppe,’ recalled French seaman Albert Quesnée on the Bayonne, ‘but of course the Germans were there. That was a bad day, a bad day. I’ve never seen so many planes come down in the water.’12

The Canadian tanks were to attack in four waves; the first with nine tanks supporting the assaulting infantry; the second with twelve tanks; the third with sixteen tanks; and the fourth with the rest of the regiment. Following a preliminary bombardment, the landings started at 0530 hours, though a naval engagement in the Channel followed by an air attack tipped off the Germans that something was going on. During the run-in to Dieppe, the Tank Landing Craft (LCTs) were 15 vital minutes late, leaving the infantry pinned down on the beach.

The first three LCTs, each carrying three tanks and a jeep, were met by heavy fire. Churchills bearing the names Cougar, Cat and Cheetah were landed near the harbour mole, but, wasting more precious time, their cold engines in turn stalled on the ramp. Although the first tank was hit three or four times, the armour withstood the punishment and it kept going, rolling right over the thick belt of barbed wire.

The old French tank armed with a 37mm gun and incorporated into the German defences engaged the Churchill. In a stroke of bad luck, the static tank had been unmanned until a German sentry ducked inside and proceeded to expend 185 rounds against the Canadians. Cougar found the sea had conveniently created a pebble ramp up the sea wall, and drove up onto the promenade. Behind it, Cheetah frightened the Germans manning a nearby pillbox into flight. Cat was finally freed from the landing craft ramp, but in the confusion drove up the beach with a scout car still attached.

In the meantime, the LCT crews were suffering terribly from heavy German mortar bombardment. Bravely, the Canadian machine-gunners exposed on the decks returned fire. However, the sappers and mortar men were unable to deploy. Badly damaged, LCT 2 escaped out to sea; LCT 1, after getting its Churchills – Company, Calgary and Chief – ashore in three minutes, drifted away to sink.

The three flame-throwing tanks on LCT 3 met an equally hot reception, with mortar bombs dropping right on them. ‘About 200 yards out a terrific concentration of fire opened up on our craft,’ said Captain Dick Eldred of the Calgarys on LCT 3. ‘Most of our gunners were quickly knocked out of action and though their places were immediately taken these too became casualties.’13

The first tank, Boar, commanded by Captain Bill Purdy, crashed through the ramp and drowned, the LCT passing over it. When the craft hit the beach, the damaged ramp folded under it, leaving a 10ft drop; however, Bull and Beetle drove ashore, having inadvertently crushed some of their own men. One lost a track on the shoreline and was stranded, while the other tore off the flame-flower fuel container and could only be used as a gun tank.

At 0605 hours the second wave of LCTs, carrying another dozen tanks, arrived. Further Churchill tanks borne by LCT 4, 5 and 6 now came in; although 4 burst into fire 200 yards from the beach and sank, it got tanks Burns, Bolster and Backer ashore. The German defenders, realising they could not pierce the Churchills’ impervious armour, switched their fire onto the vulnerable tracks.

In this area of the sea front, unfortunately for the Canadian tankers, the Germans had only recently cleared the shingle from the sea wall using a digger, forcing the tanks to veer side-on. Major Page in Burns noted, ‘I gave orders to turn to the right and that’s when I was hit. I was just on the crest at the top of the trench dug by the excavator and the right track was blown off. The left one went on for a few seconds and kind of pulled me into the trench.’14

The other two tanks also lost their tracks before they could clear the beach.

Similarly, after Buttercup, Blossom and Bluebell were landed, LCT 5 was destroyed. LCT 6 took three attempts to land Bert, Bob and Bill. The Canadian infantry and sappers had just as bad a time as the tanks and the casualties were very heavy, with some men refusing to leave their craft. LCT 7 put ashore Beefy, Bellicose and Bloody, followed by LCT 8, 9 and 10. Only ten tanks reached the shore from the third wave, and the fourth wave were not landed, as by 0900 hours it was clear they could achieve little.

RAF Squadron Leader ‘Johnny’ Johnson of 616 Squadron said:

We could see very little except a bloody great pall of smoke over the town, and lots of shelling going on down below. But we could do nothing about it because the attackers and defenders were all within a hundred yards of each other. We couldn’t help the army … we knew that the whole thing had been a disaster – but there was nothing we could do to help them.15

At 0625 hours, the two German panzer divisions had been put on alert to move. Some 15 minutes later, the Dieppe German Naval Semaphore station signalled headquarters, ‘The enemy continues to land at Dieppe. Destroyers making smoke along the coast. Up till now 12 tanks have been landed, of which one is on fire.’16 The 10th Panzer headed north at 0900 but, lacking adequate maps and with worn-out vehicles, its progress was far from proficient, and the Luftwaffe was equally slow off the mark to react.

At Dieppe, General Hasse’s defences were such that the Churchills found themselves hemmed in and could not penetrate the town, where they could have created havoc. From a force of twenty-nine tanks landed during Operation Jubilee, two drowned and twelve never got off the beach. Although the remaining fifteen got onto the esplanade, they could not pierce the anti-tank obstacles the Germans had erected.

Bill did attempt to navigate a gap in the Rue de Sygogne, but lost a track and blocked the approach to the street. Bellicose was more successful in assisting with the attack on the Casino building, though got no further. Frustrated, the men of the Calgarys could only drive up and down, blazing away until their ammunition ran out. The defenders’ 37mm anti-tank guns had little effect on the Churchills’ armour, and 75mm rounds penetrated only two tanks. According to a subsequent German military report, twenty-four tanks were put out of action by artillery in the area of the beach and only five made it to the roadway.

Following the Allies’ evacuation order at 1100 hours, the tank crews were instructed to destroy their vehicles with the nitro-glycerine bombs. The crews in those tanks trapped on the beach, once they had run out of ammunition, remained inside rather than risk the murderous German fire raking their hulls. Also, some crews had left these highly dangerous devices behind or dumped them overboard on the way over. ‘I flew over Dieppe four times on 19 August 1942,’ recalled Squadron Leader Johnson, ‘but I didn’t realise what an impossible tactical situation it was.’17 From the Calgarys landed, only one man got back to Britain. That evening the Luftwaffe chivalrously dropped photos on the Canadians’ barracks at Seaford in Sussex showing those who had survived.

At 1215 hours, German headquarters issued orders stating, ‘[T]he 10th Panzer Division, tanks and artillery should immediately go forward. Every weapon available must now contribute to the total destruction of the enemy.’18 Fischer’s panzers arrived at Dieppe just as the survivors were surrendering at 1308 hours. The Germans bombastically noted, ‘Our rapid intervention and the powerful aspect of the panzer division made a great impression on the populace.’ At 1640, senior panzertruppen were ordered immediately to examine the captured Churchill tanks.19

While the Germans were impressed by the Canadians’ fighting spirit, their maps and the smokescreen laid on the beach, they were less than impressed by the manufacturing, metallurgical and technical aspects of the Churchill tank. Likewise, they thought the gun, armour and tracks were poor. Their verdict was that the Churchill was easy to fight, and the performance of the German anti-tank gunners was exonerated because they had been firing at long distance.

Kuntzen, Hasse and Rundstedt could not understand why armour had not been used to support the flanking landing at Pourville, nor could they believe that a raid would employ so many tanks. The German Seventh Army headquarters noted:

With the reserves afloat were twenty-eight tanks, certainly of the same type as those landed. Now the employment of altogether fifty-eight similar tanks cannot be connected with a brief sabotage operation. Although operational orders have also fallen into our hands, it is not possible to deduce whether it was a question of an operation of local character, or – in case of success – if it would form the initial stage of ‘invasion’.20

Many senior German officers assessed that if the Allies had achieved a successful lodgement at Dieppe, it would have heralded a full-scale invasion; though Field Marshal von Rundstedt did not share this view. What the German commanders did not know was where the main weight of the Allied assault, or schwerpunkt, might fall, which meant any initial landings were likely to be considered diversionary. This conclusion was to cloud their thinking when it came to opposing D-Day.

Although the Dieppe Raid provided vital lessons in amphibious warfare and Combined Operations, they were gained at an appallingly high cost.2122 The subsequent successful Allied landings in North Africa were against ill-equipped French forces that were in a state of political disarray, while those on Sicily and the Italian mainland were against the Italian Army, which was largely a spent force. Striking Hitler’s Festung Europa was an entirely different matter, even if the German forces were, in some cases, second rate, reconstituting or recuperating.

Lord Lovat blamed the failure of Operation Jubilee on poor planning and intelligence. He said this ‘led to slapdash efforts that went astray’.23

Peter Young, who served with No. 3 Commando at Dieppe, said it ‘showed the planners that the Allies were unlikely to take a port in France on D-Day’.24 It was clear that any future invasion of France would have to be conducted across open beaches and not against a well-defended port.

Dieppe loomed large in everyone’s minds, and despite the Allies’ subsequent considerable planning and preparation, there was a very real fear that D-Day might go the same way.

Captain Pat Porteous, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in successfully destroying the Varengeville battery, was scathing of the whole sorry affair:

My feeling is that it was an absolute disaster. It should never have taken place. A great deal has been made about the lessons learned from the raid which were put into good use for the main landings in Italy and later on in Normandy. But my feeling was that 90 per cent of those lessons could have been learned training in Britain on the beach at Weymouth or anywhere else. But as it was, they had something like 1,000 killed and 2,000 taken prisoner – and what did they achieve? Absolutely nothing.25

The most embarrassing aspect of the raid, after the high casualty rate, was the fact that Winston Churchill’s namesake tanks lay strewn across the landing beaches like so much junk.26 Lord Mountbatten, trying to put a gloss on things, informed Prime Minister Churchill that two-thirds of the Dieppe force had escaped. This ignored the inconvenient fact that the bulk of the assault force had never gone ashore.

The failure of Operation Jubilee firmly convinced Hitler that he could easily contain and defeat an Allied amphibious assault on French soil. The shambles at Dieppe was a major propaganda coup for him. Joseph Goebbels, his propaganda minister, was soon claiming they had defeated an Allied invasion and would do so again:

We have fortified the coast of Europe, from North Cape to the Mediterranean, and installed the most deadly weapons that the twentieth century can produce. This is why an enemy attack, even the most powerful and furious possible to imagine, is bound to fail … At Dieppe they held on for nine hours and there was no Wall. If they hold on for nine hours next time they’ll do well.27

Understandably, after the Dieppe raid the construction of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall gained greater urgency. Nonetheless, the Eastern and Italian fronts continued to be the focus of his attention and military resources. Hitler convinced himself that when the Allies opened their Second Front, he would travel to France to take command of his forces personally, a habit he had developed on the Eastern Front. To this end, the Todt Organisation was ordered to build two forward headquarters for the Führer, which inevitably used huge quantities of concrete and hundreds of miles of telephone cable,28 one of which was dubbed W2 and located between Soissons and Loan.

General Kuntzen’s LXXXI Corps’ control of an armoured division was short-lived, and by June 1944 its subordinate units consisted of the 245th and 711th Infantry Divisions and the 17th Luftwaffe Field Division. Kuntzen’s only effective force was a small combat group from the Panzer Lehr Division.

2

POURING CONCRETE

While the disaster of Dieppe convinced the Allies that seizing an occupied port as a prerequisite for a successful assault on the continent was out of the question, it persuaded Hitler otherwise. ‘The first priority had been given to the main port areas,’ noted Colonel David Belchem, General Montgomery’s planning chief, ‘which by 1944 had become virtually impregnable to seaborne assault. Next came the Pas de Calais at the Channel straits, which the Germans considered the most likely area for an Allied invasion attempt. But elsewhere the defences were less formidable.’1 Building these defences proved to be a nightmare for the man in charge.

Albert Speer found himself in hospital in early 1944 suffering from nervous exhaustion and a possible pulmonary embolism. In the early days he had enjoyed being part of the Nazis’ inner circle. He had revelled in being one of the Führer’s favourites; thanks to Hitler’s patronage, Speer had been elevated into the Nazis’ upper ranks as the party’s chief architect. As the years wore on though, the constant intrigues and backstabbing had become too much for him. Speer needed time to recuperate and recharge his batteries.

Even in the sanctuary of hospital, he was to find no solace. The deputy leader of the very organisation tasked with building Hitler’s Atlantic Wall was plotting against Speer and his loyal supporters even as he lay in his sick bed. Speer’s wife called him with regular updates on their children, and that cheered him up. Deep down though, he missed his mentor Fritz Todt, who, in Speer’s opinion, had been a good man.

Despite being Hitler’s Minister for Armaments and Munitions, Speer felt as if his life was now ruled by concrete. As an architect he was no stranger to the stuff, but as the war progressed the demand for it just seemed to grow and grow. Todt, his predecessor, had also headed up Germany’s massive construction industry, so was more of an expert. It was he who had built Germany’s autobahns. However, Todt was killed in a plane crash on 8 February 1942 on a flight that Speer had almost taken. ‘From that moment on my whole world was changed,’ recalled Speer.2 He had great respect for his former colleague, noting, ‘Todt had maintained his personal independence in his relations with Hitler, although he was a loyal party member of the early years.’3

Speer inherited not only Todt’s job but also the vast Todt Organisation, originally set up to build the Siegfried Line or West Wall, the U-boat shelters along the Atlantic coast and the roads in the occupied territories. As early as the summer of 1940, Hitler tried to get Speer to take over construction of their defences along the Atlantic as Todt was overburdened. Speer declined because he did not want to undermine Todt’s authority. Ironically, here he was, four years later, with responsibility for construction of the Atlantic coast defences and just as overburdened as his predecessor had been.4

Speer took pride in his achievements with Germany’s armaments industries, especially as he had known nothing about them when he started. He recalled with a smile how, just as Hitler was appointing him, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring arrived, insisting he take charge of the construction industry and the Todt Organisation. Göring was indulging in his usual empire-building, but Speer shuddered to think what would have happened had the head of the Luftwaffe been placed in charge of Germany’s static defences. Rebuffed by Hitler, the Reichsmarschall had stomped off, refusing to attend Todt’s funeral.5

It was easy to see why Göring wanted to get his hands on the Todt Organisation. At its height in 1944, it was the largest employer in Europe, with 336,000 German personnel in charge of a million foreign workers, including 285,000 concentration camp prisoners and prisoners of war.6 In addition, some 3,000 French armed guards were deployed on the construction sites in France.7 While the French Resistance took a dim view of such collaboration, it sometimes made it easier to spy on the Germans.

When it came to the Eastern Front, Speer knew that Hitler had a complete aversion to static defences. Time and time again, Hitler refused to give his generals permission to build defences behind which they could regroup their forces. After Hitler’s defeat at Stalingrad in 1942–43, the German General Staff wanted to establish a defensive line on the Dnieper, but Hitler would hear none of it. After the German defeat at Kursk the following summer, it was apparent they needed to do something to strengthen the Eastern Front. In December 1943, Field Marshal Manstein, despite Hitler’s dictate, authorised the Todt Organisation to start building fortified positions on the River Bug. At the time this was 125 miles behind German front lines, and when Hitler heard he ordered the work to stop immediately. He simply had no time for such insurance policies. The Western Front, however, was a different matter.

In France, Speer and Xaver Dorsch were infuriated by the activities of French agitators, who seemed to dog their every step with the Atlantic Wall. Spies ensured the Allies were kept well informed. The Todt Organisation’s headquarters in the Pas-de-Calais at Audinghen was visited twice by American bombers on 11 November 1943. That same day, they also struck one of the network of new V-weapon launch sites being built in the Cotentin Peninsula at Couville, south-west of Cherbourg. The bombs wrecked the 5m-thick concrete bunker roofs and damaged much of the nearby village. At Audinghen, the first attack flattened the village, while the second hit the Todt headquarters building, scattering frightened staff.

What Speer did not know was that in between the raids at Audinghen, Michel Blot, a French agent, had slipped in and photographed plans for over 100 V-1 flying-bomb sites and stolen secret documents dealing with coastal defences.8 Controlled from Caen, a network of some 1,500 agents systematically plotted German defences.9 This included a painter and decorator who managed to steal blueprints from the Todt Organisation.10

By the autumn of 1943, thanks to the constant intrigues in the Nazi hierarchy, Speer said, ‘I gradually began to feel insecure in my own ministry.’11 He fell into depression, observing, ‘The nearly two years of continuous tension had been taking their toll. Physically, I was nearly worn out at the age of thirty-eight.’12 On 18 January 1944, he was hospitalised for two months. It was not a good start to the year, especially when he discovered that one of his officials had been plotting against him and members of his ministry. It was none other than Dorsch, Speer’s deputy at the Todt Organisation. Speer wanted Dorsch sacked, but the man had Hitler’s favour.

Hitler had no desire to dispense with Dorsch’s services because he was an experienced fortifications builder. During the late 1930s, Dorsch had been involved in building the 630km West Wall opposite the French Maginot Line. Dorsch’s efforts with constructing the Atlantic Wall by April 1944 were faced with an unwanted distraction thanks to Hitler. The Führer had got it in his head that German industry should be moved into six huge shelters to protect them from Allied bombers.

Hitler summoned Dorsch, who pointed out that the Todt Organisation only operated in the occupied territories and not the Reich. Nonetheless, Hitler authorised him to carry out the work and Dorsch promised to finish it by November 1944. Speer was furious that Hitler had sidelined him, especially when he had opposed concentrating their weapons industries, which would make them an even more tempting target for the enemy bombers.

While concrete was being poured all along Europe’s coastline to create impregnable bunkers and pillboxes, the intrigue in Berlin continued unabated. Dorsch told General Zeitzler, the Army Chief of Staff, that ‘Speer is incurably ill, and will therefore not be coming back.’13 Speer did not want Dorsch placed in charge of construction in Germany, arguing with Hitler that armaments and construction should be treated as a whole. He suggested that Dorsch’s former assistant, Willi Henne, be placed in charge in Germany, with both men reporting to Walter Brugmann, who headed the Todt Organisation in southern Russia. On 25 May 1944, Brugmann, like Todt, was killed in a plane crash. Speer was shaken by this because he suspected that an attempt had been made on his life while hospitalised.

Speer was aghast at the Führer’s micromanaging of the Atlantic Wall right down to designing the bunkers. ‘Hitler planned these defensive installations down to the smallest details,’ noted Speer. ‘He even designed the various types of bunkers and pillboxes.’ Although Hitler did this late at night, his sketches ‘were executed with precision’.14 Somewhat surprisingly, Hitler’s engineers used these plans with few changes.

A major drain on Hitler’s efforts to fortify the European coastline, ironically, was the British Channel Islands, which lay to the west of Normandy’s Cherbourg Peninsula. It amused Speer that although the Channel Islands were British territory, the French insisted in calling them ‘les îles normandes’.15 Hitler had occupied these in the summer of 1940 and subsequently decided to turn them into an impregnable fortress. He wanted up to 250 strongpoints built on each of the larger islands.16 Hitler largely took this stance as a matter of prestige, despite the islands being a strategic irrelevance. As a result they soaked up around 10 per cent of all the resources used to build the Atlantic Wall defences.17

The German 319th Infantry Division arrived on the islands in July 1941 and remained there until the very end of the war. It was supported by a weak panzer battalion equipped with French tanks.18 Slave labourers of the Todt Organisation were also sent to start building the numerous gun batteries and bunkers. The showpiece defence in the Channel Islands was the massive Mirus Battery, which consisted of four 305mm naval guns at Le Frie Baton on Guernsey. The emplacements took a year-and-a-half to complete. The weapons had become operational in April 1942 and dominated the Gulf of St Malo.

Most of the Channel Island construction workers were not redirected to the Atlantic Wall until late 1943. In May of that year there were 16,000 labourers on the islands, a number that had fallen by 50 per cent in November 1943.19 At this stage there were almost two division’s worth of troops tied up garrisoning them.20 By then the Germans were planning 232 concrete installations for Jersey alone; by June 1944, around 182 of these had been completed.21

Speer and Dorsch despaired of Hitler’s needless obsession with the Channel Islands. At the beginning of 1944, construction of the Atlantic Wall had involved the excavation of a quarter of a million cubic metres of soil and rock. At the same time, almost exactly the same amount was being dug out of the Channel Islands.22 To many it seemed like wasted effort when digging on the Atlantic Wall could have been doubled. Likewise, while the Atlantic Wall accounted for over six million cubic metres of concrete, the Channel Islands had used almost another half million cubic metres.23 The garrison had laid 114,000 mines, whereas 18,000 would have sufficed.24

By early June 1944, Speer was thoroughly alarmed by the needless consumption of so much concrete, ‘in barely two years of intensive building, seventeen million three hundred thousand cubic yards of concrete … In addition the armaments factories were deprived of 1.2 million metric tons of iron.’25 On top of this, other projects in France, including pens for Hitler’s U-boats, gobbled up another six million cubic yards. ‘All this expenditure and effort was sheer waste,’26 lamented Speer.

As far as Speer was concerned, the iron and steel would have been much better used building weapons and munitions. Certainly it could have resulted in more panzers, but these would have been sent to the Eastern Front, not the northern French coast. After Hitler’s defeats at Stalingrad and Kursk, the Russian Front had become a priority. Besides, the Atlantic Wall had initially been a good way to recycle obsolete captured weapons, plus concrete and slave labour was cheap.27 The problem was not so much with the fixed defences, but devising a strategy with which to complement them.

For the men stationed in Speer’s concrete edifices, they found them cold, damp and dark. Like the redundant French Maginot Line, the water seeped in and it was not long before mildew was growing on the walls. During the Phoney War of late 1939 and early 1940, France’s media issued photos of naked French soldiers luxuriating under UV lamps as if the Maginot Line was some sort of health spa. Anyone familiar with concrete fortifications knew that this was far from the truth. Soldiers were reduced to troglodytes when confined to their subterranean strongholds. Whilst the bunkers protected their occupants from shrapnel and glancing blows, direct hits were another matter, as was the weather.

German coastal defence units knew from training that the moment they discharged their weapons in the confines of the bunkers, their ears began to ring. Toxic fumes soon mounted, causing eyes to smart and throats to tickle. Some of the larger emplacements had extractor fans and ventilator systems, though these were not terribly reliable. In addition, the generators required to run them, the lights and the ammunition lifts also created fumes. The ventilator shafts inevitably created weak points in the thick concrete. If these were detected by the enemy, then it would not be long before something was hurtling down them. Not only was the noise and smell reflected by the concrete walls, so was the concussion from the guns, which caused dangerous compression of the eardrums and lungs. On some of the bigger guns, the crews wore naval-style flash hoods, but these did little good.

The only thing that alleviated the monotony of garrison duty was the seagulls. They were always attracted to where people were, because it meant rubbish and therefore rich pickings. For some soldiers, after a while the noise made by the birds became particularly bothersome. This was especially so in the mornings and afternoons.

3

A PLEASANT CHATEAU

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt began to enjoy a very civilised existence from March 1942 at his headquarters located in the picturesque Chateau Germain-en-Laye, overlooking the Seine. It did not take him long to settle in and he was soon indulging in regular long lunches at his favourite restaurant, the Côq Hardi in nearby Paris. His predecessor had taken advantage of the comforts of the Louis-Dreyfus mansion, but Rundstedt had opted for the Villa Félicien David on the basis that it was less likely to attract the attentions of Allied bombers.

Germain-en-Laye was dotted with dreary German command bunkers, and during the cold winter months, most of his staff preferred the warmth and other pleasures of the Paris hotels. This was not surprising, as the French winters were reportedly some of the worst, and conditions had been aggravated by fuel shortages.1 Another reason for Rundstedt’s officers wanting to be in Paris was that it gave them access to German female auxiliaries, known as ‘Grey Mice’ by the Parisians.2 For both parties, this offered the chance of a welcome diversion from occupation duties.3 However, Rundstedt did not feel safe in the French capital, especially after the Allies bombed the nearby Renault works.

He had been recalled from retirement for a second time by Hitler and appointed Commander-in-Chief West, which included the defence of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. As Rundstedt observed, this was an enormous task. ‘I had over 3,000 miles of coastline to cover from the Italian frontier in the south to the German frontier in the north, and only 60 divisions with which to defend it. Most of them were low-grade divisions and some of them were skeletons.’4

Rundstedt had only just taken up his new post when the British carried out a raid on the naval base at St Nazaire. Hitler, highly displeased that the dock was put out of action, ordered the building of yet more defences. The subsequent British and Canadian attack on Dieppe confirmed to Hitler the value of strong coastal fortifications. In contrast, as far as Rundstedt was concerned, Hitler’s Atlantic Wall was little more than a ‘Propaganda Wall’.5 Nonetheless, the Führer had also instructed, ‘Enemy forces which have landed must be destroyed or thrown back into the sea by immediate counterattack.’6

This was fine by Rundstedt, who had greater faith in conventional manoeuvre warfare than in relying on fixed defences. Rundstedt told a reporter in early 1944, ‘We Germans do not indulge in the tired Maginot spirit.’7 From experience, he had no confidence in fixed defences. It was under his command four years earlier that the German Army had shown how France’s Maginot Line was a hugely expensive white elephant. His greatest worry was that the Atlantic Wall would prove to be Hitler’s white elephant.

What he wanted was a large reserve capable of launching a massive counterattack against any Allied bridgehead. This approach, however, was to bring him to loggerheads with Field Marshal Rommel when the latter arrived as commander of Army Group B. Rommel would be of the opinion that all their forces should be kept as close to the beaches as possible. They were never to be reconciled on this matter.

Rundstedt was not keen on building fixed defences and had a good excuse not to do so. ‘The lack of labour troops and material was the main handicap in developing the defences,’ he said. ‘Most of the men of the Todt labour force, who had been previously available in France, had been drawn off to Germany to repair air raid damage there.’8 He also reasoned that the infantry divisions were too stretched to conduct the work themselves and that Allied air forces were impeding the supply of building materials. There was another reason for his lack of dynamism. The commander of Panzer Group West, General Geyr von Schweppenburg, said he was simply ‘incredibly idle’.9

There could be no hiding the slow pace of construction. During the summer of 1943, Rundstedt was instructed to prepare a situation report for Hitler. He submitted it on 30 October and it immediately exposed the shocking weakness of the ‘Propaganda Wall’. Rundstedt made no attempt to sugar-coat his findings. The Atlantic Wall had limited value, he said, ‘[A]s a rigid German defence was impossible there for any length of time, the outcome of the battle must depend on the use of a mobile and armoured reserve.’ Pointedly, he added that the fixed defences were ‘indispensable and valuable for battle as well as for propaganda’.10

Rundstedt explained that with the units available he could only cover, not defend the Atlantic Wall. Likewise, with the Atlantic Wall south of the Loire he could do little more than keep it under observation. In light of the Allies’ successful landings at Sicily and Salerno, Hitler was furious. There was much finger-pointing and excuses were made. The Führer cast about for someone to shake things up. It so happened that Rommel, who had lost out with the commander-in-chief job in Italy, was at a loose end.

When Rommel came on the scene he initially undermined Rundstedt’s authority because he answered directly to Hitler. The solution to this was to place Rommel in charge of Army Group B in northern France and General Blaskowitz in command of Army Group G in southern France, with both answering to von Rundstedt. Rommel’s staff later claimed that this setup was his solution, ‘as the only way of putting his ideas into execution quickly’.11 Rundstedt was dismissive of Rommel’s abilities, saying he was ‘not really qualified for high command’.12 He had this on the highest authority.

Before Rommel’s appointment, in order to smooth any ruffled feathers, Hitler sent Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the armed forces high command, to Paris to reassure Rundstedt that his position was secure. He also warned Rundstedt that the ‘Desert Fox’ could be difficult. ‘You’ll find Rommel a tiresome person because he doesn’t like taking orders from anyone,’ explained Keitel. ‘In Africa, of course, he very much ran his own show. But the Führer believes you are the one man to whom even a Rommel will show due respect.’13

This was not all, as Hitler did not consider Rommel potential commander-in-chief material, because he viewed him as a tactician, not a strategist. ‘Should the time ever come for your replacement because of failing health,’ Keitel added, ‘the Führer wishes you to know that only Field Marshal von Kluge is in the running to succeed you.’14 Such flattery convinced Rundstedt that he still had the patronage of Hitler and therefore the upper hand with Rommel. Some of the other generals in the West would come to consider Rommel as little more than Hitler’s ‘inspector’.15

Construction of the Atlantic Wall was a complete and largely unwanted diversion for the German Army. In the early part of 1944, German soldiers spent three-quarters of their time working on coastal defences, rather than training.16 This was a distraction for Rundstedt, who was presiding over a vast military empire. After the Eastern Front, his garrison in Western Europe accounted for the second largest concentration of German divisions. However, they were woefully inadequate.17 In total he could muster around 1.4 million men, but this included disparate Luftwaffe, Navy and SS personnel, all of whom answered to different masters.

Allied deception plans designed to convince Hitler they intended to invade the Pas de Calais or Norway further muddled Rundstedt’s job.18 ‘I expected an invasion in 1943, once we had occupied the whole of France,’19 he said – because his forces had become so stretched. Despite all his experience, Rundstedt had little knowledge of amphibious warfare or how to counter it. Crucially, he seemed unable to prioritise his defences along the Atlantic Wall. For example, despite the Allies’ fiasco at Dieppe, defence of the port in early 1944 was tying up the newly raised 84th Infantry Division, which could have been replaced by a lower-category static unit.

While Hitler needed to defend southern France against potential attack from the Mediterranean, deploying half a dozen new divisions in Brittany defied logic. Although the Allies did toy with the idea of striking Brittany, it was really too distant from England’s southern ports; it was also much too far west from Paris and Antwerp. In Brittany, the 77th Division at St Malo could have been replaced by a static garrison, while to the west, the 266th and 353rd Divisions were similarly wasted. Including the 84th Division, these four units alone represented a potential reserve corps of over 40,000 men.

Field Marshal von Rundstedt wanted to create a powerful reserve, and Nazi propaganda spoke grandly of ‘Rundstedt’s Central Army’.20 This did not exist, but Rundstedt planned to form such a force by abandoning southern France as far as the Loire. This would have freed up a dozen infantry divisions and up to four panzer divisions. Hitler, though, would not acquiesce to such a request. ‘I was not even allowed a free hand with the handful of armoured divisions that were available in France,’ grumbled Rundstedt. ‘I could not move one of them without Hitler’s permission.’21 He regularly despaired of the German leader, ‘Without Hitler’s consent I can’t even move my own sentry from my front door around to the back!’22

Nonetheless, Rundstedt was a shrewd soldier and in October 1943 he highlighted that Normandy, with its major port at Cherbourg, and Brittany with Brest, should not be ignored as possible points of attack by the Allies. Hitler had come round to his way of thinking by March 1944. Rundstedt, as late as mid-May 1944, was warning that the Allies would need to capture a port in order to maintain their forces once ashore. To this end he emphasised, ‘Le Havre and Cherbourg are primarily to be considered for this purpose; Boulogne and the Cotentin peninsula in the first phase would therefore seem very natural.’23

Rundstedt later added, ‘We thought that any landing in Normandy would be limited to an attempt to capture Cherbourg. The American landing near here was thus less unexpected than the British landing around Caen.’24 By the end of May 1944, he was assessing that the Allied air attacks on the vital Seine bridges ‘may indicate enemy designs on Normandy’.25 His forecasting of the date for an imminent invasion was not so good. On 4 June 1944, he noted, ‘As yet there is no immediate prospect of the invasion.’26 If the weather had not fouled up the Allies’ schedule, they would have invaded the following day.

Looking out of his rain-lashed chateau windows, Rundstedt grew tired of trying to second-guess his enemies. Unfortunately for him, he was not well served by his weathermen; Colonel Professor Walther Stoebe27 and Major Lettau saw no real danger of the Allies attempting a crossing of the Channel in early June. Lettau, the German deputy chief meteorologist in Paris, ‘advised his superiors that invasion after June 4 was impractical because of the stormy weather moving in from the Atlantic’.28 Stoebe, his boss, predicted Force 7 winds off Cherbourg and Force 6 in the Pas de Calais. The rain would be heavy, with the cloud lingering at 1,800ft.29