Third Reich Victorious (11 page)

Despite the bombing, King George VI refused to move himself or his family away from London, demanding daily briefings from the Prime Minister and service chiefs. Indeed, on June 27 the king had written to his mother, “Personally, I feel happier now that we have no allies to be polite to and to pamper.”
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In the very early hours of Sunday, July 14, a Junkers 88, miles off course due to British jamming of its Knickebein apparatus, was shot down over central London and crashed into Buckingham Palace with its bomb load still on board. Among the fatally wounded was Queen Elizabeth. According to the palace spokesman, her last words were, “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.”
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Born at the turn of the century, she had not yet reached her fortieth birthday when she died. Prostrate with grief, the king and the two young princesses were spirited away to a safe location in Scotland.

The effect on Halifax, also, was considerable. Already badly shaken by everything that had happened, he determined that at least the German invasion must be prevented. That evening (and following a stormy War Cabinet meeting), the British ambassador in Geneva delivered to his German counterpart a diplomatic note stating that His Majesty’s government was prepared to open negotiations in return for cease-fire. With twelve hours to go before the Sea Lion landings, the Germans were in the same position as with the Netherlands exactly two months before. Was this a capitulation or merely an attempt at negotiation? Was it a sincere offer, or a ruse to disrupt Sea Lion? Given that the British themselves could not have answered those questions with any consensus, it is hard to blame the Germans for ignoring the note. However, their apparently contemptuous refusal to negotiate, followed by the subsequent invasion, struck heavily at Halifax.

Just before 0600 on Monday, July 15, formations of Ju 52 transport aircraft climbed to 400 feet in order to drop the 2nd Paratroop Regiment just west of Dover. Operation Sea Lion had begun a few hours earlier, with a succession of Luftwaffe attacks and fighter sweeps over the English coast. A few minutes later the 3rd Paratroop Regiment dropped north of Hythe and Folkestone, marking the extent of the planned amphibious landing. Despite massive air cover, neither drop went well. British radar had seen the attack coming, and antiaircraft fire together with Hurricanes and Spitfires flying out from Biggin Hill caused the unarmed German transport aircraft to pull up short or overshoot. At least a quarter of the paratroopers landed in the sea, at the foot of the cliffs, or strewn inland many miles from their objectives. Fieseler Storch light aircraft carrying Brandenburg and Grossdeutchsland commandos, seeking to repeat their achievements in Belgium by capturing critical road junctions, were largely shot down or crashed trying to land amid the Kent hop poles.

Following close on the airborne landings, at 0700 the first waves of the 17th Division from Calais started to land between Hythe and Folkestone, while the 6th Mountain Division from Dunkirk landed at Dover. Lacking every kind of specialist equipment and already under attack from British light vessels, most of the German forces missed their intended landing beaches altogether. An unknown number drowned either in mid-Channel or in the last few moments of the landings as their barges swamped and sank. Where the Germans actually made it ashore, their position was frequently far from secure: most of the 143rd Mountain Regiment landed at the base of Shakespeare’s Cliff west of Dover, while the 55th Infantry Regiment came ashore at Hythe directly opposite Shorncliffe Camp, the British Army’s small-arms training school.

There was one surprise for the British. The German hydrofoils, each carrying thirty grenadiers of the 6th Infantry Regiment, headed the attack on Dover itself. Three were sunk or foundered on the way, but the rest got their troops onto the harbor wall or the eastern docks before the British arrived. It was a bold run, but as one captain explained, it was better than crossing “at a somewhat slower speed than Caesar’s legions two thousand years ago.”
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Following up were the motorized Prahms, bringing the rest of the 7th Panzer Division, some of them carrying the amphibious Panzer IIIs of the 25th Panzer Regiment, which swam into Dover. Many were lost or ditched themselves at the sea wall or in the town itself, but by late afternoon Model had a strong battle group of thirty-four tanks and 1,500 infantry ashore on the western outskirts of Dover, busy commandeering any form of motorized transport they could find.

Map 3. The German Invasion

The British response was not to meet the Germans on the beaches or cliff tops, but to fight for the ports themselves with garrison troops—including the Royal Navy and Royal Marines—and to hold the high ground immediately inland from the ports with their infantry divisions. Given their lack of transport and training, this was as much as General Ironside was prepared to expect of his troops, but the German advance inland was probably slowed more by their own bad landing and by the terrain than by the British. By mid-morning the three battalions of the 2nd London Brigade were fully engaged with the German paratroopers, while the 1st London Brigade marched south from Deal. Already the Royal Navy was making its presence felt in the Channel, supplemented by everything the RAF could provide, including torpedo bombers from Coastal Command. By late afternoon, despite heavy British losses, these forces once more controlled the Channel, and no German reinforcements or supplies could get through. Manstein stayed in Calais with XXXVIII Army Corps headquarters, using Model as his deputy and field commander at Dover.

Before dawn next day, the British flotillas of small ships were already active in the Channel, striking at the German reinforcements. Daring as ever, one motor torpedo boat squadron even got inside Calais harbor. From the air they were all hopelessly vulnerable, but not even the Luftwaffe could be everywhere; while they were strafing ships, the Messerschmitts could not also be fighting off Spitfires and Hurricanes. Only by mid-morning had the Germans reclaimed control of the Channel. Then Manstein played his masterstroke. At 1000 a battalion of the 1st Paratroop Regiment dropped on Manston sector airfield, just inland from Ramsgate. With the 1st London Brigade already committed toward Dover, Manston was defended only by a few antiaircraft guns and a handful of infantry. The RAF responded at once with raids to crater the runways, but by midday Ju 52s were touching down at Manston and disgorging the rest of Student’s division with motorcycles, accompanied by nearby glider landings from the Airlanding Assault Regiment. By 1500 the glider troops had a firm grip on Manston, and the 1st Paratroop Regiment had begun its advance south toward Sandwich. Simultaneously that morning, Model left the rest of the landing forces to fend for themselves and took Battle Group “Rommel” north from Dover, his tanks bursting through the 1st London Brigade onto the Sandwich Road. By 2000 the two forces had joined up near Eastry, where unexpectedly strong resistance, improvised by a retired Indian Army major, was sufficient to halt the German advance for the night.

For the rest of the Sea Lion landings, a stalemate was already being reached. Although the German 141st Mountain and 21st Infantry Regiments crossed the Channel that morning, they came more as replacements than reinforcements, as the previous day’s forces had run out of ammunition or surrendered from sheer exhaustion. Even the British battleships came into play with long-range fire onto the German landing beaches. The Germans controlled Dover harbor but not the town, where the garrison troops in the citadel still held out, and the port was useless. All along the landing area the rubble from earlier Luftwaffe raids provided the British with defenses for last-ditch fights, and the German 6th Mountain and 17th Divisions were not more than three miles inland. Although the British still showed little inclination to attack, troops from the 45th West Country Division had begun to arrive at Hythe, together with three regiments of tanks from XII Corps reserve.

Everything depended for the Germans on Model’s force, now with about 29 tanks kept going by redistributing captured petrol, and 2,000 infantry, mostly on foot. Manstein’s choice was the bold one of striking inland toward Canterbury, only twelve miles away and the only major obstacle before the undermanned GHQ Line. True to German doctrine of air support for imminent ground offensives, that afternoon and through the night the 2nd and 3rd Air Fleets carried out saturation bombing raids on the city. Canterbury Cathedral was obliterated, and the medieval city center burned and bombed into oblivion. In fact, the British had no forces at Canterbury at all, intending to fight on the GHQ Line rather than in front of it. By nightfall on the second day, neither side had reason to rejoice.

At first light next day, Wednesday, July 17, Lieutenant General Thorne at XII Corps headquarters was pulling together reinforcements for the GHQ Line when, to his utter astonishment, Major General Montgomery arrived with two fresh battalions of infantry in trucks, and one battery each of antitank and field artillery. Belonging to the Australian 18th Infantry Brigade, these troops had arrived in Scotland on June 17, and settled down to training on Salisbury Plain, where their commander, Brig. Gen. H. D. Wynter, had advised the War Office that his brigade would be “in reasonable shape” in a month.
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Frustrated beyond endurance at being left out of the critical battle, Montgomery had gone without orders to find the Australians, reminded them that he had grown up in Tasmania, and Wynter jumped at the chance of getting into a fight. Thorne also understood that now was not the time for orthodoxy. He gave Montgomery the refitted 4th Royal Tank Regiment, with 28 Matilda tanks. To aid recognition on the road, Montgomery put on a black RTR beret and cap badge with his general’s badge pinned to it, an affectation that he never afterward abandoned.

To tuneless Australian renditions of “Waltzing Matilda,” Montgomery’s force reached Canterbury shortly after midday. Plagued by Ju 87 Stukas, the tanks and Australians collided with Battlegroup “Rommel” in the wooded ground at Littlebourne, a few miles east of the burning city on the old Roman road. By nightfall there was little left of either force; but the Germans had been fought to a standstill and their drive inland was defeated. The GHQ Line was still miles away and now quite unreachable. Contrary to the myth of Nazi propaganda, Sea Lion as a military operation was a failure.

None of this was known when the War Cabinet met in Halifax’s bunker that afternoon. Dill reported that the Germans had four divisions solidly ashore. Manston could not be recaptured, a further landing was expected at Ramsgate and there was nothing to oppose it (this would have been good strategy if the Germans had possessed either the plans or the forces). Having lost seventy aircraft in two days, and claimed over 200 kills, the RAF was far from defeated, but held out no hope of eventual victory. Losses at sea had been heavy in the previous twenty-four hours, including nine destroyers and three of the precious cruisers, something that not even Churchill could dismiss lightly. But for Halifax, his worst nightmares were coming true. The queen was dead; Canterbury, the seat of his religion, was in flames and ruins; thousands of British soldiers were prisoners in France; Kent had already fallen to the Germans; now Britain itself faced certain defeat and disgrace. It was entirely his fault. Halifax told the War Cabinet that in order to save further lives he intended to sue for peace on whatever terms he could get.

What happened next is far from clear, even from the survivors’ reports. The War Cabinet broke up in some disorder. Shortly afterward, Downing Street sent warning that Halifax would address a special joint session of Parliament in the House of Lords. Chamberlain went back to his office, and Churchill returned to the Admiralty, where he called for the Royal Marines responsible for defending the building against German paratroopers from their formidable bunker in Admiralty Arch. Word of Halifax’s intention soon spread. After some delay, Halifax entered a packed and rowdy Lords chamber at about 2000, with most of the War Cabinet alongside him, and attempted to make himself heard above the din. Quite a few present were in uniform, although without sidearms. At almost the same time, as the fading light cast long shadows down Whitehall, Churchill was seen marching down its length at the head of about a company of armed Royal Marines, himself cradling a Thompson submachine gun. The guards along Whitehall stood in amazement and uncertainty to let the First Lord through. Churchill and his men burst into the chamber, where he attempted to order Halifax to stand down as leader of the country.

The battalion responsible for the defense of Whitehall was the 2nd Grenadier Guards, commanded by Lt. Col. F.A.M. “Boy” Browning. An ambitious man, Browning’s career was under a cloud due to the recent involvement of his novelist wife, Daphne du Maurier, in the controversial American “Moral Rearmament” crusade (known in Britain as the “Oxford Movement”). Browning was in the guardroom at Buckingham Palace when word was brought him that German paratroopers disguised as British soldiers had kidnapped Churchill and seized the Houses of Parliament. Without waiting for orders or confirmation, Browning assembled his battalion and led it in an assault on Parliament, all guns blazing. A three-hour firefight ensued, mostly fought in pitch-darkness. In the ensuing confusion and cross fire, both Halifax and Churchill were killed, together with Kingsley Wood, two other cabinet members, ninety-eight peers of the realm, three bishops, and seventy-six MPs.