Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (20 page)

While we wait for all the replacement supplies and material that we have requested from Berlin, General Rommel has ordered our men to build even more defenses to keep Caen, and especially the airfield at nearby Carpiquet, in our hands. Orders have been issued to step up the anti-aircraft defenses around Caen as one way to accomplish this. Whatever reinforcements General Rommel could find have been ordered to defend the city and the airfield. But just as we were putting those replacement forces in place, and even though we could scarce afford to, we received new orders from Berlin telling us to divert some of our troops and tanks from around Caen in the east to the Cotentin Peninsula in the west to prevent the Americans around Carentan from taking that town. We use Carentan to station many of our reserves and der Führer ordered that not only was Carentan to be defended to the last man, a counter-attack against the Americans was to be launched as well.

From the very beginning of the invasion, General Rommel planned to keep the enemy as close to the sea as he could, especially to the west, in the Peninsula. General Rommel was intent on preventing them from breaking out of the bocage where they could then move through the French countryside and get to the open roads. For this reason, holding the town of Carentan was critical. Just a day after the invasion, he had ordered part of the 2
^nd
Parachute Rifle Corps in Brittany to move to Carentan. He ordered the 17
^th
SS Panzergrenadier Division along with part of another infantry division to the Cotentin Peninsula as well. We had to retain Carentan in order to keep the Americans from cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula and reaching Cherbourg.

The movement of our troops was slow and the first Panzers weren’t reported to have begun arriving until the evening of 11. June, after the battle was well underway. The enemy was using their crack paratroop division to capture Carentan but we gave them a hard time of it since Colonel von der Heydte’s own elite paratroops were more familiar with the area and they used the terrain to their best advantage. The general ordered his men to entrench themselves deeply in defensive positions in the hedgerows. This strategy delayed the capture of the town for some time, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for us to defeat the attack and hold the town for long.

General Rommel had requested air support and surprisingly enough, it was forthcoming. The night the Panzergrenadiers arrived, our Luftwaffe pilots dropped more than 15 tons of ammunition for the defense of Carentan. Fighting between the newly arrived Panzergrenadier Division (with help from our infantry and parachute divisions) and the American 101
^st
Airborne Division at Carentan was fierce and the battle ended up in hand to hand combat we were told, probably because an Airborne division generally doesn’t have any heavy weapons at its disposal. When American tank reinforcements started rolling in to assist their brethren, we thought we would be lucky to hold Carentan for another day or two, three at the most. The battle for Carentan lasted five days until the town finally fell to the enemy on 12. June. 44. From what I can see, two of the landing beaches are now completely out of our hands having fallen to the enemy.

We learned that by day’s end on 11. June, Colonel von der Heydte ordered the few remaining men he had left to leave Carentan to avoid being captured. This order was seen as a withdrawal by some other commanders and I heard that there was to be an official investigation of this matter since we all know that successful commanders never retreat. Nevertheless, I haven’t heard anything more about this, so perhaps this one time, someone decided that wasting an elite airborne infantry regiment fighting for one town maybe wasn’t worth the sacrifice since even a counter-attack on 12. June failed to retake Carentan. General von der Heydte notified us that he had tried to counter-attack the following morning but that he was finally forced to retreat to avoid an American encirclement.

Besides the two cities of Caen and Carentan, the small town of St. Lo is another important position for us to hold since it too sits on critical cross roads. We had to retain St. Lo in order to keep the enemy from reaching Cherbourg. General Rommel originally had one of our better reserve units stationed at St. Lo before the day of the invasion but as it turned out, they unfortunately had been moved closer to the coast during the War Game Exercises that General Dollman had scheduled.

Since St. Lo was now in desperate need of strong defensive protection, General Rommel was hoping to fortify the town with the Tiger tanks of the 2
^nd
SS (“Das Reich”) Panzer Division, one of the Panzer divisions commanded by Hitler and just released to Normandy. Tigers are probably the strongest tanks in our army. These tanks are massive and I’ve heard they are virtually impenetrable by enemy anti-tank weapons. But as these tanks were on their way to the peninsula from Toulouse, “Das Reich” reported experiencing grave problems in making its way westward.

It was expected their trip would take them three days but they didn’t reach the city outskirts until almost three weeks later having had to cross both the Loire and the Seine Rivers to get there. We waited and waited and only after seventeen days did they finally arrive. On its way, Das Reich ran into pockets of the French Underground Resistance Movement which it had been ordered to destroy. They dealt mercilessly with the saboteurs they discovered and hung, burned or shot hundreds of these rebels. This Resistance movement is becoming dangerous and destructive and I’ve heard it said that the roads and rail tracks they’ve destroyed so far cost us dearly in not being able to quickly move reinforcement troops to critical objectives. They must be taught the lesson that killing even one of our soldiers or destroying even one of our roads will result in punishment for the whole town. Yes, it is drastic but der Führer says we cannot let this go unchecked.

With the arrival of the 2
^nd
SS Panzer Division to St. Lo, the enemy began stepping up its bombing runs over the town. It too, like Caen, has been bombed to near destruction in an effort to destroy our defending troops. The hedgerows though, have once again proven their value to us as we have positioned our troops wisely under their cover. After the fall of Carentan and our ill fated offensive for Caen a week or so ago, we continue to defend our positions, attempting to counter-attack if and wherever possible. So far, we’ve been able to confine the enemy to fighting in the hedgerows and while their progress has been slow, it is becoming worrisome. St. Lo is still in our hands and I’m hopeful it will be until the last of the hedgerow trees is cleared which will never happen.

On 18. June, General Rommel came back from a meeting with der Führer elated because finally, General Rommel informed us, Herr Hitler realized that more arms and troops are needed for our defense of Normandy. We received the official report that der Führer has already released the 9
^th
and 10
^th
Panzer Divisions from the Eastern Front to shore up our strength in the west but as we followed their progress, we saw that after a lengthy trip by rail, at this point they were in Lorraine, moving towards us by road. With all this extra might brought to bear on the enemy, they might not be thrown back into the sea, but the French landscape would be littered with their dead. Hitler really is a genius. And maybe I will be home for Christmas.

As good as this news was, today’s is even better. On 19. June. 44 a storm with gale force winds blew in from the English Channel. It was a gift from God. He gave it to us for three full days. It meant that the enemy could not fly its planes and so we were safe from the bombs that generally fell as rain on us. General Rommel made good use of that time by ordering reinforcements to come while the skies were cloudy and stormy. Normally waiting to move only under cover of darkness, this time our tanks and soldiers made spectacular time in arriving at their objectives during the daylight hours. And as further proof that Gott ist mit uns, the storm wrecked the portable harbors which the enemy had installed on their beaches. They had foolishly tried to bring man made ports with them when they came into France on the Normandy beaches. Now that the storm has wrecked them and we still control all the permanent harbors and ports in France, the enemy’s supply problems will be worse than ours!

We still await the promised reinforcements and supplies because with them, I’m sure we will move from defending our territory to launching offensive actions to reclaim the territory that the enemy has taken so far. General Rommel was hoping beyond hope to launch a counter-offensive during this God-given storm. He tried repositioning the available Panzer divisions but he just didn’t have the strength or numbers to do so. General Rommel dejectedly could do nothing but strengthen his defensive positions around Caen and what remains of the Cotentin Peninsula. He ordered General Meyer’s 12
^th
SS Hitler Jugend Panzer Division to defend the northwest sector of Caen. As expected, we received yet another of der Führer’s now famous “Sieg oder Todt” orders commanding our men to fight or fall on the spot. I’m not sure if a total victory over the enemy was the objective of this order or if it was merely a way of buying time because I’ve just learned that we’ve begun deploying many of der Führer’s “secret weapons” over London.

These weapons are best described as rocket bombs and they need no pilot to steer them to their objective. Officially they are called V-1 (for “Vengeance”) rockets and we just began launching them in mid June. We have launch facilities in the Cotentin Peninsula and that is even a greater reason for us not to allow this territory to fall to the enemy. Even I can see the genius behind these rocket bombs and with thousands of these in our arsenal, the enemy will soon have no choice but to sue for peace. Our plan, as I understand it, was to send 80 or more per day to London, but for some reason less than half actually landed in England. I heard that many crash landed and while I don’t believe it for a second, I heard one actually hit the command bunker der Führer was using during his recent visit to Normandy. I do know he left France quite suddenly on 17. June, the day this was supposed to have occurred, but I believe he only left because matters more pressing than Normandy required his attention.

Right now, about two weeks after the enemy’s initial invasion, the only place we hold reserves in northern France is at Calais and obviously, those will not be moved no matter what as der Führer is convinced they are fully needed for the upcoming real invasion. We are still battling for control of Caen, trying desperately to keep our troops from being cut off from each other. Were we to lose control of Caen, we’d have gaps in our line and the enemy could attack these isolated pockets with impunity. If Caen were to be captured by the enemy, they could also use it as a springboard for their march towards Paris. They would be only days or weeks from Paris and then only weeks or months from the Fatherland. Holding Caen is therefore essential and our men fight for that city as if their Iives depend on it, which they do. And it’s not only their lives that depend on holding Caen, but the life of our army as well. So we fight to keep the city and the enemy continues to try to wrench it from our grasp. They think that by bombing Caen we will be dislodged and so, after some of the heaviest bombing we’ve seen so far, we are told that the city now resembles not a city but a stone quarry. General Rommel expects a second major offensive to be launched for the city soon and he has been conferring with his commanders in the field directing them on what they are to do.

We find ourselves fighting at two opposite fronts because as great a battle that has been raging for Caen in the east, an equally urgent battle has developed in the west. The enemy has been putting up a strong fight to capture the city of Cherbourg on the coast of the Cotentin Peninsula since it offers them not only a perfect harbor for bringing their supplies across the Channel but a port to transport their troops out of the bocage. They have no way to ship over their supplies except through the artificial ports they brought over with them in the initial invasion but after the terrific storm of last week, they were destroyed. Because we must keep them hemmed in the bocage and we must keep all supplies away from them, there has been bitter fighting going on for over a week now in this port city. Der Führer issued an order forbidding any retreat and ending with the statement that “The secure retention of Cherbourg is decisive.”

I received a letter from my mother today. I worry about her and about the rest of my family in Germany and welcome her letters.

20. Juni. 1944

Lieber Rudi:

I’ve missed hearing from you, Son. I hope you are well and that you stay safe. We’ve heard about an invasion in France and how der Führer has excitedly welcomed our enemies ashore. We’ve been told that since we can now finally fight them instead of just waiting to fight them, the war will be over that much sooner. Not that it is so bad here you understand. Der Führer protects us from all sorts of problems but I wish he could find just a bit more food for us. We’ve been told that the women in England are working in factories to make guns, planes and tanks and that the women in America are not only working in these factories, they are even playing baseball because all their men are working as soldiers and their people can’t survive without fun and games. While our men are serving the Fatherland, none of our women are being forced to work so you see it is not so bad for us. Der Führer has put the volunteers from all the countries we’ve conquered to work for the Third Reich. The only place our women can work is in the military as clerks and secretaries because in this way, they contribute to the cause by freeing up men who could otherwise be sent to battle the enemy. But as we are constantly reminded, the real job of all German women is to have babies and raise them up to be good Aryan children who will serve the Reich when their time comes. I’m not too sure how this is going to be possible since almost all of our men are off fighting but I guess even soldiers get leave sometimes.

I shouldn’t be writing such things to my son. I only write to tell you I miss you and cannot wait for you to return home. There will be lots of Hitler Mädchens for you to choose from when that day comes.