Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (3 page)

There are already hopes that actual tactical surprise
has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy
with a succession of surprises during the course of the
fighting. The battle that has now begun will grow
constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to
come, and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its
course. This I may say however. Complete unity
prevails throughout the Allied Armies. There is a
brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the
United States. There is complete confidence in the
Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, and his
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lieutenants, and also in the commander of the
Expeditionary Force, General Montgomery. The ardour
and spirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in
these last few days was splendid to witness. Nothing
that equipment, science, or forethought could do has
been neglected, and the whole process of opening this
great new front will be pursued with the utmost
resolution both by the commanders and by the United
States and British Governments whom they serve.

By the afternoon I felt justified in reporting to Stalin:
Marshal

Stalin

to

6 June 44

Prime Minister

Everything has started well. The mines, obstacles,
and land batteries have been largely overcome. The air
landings were very successful, and on a large scale.

Infantry landings are proceeding rapidly, and many
tanks and self-propelled guns are already ashore.

Weather outlook moderate to good.

His answer was prompt, and contained welcome news of the highest importance.

6 June 44

I have received your communication about the
success of the beginning of the “Overlord” operations. It
gives joy to us all and hope of further successes.

The summer offensive of the Soviet forces,
organised in accordance with the agreement at the
Teheran Conference, will begin towards the middle of
June on one of the important sectors of the front. The
general offensive of the Soviet forces will develop by
stages by means of the successive bringing of armies
into offensive operations. At the end of June and during
July offensive operations will become a general
offensive of the Soviet forces.

I shall not fail to inform you in due course of the
progress of the offensive operations.

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I was actually sending Stalin a fuller account of our progress when his telegram arrived.

Prime

Minister

to

7 June 44

Marshal Stalin

I am well satisfied with the situation up to noon
today, 7th. Only at one American beach has there been
serious difficulty, and that has now been cleared up.

Twenty thousand airborne troops are safely landed
behind the flanks of the enemy’s lines, and have made
contact in each case with the American and British
seaborne forces. We got across with small losses. We
had expected to lose about 10,000 men. By tonight we
hope to have the best part of a quarter of a million men
ashore, including a considerable quantity of armour
(tanks), all landed from special ships or swimming
ashore by themselves. In this latter class of tanks there
have been a good many casualties, especially on the
American front, owing to the waves overturning the
swimming tanks. We must now expect heavy counterattacks, but we expect to be stronger in armour, and of
course overwhelming in the air whenever the clouds lift.

2. There was a tank engagement of our newly
landed armour with fifty enemy tanks of the 21st Panzer-Grenadier Division late last night towards Caen, as the
result of which the enemy quitted the field. The British
7th Armoured Division is now going in, and should give
us superiority for a few days. The question is, how
many can they bring against us in the next week? The
weather outlook in the Channel does not seem to
impose any prohibition on our continued landings.

Indeed, it seems more promising than before. All the
commanders are satisfied that in the actual landing
things have gone better than we expected.

3. Most especially secret. We are planning to
construct very quickly two large synthetic harbours on
the beaches of this wide, sandy bay of the Seine
estuary. Nothing like these has ever been seen before.

Great ocean liners will be able to discharge and run by
numerous piers supplies to the fighting troops. This
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must be quite unexpected by the enemy, and will
enable the build-up to proceed with very great
independence of weather conditions. We hope to get
Cherbourg at an early point in the operations.

4. On the other hand, the enemy will concentrate
rapidly and heavily and the fighting will be continuous
and increasing in scale. Still, we hope to have by D plus
30 about twenty-five divisions deployed, with all their
corps troops, with both flanks of the second front
resting on the sea and possessed of at least three good
harbours — Cherbourg and the two synthetic harbours.

This front will be constantly nourished and expanded,
and we hope to include later the Brest peninsula. But
all this waits on the hazards of war, which, Marshal
Stalin, you know so well.

5. We hope that this successful landing and the
victory of Rome, of which the fruits have still to be
gathered from the cut-off Hun divisions, will cheer your
valiant soldiers after all the weight they have had to
bear, which no one outside your country has felt more
definitely than I.

6. Since dictating the above I have received your
message about the successful beginning of “Overlord,”

in which you speak of the summer offensive of the
Soviet forces. I thank you cordially for this. I hope you
will observe that we have never asked you a single
question, because of our full confidence in you, your
nation, and your armies.

Stalin replied:

Marshal

Stalin

to

9 June 44

Prime Minister

I have received your message of June 7 with the
information of the successful development of the
operation “Overlord.” We all greet you and the valiant
British and American armies and warmly wish you
further successes.

The preparation of the summer offensive of the
Soviet armies is concluding. Tomorrow, June 10, the

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first stage will open in our summer offensive on the
Leningrad front.

I repeated this at once to Roosevelt.

Stalin telegraphed again on June 11:
As is evident, the landing, conceived on a grandiose
scale, has succeeded completely. My colleagues and I
cannot but admit that the history of warfare knows no
other like undertaking from the point of view of its scale,
its vast conception, and its masterly execution. As is
well known, Napoleon in his time failed ignominiously in
his plan to force the Channel. The hysterical Hitler, who
boasted for two years that he would effect a forcing of
the Channel, was unable to make up his mind even to
hint at attempting to carry out his threat. Only our Allies
have succeeded in realising with honour the grandiose
plan of the forcing of the Channel. History will record
this deed as an achievement of the highest order.

The word “grandiose” is the translation from the Russian text which was given me. I think that “majestic” was probably what Stalin meant. At any rate, harmony was complete.

Let us survey the enemy’s dispositions and plans as we now know them. Marshal Rundstedt, with sixty divisions, was in command of the whole Atlantic Wall, from the Low Countries to the Bay of Biscay, and thence along the southern French shore. Under him Rommel held the coast from Holland to the Loire. His Fifteenth Army with nineteen divisions held the sector about Calais and Boulogne, and his Seventh Army had nine infantry and one Panzer division at hand in Normandy. The ten Panzer divisions on the whole Western Front were spreadeagled from Belgium to Bordeaux. How strange that the Germans, now on the Triumph and Tragedy

24

defensive, made the same mistake as the French in 1940

and dispersed their most powerful weapon of counterattack!

When Rommel took up his command in late January he had been displeased with the defences he found, and his energy improved them greatly. Along the coast there was a line of concrete works with all-round defence, many mines and difficult obstacles of various patterns, especially below high-water mark, Fixed guns pointed seaward, and field artillery covered the beaches. While there was no complete second line of defence, villages in the rear were strongly fortified. Rommel was not content with the progress made, and had more time been left him our task would have been harder. Our opening bombardment by sea and air did not destroy many of the concrete works, but by stunning their defenders reduced their fire and also upset their radar.

The German warning system had been completely paralysed. From Calais to Guernsey the Germans had no fewer than one hundred and twenty major pieces of radar equipment for finding our convoys and directing the fire of their shore batteries. These were grouped in forty-seven stations. We discovered them all, and attacked them so successfully with rocket-firing aircraft that on the night before D-Day not one in six was working. The serviceable ones were deceived by the device of tin-foil strips known as

“Window,”
2
which simulated a convoy heading east of Fécamp, and they thus failed to detect the real landings.

One piece of equipment near Caen managed to keep going and discovered the approach of the British force, but its reports were ignored by the plotting centre as they were not corroborated by any of the other stations. Nor was this the only menace which was overcome. Encouraged by their success two years before in concealing the passage up the Triumph and Tragedy

25

Channel of the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
the enemy had built many more jamming stations for thwarting both the ships which directed our night fighters and the radar beams upon which many of our forces depended for an accurate landfall. But they too were discovered, and Bomber Command made some highly concentrated raids upon them. All were obliterated, and our radio and radar aids were secure. It may be mentioned that all the Allied effort in the radio war for D-Day was British.

It is indeed remarkable that the vast long-planned assault fell on the enemy as a surprise both in time and place. The German High Command was told that the weather would be too rough that day for amphibious operations and had received no recent air reports of the assembly of our thousands of ships along the English shore. Early on June 5 Rommel left his headquarters to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden and was in Germany when the blow fell.

There had been much argument about which front the Allies would attack. Rundstedt had consistently believed that our main blow would be launched across the Straits of Dover, as that was the shortest sea route and gave the best access to the heart of Germany. Rommel for long agreed with him. Hitler and his staff however appear to have had reports indicating that Normandy would be the principal battleground.
3
Even after we had landed uncertainties continued. Hitler lost a whole critical day in making up his mind to release the two nearest Panzer divisions to reinforce the front. The German Intelligence Service grossly overestimated the number of divisions and the amount of suitable shipping available in England. On their showing, there were ample resources for a second big landing; so Normandy might be only a preliminary and subsidiary one.