Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (23 page)

We are still in the Cotton Peninsula but Cherbourg is now ours! I hope the port that caused all of this fighting is going to be of use to us. Looking at it right now, I’d say it’s going to take a whole lot of builders a whole lot of time to put that thing back into service. So with that battle won and that victory gained, we’re now ordered to head south. It’s getting dark now and it always makes me uneasy. I go to sleep wondering if the Krauts will slip inside our perimeter. Will they bayonet us in our sleep? I am exhausted but sleep is hard to come by when sheer nerves take over. What I generally do is I finally resolve myself to the fact that whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. Then I figure I need sleep to think about how best to avoid the bad things that could happen and that maybe gets me a couple of hours shut eye. But then, Frank it’s amazing what daylight does to the thoughts that haunt you in the dark because then I’m raring to go and fight the Hun. (I heard some other guys calling the Krauts “the Hun” and I thought that was pretty funny. Did you ever hear that before?)

I still don’t know what I’m doing or what’s going to happen, but I’m glad I’m here to fight that rat Hitler. The Krauts must really like him because they fight tooth and nail in every battle I’ve seen. They hide behind the fields with all the darn trees. These are still all around us and I am starting to think that the whole stinking country of France is walled off in sections divided by these damn (sorry, darn) trees. There doesn’t seem to be as many Krauts hiding in them now as there was before, but they still give me the shakes and there’s still plenty more of them than what I want to see. I’ll write again soon. Take her easy, Frankie.

Harold

The new American offensive to take St. Lo began on July 4, 1944 but the goddamn hedgerows stalled us every step of the way. We figured we had the Krauts outnumbered at something like 4:1 out here so we hoped this superiority just might carry the day. Then, when we found out by reading certain people’s mail that quite a few of the Hun’s original leaders had been removed for one reason or another, we expected that the battle to take St. Lo might not be so horrible after all. Jesus, were we wrong. Brad threw more than a couple of battalions into the fight but the Krauts rose to ferocious heights once again. They kept our men tied down so that after all was said and done, our battered guys in one battalion were able to advance only four miles in three days. On just the first day of that advance, they lost 600 men. Then the US 90
^th
Infantry advanced four miles but it took them five days and cost them more than 2,000 men. We found out later that Commander von der Heydte’s Parachute Divisions, parts of the Kraut 352
^nd
Infantry and let’s not forget the 2
^nd
SS Panzer Division, were who we were up against. Those sons of bitches are ungoddamnbelievable. By the next day, July 5
^th
, another mile was gained but another 750 men became casualties. In large part, this was due to rain which allowed for no air cover. After four days, another battalion had advanced less than two and a half miles. Monty could offer no protection of Brad’s troops, bogged down as he was in Caen. By July 8
^th
, the last of our troops had stalled and our offensive to take St. Lo ended with the St. Losians, well what was left of them anyway, still listening to German instead of English.

The Kraut troops made it slow going through the bocage for General Bradley’s army all through the rest of July. Monty kept harping to Ike that Bradley should be attacking in a single knife like thrust or some such shit. Maybe Brad watched how unsuccessful Monty’s knife like thrusts were in getting him Caen the last three times and decided that this strategy obviously wasn’t working too well for Monty, so why should he adopt it. But General Bradley is a tenacious old bird and he didn’t give up. He kept fighting those extra Kraut divisions Monty said he pinned down at Caen and redoubled his efforts to take St. Lo.

Since Monty was the land Commander of the Allied ground troops, I will give him credit for one bit of planning done well. When offensive plans were discussed (and when he wasn’t taking credit for thinking them up himself), he planned to the best he could to have two operations proceed in different areas almost simultaneously to avoid having the Krauts move all their troops from one area to overwhelm the second. In this way, he forced that bastard Rommel to divide his troops to fight two Allied operations giving one or both of them a better chance of succeeding. While his contention that he pinned down German Panzers to alleviate the pressure on Brad’s First Army doesn’t tell you the whole story, he did keep them hopping from one place to another. We just had to be wary of any attempt Rommel might be making to encircle us while we’re thinking we’re going to encircle him. Since Monty can’t protect Brad while he’s still dancing around trying to take Caen, I know Brad is watching Caen for any suspicious behavior (say maybe success at breaking out?) like a private dick watches a bum in a jewelry store. What he sure as hell doesn’t need is even more “pinned down” German units making their way west.

General Bradley ordered his US First Army to continue fighting all across Rommel’s line to prevent that goddamn Kraut from pulling men out to protect St. Lo. Finally, the Allied strategy (ok, Monty’s strategy) of shifting the center of gravity seemed to be paying off (except at Caen where more than three fanatical Panzer divisions and one infantry division were defending the city like there was no tomorrow). Rainy weather continued to keep the sky clear of Allied aircraft which was a monumental heart break. Bradley committed the 3
^rd
Armored Division into the Vire Bridgehead north of St. Lo but we didn’t hold it strongly enough and this also turned into a debacle. Communications and co-ordination failed and we even got word that one of the field officers got sick and had to be removed from action. We were having a very tough time getting food and ammunition through our lines and we soon found out that the Hun was quick to take advantage of this situation.

We had to keep up the momentum because we all knew that if those bastards could slow down our advance, they could wait for reinforcements, which is exactly what we didn’t want to happen. But since it took us so long to advance, Jerry reinforcements did arrive and they pushed us back two miles on July 11
^th
. It wasn’t until July 12
^th
that we had any hope of taking Saint Lo. It took General Middleton’s men until then to take the closest town about three miles away but once they got that town, St. Lo was all but ours. By then, the rain finally stopped and our fighter bombers were able to blast the German line. Our bombs began falling and they destroyed everything they touched. Brad’s plan called for the infantry to break in through the gaps and to take care of what wasn’t obliterated by the bombs. Now
we
had taken the high ground which the Krauts had been holding at all costs.

We heard that as unbelievable as it seemed, there were still Jerries alive and fighting in that dinky town. We had the artillery and the tanks, though, and most of theirs had been wiped out. We had more troops too and with their blood up, our guys broke through the hedgerows that the tanks had opened up. In these close quarters, the fighting became brutal. Reports were that it was hand to hand, with bayonets and even rifle butts. We cleaned out what needed cleaning out and then swung around to catch the Krauts in their rear. By July 13
^th
, Rommel’s left flank was finally weakened but it cost us more than 10,000 killed, wounded or missing after a week and a half of heavy fighting. After Action reports showed that we outnumbered the Germans 10 to 1 in infantry, 50 to1 in artillery and by an infinite number in the air. Just as in North Africa, Rommel got the most out of his men but it wasn’t enough to carry the day. St. Lo still wasn’t completely in our hands, but it was goddamn close. We were hoping Monty was going to make as much progress with his new plan to take Caen.

Now that it is mid July, Monty STILL has not captured Caen. His last attempt was as unsuccessful as the other two so obviously, it was time for a brave new plan. We were all hoping that this time, whatever the plan, it would destroy the Krauts around Caen once and for all. Meetings have been held and Lieutenant General
Sir
Miles Dempsey of the British Army (he was just knighted by King George himself in some Norman field) was tasked with either shitting or getting off the pot. We’ve all been trapped in small gains and we’re sick to death of it. The time has come for some real progress so back at the drawing board, General Dempsey (of course with Monty’s “help”) thought up another plan called Operation “Goodwood”. Goodwood was Montgomery’s fourth attempt to take Caen and finally get to the Falaise plain. Fourth time’s a charm and all that rot, wot?

Dempsey thought that if he had our Army Air Corps bomb the daylights out of Caen (again), Hitler couldn’t help but think something was up and this city was a critical element of whatever that might be. Making Hitler think it was an important piece of our strategic puzzle, General Dempsey planned on Hitler keeping his troops there which was a good thing. Dempsey also thought that if we then moved our troops through the holes made in the German defensive line caused by the bombing, we might actually break through to the east towards the high ground of Falaise which is where Monty wanted our front by DDay + 20, just short of a month ago. Controlling the hub of Falaise would allow us to control the spokes of the terrain around the Orne River and would allow us to build much needed air fields. And every extra day we spent fighting to get there cost us more casualties.

Monty finally told Ike that he had a plan not only to pin down Rommel’s troops in the east to make things easier for Brad in the west, he added that he intended to cross the Orne River at Caen, attack southward and end up in Falaise. Ike almost crapped his tights he was so thrilled that there would finally be some movement out of where we had been stalled since day one. This time Monty envisioned a major armoured assault which, if all went according to plan, would “write down,” whatever the hell that means, the strength of the German Panzers thereby allowing his troops to finally take the city and breakout from this area. It was, in other words, a plan of attrition between tanks. The big problem was, we had received reports saying that the British had used up all their reinforcements for the year and there were essentially no more British men who could be called up to serve. At this stage of the war attrition, even between tanks, was an odd strategy it seemed to me, but HBS (“His Ballsy Self”) Montgomery was certain that this time he was spot on, whatever the hell that means.

It was launched on Rommel’s right flank at zero dark thirty on July 18th but the big push came on July 19th. The first attack called for tons of bombs to be dropped which, according to the plan, would pin down the German reserves. The second attack was to take Caen by armor and infantry through the bombed out gaps which would then allow for a breakout. Three armored divisions were to attack from the south heading northeast while the Canadians were to attack into the gaps and secure the flanks. The Canadians were then to take out whatever German forces they found left standing. I say “left standing” because this plan called for the greatest concentration of aerial bombing since the war began, overpowering even the tonnage dropped just a couple of weeks ago in
Operation Charnwood
. Good thing we have the ladies at home manning the factories or we very likely would have run out of ammunition and bombs by now.

The plan also called for the British Armored Corps to penetrate the holes in Rommel’s line which would then lead the Brits into open tank country. Unfortunately, the Germans saw through these War College 101 tactics because, let’s face it, they were pretty obvious. According to what we could gather from the prisoners we took, Rommel brought up the 1
^st
SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler” and his 272
^nd
Infantry. Montgomery thought the SS Panzer division was fully committed elsewhere but obviously it was alive and well around Caen. The bombings didn’t disable the Panzers and they roared to life with plenty of energy to devastate the Tommies trying once again to capture Caen. There would be no breakthrough towards Falaise. Again.

If anyone were to care to hear my opinion, Goodwood faced several immediate problems right from the git go: first, the Allied assembly areas were visible to German positions. Second, there was too narrow a frontage for Monty’s troops to move because there were live minefields all along the approach lane and consequently, the first tanks had to advance in a file. Third, the Germans had a defensive string of fortified villages and outposts all along the British left flank on the route of advance and fourth, the bridgehead was too small to allow for maximum employment of artillery. Also not helping was the fact that the road network was too small and narrow which led to traffic congestion.

The Brits bogged down because of the heavy and unexpected German resistance and also because of German attacks which were equally unexpected. We thought we had bombed them all out of existence but were soon disabused of this notion. Reports came in that the Krauts here were more heavily fortified than at any time since we landed in Gaul. Between their Panther tanks and their Tiger tanks, Montgomery lost 200 of his own tanks on the first day of his offensive and presumably, because of his losses and not wanting to get bogged down in a slogging match, he called off Goodwood after the next day, July 20
^th
, 1944. As a result of this operation, we lost 500 tanks to the guns of the Huns. Not sure how we didn’t smell their strength if not their will to resist. But Ultra has been kind of quiet lately. It’d be a goddamn shame if those bastards are on to us.

So we still didn’t have Caen in our hands. But once again, Monty reported to Ike at SHAEF headquarters that the operation was a complete success. HVS (“His Vainglorious Self”) Montgomery not only notified Ike that his troops succeeded in a break through, he notified the BBC as well. Once again, though, those pesky facts somehow seem to creep up and once again, it was clear that Monty did no such thing. And so once again, he wove a tangled web to deceive and said his plan was to hold down enemy troops so Brad could break out. While it’s certainly true that Monty did say that was his plan, I distinctly remember him saying that was a part of the total plan, the remainder of which was to take control of goddamn Caen! For Monty to now say he was only tasking himself with holding down German divisions is babble to anyone who even remotely knows the man. He would never be satisfied to launch such an operation where he would be relegated to being second banana. And, I heard that he had told his troops something like, “Come on lads! We’re off to Falaise” right before Goodwood was launched. Yeah. Holding down enemy troops. That has HREM (“His Royal Excuse Maker”) Montgomery written all over it.