CHAPTER FIVE
By the end of D Day it was clear that the landings had succeeded. Even at Omaha, where the Americans had fought desparately all day to get off the beach, the foothold now seemed secure. Phase 1 of the Battle of Normandy had worked. Phase 2, the expansion of the beach-head and the build-up of forces ready for Phase 3, the break-out, must now begin. Between 6 June and 25 July, when General Bradley’s 1st (US) Army broke-out in the west near St Lô, lay seven weeks of hard and bitter fighting.
Early on 8 June General Montgomery landed in Normandy, established his Headquarters at the Château de Creullet just north of Creully, and took stock. Caen, which had been a D Day objective of 3 British Division, was still firmly in German hands. It was clear from the actions of 21 Panzer Division that they did not intend to give it up without a stiff fight. That evening Montgomery wrote to General Simpson at the War Office in London:
‘The Germans are doing everything they can to hold on to Caen. I have decided not to have a lot of casualties butting up against the place. I have ordered 2nd Army to keep up a good pressure and to make its main effort towards Villers-Bocage and Evrecy, and thence south-east towards Falaise.’
General Montgomery landing in Normandy 8 June 1944.
He therefore decided to try to outflank Caen and secure the high, open ground astride the Caen-Falaise road to the south. If this could be achieved it would isolate the Germans defending Caen, which should then fall with out the need for a costly street-battle. There would be two additional advantages. First, it would allow room for General Dempsey’s 2nd (British) Army to loose its armoured divisions into country that was far more suitable for tanks than the close country of the ‘bocage’, west of Caen. Secondly, it would give much needed space for the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force to deploy its fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons on French soil, thereby ensuring far closer mastery of the airspace over the Normandy battlefield.
In outline Montgomery and Dempsey planned a pincer movement round Caen, using three of Montgomery’s favourite divisions - all veterans of his 8th Army victories in the North African desert. On the right 7 Armoured and 50 Infantry Divisions would advance on Tilly-sur-Seulles and Villers-Bocage. On the left 51 (Highland) Division would move into 6 Airborne Division’s bridgehead east of the Orne and then attack south, via Cagny, towards the high ground and Falaise. When success from these two arms of the pincer seemed likely 1 Airborne Division would be flown from England and dropped deep beyond Caen, probably in the area of Mt Pincon, south of Villers-Bocage. To Montgomery’s intense rage, this part of the plan was vetoed by Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory, whose gloom about the chances of success matched his earlier, misplaced pessimism over the planned use of the airborne divisions on D Day. The concept was clear; its success depended in no small part upon the speed with which the Germans could bring their panzer divisions into the Normandy battle.
German troops move up through the ruins of Caen.
The Germans got off to a bad start on D Day. They had been taken completely by surprise when a message calling the French Resistance to arms at midnight was intercepted and decoded just after 2100 on 5 June. By 2230 Army Groups B and G and the Third Air Fleet had been put on alert. But many of the senior commanders who might have been able to influence the battle in the early stages in Normandy were away from their headquarters that night. Rommel, on a visit to Hitler to argue the case for strengthening the defences of the West Wall, had taken a day off to visit Ulm in Southern Germany for his wife’s birthday on, of all days, Tuesday 6 June. General Dollmann, commander of 7th Army, had ordered General Meindl of 2nd Parachute Corps to conduct a Study Day on 6 June for all available senior commanders at his headquarters at Rennes in Brittany; the subject, ironically, - ‘defence against the airborne and seaborne invasion of the Cotentin peninsula’. Dollmann himself and many of the Normandy divisional commanders were in Rennes. General Marcks, whose 84 Corps was responsible for the defence of Normandy and Brittany, had used the excuse of his birthday to be absent, while General Dietrich of 1 SS Panzer Corps was in Brussels.
There were three German panzer divisions in Normandy on D Day - 21, 12 SS and Panzer Lehr. Although splendid fighting formations, the command structure for tasking them was most unsatisfactory. Disagreement, between Field Marshal von Rundstedt and General Geyr von Schweppenberg on the one hand and Field Marshal Rommel on the other, about the use of these divisions, had led to the worst sort of command compromise. Rommel had insisted that the tanks should be under his command and deployed well forward where they could sweep the invasion forces back into the sea before the Allies could establish a firm footing. Von Schweppenberg, with von Rundstedt’s backing, held the view that it would be foolish to commit the tanks before the main invasion point had been clearly identified. But from his desert experience Rommel knew that, with the Allies likely to have air supremacy, any formations moving forward towards the coast would be delayed and seriously written down by very heavy air attack. It is likely, however, that there was more to the disagreement than just a difference in tactical philosophy. By this stage in the war all those who now held senior commands were strong personalities; none would welcome handing over elements of his command to another. Von Schweppenberg’s Panzer Group West, though deployed in Normandy, was not under the nominated command of Rommel. But von Schweppenberg himself had no operational command respons-ibility. He was responsible only for the administration and training of the panzer divisions. However, he hoped and expected that once hostilities broke out he would be given operational command of them. Conversely, Rommel insisted that once the invasion had been identified the three panzer divisions should immediately pass to his command; without their instant avail-ability he could not hope to defeat the invasion quickly. Von Schweppenberg, whose aristocratic background differed so much from that of Rommel, must have felt that to lose his panzer divisions at the moment that they became the key to victory or defeat was more than he could accept without a hard fight to retain them.
Colonel Meyer (‘Panzer-Meyer’) [left] Briefing Field Marshal von Rundstedt. Between is General Fritz Witt, Commander of 12 SS Panzer Division (Hitler Jugend) who was killed 14 June.
Von Rundstedt, a Prussian of the old school, and, at 69, some sixteen years older than his fellow Field Marshal, cannot have found Rommel an easy subordinate. Rommel’s ambition, charisma, restless energy, coupled with his tactical flair and courage (he had won the Pour Le Mérite - the German equivalent of the Victoria Cross - as a junior officer in World War I) and his personal standing with and access to Hitler behind von Rundstedt’s back, must have been very difficult for the elderly Field Marshal to accept. He could more easily identify with the conventional von Schweppenberg, who did not hide his dislike and jealousy of Rommel. The argument over command of the panzer divisions was taken to Hitler, whose compromise provided the worst possible solution. 21 Panzer Division would come under Rommel’s command; the others were not to be deployed without Hitler’s personal authority. And on the early morning of 6 June 1944 no-one was brave enough to disturb the Führer’s sleep to seek their rapid deployment. By late afternoon, when authority was given, it was already too late; any chance of successfully opposing the invasion had gone. Only 21 Panzer Division was released for operations in the Caen area on D Day - and it was in the Caen area that the British achievements fell well short of expectations.
Although Rommel was undoubtedly tactically correct in his argument, it is highly unlikely that even if he had had command of the panzer divisions he could have thrown them into the battle for the beaches early enough to affect the outcome. Such was the Allied air forces mastery of the skies on the morning of D Day that 12 SS and Panzer Lehr Divisions would never have been able to get forward in daylight unimpeded. And by nightfall on D Day it would have been too late.
On 6 June 12 SS Panzer Division (Hitlerjugend), which was to acquire a fearsome reputation during the Normandy campaign, was stationed near Lisieux, about 25 miles east of Caen. At 1700 General Fritz Witt was ordered to move the division to the area of Carpiquet, just west of Caen, and there to mount counterattacks against the Allied landings. The division moved overnight. By dawn on 7 June the leading elements, 25 SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment commanded by Colonel Kurt Meyer (well-known as Panzer-Meyer he was to take command of 12 SS when Witt was killed on 14 June) had arrived in the area, to be joined later that morning by a battalion of MkIV tanks from 12 SS Panzer Regiment. Throughout the rest of the day they attacked the Canadians advancing on Carpiquet, capturing Franqueville, Authie and Buron. Next morning more of the division arrived and was quickly thrown into the battle. 26 SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment occupied Audrieu, Cristot and Bruay. But between these two Panzer Grenadier regiments, 3 Canadian Division held a strong position based on Puttot-en-Bessin, Norrey-en-Bessin, Bretteville-L’Orgueilleuse and Rots. Late on 8 June the Germans attacked again. Panzer-Meyer, as ever at the head of his regiment, broke through Rots and managed to penetrate the Canadian position at Bretteville, but the defence held. After heavy fighting and many casualties on both sides, Meyer was forced to withdraw to the high ground east of Rots. Bretteville and Norrey remained firmly in Canadian hands.
By now the leading elements of General Fritz Bayerlein’s Panzer Lehr Division, which had been ordered forward from its location near Chartres, was arriving in the area of Tilly-sur-Seulles. It, too, was quickly sucked into the battle. Early next morning, 9 June, Bayerlein led Panzer Lehr in a left-hook attack on Bayeux. By mid morning they had reached Ellon, just 3 miles south of the town, and Major Prince William von Schönberg-Waidenberg, commanding the tanks of 2nd Battalion Panzer Lehr Regiment, felt confident that, despite heavy Allied artillery and naval gunfire, he could easily and quickly secure the city. He was not pleased, therefore, to be ordered to pull back to Tilly. British pressure in the Audrieu and St Pierre area had threatened to drive a dangerous wedge between 12 SS and Panzer Lehr.
On the same morning Geyr von Schweppenberg, who had arrived from Paris and whose Panzer Group West had just been given operational responsibility for the Caen sector, visited the headquarters of 12 SS Division in the Abbaye d’Ardenne, just west of Caen. He was determined to co-ordinate the operations of the three panzer divisions in a concerted tank offensive aimed at driving 2nd British Army into the sea.
In the east 21 Panzer was to counter-attack the British advancing on Caen. On their left 12 SS would drive north-west into the Canadians, while Panzer Lehr would attack the British at Bayeux. But by coincidence the British were, at the same time, planning to launch their own pincer attacks. The result was several days of confused but fierce fighting. In the east, astride the River Orne and Caen Canal, 21 Panzer’s attack encountered 3 and 51 (Highland) Divisions trying to advance south. In the centre 12 SS met the Canadians along the Caen-Bayeux road. Further west and just north of Tilly-sur-Seulles, Panzer Lehr found itself faced by the newly arrived 7 Armoured Division, which had been ordered to advance from the Bayeux area, take Tilly and press on to Villers-Bocage. Von Schweppenberg’s plan for a concerted attack never materialised. Indeed all attempts by the Germans to co-ordinate their tanks into a major offensive failed. Constant pressure by the British and Canadians around Caen throughout June and July forced them into using their panzer divisions piecemeal, to bolster a defence which, like a rusty bucket, seemed to spring a new leak whenever the previous one had been plugged.
Slowly and remorselessly the British and Canadians extended their beach-head, disputed every yard of the way by dogged German defence. Casualties on both sides were high. And things were made even harder for the Germans when on 11 June, pinpointed by Ultra intercept, von Schweppenberg’s Headquarters was bombed, most of his staff killed or wounded (von Schweppenberg himself was among the wounded) and much of the equipment necessary to effect command of the battlefield was destroyed. Little attempt had been made to conceal the headquarters from the air - clearly von Schweppenberg had still disregarded Rommel’s advice about the effect of Allied air supremacy. Next day, 12 June, General Marcks, the impressive and much respected commander of 84 Corps, responsible for the defence of Normandy and Brittany, was killed in an air attack. It was hardly surprising that the German command structure faltered at this crucial period, and it was to be a further two vital weeks before Panzer Group West was to be a fully effective command headquarters again.
D Day was followed by ten days of intense and bitter fighting in which neither side was able to gain other than local, and often short-lived, advantage. There are times when the plans and aspirations of generals count for little. They must just sit back and watch as the soldiers of both sides slug it out, toe to toe, on the ground. To the private soldier, whose horizon probably extends no further than the next hedge which he must either capture or defend, the neatly-drawn Objectives and Phase Lines on the general’s map would seem almost laughably irrelevent, if he knew of their existence. Battles are won and lost not, as history sometimes suggests, by generals, but by the those who must try to convert the general’s plans into action. There is nothing clinical or exact in war; no battle goes according to plan. As Field Marshal Earl Wavell said in a wartime broadcast.
‘War is a muddle; it is bound to be. There are so many incalculable accidents in the uncertain business - a turn in the weather which could not be foreseen; a message gone astray; a leader struck down at a critical moment. It is very rarely that even the best-laid plans go smoothly. The lesson is to realise this, and to provide, as far as possible, against the uncertainties of war - and not be surprised when they happen.’
That seems an admirable quotation for anyone who seeks to visit the Normandy battlefields and unearth the reality of what happened to those who fought there.