I
missed my deadline for last Friday, so I pushed it to this Friday. Sorry for the delay.
Back
in college, my buddy Phil and I were helping one of his suitemates – we’ll call
him Jim – study for a history exam.
Unlike Phil and I, Jim grew up in the US, far from the beaches of
Normandy. Apparently his high school
education somewhere in Virginia failed to include a discussion of World War II,
so this important topic came to a complete surprise to him. Of course, after getting over our shock and
horror when Jim gave us a blank stare of zero recognition of “D-Day”, we filled
him in. My own source for this blog is The Desert Fox in Normandy: Rommel’s Defense
of Fortress Europe, by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. I had read it earlier and simply reviewed
parts of it here, but it can be considered a fairly detailed account of the
D-Day operation, including the subsequent battles in Normandy until the Allies
finally broke through in late July 1944.
June
1944. World War II was in full
swing. The Nazis still occupied most of
Europe, and no Allied or Soviet army had yet to set foot on German
territory. By most of Europe, I mean:
Greater Germany, which included Austria, part of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland),
and parts of Western Poland (Silesia); Denmark; Norway; Holland; Belgium;
France; most of Italy; Poland; Czechoslovakia; Hungary; Yugoslavia; Greece;
Romania; Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia; and much of Ukraine. The Allies were pushing up the Italian boot,
and in the East, Stalin had taken the initiative after the battle of Kursk in
August 1943 and was gradually pushing the Germans westward. However, Soviet offensives came in bits and
spurts as they had to re-establish supply lines, which gave the Germans time to
regroup and counter-attack. While the
Germans had permanently lost the offensive initiative on all fronts, they were
by no means out. Germany itself was not
penetrated (!) until early 1945.
The Germans knew the Allies would be
landing somewhere in France, probably at Calais – the closest point to England
– but also knew that since that was too obvious, it could be anywhere
else. In fact, the invasion occurred on
the north coast, but much further west at Normandy. There is some debate about how delusional
Hitler was at this point as to whether or not the war could be won. The general consensus among the Germans –
including their top general, Erwin Rommel - was that their only hope was to
blunt the Allied invasion and throw them into the sea; another invasion would
take at least a year to launch, giving the Germans time to re-deploy their
Western front armies eastward and hold Stalin to a stalemate. However, if the Allied invasion did succeed,
it was definitely game over for Adolf & Co.
The Allies divided the invasion
beaches into five zones, from west to east:
Utah, Omaha (#18!) (US targets), and Gold, Juno and Sword
(British/Canadian). After the Allied weather
wizards initially blocked off June Sixth from “good time”, they
reconsidered and told the US commander, Eisenhower, that the Sixth was
OK. Fortunately for us, the German
weather wizards still thought the Sixth was no good. Weather patterns generally move from west to east, meaning whatever weather northern France would have would be coming from the west. With the US and Canada on the Allied side, the Allies had weather stations further west than the Germans and thus more accurate information on what would be coming. Rommel took off on vacation because no Allied
invasion was expected at that particular time - due to the Germans' less accurate information.
Allies. Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight
David “Ike” Eisenhower, in charge of (quoting Mitcham), 45 full-strength
divisions, all of which were armored, mechanized, airborne or mobile; 17,000
aircraft against the Germans’ 160 (“Luftwaffe?
What Luftwaffe?” – in fact, all but two of the 160 had been transferred
to Metz, well out of range of Normandy), and overwhelming naval superiority, as
the German Navy decided that the weather was too rough to invade and stayed in
port. The Allies had the aforementioned superior intelligence and
a unified chain of command. The odds
were stacked heavily against the Germans.
Germans. The commander of the Western Front forces
was Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, a seriously old-school guy who didn’t
understand modern warfare. Somewhat
under him was Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the Germans’ best commander. Unlike Rundstedt, Rommel did understand
mobile warfare – he’d spent two years dancing across the deserts of North
Africa (including Benghazi) somehow competitive with the British Eighth Army with
just two panzer divisions – AND he also understood Allied mobile warfare
strategy. Plus he understood that
unlike the Russians, who thought planes were nice inventions but no substitute
for a tidal wave of fresh meat, in the form of masses of peasants and workers
equipped with PPSH submachine guns, riding T34s, the Allies were deadly in the art
of fighter-bombers and fully understood how to use their massive air
superiority. Why kill Private Ryan, who
might grow up to invent a better light bulb, when you can send a “Jabo” (German
slang for fighter-bomber) to get the job done quicker?
The Germans’ 58 combat divisions
were spread out across France because they didn’t know where the invasion would
occur. Many divisions were second tier or first tier understrength recuperating from battles against Ivan. Logistics were a nightmare because many of
these divisions were equipped with a mishmash of mutually incompatible captured
and obsolete equipment. Tanks were short
of spare parts and fuel, and France had no Autobahn, meaning beautiful,
tree-lined two lane roads everywhere with no bypasses around villages, towns,
or cities. Transport was slow and
generally had to take place at night to avoid the ever-present threat of Allied
fighter-bombers, and the rails were subject to sabotage by the Resistance or
poor service by the SNCF.
Nevertheless, the Germans did manage
to get the Second SS (Das Reich) and Twelfth SS (Hitlerjugend) Panzer
Divisions to Normandy. In early July,
while Cherbourg had been taken (late June – although due to German sabotage, it
wasn’t usable until a month later), Caen was still in German hands, holding off
the Brits and Canadians and preventing a breakthrough.
June 6. The day in question. Resistance was fairly light on Gold, Sword,
and Juno beaches which were taken by British and Canadian forces facing the 716 Division. German resistance was stiffest
on Omaha Beach, where a veteran
Wehrmacht unit, the 352 Infantry Division, had been transferred
without Allied knowledge, and the preparatory barrage of bombing fell inland a
few miles and completely avoided the Germans: thus the US First Infantry Division faced an intact enemy division it had no idea to expect. Of 48 Sherman tanks devoted to the beach, 32
were landed too far out and sunk immediately, and 8 were destroyed by anti-tank
fire.
The tide worked both ways. Rommel had assumed the Allies would land at
high tide, to minimize the amount of beach the soldiers would have to cover
under fire. His obstacles were designed
to destroy landing craft at high tide, but would be useless at low tide. The low tide landing, as the Allies did it,
avoided the beach obstacles but left the soldiers more vulnerable to machine
gun fire for another 300 feet of exposed beach.
It was naval gunfire that took out
the German guns, plus the 352 began running out of ammunition and
could not be resupplied (without ammo trucks being attacked by Allied
fighter-bombers); this allowed the soldiers to finally cross the beach. Thus
despite heavy casualties, US forces were able to establish a beachhead by the
end of the day – though they still had no heavy weapons and the beach was not
completely secure, alone of the 5 beaches, as by nightfall the 352 was still a going concern.
The British and Canadians on Sword,
Juno and Gold found themselves up against the 716 Division. Part of the division were former Russian POWs
who simply ran away (which the Germans predicted would happen: “we are asking
rather a lot if we expect Russians to fight in France for Germany against
Americans.”) The Germans of the 716,
veterans of the Eastern Front, would hang back and hide, then attack the flanks
and rears of the British and Canadian forces.
Thus while the beaches themselves were taken fairly easily, German
resistance stiffened substantially inland.
British General Montgomery, who had been counting on a 32 mile
penetration by June 7, had advanced well short of that – and would not take
Caen until weeks later.
After that, the Allies put together
their fancy, clever, artificial harbor and began moving more troops, tanks, and
supplies ashore, though a big storm screwed this up somewhat on June 19. Initial attempts to break out were hindered
by the peculiar “hedgerow” country of Normandy, a terrain which favored the
defense, particularly if the defenders were crafty, veteran SS tankers in
Tigers and Panthers, tanks which outmatched the Shermans and Churchills the
Allies were using.
Aftermath. By the end of July, however, the Allied
onslaught – particularly a viciously nasty carpet bombing of the German forces
– blew through the German lines and the breakthrough occurred. Moreover, at the same time, Stalin had
launched another offensive in the East, which likewise broke through Army Group
Center and led the way into Poland.
Factor in also July 20, 1944, when Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s
assassination attempt on Hitler failed (as seen in the movie “Valkyrie”), but
succeeded at shaking up not only the Fuhrer but also the German high command. Rommel was implicated in the plot and by
October 1944 forced to commit suicide.
Paris was liberated in August 1944,
Belgium entered in December, the Battle of the Bulge in late December, but by
January 1945 the game was back on. The
Rhine was crossed in March 1945. Back
east, Auschwitz (in western Poland) was liberated in January 1945, and by April
1945 the Russians were in Berlin.
As
you might imagine, there have been movies made, and the top two are the
following:
The Longest Day (1962). Up until “Saving Private Ryan”, this was the
definitive version. In black &
white, and an all-star cast (John Wayne, Sean Connery, Robert Mitchum, Henry
Fonda, Richard Burton, etc.), even featuring considerable screen time of the
German perspective. It’s almost 3 hours
long, but it covers the bases fairly well.
It’s not nearly as high octane intense as “Saving Private Ryan”, but
it’s a good start. It was nominated for
5 Oscars and won 2.
Saving Private Ryan (1998). Now the gold standard, although in terms of
scope “The Longest Day” still covers more of the battle: this film gives us Captain Miller (Tom Hanks)
and his squad’s experience on Omaha Beach on the first day, rapidly followed by
their Quest to Seek Private Ryan, a 101 Airborne trooper who is
the last of his 5 brothers left alive.
If you combine this with “Band of Brothers”, which tracks a company of
the 101 Airborne from training in England all the way to the end
of the war in Berchtesgaden in 1945, you’ll have more of the airborne element
of D-Day, but even there you’re missing the British experience which “Longest
Day” still gives you. [If I were British or Canadian I’d be pissed that “SPR”
implies that the Yanks did all the hard work in Normandy.] Better to say that “SPR” complements “LD”
rather than replaces it. ** Note that
the characters in “Saving Private Ryan” are fictitious, while those in “Band of
Brothers” are based on real veterans.
I’ve never been in combat, much less
participated on Omaha Beach decades before I was born. But my impression is that this movie captures
more of the intense insanity and chaos of combat, more so than “The Longest
Day”, where it seemed like the Germans were just a minor obstacle to overcome. Spielberg makes you wonder how the hell ANYONE
survived Omaha Beach, much less took it.
Even after having seen the movie several times already and know who will
live and who will die, the combat sequences still make my heart pound faster. If “Shakespeare In Love” had come out any
other year, this movie would have completely blitzed the Oscars in 1999 – and
won the Best Picture award.
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