WWII History 2014 Summer

W-Matterhorn FP Feb14_Layout 1 4/9/14 10:57 AM Page 2

W-Bradford FP1 Dday14_Layout 1 4/9/14 10:58 AM Page 2

D-Day14 TOC_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 2:29 PM Page 4

TA B LE O F C O NTE NTS

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY Features 16 Target: Sainte-Mere-Eglise In Normandy on the night of June 5/6, 1944, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division overcame countless SNAFUs to take a key village. FLINT WHITLOCK

30 Blue & Gray at Omaha Beach The U.S. 29th Infantry Division fought its way ashore in Normandy on the bloodiest of D-Day beaches. MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL REYNOLDS

42 Glider Assault on Pegasus Bridge Page 66

A bold British glider assault seized a pair of vital bridges in the early hours of D-Day. CHRISTOPHER MISKIMON

Departments 06 Editorial

54

Remembering a mighty endeavor FLINT WHITLOCK

ROY MORRIS JR.

08

62 Against All Odds

From Roundup to Overlord

The men of Rudder’s Rangers had a suicidal D-Day mission: knock out the Germans’ big guns atop Pointe du Hoc.

COSSAC staff, under Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan, studied every aspect of a cross-Channel invasion of the Continent, and eventually chose Normandy. MICHAEL D. HULL

10

PATRICK J. O’DONNELL

76 “Canadian Fishes” Storm the Beach

Pre-Invasion Bombardment

RAF and AAF bombers paved the way for Allied troop landings on D-Day. SAM MCGOWAN

12

“We’ll Start the War from Here”

Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., made a fateful D-Day decision on Utah Beach, as troops of the 4th Infantry Division poured ashore.

Mission Critical: Weather

Complex weather patterns and varied Allied forecasting techniques posed challenges that were overcome prior to D-Day. GENE E. PFEFFER WWII History Presents:

D-DAY

The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division paid a heavy price to ensure victory on D-Day. HERB KUGEL

86 D-Day Dilemma General Ridgway needed an armored force to help him hold Ste. Mere Eglise. But could he rely on its commander? KEVIN M. HYMEL

SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

70TH ANNIVERSARY 29 TH DIVISION

COVER: The first wave of American infantry wade ashore from their landing craft under intense fire from German defenders on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. Photo: National Archives

Deadly Fight for Omaha Beach AIRBORNE BATTLE FOR STE-MERE-EGLISE

4TH I.D. ON UTAH BEACH

“We’ll Start the War from Here!”

SUMMER 2014

POINTE DU HOC

RANGERS SUICIDE MISSION

RETAILER DISPLAY UNTIL AUG. 13

WWII History Presents: D-Day 70th Anniversary (ISSN 1539-5456). WWII History is published six times yearly by Sovereign Media, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 22101-4554. (703) 964-0361. WWII History Presents: D-Day © 2014 by Sovereign Media Company, Inc., all rights reserved. Copyrights to stories and illustrations are the property of their creators. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. Subscription services, back issues, and information: (800) 219-1187 or write to WWII History Circulation, P.O. Box 1644, Williamsport, PA 17703. D-Day 70th Anniversary single copies: $9.99, plus $3 for postage. Editorial Office: Send editorial mail to WWII Quarterly, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 22101-4554. WWII History welcomes editorial submissions but assumes no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. Material to be returned should be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We suggest that you send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a copy of our author’s guidelines. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WWII History, P.O. Box 1644, Williamsport, PA 17703.

W-Bradford FP2 Dday14_Layout 1 4/9/14 10:58 AM Page 2

D-Day14 Editorial_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 2:10 PM Page 6

EDITORIAL

Remembering a Mighty Endeavor OPERATION OVERLORD, COMMONLY CALLED “D-DAY,” was arguably the most complex, most audacious military operation ever conceived or attempted. That it succeeded was due to an equally complex intertwined series of events, planned and accidental, foreseen and improbable. To keep things in perspective, it should be noted that Overlord was not history’s largest military operation in terms of numbers of men and machines. That distinction goes to Operations Barbarossa, Hitler’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, Citadel (the German operation that ended in disaster at Kursk), and Bagration, the 1944 Soviet counteroffensive that ultimately pushed Germany’s “Eastern Front” all the way back to Berlin. Size is not all that matters. But, for the American-British-Canadian alliance, Overlord was the most important of all the European invasions and operations; everything up to June 6, 1944, was prelude. All the previous Allied operations faced enormous challenges; during Operations Husky (Sicily), Avalanche (Salerno), and Shingle (Anzio), almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong; somehow the Allies overcame potential disaster and prevailed. The errors and miscalculations were invaluable lessons learned––lessons applied to Overlord. The logistical effort that supported the massive undertaking was staggering, and the mind boggles at the millions of tons of supplies stockpiled for Overlord. No detail was left to chance; no unit lacked bullets, bayonets, bandages, rations, or fuel. Special vehicles (like swimming tanks) were developed and two complete harbors (Mulberries) were towed across the English Channel. Code-breakers read the Germans’ minds. The brilliant Fortitude deception plan fooled the enemy and kept major German formations far from Normandy during the crucial first week after Overlord was launched. Despite the best-laid plans, the uncontrollable element of luck was vital for victory, and weather played an enormous part in Overlord’s success. When a huge storm battered the Channel in early June, it threw off the carefully prepared timetable by 24 hours and nearly caused the entire operation to be postponed, which likely would have compromised the enormous wall of secrecy and deception that had been constructed around Overlord.

FLINT WHITLOCK The weather also gave the Germans a false sense of security and convinced them that the Allies could not mount an invasion when they did. Consequently, many commanders let down their guard and were absent from their posts when the invasion struck. The scattered, disorganized airborne drops and glider landings that were Overlord’s opening act also confused and confounded the enemy, making them think that the aerial assault was bigger than it actually was. And on the battlefield, when plans began to unravel and unfamiliar scenarios presented themselves, it was the junior officers, NCOs, and common soldiers who improvised solutions on the fly and brought order out of chaos. The landings at Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches, for the most part, went off like clockwork. The most heavily contested beachhead was Omaha, and even the opposition there was shattered by noon on D-Day. On the day the invasion was announced, President Roosevelt said, “Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor ... to set free a suffering humanity.” Stalin telegraphed Churchill, “Overlord is a source of joy to us all.” And as Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower told the troops embarking for the invasion, “The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.... Let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” With this special issue, we celebrate the monumental events of seven decades ago. Relive those days within these pages. And celebrate with us.

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY CARL A. GNAM, JR. Editorial Director, Founder

SAMANTHA DETULLEO Art Director

CONTRIBUTORS: Michael D. Hull, Kevin M. Hymel, Herb Kugel, Sam McGowan, Christopher Miskimon, Roy Morris Jr., Patrick O’Donnell, Gene J. Pfeffer, Michael Reynolds

6

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ADVERTISING OFFICE: BEN BOYLES Advertising Manager (570) 322-7848, ext. 110 [email protected]

CURTIS CIRCULATION COMPANY WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION SOVEREIGN MEDIA COMPANY, INC. 6731 Whittier Ave., Suite A-100 McLean, VA 22101-4554

MARK HINTZ Vice President & Publisher

SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS OFFICE:

BROOKE BLEE Subscription Customer Services [email protected]

1000 Commerce Park Drive, Suite 300, Williamsport, PA 17701

KEN FORNWALT Data Processing Director

(800) 219-1187 PRINTED IN THE USA.

D-Day14 Editorial_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 2:14 PM Page 7

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

7

D-Day14 Planning_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 10:52 AM Page 8

FROM ROUNDUP TO OVERLORD MICHAEL D. HULL

COSSAC staff, under Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan, studied every aspect of a cross-Channel invasion of the Continent, and eventually chose Normandy. WHEN THE BATTERED BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (BEF) WAS miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk in May-June 1940, its officers and men knew that they would have to return someday across the English Channel to the Normandy coast. The project seemed remote then, given the vulnerability of Great Britain as she stood alone against the Axis powers, but it was never considered impossible. Yet the second front envisioned by Britain, an invasion of continental Europe, became a far more tenable proposal after the Soviet Union, followed by America, joined in the struggle against Nazism. Meeting at Casablanca on January 14-24, 1943, Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to appoint a joint staff to draw up a blueprint for such an invasion, designated Operation Roundup. Named to head this staff was British Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan, an artillery officer and BEF veteran of both world wars. He was appointed chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander (COSSAC), although the supreme commander himself had not yet been chosen. Morgan was given an Anglo-American staff, with U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ray Barker as his deputy. The COSSAC team set up headquarters at the Norfolk House office block in London’s elegant St. James’s Square. COSSAC’s brief was threefold: to prepare plans for a diversion against the Pas de Calais (the French name of the Dover Strait) and encourage the Germans to concentrate their defenses in the wrong place; to plan for a sudden cross-Channel attack (Operation Rankin) to relieve Russia or exploit a possible collapse in German

Imperial War Museum

RIGHT: Chief of staff to COSSAC from April to December 1943, Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan began the long buildup to Operation Overlord. BELOW: Shown conferencing on February 1, 1944, the senior commanders of Operation Overlord are, seated left to right, Deputy Supreme Commander Sir Arthur Tedder, Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Allied ground commander Bernard L. Montgomery. Standing, left to right, are U.S. First Army commander Omar N. Bradley, naval commander Bertram Ramsay, air commander Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and chief of staff WalterBedell-Smith.

8

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

morale; and, most important, to “prepare plans for a full-scale assault against the continent in 1944 as early as possible.” Operation Roundup was now dubbed Operation Overlord. For six months in 1943, the COSSAC planners studied the European coastlines and the character of the Allied and German forces that might be joined in battle. It was during this period that the question of where to land was decided, a decision that would remain a closely guarded secret until the moment when the 5,333-ship Allied armada was sighted from the Normandy shore early on Tuesday, June 6, 1944. Everything was examined, dissected, and analyzed at Norfolk House: German defenses, suitable beaches, tides, weather patterns, inland terrain, usable ports, and the maximum ranges from English bases for fighter planes supporting ground operations. A host of other details, large and small, were studied: beach reconnaissance, amphibious tanks, artificial (Mulberry) harbors, the provision of wine to chaplains in landing craft, and even the issuing of condoms to the assaulting infantry (to keep seawater out of rifle muzzles). Morgan and his dedicated staff worked tirelessly on planning the largest and most complex invasion ever attempted. Along the coast of Europe from Norway to the Bay of Biscay, military logic narrowed the choice of landing area to two locations: the district of Calais, with the shortest shipping route from England, and the Normandy coast between Le Havre and Cherbourg. The American planners favored Calais, although it was the most strongly defended part of the whole coast, because it offered a more direct route toward Germany. The British pushed for Normandy because its defenses were weaker; because its broad, firm beaches could support thousands of men and vehicles; and because it could be cut off from the rest of Europe by bombing the bridges over the Seine and Loire Rivers. Eventually, the COSSAC staffers agreed to recommend Normandy, and their plan was

D-Day14 Planning_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 1:55 PM Page 9

approved by Churchill, FDR, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Quebec summit conference in August 1943. It was also agreed that the supreme commander would be American, and that his deputy and his ground, naval, and air commandersin-chief would be British. May 1944 was fixed as the target date for Operation Overlord, although the resources allotted to COSSAC were so slender— “pitiful,” as General Morgan called them—that a suggestion was made that a cross-Channel assault would be impossible before 1945. Severe Allied shipping losses from Nazi U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic had left a serious shortage of ocean-going ships, but it was a critical lack of landing craft that particularly hamstrung COSSAC. Britain had pressed boat builders, small boat yards, and even furniture companies into turning out landing craft, but far more were needed. The situation was aggravated by Admiral Ernest J. King, the U.S. Navy chief of staff, and General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army chief

Two British, two American, and one Canadian infantry division would land on the beaches between Caen and the Cherbourg Peninsula on D-day.

of staff, who believed that sending more landing craft to Europe would encourage the British to indulge in peripheral Mediterranean adventures. Eventually, at the demand of General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, who had been appointed supreme commander, landing craft were gathered in from various the-

aters of operation. But there were still not enough, so the invasion was postponed until early June 1944 to allow for another month’s production of the vital boats. When Ike and his ground forces commander, British General Bernard L. Montgomery, saw the details of the COSSAC plan for the first time, they declared that the landing area was too narrow and the first assault troops too few. General Morgan had thought so himself, but had been following strictures laid down by the British and U.S. governments. Eventually, Eisenhower extended the original plan, with five infantry divisions—two British, two American, and one Canadian—landing across a 60-mile stretch of French coast from the River Dives near Caen to the eastern side of the Cherbourg Peninsula. General Morgan and his staff ultimately deserved the lion’s share of the credit for the success of Operation Overlord, in which the three Allied armies gained a foothold in continental Europe with losses much lower than had been projected. n

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

9

D-Day14 Bombing_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 10:50 AM Page 10

PRE-INVASION BOMBARDMENT SAM MCGOWAN

RAF and AAF bombers paved the way for Allied troop landings on D-Day. BY THE SPRING OF 1944, AFTER SEVERAL AMPHIBIOUS LANDINGS IN THE Mediterranean and Pacific, the Allies had developed plans that called for massive aerial and sea bombardments of the D-day invasion beaches in advance of the actual landings. Military planners hoped that aerial bombardment and naval shelling would knock out coastal gun emplacements and strongpoints along the beaches, thus easing the way for the troops splashing ashore. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the commander of the Allied ground forces, wanted a pre-invasion bombardment beginning a half-hour before the landings were to commence and expending some 7,800 tons of ordnance. This bombardment was to be preceded by a Royal Air Force Bomber Command effort that would drop some 6,000 tons all over the beaches. Naval gunfire was capable of delivering only approximately 2,500

ABOVE: Shells burst on land and sea in Bombardment at Fox Green Beach by Dwight Shepler. An Allied destroyer glides into dangerously shallow water off Omaha Beach as its five-inch guns belch flames. During the D-day operation, it was often necessary to risk such movements as naval vessels were required to come close to shore to engage the German artillery positions and hardened gun emplacements that contested the landings. OPPOSITE: Douglas A-20 attack bombers of the U.S. Ninth Air Force drop bombs on the heights of Pointe du Hoc during a pre-invasion air raid on the coast of Normandy. On D-Day, U.S. Army Rangers stormed the promontory, only to find that the battery of heavy German guns they had been sent to destroy had been moved prior to the invasion.

tons of high explosives; the bulk of the bombardment would have to be from the air. One of the problems facing the Overlord planners was keeping the location of the landings hidden from the Germans. This ruled out the massive pre-invasion aerial attacks that preceded amphibious operations in other theaters. Instead of concentrating on the beaches themselves, the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces that had been formed to support the invasion began a massive air campaign designed to destroy the German lines of communication and disrupt the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the troops defending the area where the landings would take place. Commanded by RAF Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces were organized at the end of 1943 as a joint force whose mission would be to 10 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

support the invading ground forces. Separate from the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe, which commanded the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces and the RAF Bomber Command, the AEAF consisted of the British Second Tactical Air Force and the U.S. Ninth Air Force. The two air forces were equipped primarily with fighterbombers and light and medium bombers, and the crews were trained to attack tactical targets, including railroad marshaling yards, locomotives, bridges, and troop concentrations. Estimates of available aircraft for the Dday bombardment called for some 2,600 heavy bombers, 835 light and medium bombers, and 565 fighter-bombers. The numbers were greatly underestimated; on D-day itself combined British and U.S. bomber strength consisted of 3,467 heavy bombers; 1,645 light, medium, and torpedo bombers; and 5,409 fighters, most of which could carry bombs and rockets. The naval bombardment force consisted of 104 ships, including battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. They were escorted by 97 smaller ships, some of which could join in the shelling. The naval bombarding forces were split into two task forces, with the Western Task Force responsible for supporting Omaha and Utah Beaches and the Eastern Task Force off Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. The planned date of June 5 was postponed for 24 hours because of a weather forecast that was “unfavorable” to air operations. Unfortunately, the weather the following day was not much better, but General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, had made the irrevocable decision to commence the landings since the tides would be changing and he felt it would be a mistake to postpone them further. The problem was cloud cover. Troop carrier transports encountered low-lying stratus clouds when they came over the beaches. There was an overcast at 3,500 feet, far below the planned altitudes for the light and medium bombers. When word of the ceiling reached the invasion command center, there was discussion about cancel-

D-Day14 Bombing_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 1:56 PM Page 11

National Archives

ing the tactical bombing missions. Heavy bombers might also be diverted from a planned mission against choke points at Caen since they were equipped with H2X radar and had the ability to bomb through the overcast. Brigadier General Samuel E. Anderson requested authority to allow the Douglas A-20 Havoc and Martin B-26 Marauder bombers to go in beneath the overcast and drop their bombs visually. Attacks on targets behind the beaches began at 0517, while targets on Utah Beach were bombed only minutes before the scheduled time of the landings. Although the medium bombers were able to drop their bombs visually, the entire force of light and medium bombers was only capable of delivering some 500 of the 7,500 tons of explosives Field Marshal Montgomery deemed necessary. Since naval gunfire could only deliver 2,500 tons, more than half of the required tonnage had to be delivered by heavy bombers. This is where the problems arose. Due to the low ceilings, the heavy bombers had to drop their bombs using radar, and Pathfinder aircraft equipped with H2X radar were used to mark the release points. Earlier critiques of the plan were concerned that if the bombs created craters on the beaches the Germans might use them as defense points. There was also concern that bombs might fall short and detonate among the assault force. Consequently, the Pathfinder bombardiers were instructed to delay their releases for up to 30 seconds past the release point determined by their equipment to prevent “shorts.” This caused a large number of bombs to fall behind the German positions instead of on top of them. To prevent heavy cratering, the bombs were armed with instantaneous fuses designed to explode the bombs immediately upon impact. Varying degrees of resistance met the landing troops, causing ranges of casualties from heavy on Omaha Beach to lighter on the British and Canadian beaches, where the invasion forces encountered far less resistance during the initial landings.

The bombing and shelling did little damage to the German artillery positions, many of which were located some distance inland and away from the target areas. German prisoners did report that the bombardment was the most terrifying experience of their lives, an effect that no doubt made the way easier for the Allies. The attacks by the medium bombers on Utah Beach detonated minefields, thus undoubtedly reducing casualties among the assaulting forces. It is a mistake to think of the bombardment only in terms of the bombing and shelling that took place in the last hours and minutes before the landings. These were but the beginning of a continuos air and artillery assault that lasted throughout the day. Eighth Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators flew four missions on D-day, with subsequent missions aimed at German road arteries leading toward the beaches. The third mission saw B-24s destroy bridges and effectively delay an attack on British positions by the 21st Panzer Division. Pre-invasion bombardment had forced the Germans to move some of their heaviest guns away from the beaches to new positions inland. In his chapter of The United States Army Air Forces in World War II, historian Robert H. George noted, “By whatever standards the Normandy landings be judged, the simple fact remains: their success with moderate losses was possible only because of the absolute air domination won by the AAF and RAF in the months before D-Day.” n D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

11

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 1:56 PM Page 12

MISSION CRITICAL:WEATHER GENE J. PFEFFER

Complex weather patterns and varied Allied forecasting techniques posed challenges that were overcome prior to D-Day.

Both: National Archives

THE ALLIED INVASION OF NORMANDY ON JUNE 6, 1944, REPRESENTS ONE of the most monumental weather-sensitive military operations ever undertaken. The planners and decision makers required weather assessments and forecasts in order to bring off such a huge operation successfully. The actual weather constraints for the invasion were critical and complex. Airpower needed clear skies to be effective. Naval forces needed calm winds and seas. Airborne forces wanted low winds for their drop but also clouds to hide them from the Germans. In 1948 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander for Overlord, described the problem this way: “We wanted to cross the Channel with our convoys at night so that darkness would conceal the strength and direction of our several attacks. We wanted a moon for our airborne assaults. We needed approximately forty minutes of daylight preceding the ground assault to complete our bombing and preparatory bombardment. We had to attack on a relatively low tide because of beach obstacles which had to be

U.S. landing craft make their way through the rough waters of the English Channel toward the landing beaches at Normandy. Weather had caused several delays, but the invasion went forward on June 6 under favorable conditions. INSET: Group Captain James M. Stagg was the RAF’s chief meteorological officer responsible for predicting the weather on D-Day.

12 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

removed while uncovered. These principal factors dictated the general period; but the selection of the actual day would depend upon weather forecasts.” These factors presented Allied meteorologists with a very difficult, vitally important task at a time when the scientific state of the art was quite limited. There were no weather satellites, no weather radars, no sophisticated computer forecasting techniques, and no large network of stations providing upper air data critical to longer range forecasting. Despite these limitations, the Allied weather team was successful. World War II demonstrated the need for an adequate weather service for the military and made it an indispensable part of combat operations. Two factors accounted for this. The first was the extensive use of airpower, which was highly weather dependent. The other was the high premium placed on both the strategic and tactical application of mobility. It was to be a war of blitzkrieg, aircraft, and armor. The lessons of World War I had been learned by both sides. Therefore, no World War II commander worth his salt would commit forces without considering the effects of weather on his operations. Three months before General Eisenhower arrived in England to take over as supreme commander, U.S. and British authorities discussed the part to be played by meteorologists in Overlord. Of immediate importance was the development of a single, all-encompassing climatic assessment about the period of the year when weather conditions were most likely to be favorable. The chief of staff, Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) (soon to become Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, SHAEF), British Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan, wanted an independent weather officer to develop the assessment and to advise the supreme commander at the time of the invasion. To conform to the Anglo-American nature of Morgan’s combined staff (his G-3, strategic planning officer, was an American, Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull), two meteorologists, one U.S. and one British, were to

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 10:57 AM Page 13

Imperial War Museum

be appointed under the G-3. The senior post was to be British while the deputy was to be an American. A civilian meteorologist from the British Meteorological Office (BMO), James Martin Stagg, was appointed to the senior post. Initially, Colonel Cordes Tiemann of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was named his deputy, but he was soon to be replaced by Colonel (later Lt. Gen.) Donald Yates. Though not an experienced operational forecaster, Stagg was a capable meteorologist and well qualified to do his job of pulling together the forecast and presenting it to Eisenhower and his subordinate commanders in a manner that they could use for military operations. His American deputy, on the other hand, was an experienced operational Army Air Force pilot who had been trained in meteorology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Yates’s appointment to the COSSAC staff dual-hatted him since he

WAAF and RAF radio operators record meteorological reports from aircraft and ships in the wireless cabin of the central forecasting station at Dunstable, Bedfordshire.

was already the senior AAF weather officer in the European Theater. Because of the need to keep the SHAEF team small, it was decided that Eisenhower would be briefed by only Stagg and Yates, who would synthesize the data provided by the

three major Allied weather facilities, called weather centrals or centers, already in England. These included the BMO forecasting unit in the London suburb of Dunstable (primarily supporting the RAF), the British Admiralty Weather Central in downtown London, and the U.S. Strategic Air Force (USSTAF) at Bushy Park, Teddington (code name Widewing). As Allied forces began to gather in England for the invasion, fighting units and their supporting headquarters expanded greatly. In January 1944, the headquarters of the USSTAF was created under command of Lt. Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz. USSTAF assumed control of both the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces. The AAF undertook a coordinated expansion of weather support in England in early 1944 by establishing a forecasting central and overall administrative headquarters known collectively as the USSTAF Directorate of Weather Services. Both the directorate and the USSTAF weather central,

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

13

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 10:58 AM Page 14

which it included, were under the direction of Colonel Yates. Yates took two lieutenant colonels, Ben Holzman and Irving Krick, as the chief forecasters for the new central and Captain Robert Bungaard as the chief upper air analyst. Both Holzman and Krick were experienced in peacetime and wartime weather services and were among the foremost prac- tioners of long-range weather forecasting in the United States before the war. Bungaard had been schooled in the relatively new techniques of upper air analysis and prediction, which were key to extended-range forecasts. The specific approach for the operational D-Day forecast itself (as opposed to the long-range climatic expectations) was established by Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff. He asked Stagg and Yates to prepare five-day forecasts for southern England and the French coast and to present them to Eisenhower each Monday morning. Eisenhower needed to know four days before the D-Day target date if weather would preclude an invasion attempt. Good conditions on D-Day itself would be of little use if poor weather during the three or four preceding days precluded essential air and naval preparations. The same could be said for the period following the landings. It would be of little value to successfully forge a beachhead on Fortress Europe on D-Day if unfavorable weather prevented the necessary buildup and resupply of forces. At a meeting with his senior staff and the two SHAEF weather officers, Eisenhower personally reinforced the point: “When the time comes to start Overlord we are going to have to rely very much on the weather forecast, so I want to hear what our weather experts can do. Each Monday until then Group Captain Stagg will tell us what he thinks the weather will be for the rest of the week, and on each following Monday he will tell us how his forecast has worked out. We’ll have a check on that part from our own experience. For these weekly exercises D-Day will be Thursday. Now Stagg, go ahead.” The weather conferences among the centrals started in February 1944, at first 14 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

Imperial War Museum

Two RAF corporals of a mobile meteorological unit prepare to send up a balloon to measure wind speed and cloud height in France, January 2, 1940.

on a schedule of two to three times per week. From April onward the conferences were held each day. For the larger exercises and operations, and as D-Day itself approached, the number of conferences was increased to three a day, including a preliminary conference in the late afternoon to coalesce initial thinking among the centers on the next five days, the main conference in the late evening to agree on the main features for the five-day outlook, and an early morning conference to modify as necessary based on the latest data. On the days immediately preceding DDay, a further conference was held at 3 AM to prepare for the Supreme Commander’s meeting at 4:30. Each of the conferences lasted about an hour although some exceeded two hours. As the naval plan, called Neptune, approached, the process for arriving at the important D-Day forecast was difficult and filled with tension. D-Day was initially set for Monday, June 5, 1944. This was the earliest possible date for the invasion. Postponement might be permitted from day to day because of adverse weather until the 8th. After this date, any postponement would last for at least two weeks until the next period of favorable tides and moonlight. The weather situation as presented to

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/8/14 2:26 PM Page 15

the supreme commander and his commanders in chief for air, ground, and naval forces on June 1-2 was characterized as complex and changeable. Unsettled, winterlike conditions were going to make the “go” decision difficult. There was little hope for an ideal day. Stagg briefed Eisenhower on Friday, June 2, that conditions did not look favorable for an assault on June 5, but that the situation was not at all clear. Eisenhower decided that even with a slim chance for favorable conditions on the 5th that he would start the bombardment fleet toward the French coast since it could be recalled if conditions deteriorated. These ships required considerable time to get into position. On Saturday, June 3, the outlook was definitely unfavorable. On Saturday evening, Stagg briefed that a cold front and low pressure system would move into the area, increasing winds to above the 18-knot maximum on Sunday. There was little chance that cloud conditions would permit air operations on the morning of June 5. Based on this outlook, Eisenhower postponed the operation until Tuesday, June 6, or Thursday, June 8. If it could not go then, he would postpone it for 10 or 12 days. During Sunday, June 4, the weather situation in the Atlantic began to clarify. The “Azores high” that had been protecting the British Isles was breaking down. Significant periods of unacceptable weather could be expected in the Channel throughout the week. If the invasion were to be launched at all, it would have to be done under the less than ideal conditions that would occur between the weather fronts that would transit the Channel. On Sunday evening, Stagg advised Eisenhower that a break in the weather would occur on Tuesday, June 6. Winds would be 12 knots or less on the beaches, and cloud conditions would permit airborne and bomber operations. Eisenhower, with the concurrence of his staff, decided to proceed. At a final conference at 4 AM on Monday, June 5, they confirmed their decision. Yates characterized those last hectic hours before the final decision this way: Continued on page 96 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

15

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 16

www.jamesdietz.com

TARGET:

SAINTE-MERE-EGLISE In Normandy on the night of June 5/6, 1944, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division overcame countless SNAFUs to take a key village. BY FLINT WHITLOCK

16

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 17

T

HE NIGHT OF JUNE 5/6, 1944, was pretty much like every other night since the Germans had occupied Normandy and the Cotentin Peninsula in the summer of 1940: dark, quiet, chilly, and mostly boring. While there had been innumerable overflights by Allied aircraft (probably taking reconnaissance photos) and the occasional aerial bombing, Normandy was still considered good duty for anyone who had had

his fill of war on the Eastern Front and was recovering from wounds psychological and physical. Here in Normandy there was plenty to eat and drink (especially Calvados, the strong brandy made from apples), scenery that hadn’t been mostly destroyed by heavy fighting, and French people who seemed to, if not exactly warmly welcome, at least be resigned to and tolerate the presence of foreign soldiers on their soil. When not on actual watch, looking for the first signs of an invasion that might or might not come to this location, the soldiers in Normandy had busied themselves by following Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s orders to so strongly fortify the coast that the Allied invaders would not stand a chance, that they would, as Rommel had put it, be driven back into the sea.

Seize the Day by Jim Dietz shows men from the 505th Regiment, 82nd Airborne in Sainte-MèreÉglise, the parachute of trooper John Steele still hanging from the church tower in the background.

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

17

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 18

All Photos: National Archives

This night, with the peninsula cloaked in darkness, and the farmers and villagers fast asleep beneath the cloud-obscured moon and the German soldiers—who were on watch in their observation bunkers straining with the help of strong French coffee to keep their eyelids open and scan the black horizon or sound asleep in their barracks or making love to their French mistresses—had no idea what was about to hit them. A glance at a map of northwest France reveals a basic truth: there are no large cities in the arc between Cherbourg and Caen; only Carentan, Montebourg, Bayeux, and Valognes can be regarded as sizable. A spiderweb of roads connect one town and village and hamlet to another.

Normans first set foot here, giving the region its name of Normandie—the area has been pastoral and bucolic, with time measured by seasons rather than by the clock. The sturdy homes, shops, and churches are built solidly of stone—a whitish-grayish-yellowish limestone native to the region, capable of fending off the strong winds that blow in fiercely from the North Atlantic and sometimes rattle the shutters and windowpanes. Although treated to the same warm currents that can give southern England a semi-tropical feel (there are, after all, palm trees growing along the English Channel), the winds can sometimes be bitter, and the cold can penetrate through multiple layers of fabric like a gunshot. The people, too, like their buildings, are a sturdy lot. Hard-working like any agrarian populace, the dour Normans typically rise at (or before dawn), put in a full day’s worth of physical work, eat a hearty dinner topped off with a glass or two of Calvados, and retire at sunset. The stolid citizens of Normandy were not happy, of course, when, in June 1940, the gray-uniformed Germans marched in and took over, but they accepted their fate the way they accepted most everything that came their way. For the most part, they did not go out of their way to welcome the occupiers, nor did they collaborate with them. They merely tolerated them and went about their usual business of growing the apples that

BELOW: During the German occupation of SainteMère-Église, two German soldiers on a motorcycle pose for the cameraman in front of city hall. RIGHT: Men of the 82nd adjust gear before boarding their transports on June 5, 1944. OPPOSITE: With faces blackened and their divisional insignia obscured by a censor’s brush, these smiling, heavily laden paratroopers prepare to board their transport plane, June 5, 1944.

One town at the center of a web of roads is Sainte-Mère-Église. But the roads— mostly narrow farm roads suitable for bringing produce to market or for driving herds of slow-moving cows from the barn to the fields and back again—also made it hard to move large formations of military vehicles and large numbers of troops. For centuries—ever since the Vikings or 18

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

went into the making of Calvados, pulling fish from the Channel, and pasturing their cows, extracting the milk to make into cheese. It was Sainte-Mère-Église, roughly halfway between Montebourg and Carantan, that had caught the eye of American military planners as early as 1942. Control Sainte-MèreÉglise and you control the Cotentin, the planners saw. No fewer than five roads pass through it, plus it was only seven miles from the westernmost amphibious landing beach known as Utah. Drop an airborne division or two, along with their glider-infantry regiments, into the area and you stood a good chance of preventing German reinforcements from Cherbourg in the north and Brittany in the west from slamming into the

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 19

troops coming ashore at Utah. The western end of the 60-mile-long beachhead that ran from La Madeleine to Ouistreham would thus be secure and the seaborne troops could move inland after overcoming local German opposition. Yes, Sainte-Mère-Église would definitely have to be taken in the early hours of D-Day. In the days before D-Day, Alexandre Renaud was a man with a dilemma. Besides his full-time job as the local pharmacist, the World War I veteran was also the mayor of Sainte-Mère-Église and, as such, he was expected by the occupiers to cooperate with them—and by his constituents to resist. Whenever the Germans gave him an order to do something, such as provide tools, transportation, and laborers to assist in the building of some defensive work, and he could find no one willing to perform the work, punishments would follow. In May 1944 the Germans were demanding all sorts of things. It was obvious that the local Germans were expecting an invasion and that Sainte-Mère-Église would likely be caught up in it. The roads through the town were filled with trucks towing artillery pieces and carrying troops in all directions. In the fields cordoned off by hedgerows, holes were being dug and large poles were being planted—Rommelspargel (Rommel’s Asparagus) some wag called them—designed to discourage glider landings. Trenches were being dug, and anti-aircraft guns emplaced. When Renaud spoke clandestinely with townspeople, everyone seemed to have an opinion: the Allies—if and when they attack—will cross at the Pas de Calais, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Dunquerque. Brittany will be the target. No, it will be the Cotentin. Ridiculous—the Allies will feint at Normandy but land on the Belgian coast. Few thought that Sainte-Mère-Église was in any real danger unless Allied bombers decided to target the anti-aircraft batteries that were being installed around the town. After all, air attacks had struck at the bridges at Beuzeville la Bastille and Les Moitiers en Bauptois. Someone else pointed out that leaflets were recently dropped over the area hinting at paratroop landings and showing illustrations of Allied tanks and jeeps and what British and American paratrooper uniforms looked like, and giving instructions on what to do in the event of an invasion. The Allies are probably dropping them all over France, someone else pointed out, just to keep the Germans guessing. Renaud noted that the digging of trenches around Sainte-Mère-Église was almost completed, but that the Germans didn’t seem to be in any rush. “With the means of punishment at its disposal,” he said, “[the German command] could have made the work go five

times as fast, and could have demanded that it should be done by June 1st.” Throughout May, the presence of German troops increased. Renaud said, “We have seen encamped in our fields infantry, artillerymen, Aryan Germans, and also Georgians and Mongols with Asiatic features ... commanded by German officers. In the latter part of May, the artillery units quarter in Gambosville [less than a mile south of Sainte-Mère -Eglise]. The officers come to see me at the Town Hall. They need spades, picks and saws immediately. The town is to be secured, and the work has to be finished in five days. “I reply that there are no more spades or saws in the neighborhood and that they will have to canvass all the houses in order to find a few tools. They phone the Feldcommandantur at Saint Lô to get instructions about what punitive measures to take. He gives an evasive answer. Discouraged, they finally go to a hardware store where, after threatening to loot everything, they manage to obtain a few tools. Guns are then installed at all the town approaches; on the Carentan road, on the La Fière road, before Capdelaine, on the Ravenoville road. “Then, suddenly, three days after their installation, the guns are taken away, and I am asked to provide transport immediately to haul ammunition and food to D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

19

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 20

Saint Côme-du-Mont . . . . Sainte-MèreÉglise is once again alone with its anti-aircraft unit.” The invasion—Operation Overlord, with the airborne phase known as Neptune—had been delayed for a day because of a fierce storm that had swept over England, the English Channel, and the Normandy coast, but now it was back on. At RAF airfields with such quaint, typically English names as Upottery, Cottesmore, Down Ampney, Tarrant Rushton, Greenham Common, Barkston Heath, Brize Norton, and others, superbly trained Both: National Archives

British, American, and Canadian paratroopers and glider infantrymen waited for the orders to go. The U.S. 82nd and 101st and British 6th Airborne Divisions had been training for months in anticipation of just this moment. Despite some SHAEF staff officers’ worries that the American airborne and glider operations would meet with disaster, everything that could have been done to ensure success was done. The maps, aerial photos, and sand table models of each unit’s objectives had been carefully studied and memorized. Each plane had its precise schedule as to when it was to take off. All the necessary equipment had been 20

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

gathered and issued. Knives and bayonets had been sharpened, faces blackened with burnt cork, last letters home written, last prayers said. The advance U.S. assault wave that would strike Normandy before the seaborne troops arrived numbered about 17,000 men being carried by 822 C-47 transport planes. They were the dice that American Generals Eisenhower and Bradley were willing to throw. Although the overwhelming majority of the sky soldiers had never been in combat before, and had only an inkling of what to expect once they reached France and the bullets began to fly, they were supremely confident of victory. Sergeant Spencer Wurst, an 82nd Airborne trooper, spoke for them all when he said, “It may seem naïve now, but at no time did we ever dream that we would not be successful in Normandy. We never even mentioned the possibility of defeat. The commanders may have agreed among themselves that if the beaches were not held successfully, everyone who could get out would head for Sainte-Mère-Église. But down at my level, absolutely nothing was said about withdrawal or evacuation.” “That evening [June 5] we got the word that we were going,” said Henry “Duke” Boswell, G Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne. “They took us out to the planes in city buses; they didn’t have enough trucks. It was hard to get in the buses with all our equipment. We got to the plane and Lt. Col. [Ed] Krause, 3rd Battalion C.O., came around and talked to us, and every other word he had to say was a curse word; I guess he was a good leader, but I sure didn’t like that part of his personality.” Boswell also remembered that Krause held up an American flag and said, ‘This was the flag we raised over Naples when we took Naples, and when you meet me in Sainte-Mère-Église, we’re going to raise this flag there.’ We loaded up [on the plane] and we were nervous. Some of the guys tried to joke, but most of the guys were quiet. Some of them had been in combat before and some hadn’t; we had had a lot of replacements. Everybody was just kind of thinking their own thoughts.” On the flightlines of a dozen British airfields, the C-47s began to roll, then took off into the dark sky and headed for France. The invasion was on, and no force of man or nature could turn it back now. Because of the German-imposed curfew, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, like all the towns in Normandy, was dark and shuttered tightly on the night of June 5, 1944. Mayor Renaud was awakened shortly after midnight by the distant thumping of anti-aircraft batteries. As a precaution, he herded his wife and children into the family’s makeshift bomb shelter when there came a pounding on his door. Renaud opened it to find the town’s fire chief standing there in his shiny brass helmet, anxiously informing him that the two-story home belonging to the Hairon family, just off the southeast corner of the town square, was ablaze. The chief asked the mayor if he could get the commandant to lift the curfew. Renaud said he would try. He hurried to German headquarters at the town hall, explained the situation to the duty sergeant who, without waking the commandant, gave Renaud permission to call

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 21

ABOVE: Their faces displaying a variety of emotions, these paratroopers from the 101st Airborne prepare to take off in a C-47 “Skytrain” on D-Day. OPPOSITE: In a somewhat fanciful representation of D-Day, a combat artist shows Waco CG-4A gliders mixed in with the aerial invasion force.

out the volunteer fire department and citizen bucket brigade to help extinguish the fire. German guards were also called out to stand watch over the volunteers and make sure no acts of sabotage were committed. Renaud then dashed to the parish house and asked Father Louis Roulland to have the sexton toll the bell as a means of alerting the citizenry. Soon more than a hundred men and women, some still in their nightclothes, had assembled outside the church to form a line of buckets from the pump at one end of the Place de l’Église to the firemen at the scene of the fire some 50 yards away. Some 30 well-armed German soldiers stood watch over them. While the British 6th Airborne Division was crossing the Channel toward its objectives at two bridges over the Orne River and Canal and the casemated guns at Merville on the far eastern flank of the 60-mile-long invasion area, the paratroopers of Matthew Ridgway’s 82nd Airborne Division—“Mission Boston”—were following the C-47s that were carrying Maxwell Taylor’s 101st Airborne troopers. The invasion route took the airborne armada to the western side of England, then south toward the Channel Islands, finally east across the Cotentin Peninsula. The C-47s were in formation and traveling at 130 mph; as they approached the drop zones, the pilots would reduce speed to about 110 mph or less. In a C-47 that was carrying 18 paratroopers from Company H, 508th PIR, 82nd Airborne, Lieutenant Victor Grabbe was leading his men in song, even though the tune and lyrics were swallowed up by the sound of the engines. One of Grabbe’s men, Lew Milkovics, recalled, “All was quiet for a time while we were flying over the Channel. Most of us, like myself, I am sure had our thoughts on our loved

ones and, no doubt, were feeling sorry for ourselves as we knew what would soon be happening. We wondered how many of us would survive. Lieutenant Grabbe sensed the tension and he loudly shouted, ‘Hey, fellows, how about some songs?’ “That broke the silence. Someone started with ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart,’ then ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me,’ then ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas.’ And so it went as we sang many more oldies for the next 10 or so minutes. It was great, as it relaxed us, and took our minds off ourselves and the coming danger.” Milkovics said, “I sat there thinking, ‘Boy, that Grabbe—he is one smart cookie.’ Under our kind of pressure, I doubt if any other stick leader thought to do this. I will never forget the intelligence and smart thinking of our lieutenant.” Unfortunately, Grabbe would die of wounds suffered in the upcoming battle. Sergeant Otis Sampson, E/505/82nd, remembered his flight being quiet, no singing, “each man with his own thoughts D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

21

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 22

Both: National Archives

as the plane winged its way to our rendezvous; each second drew us closer. As we crossed the coast of Normandy we stood up and hooked up. I saw no guns firing below. Everything was going good, too good for my liking; it seemed we were going into a trap. Being near the open door, I could see the moon-drenched countryside below, with no sign of life. I stood with perfect control of my mind and body as the plane went into a dive.... We leveled off and then went into another dive. By this time we were well inland; the plane slowed down. It looked so peaceful below. I never expected it to be that way.” In the lead ship was the 82nd’s assistant division commander Jumpin’ Jim Gavin; he would be jumping with the 508th. He wrote in his memoirs, “We began to receive small-arms fire from the ground. It seemed harmless enough; it sounded like pebbles landing on a tin roof. I had experienced it before [over Sicily] and knew what it was.” Shortly after the planes entered the airspace over the Cotentin, they flew into a bank of thick clouds. Sergeant Elmer Wisherd, a flight engineer in a C-47 carrying elements of the 101st, recalled the heart-stopping moments when his formation hit the clouds: “I can’t figure out how we went through those clouds without collisions or damage to the planes. Then we came out and started getting AA fire. I could see the other planes around us taking ground fire. We went back up through the clouds; it was quite a layer of clouds. And we came out in formation! How we did it I have no idea. Our pilots were the best, all instrument-rated pilots. There was no talking between planes whatsoever— complete radio silence. But I’ll tell you, it was ‘pucker’ when you’re going through clouds and you can’t see the airplanes around you and all at once you pop out on top and here you are, still in formation. Then we dropped to 800 feet. It was clear over the drop zone.” At the controls of a C-47 loaded with 82nd Airborne troopers was 1st Lt. Bill Thompson. Despite the months of training, he recalled that many of the other 22

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: Aerial photo of Sainte-Mère-Église after its capture. Note American military vehicles lining the main street. BELOW: All that remained of a C-47 that crashed and burned in Normandy.

pilots panicked when they flew into the clouds and when the ground fire began to reach up for them. Many broke formation, swerving wildly to avoid the ordnance, suddenly accelerating, or violently going into steep dives or sudden climbs. “I could see the tracers in front of us,” Thompson said. “They were leading us too much since they probably were not used to firing at slow-flying aircraft. We did not get hit so finally I let down some more and broke out of the clouds. I could see the water on the other side.... My right wingman saw the water and I guess he got excited and started dropping [his paratroopers] before I signaled him to.” Lieutenant Edward V. Ott, Headquarters, 2/508/82nd, said that he felt the drop “was doomed to be a disaster when the C-47 pilot began to take evasive action to avoid the

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 23

heavy flak. He gave us the green light when the plane was in a climbing attitude as the engines roared at top speed. When I jumped, the prop blast was so severe that it tore off my pack and equipment so that when I hit the ground, the only weapon I had was my jump knife. I didn’t see any other member of my stick.” Sergeant Ed Barnes, a communications section leader in 3/507/82nd, had dozed off during the hour-long flight but was awakened as the aircraft closed in on France. “We were given the signal to stand up and hook up and check one another’s equipment. We were all standing there poised and looking at the red light, waiting for it to turn green. As we peered out the door, we could see the flak and tracer bullets coming up out of the darkness. Then the light turned green and we started to pile out the door.” As the jump master in his plane, Lieutenant J. Phil Richardson, H/508/82nd, recalled, “When we arrived at the drop zone in France, I looked down at the DZ and saw it was covered with tracers. I felt that we should not land in that area and I told the pilot not to slow down but to keep going, which he did. Soon, the English Channel became visible on the other side of the peninsula. We had an order that no airborne troops could return to England [by plane] once they had left. The area that I looked at then was clear of tracers and we did the jump there; this was near the small city of Bayeux.” But Bayeux was over 30 miles from H Company’s drop zone. James Eads, another 82nd paratrooper, remembered vividly that his C-47 was receiving heavy AA fire on the run in. “We had been hit at the worst time by flak and machinegun fire. We were off target. The green light came on and the troopers started out of the plane. The fifteenth man had equipment trouble. After some delay trying to fix his rig, I—being the 16th and last man to go out—bailed out on a dead run.” Glen C. Drake, H/508/82nd, said, “I knew there was no one more anxious to get out of the plane than I. After hooking my static line to the steel cable that ran the length of the plane, I had to hang on to the cable and the side of the plane to stay on my feet. I was next to last of our stick, and I was wondering if I would get out.” At last the green light came on and the line of heavily laden men began moving toward the door and disappearing into the night. “It seemed to take forever,” Drake said. “All the way back to the door we had to struggle to stay on our feet and I was thinking, ‘God damn it, let’s go, let’s go, let’s get the hell out of this damn plane before it goes down!’ “When I finally went out the door, I knew right away I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire! It was a night jump, but the hundreds of white phosphorous flares floating on small parachutes turned the night into day. What a field day those Krauts had— like shooting fish in a barrel!” Sergeant Spencer Wurst, F/505/82nd, wasn’t happy about the haphazard nature of the drop. The discipline acquired over many months of training with the C-47 crews seemed to have evaporated in the heat of the moment, as pilot after pilot broke formation in an effort to avoid the ground fire. Hopelessly lost, and under orders not to bring any paratroopers back to England with them, some pilots simply flipped the switch that turned on the green “jump” light—whether or not they were over their designated DZ. Wurst said, “As it turned out, 2nd Battalion, 505, had the best drop of all six regiments in the American airborne effort. We knew exactly where we were, we knew what we had to do, and we proceeded to do just that.” In his C-47, Dwayne Burns, F/508/82nd, was becoming more and more anxious as the moment to jump grew nearer. The red warning light by the door suddenly came on, meaning that they were just minutes away from being given the “go” signal. The jump master in Burns’s plane “was hanging out the door, trying to see how far we were from land, when our airship entered a cloud cover and the pilots started to spread out. Most pulled up and tried going over the top. It was going to be bad for jumpers because we would be widely dispersed at landing, but the aircrew needed to avoid possible collisions. No one wanted to be taken out of action that way.

“It seems we stood in position for a long time before our flight began picking up flak; it was light at the beginning. At least I knew we were finally over the coastline. Then our waiting for the green light really started. The flak grew quickly and became really heavy while we tried to wait it out. The ship was getting pinged from all sides. The noise became awesome, an indeterminate mix of twin engines, flak hitting the wings and fuselage, and men yelling, ‘Let’s go!’ But still the green light did not come on.” To Burns the aircraft “was bouncing like some wild bronco. A ticking sound danced across the bottom side of the plane as machine-gun rounds found us. It became hard to stand up while the pilots tried to Courtesy Vincent Wolf

Courtesy Otis Sampson

LEFT: Lieutenant Vincent E. Wolf, 82nd Airborne Division, photographed in an English studio prior to D-Day. RIGHT: Sergeant Otis Sampson, E Company, 505th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division, was deadly with a mortar.

maneuver and troopers lost their footing and fell down. They fought to get back up. Other jumpers had to help them but they could hardly remain standing themselves. Some were getting sick, I know, because the stench of vomit drifted my way from somewhere else. It was one hell of a ride. With all the training we’d had, there was still nothing that could have prepared a soldier for this event. I wondered if anyone of us would get out of the plane alive.” The fire at the Hairon house was not anywhere close to being contained. And then they heard it, the citizens and the soldiers. Above the church bells and the noise of the fire and the people fighting it came the sound of aircraft, at first far off to the west but quickly growing closer and louder until it was a wall of thunder beating the air directly overhead. People D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

23

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 24

looked up and out of the blackness there came human forms floating down beneath mottled green parachutes! They were American paratroopers, and they had come to liberate a continent. All across Normandy in the early hours of D-Day, chaos reigned. Small groups and individual parachutists jumped into German positions and fought pitched battles with the enemy in the dark. Some troops Author Photo

A dummy representing Private John Steele, F Company, 505th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division, still hangs from the steeple of the church in SainteMère-Église. In actuality, Steele hung from the opposite side of the steeple.

landed in trees and dangled helplessly until they could either cut themselves down with their combat knives or were shot to death by the Germans. Others drowned in flooded fields, pulled underwater by their heavy equipment. Flaming transport planes crashed or exploded in midair. Farmhouses became fortresses, bridges barriers, and roadways killing zones. The enemy had no idea of the scope of the airborne assault and fought back furiously, aware that their—and Germany’s— very existence depended on defeating the Allied paratroopers who seemed to be behind every tree, building, and hedgerow. In some cases, Soviet POWs, who had 24

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

been impressed into German service, fought as fiercely as their German overseers but, given the opportunity, were more likely than not to surrender at the first opportunity. German commanders sent frantic messages back to higher headquarters where the captains and majors and colonels had no better idea interpreting what was transpiring than did the average Ländser in his foxhole. Almost nowhere was the scene more chaotic than at Sainte-Mère-Église. Spencer Wurst, F/505/82nd, was one of those dropping over the town. “The first thing I remember seeing as I descended was a large spire in a bunch of buildings that later proved to be Sainte-Mère-Église,” he said. “To my surprise, there were fires in the town. Almost immediately after—these things happen in microseconds—I started receiving very heavy light flak and machine-gun fire from the ground. This was absolutely terrifying. The tracers looked as if they were going to take the top of my head off, but they were actually coming up at an angle. Many rounds tore through my chute only a few feet above my body. “The third thing I remember is the explosions on the ground, making me fear that the Germans had already zeroed in on our DZ. I later found out that these explosions resulted from our mine bundles. Either the speed of the plane pulled the chutes off, or the bundles dropped faster than expected, and the impact bent the safety clips on the fuses, causing them to explode.” Another paratrooper, Pfc. Ernest Blanchard, was floating down over the town when a buddy next to him, loaded with a mine or demolitions, exploded and completely disintegrated right in front of him. Duke Boswell, G/505/82nd, recalled, “When we jumped, we floated over the edge of the town. There was fire coming up. We could see the tracers from the machine guns. And you know for every tracer round you can see there’s about ten bullets in between. When they went by you, they’d pop and made you kind of jump. It’s funny—you jump with 10,000 troops and you hit the ground and you’re all alone. That’s a hell of a thing. For a moment or so, you’re right there by yourself, period. We actually hit our designated target, right outside Sainte-Mère-Église. I think that all of the other units, including the pathfinders that went in ahead of us, missed their targets. I landed within a half a mile of Sainte-Mère-Église, or closer.” Lieutenant Vincent Wolf, a platoon commander in F/505/82nd, also had indelible memories of the drop. “The 2nd Battalion did not land in any of the flooded areas; that was mostly the 1st and 3rd Battalions, so we were lucky. After we landed, we took fire immediately from the Germans; thank God I had my Thompson submachine gun.” Misdropped men from the 101st were also drifting over Sainte-Mère-Église. The jump master of his stick, Lieutenant Charles Santarsiero, 506/101, remembered looking out his C-47’s doorway as the plane neared the town. “I could see fires burning and Krauts running about. There seemed to be total confusion on the ground. All hell had broken loose. Flak and small-arms fire was coming up and those poor guys were caught right in the middle of it.” Earl McClung, E/506/101st, was jumping with a leg bag full of machine-gun and mortar rounds that weighed more than 60 pounds. “I couldn’t lift it,” he said. When he jumped, he noticed that he was coming down above a town where a major fire was burning; it was Sainte-Mère-Église, and he was many miles from his intended DZ. “I landed on the roof of a small Catholic shrine about a block and a half west of the church. I hit that roof and bounced off. It was pretty hectic for the first few seconds. Two Germans were running toward me. I guess they saw me coming down, but they were shooting at my chute that was on this little roof. I jumped with my M-1 assembled and in my hands. It was no contest—they were only a few feet away and I took care of those guys. At least I think I did; I didn’t wait around long enough to make sure.

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 25

Both: National Archives

ABOVE: Troopers of the 505th PIR run for the door of the church in Sainte-Mère-Église as German artillery lands in the town on June 6, 1944. BELOW: The bodies of three German soldiers killed in the fighting in Normandy.

I went on by them and headed out of town. I ran through the graveyard and ... joined up with the 505th of the 82nd for about the next nine days. I finally rejoined my unit at Carentan.” Most of the parachutists landed safely in the dark fields around Sainte-Mère-Église, but some of them—primarily from F Company, 505th—were coming down in the very center of the town, where the light from the burning Hairon house made it easy for the Germans to spot them. Breaking out of their momentary bewilderment, the German soldiers suddenly unshouldered their Mausers and Schmeisers and began firing up at the descending forms. The paratroops hit the ground or landed in trees or snagged their chutes on utility poles, killed in their harnesses even before they could reach their Thompson sub-machine guns or remove their disassembled rifles from their carrying cases and put them together. It was an unmitigated slaughter. The civilian bucket brigade scattered as the lead flew indiscriminately and a full-scale battle for the town square erupted. But neither the French nor the Germans immediately realized that the parachutists were Americans; most everyone thought they were British. As David Howarth noted in Dawn of D-Day, “The people of Sainte-Mère-Église,

through all their years of listening to the BBC, had never dreamed that their liberators, in the end, would be Americans.” It was only after the American flags sewn onto the sleeves of the dead paratroopers’ jump jackets were seen that the truth became known. One paratrooper was caught in a tree near the church and was machine-gunned to death as he struggled to release his harness. Mayor Renaud recalled, “About half a dozen Germans emptied the magazines of their sub-machine guns into him and the boy hung there with his eyes open, as though looking down at his own bullet holes.” One paratrooper pulled his risers hard to slip away from the gunfire in the square but found himself drifting straight for the burning house. Having jumped from the plane so close to the ground, he had no time to maneuver and dropped into the inferno that was sucking in the air all around it; all the munitions he was carrying detonated. Another of the paratroopers, Private John Steele, a member of Wolf’s platoon, was shot in the foot as he descended, then got his canopy snagged on a corner of the church steeple and dangled there helplessly. With all the wild gunfire going on below him, Steele decided that the best thing he could do was play dead. A German soldier, Corporal Rudolph May, was up in the church’s bell tower when the airborne attack came. Noticing Steele dangling outside one of the openings in the steeple, May said, “There was a man hanging there, suspended. He hung there like he was dead—but after a while he started moving. Then we also heard him sighing.” May’s comrade raised his weapon as if to shoot him, but May stopped him. He decided to try and cut the suspension lines of Steele’s chute. After he had cut several, he threw Steele a rope by which he could lower himself to the ground and be taken prisoner. The exact number of paratroopers who came down in Sainte-Mère-Église is unknown, but Cornelius Ryan estimated it to be no more than 30, with about 20 of D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

25

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 26

Both: National Archives

that number landing in and around the church square. Lieutenant Colonel Ed Krause patted the pocket of his jump jacket to make sure it was still there. “It” was the flag he had raised over the Naples city hall eight months earlier and he had sworn to repeat that act here in Sainte-Mère-Église—if he lived to do so. On the outskirts of town, Krause, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and commander of 3rd Battalion, 505/82nd, surveyed the ville which, minutes before, had been in an uproar, what with a fire blazing, parachutists dropping here, there, and everywhere, and bullets flying. One of those who landed with Krause’s battalion was Pfc. Leslie P. Cruise, Jr., H/505/82nd. He said, “We could hear sounds of machine-gun and rifle fire all around, but nothing was from our immediate location. We had secured our area and were waiting orders to move, which came after the confrontation with a civilian who had been convinced to join our group by a group of troopers. With the assistance of our newfound friend we moved out toward Sainte-Mère-Église with G Company in the lead, followed by H and I Company groups. Some groups were missing by the planeload, and we had no idea where they were, but we could not wait for them because time was very important to the success of the mission.” Krause had nearly 200 men with him, hiding in the weeds and in the hedgerows and behind buildings, preparing to enter the town. Without first making a houseto-house search, Krause and his men would slip into the town with their rifles empty, using only knives and grenades if they should encounter the enemy. That way, if any flashes were spotted in the dark, they would know it was the enemy doing the firing and be able to pinpoint the location. Krause knew that it was a dangerous gamble, but one he had to take. Spencer Wurst made a hard landing in a field outside of Sainte-Mère-Église, hurting his back and hips. “If it had been a training jump,” he said, “I would have sought medical attention; I didn’t have that 26

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: A captain in an 82nd Airborne Division medical unit (right) gives a cigarette to a wounded German soldier. OPPOSITE: A unit of 82nd Airborne Division troopers advances past a knocked-out M4 Sherman tank along a hedgerow in Normandy.

luxury. Before I even attempted to get out of my chute, I crawled over to the nearest hedgerow to get some cover. I pulled my pistol out, put it beside me, and went to work on the buckles of my chute.” As he lay there, Wurst saw C-47s above him seemingly coming from all different directions and taking AA fire. He then saw a green star cluster. “This was the sign that someone in the battalion command group had reached the battalion assembly location.” With pain in his back and hips, he hobbled off in that direction and met up with his platoon leader, Lieutenant Joe Holcomb. Despite the darkness at the battalion assembly point, Holcomb could see a standing paratrooper. Not wanting to give the position away, Holcomb told Wurst to tell that soldier to get down and take cover. Wurst said he hollered at the individual. “I don’t know about the politeness of the language I used. As the individual turned toward me, I saw two big stars. It was General Ridgway. That was the first and last time I tried to chew out the general.” As a platoon commander in the 82nd, Lieutenant Vincent Wolf was supposed to be in charge of 40 men, but his platoon was scattered from hell to breakfast. Strangely, he didn’t mind. “If you had two or three guys together,” he explained, “it was a lot easier because you knew what you were going to do, instead of worrying about 30 or 40 other guys and what the hell they’re doing; you could get yourself lost in the dark a lot easier with 30 or 40 other guys. And if you have a small group and you see the enemy, it’s easier to knock them off with a knife.” Wolf said that, after landing, “We cleaned out buildings, ran into groups of Germans who were well-trained—German paratroopers [6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment]—who were tough guys.” Also moving toward Sainte-Mère-Église, Sergeant Otis Sampson, E/505/82nd, noted that the night sky was still filled with paratroopers. “Troopers came raining down to the rear of us,” he said. “My heart was in my throat, afraid that the first ones out would be hit by the lower-flying planes as they floated to earth, and there were some pretty close calls.”

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 27

At the battalion assembly point on the outskirts of town, Sampson came across the injured Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, his battalion commander. “He had his back against a wall and his legs outstretched,” Sampson said. “He filled me in, saying, ‘Some of the planes have become lost. I have sent out to gather what men and equipment we have; we’ve got the situation in hand.’ He paused for a spell and then said, ‘I came down quite hard on this leg,’ running his hand along his left one. ‘I’ve done something to it; I’ve sent for a medic.’” Sampson said, “I could see he was in pain. There was nothing I could do for him, so I turned to go. ‘I’m proud to have you with us,’ he said as I walked away. It is me who should be telling him that, with a busted leg and still in control of the situation; it was a nice compliment.” Spencer Wurst also saw Vandervoort. “He had broken his ankle in the jump and was hopping around on one leg, using a rifle as a crutch.” Broken leg or not, Vandervoort had come to France to fight and lead his battalion, and that was what he was going to do. The 505th’s exec officer, Mark Alexander, described Vandervoort as “a hell of a good battalion commander, but he was hard-headed as hell.” Vincent Wolf recalled that Vandervoort “had a broken ankle but he wouldn’t let that slow him down. He was the greatest guy alive— great, great, great, great. We always called him ‘Ben,’ never ‘colonel.’ He’d give you a rap on the head if you saluted him in combat. I was the same way; I told my men ‘Never salute me,’ because that gives away to the enemy who the officers are, and then you’d get picked off by snipers. That’s what we did with the Germans. Once you knocked their non-coms off, the privates, hell, they didn’t know what to do. We could improvise a lot quicker than they could. “I knew that we were supposed to free the French people, but I was more concerned about my men and me. The men first—where the hell were they? How many guys have survived? Out of the 18 that jumped with me, Russ Brown, my 60mm mortarman, he’s the only one that survived. There were Germans all around. It was a matter of survival—who saw who first.” Vandervoort nabbed a couple of 101st men with a cart to haul him to his battalion’s objective. His mission was to get to Sainte-Mère-Église and that’s just what he intended to do, broken leg or not. As Lt. Col. Krause’s group crept closer to the town, it looked like everything was over; the fire was out, the townsfolk had returned to their homes, and the German soldiers had also vacated the square by the big church, apparently thinking the battle was over, not just beginning. Smoke still filled the air and the bodies of dead paratroopers hung from trees and poles or lay sprawled on the pavement. With stealth and silence the Americans slipped into town, found a building that was being used as a German barracks, and took 30 soldiers prisoner; 10 others were killed when they resisted. The Yanks also found the main communications cable to Cherbourg and destroyed it, then established a defense around the town’s perimeter. Although he didn’t immediately know where he was other than somewhere in northern France, Duke Boswell did his best to round up other troopers. “My mission was just to get our group together and move into Sainte-Mère-Église. I put a flashlight on

top of a pole—several sections that fit together—about 20 feet high. I think the lens was colored—red or green. The idea was to stick it in the ground so the troops could see it as an assembly point. We found somebody right quick-like, and then we got several more together. I assembled most of my squad and we got a few more and then one of the officers got there. The officer took charge and we went into Sainte-Mère-Église. “We had certain positions around the town that we were to occupy, and the mission was to hold the village of Sainte-

Mère-Église, well, not really the whole village, but the crossroads and a bridge to keep [German] reinforcements from getting to the beach and others at the beach from retreating. Seemed like our whole regiment was in and around Sainte-Mère-Église. We established our position on the edge of town on one of the roads. The first thing we saw when we got there were some of our guys hanging from the trees. They had jumped right over the town, and were shot before they could get out of their chutes.” To hamper the Germans from returning to Sainte-Mère-Église, Pfc. Leslie Cruise and other paratroopers had set out mines on one of the roads leading into the city, then dug foxholes and set up firing posiD-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

27

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 28

tions to establish a roadblock. After the first gliders began landing in the area, Cruise heard equipment being off-loaded, followed by the sound of an American jeep being started. The jeep, with two soldiers in it, came tearing up the road toward Cruise’s position. The paratroopers tried shouting to warn the jeep’s occupants of the roadblock and mines but the vehicle flew past them at a high rate of speed. Cruise said, “The occupants of the jeep were in a big hurry as we at the roadblock heard their running motor coming in our direction. Above all the noise, the distinct yells at the roadblock of ‘Hit the ground!’ were heard clearly and we all Both: National Archives

buried ourselves in the dirt of our foxholes. The driver must have thought our men were Germans and was not about to stop. Down the road they rode on full throttle. “KAPOW ! BLOOEY ! BANG ! BOOM! —a deafening crescendo of explosives sounds as a number of our mines blew the jeep and its troopers into the air. All Hell broke loose—flashing lights with pieces of jeep and mine fragments raining down around us. Directly across the middle of our minefield they drove and immediately their direction became vertical, and in an arch28

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ing skyward path they landed in the hedgerow beyond. We could hear the thump and bangs of falling parts all around us. The men had left the jeep on first impact and they had become the first casualties in our area, but they would not be the last. We had lost about half of our mines, which we had so carefully delivered, and they would be sorely needed in case the Krauts should attack. Those GI’s sure wrecked the hell out of our defenses.” The defenders would indeed need the mines, for it wasn’t long before the Germans tried to retake the town. The sky finally lightened to a gray overcast. Ben Vandervoort decided that he had assembled all of 2nd Battalion that he was likely to gather and so, with about 400 men, including some from the 101st, moved out cross-country toward Sainte-Mère-Église, sending out small patrols to farmhouses and barns to make sure that no German troops were lying in wait. Lieutenant Wolf said, “We went into Sainte-Mère-Église. It was chaos for the simple reason that everybody was all over the place. We didn’t know who was who, who was supposed to do what, where the CP was. Total confusion.” Otis Sampson recalled, “Orders were for us to take Sainte-Mère-Église. It wasn’t known at the time that the city had already been taken by Colonel Krause and was secure in his hands. It was early morning when our group came into the city with our colonel [Vandervoort] on a makeshift two-wheel stretcher. There were paratroopers still hanging from their chutes where they had been caught in the high trees before they could release themselves. Colonel Vandervoort’s first command: ‘Cut them down!’” In the northern part of town, Krause’s American flag flew proudly from the city hall flagpole. Next door, at the large hospital/hospice, 505th surgeon Robert “Doc” Franco and his medics set up shop, caring for Americans, Germans, and civilians alike. “I was there from about 4 am until noon. During that time we treated about 30 or 40 casualties. Somebody came in and told me that about a mile away there was a farmhouse loaded with wounded guys. The family who lived there was doing the best they could to care for them. I walked to that farmhouse and, sure ‘nough, all around the outside there were dozens of wounded guys, some of them badly wounded. There were a few inside, too, in this large room. I was alone, with nobody to help me.” Franco himself would himself be wounded a few days later. But if the Germans thought the onslaught ended with the paratroopers, they couldn’t have been more wrong; the glider force was on the way. By the next day, June 7, Sainte-Mère-Église was still in 82nd Division hands, but no one knew how long the Yanks could hold if the Germans decided to counterattack in force. Vandervoort’s 2nd Battalion, 505th, was supposed to have moved up to Neuvilleau-Plain to prevent the enemy from attacking from the north, but a German assault from the south compelled General Ridgway to order the bulk of 2nd Battalion to remain in Sainte-Mère-Église and reinforce Krause’s 3rd Battalion there. Vandervoort decided on his own, however, to send a reinforced platoon to Neuville-au-Plain to forestall any attack from that direction. General Gavin later called Vandervoort’s move “one of the

D-Day14 Sainte Mere Eglise_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:27 PM Page 29

ABOVE: Dead American paratroopers gathered in a field by a Graves Registration unit prior to burial. OPPOSITE: A destroyed German self-propelled gun smolders along the road leading from Neuville-au-Plain to Sainte-Mère-Église. Private John E. Atchley, H Company, 505th PIR, was credited with destroying the assault gun with a 57mm antitank gun—the first time he had ever fired one. His courageous stand caused the Germans to halt their armored counter-attack against Sainte-Mère-Église.

best tactical decisions in the battle of Normandy,” for it was there that the Germans were gathering for a panzer-and-infantry assault. First Lieutenant Turner B. Turnbull III, a half-Cherokee, took 44 men up the N-13 highway from Sainte-Mère-Église to Neuville-au-Plain, pushed out the German defenders, then prepared for the counterattack. Vandervoort, in a jeep towing a 57mm gun, joined him. Receiving word from a civilian that a group of paratroopers were approaching from the north with a captured self-propelled gun and a large number of German POWs, Turnbull and his colonel watched and waited. Before long, the group was seen coming down the road. It was a trick. The “POWs” turned out to be well-armed Germans, and the “paratroopers” were either Germans in American uniforms that had been stripped from the dead or were real Americans who had been captured by the Germans. At any rate, the SP gun, and more behind it, began blasting Turnbull’s positions in Neuville-au-Plain, along with mortars and small arms. Vandervoort told Turnbull to delay the enemy for as long as possible, then withdraw back to Sainte-Mère-Église; the colonel then departed to alert the troops in Sainte-Mère-Église that the enemy was coming. Turnbull’s men fought off the assault by the 1058th Infantry Regiment, reinforced, 91st Air-Landing Division. The battle lasted all day, with Turnbull’s outnumbered force giving as good as it got. At one point a soldier, Private John Atchley, manning a 57mm gun he had never fired before, knocked out a German SP gun, but the enemy was flanking the Americans on both sides. Sergeant Otis Sampson, located south of Neuville, personally dropped mortar rounds on the enemy threatening Turnbull’s platoon; his aim was on target and his platoon leader, Lieutenant Ted Peterson, called Sampson “the greatest and most accurate mortar sergeant in the business.” At about 5 PM, the time came to withdraw, given the fact that Turnbull had only 16 effectives remaining out of his original number. But it was too late for him. Lieutenant James Coyle, E/505, recalled, “We engaged the enemy and prevented him from going any fur-

ther in his plan of encirclement. We were able to hold them even though we were outnumbered, while Turnbull got his surviving men out of Neuville-au-Plain and on the way back to Sainte-Mère-Église.” Turnbull never made it. Pfc. Stanley Kotlarz remembered a terrible shelling during the pull-back: “When [the shell] hit, all of us seemed to go up in the air. I got hit in the wrist and in the arm. A guy by the name of Brown got hit in the head. And Lieutenant Turnbull, it sheered the top of his head right off. When I got up, I saw Brown crawling away, staggering. Turnbull was lying there with his brains peeling out of his head.” For his valor, Turnbull received the Silver Star, posthumously. The 82nd retook Neuville-au-Plain the following day with the help of armor that had landed at Utah Beach. Turnbull’s delaying action had given the 505th time to consolidate its position and likely saved the men in Sainte-Mère-Église. Like the battles for scores of towns and villages in Normandy, the war passed through Sainte-Mère-Église, then moved on toward the east, leaving hundreds of dead and wounded—both combatants and civilians—in its wake. But the dead were, and are, remembered. Chaplain Francis L. Sampson, 501/ 101st, reflected, “The French people of the little city of Sainte-Mère-Église had arranged that each family adopt a couple of graves [at the American military cemetery above Omaha Beach]. On Sundays and Holy Days they bedecked them with flowers, promising always to remember those soldiers in their prayers. This promise still holds good. American visitors to the cemetery are always moved by the sight of a French family placing fresh flowers on a grave or kneeling there offering their prayers for the soul of an adopted son or brother whom they had never seen in life.” This article is adapted from Flint Whitlock’s latest book, If Chaos Reigns: The Near-Disaster and Ultimate Triumph of Allied Airborne Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944 (Casemate, 2011). D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

29

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:59 PM Page 30

The U.S. 29th Infantry Division fought its way ashore in Normandy on the bloodiest of D-Day beaches.

BLUE& GRAY at Omaha Beach National Guard Heritage Series

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:59 PM Page 31

Under intense German fire during the first wave at Omaha Beach, soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division traverse the wide expanse of the shoreline while others cling to the low seawall, which provides minimal cover. A few soldiers, including one officer with his .45-caliber Colt pistol drawn, have begun to move forward to take on the defenses of the Atlantic Wall.

T

he U.S. 29th Infantry Division was formed in July 1917, three months after America entered World War I. Somewhat surprisingly, it was made up of National Guard units from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia—surprising since this was a mixture of southern boys and Yankees, and memories of the Civil War, which had ended just over 50 years earlier, were still fresh. Nevertheless, a circular blue and gray patch worn on the left sleeve of the division uniform symbolized unity in a time of national crisis, and with its new nickname, the Blue and Gray, the division was sent to France in June 1918. It took part in the Meuse-Argonne offensive in October, suffering 5,691 casualties in just 21 days of combat. After returning to the States, the division was demobilized, and the units reverted to their original National Guard status. Between the world wars, the Delaware and New Jersey units of the 29th were transferred out of the division and replaced by a second Virginia regiment. Thus, the 29th drew its recruits from just two states and the District of Columbia. The division was composed of three regiments, and the men were indoctrinated from day one in the history By Major of their respective regiGeneral ments. The men of the Michael 115th learned that its origin Reynolds lay in the old 1st Maryland and those of the 116th in the 2nd Virginia Regiment dating back to 1760. The latter called themselves the Stonewallers, remembering that at the Battle of First Bull Run the Confederate general, Barnard Bee, seeing Brig. Gen. Thomas Jackson’s brigade standing fast when the battle seemed lost, had shouted to his men: “There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!” The men of the 175th Regiment traced their heritage to the Dandy Fifth of Maryland, named after its handsome full-dress uniform. They were instructed that their forebears had saved George Washington’s D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

31

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:16 AM Page 32

32

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

On September 6, 1942, Gerow received orders that his division was to prepare for an immediate deployment overseas, and within a few days the Blue and Gray was moved by train to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. On the 26th, the bulk of the division boarded the giant Cunard liner Queen Mary for an unescorted high-speed crossing of the Atlantic. The balance of the division followed in her sister ship, Queen Elizabeth, and by October 11, the 29th was complete in England. It was to remain there for nearly two years. The 29th Division spent its first seven months in England in a Victorian barracks in Tidworth in the central-southern part of the country before being dispersed to various towns in Devon and Cornwall in the West Country, towns like Tavistock, Barnstaple, Bodmin, and Okehampton. The soldiers found the winter weather depressing and life unlike anything they had experienced previously. They found the British and their way of life puzzling—no ice or refrigerators, no showers, warm beer, vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road, the perils of English pronunciation, and so on. Keeping warm was a major problem, with no central heating in Army camps and little or none even in the private houses in which some were billeted and others invited. Some things were familiar and comforting, however—the language, distances measured in miles, even if nobody knew what a city block was, and, of course, girls. And it All photos: National Archives except where noted.

army at the Battle of Long Island in 1776 by charging the British lines. With the exception of the 175th Regiment, which was recruited and based solely in the city of Baltimore, the companies of the 115th and 116th Regiments were decentralized and located in armories across Maryland or Virginia—in towns like Annapolis, Westminster, Salisbury, Winchester, and Charlottesville. Military service was unpopular in the late 1920s and 1930s, and most National Guard units were understrength and suffered from a lack of training, ammunition, and modern equipment. The 29th Division came together for collective training only two weeks each year. Inevitably, the outbreak of World War II improved recruiting, and on February 3, 1941, the division was inducted into one year of federal service at Fort Meade, Maryland. Two months later the first draft of conscripts, mainly from Maryland and Virginia, arrived and within a short time they outnumbered the volunteers. Any ideas that the division might be sent to fight the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 were soon dashed, and the demoralizing cycle of humdrum training and guard duties along the East Coast continued relentlessly. Ammunition was still in short supply, and the men wore World War I-vintage steel helmets. Boredom, rather than Japan or Germany, became the biggest enemy, lowering morale greatly. On March 2, 1942, the 61-year-old commander of the Blue and Gray was replaced, to the delight of the division, by a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow. An officer of the old school but not a martinet, Gerow was popular with his officers and men. He would go on to command a corps in the European campaign. Ten days later, the 29th was restructured to conform to the triangular organization of Regular Army divisions and reduced in size from 22,000 men to 15,500. It consisted of three regiments (each of three infantry battalions), four artillery battalions, a cavalry reconnaissance troop, and an engineer battalion.

ABOVE: Manned by a crew of U.S. Coast Guardsmen, LCI(L)-85 is shown during practice landings prior to the D-Day invasion. This exercise took place at Slapton Sands in the south of England, the site of the ill-fated Exercise Tiger during which Allied transports were attacked by German E-boats. LCI(L)-85 took heavy fire from German batteries on D-Day and was sunk in the English Channel. BELOW: Soldiers practice for their landings on D-Day. These troops are using the Bangalore torpedo, specially designed to blast gaps in barbed wire obstacles. Many of these specialized weapons were lost in the opening minutes of the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach due to strong German resistance and the weight of combat gear, which contributed to the drownings of numerous soldiers who exited their landing craft in water that was above their heads.

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:16 AM Page 33

was hardly surprising that the local girls found the boys of the Blue and Gray attractive—a private first class was paid nearly four times the rate of his British counterpart! By the spring of 1943, the 29th was the only U.S. infantry division in the United Kingdom, and the men began to wonder if they would ever see action. Their predecessors in Tidworth, the 1st Infantry Division, had been sent to North Africa, and they were aware that other divisions, including National Guard units, were being sent to that theater directly from the States. Many of the GIs wondered why they were in Europe at all. It was Japan, not Germany, that had attacked their country. The fact that a surprising number of the soldiers were of German lineage certainly did not help matters. In July 1943, Maj. Gen. Gerow was promoted to command V Corps, and on the 22nd of that month the new divisional commander arrived directly from the States. His reputation had preceded him—a West Pointer and a strict disciplinarian of the old school. General Omar Bradley later described him as “a peppery 48-year-old cavalryman whose enthusiasm sometimes exceeded his judgment as a soldier.” He was Maj. Gen. Charles H. Gerhardt. Despite his reputation, the new commander started with a highly popular move. Sensing that morale was low and that training seven days per week was leading to staleness and boredom, he immediately ordered a three-day rest period and an extension of the previously restricted furlough system. Despite this seemingly generous gesture, Gerhardt soon proved himself a fearsome though competent leader. He was a stickler for neatness and immediately made it clear that nothing but the highest standards were acceptable in his division. Above all, he made strenuous efforts to raise the morale of his men to a point where they considered themselves superior not only to the enemy but to all other troops in the U.S. Army. To this end he invented the battle cry “Twenty-Nine, Let’s Go!” and insisted that his men use it in battle drills, on official correspondence, and even on divisional signposts. It soon caught on. Gerhardt was determined to infuse a new spirit of aggressiveness into his division and placed great emphasis on hard physical training, weapon handling, and shooting. He even demanded that every man be taught how to swim and insisted that any soldier failing to meet his rigorous training standards be transferred out of the division. This resulted in some infantry companies losing nearly half their original personnel during their time in England. In late 1943, Brig. Gen. Norman Cota joined the 29th as its new assistant division commander, a post recently introduced into the Army. Cota had been chief of staff of the 1st Infantry Division in the North Africa campaign and was a perfect choice. He inspired confidence and was a natural leader. Fortunately, he and Gerhardt got on famously. The latter, known to the men as Uncle Charlie, was short and neat to the point of being dapper. The former, known as Dutch, was tall and often casually dressed. They made a formidable pair. The nearer D-Day approached, the more intense the training became. In December 1943 and January 1944, the 29th was joined by the 1st Infantry Division, recently returned from action in the Mediterranean, and by tank, artillery, and engineer battalions for landing exercises at Slapton Sands in south Devon. Ships bombarded mock pillboxes, and both the Navy and the assault troops used live ammunition on a lavish scale. The exercise was repeated on April 27, and no one was left in any doubt that they were to be the lead troops in the forthcoming invasion of the European mainland. Fortunately for the 29th, its landing exercise was carried out successfully and without the calamity that befell the 4th Infantry Division in the early hours of the following day when German E-boats penetrated the escorted convoy of nine U.S. LSTs, sinking two and damaging a third, with the loss of 198 naval personnel and 551 soldiers. In mid-May, the 29th received a sudden and largely unexpected order to move to special camps between Falmouth and Plymouth. These new camps were isolated, sur-

Brigadier General Norman Cota served as assistant commander of the 29th Infantry Division during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. Due to the leadership of Cota and other officers, the infantrymen who had been pinned down on Omaha Beach began to move inland, silencing German defensive positions and seizing the exits from the beach.

rounded by barbed wire, and guarded by some 2,000 Counter Intelligence Corps personnel. No unauthorized personnel were permitted to leave or enter, and camouflage discipline was strictly enforced. At the time of the move, fewer than 200 members of the division knew any of the details of the invasion plan, and it was to be the last week in May before the GIs were briefed on the greatest amphibious operation in the history of warfare and learned that the Stonewallers (the 116th Regiment) were to spearhead the division’s landing on Omaha Beach alongside the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. They were to be the only National Guard unit to land in the first wave on D-Day. Toward the end of the month the division moved into its final marshalling camps where the men and vehicles were organized into shiploads, and by June 3 they were embarked. However, appalling weather in the English Channel forced General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, to delay D-Day. The men of the Blue and Gray had to spend the next three days in cramped conditions below deck. H-hour for Omaha was finally set for 6:30 AM on June 6, and at 4 AM the transports carrying the men of the 116th D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

33

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:17 AM Page 34

Infantry Regiment stopped engines 20 kilometers offshore—well out of range of the German shore batteries. The men began clambering over the iron rails in pitch darkness into the landing craft, which hung from the sides of the ships. With an 18knot wind and heavy swell, this proved a difficult transfer, and a number were injured as they mistimed their jumps. Some even fell overboard to their deaths. The average man was carrying over 60 pounds of equipment, including an assault jacket instead of his normal pack, combat rations, nine grenades, a half-pound block of TNT, rifle ammunition clips, an entrenching tool, a bayonet, a gas mask, and a poncho, and in some cases extra ammunition belts for BARs (Browning Automatic Rifle), as well as his personal weapon.

The Stonewallers had been told that to ease their passage across the beach the battleships USS Texas and USS Arkansas, steaming within 12,000 meters of the shore, would shortly be opening fire with 14-inch guns and that, in addition, three cruisers and 15 destroyers would drench the enemy defenses with pinpoint, rapid fire. They were also informed that an air bombardment was to blast the Nazi gun emplacements, that British Supermarine Spitfires and four squadrons of American Republic P-47 Thunderbolts would be overhead at all times, and that during the night paratroopers had already landed behind enemy lines to cut off reinforcements. While this may have given them some encouragement, seasickness and the freezing spray from the rough sea were of more immediate concern, and before long, as the landing craft circled in a holding pattern, they were being swamped and the men had to help the crafts’ pumps by bailing with their helmets. Meanwhile, aboard the cruiser USS Augusta, the commander of First U.S. Army, General Omar Bradley, had just learned that the German 352nd Infantry Division had been moved from St. Lô to the assault beaches for a defense exercise. He quickly forwarded The U.S. landings at Omaha Beach were opposed by troops of the German 352nd Infantry Division, whose weapons were pre-sighted to cover virtually every inch of ground from the shoreline to the low seawall. The Germans were also situated on high bluffs that overlooked the beach, complicating the efforts of the American 29th Infantry Division to move inland. Map © 2011 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

34

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:17 AM Page 35

this information to Gerow at V Corps headquarters, but it was impossible to pass it to the troops already aboard their landing craft. Even if Maj. Gen. Gerhardt and officers of the 29th Division had been told about the 352nd, there was nothing they could have done about it. This failure of both the American and British intelligence agencies was particularly serious, for the 352nd was not on an exercise at all—it had taken up its coastal defensive positions 11 weeks before D-Day! Bradley reminisced later in his autobiography, A Soldier’s Story: “At 0615 smoke thickened the mist on the coastline as heavy bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force rumbled overhead. Not until later did we learn that most of the 13,000 bombs dropped by these heavies had cascaded harmlessly into the hedgerows three miles behind the coast. In bombing through the overcast, air had deliberately delayed the drop to lessen the danger of spillover on craft approaching the shore. The margin of safety had undermined the effectiveness of the heavy air mission.” And there was more bad news for the Stonewallers. The low cloud, mist, dust, and smoke caused by grass fires set ABOVE: American soldiers crowd the flat bottom of an LCVP, or Higgins boat, as they approach Omaha Beach at Normandy. They are equipped with M1 Garand and M1 Carbine rifles, while their alight on the bluffs by the naval bombardment soon combat loads often weighed in excess of 60 pounds. Concentrated German fire caused some obscured most of their targets and reference points. Most landing craft to stop short of the beach and discharge their cargo of infantrymen into deep of the shells and rockets fell well short of the sea wall. In water. BELOW: Churning through the rough waters of the English Channel, Higgins boats laden fact, few of the German strongpoints were seriously dam- with U.S. soldiers approach Omaha Beach on D-Day. Some soldiers have already disembarked and are seen wading through the surf toward shore, while intense German fire rakes the waterline. aged by the air and naval bombardments. Shrouds of smoke are visible in the distance. The landing plan for Omaha saw the amphibious Sherman tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion leading the assault. They were due to land at H minus 5 (6:25 AM), but the rough seas caused the naval officer in charge of the eight landing craft to give up any idea of launching the tanks 6,000 meters offshore. Knowing they would have little chance of reaching the beach before they were swamped, he decided to run his craft right onto the shore and let the Shermans drive off. It was a wise decision. The 741st Tank Battalion supporting the 1st Division on the eastern part of Omaha lost 27 of its 32 Shermans in its attempt to swim them. Even so, things did not go as well for the 743rd as hoped. Two of A Company’s tanks were swamped, and B Company, landing opposite the Vierville draw, came under immediate artillery, cannon, and antitank fire and lost seven of its 16 tanks. The company commander’s landing craft was sunk just offshore, and four other officers were killed or Corbis / Bettmann wounded, leaving a single lieutenant in command. Nevertheless, the nine remaining Shermans began engaging enemy positions from the water’s even before leaving their assault craft. The edge. Company C touched down successfully to the east but soon attracted fire. The nov- companies landed more or less simultaneelist Ernest Hemingway, who accompanied the invasion force but did not go ashore ously with a company of the 1st Battalion because of an injured leg, wrote later that he saw five tanks hit and set on fire. He coming ashore just east of the Vierville described the Shermans as “crouched like big yellow toads along the high water mark.” draw and suffering the worst, losing an Owing to the ineffectiveness of both the naval and air bombardments, many of the estimated 65 percent of its strength within infantrymen in the first waves of the 116th Regiment found themselves under direct fire 10 minutes. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

35

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 1:57 PM Page 36

One landing craft foundered a kilometer offshore on a sand bar, and most of its complement drowned under the weight of their personal loads; another completely disintegrated after being hit by mortar shells, and in a third all 32 men including the company commander, Captain Taylor Fellers, were killed. The following account, prepared by the U.S. War Department’s Historical Division after interviewing survivors, paints a horrific picture of what it was like for the hapless soldiers of A Company. “All boats came under criss-cross machine-gun fire.... As the first men jumped, they crumpled and flopped into the water. Then order was lost. It seemed to the men that the only way to get ashore was to dive head first in and swim clear of the fire that was strik-

The tide was drowning wounded men who had been cut down on the sands, and bodies were being carried ashore just below the shingle. Stunned and shaken by what they had experienced, the men found the sea wall and shingle bank all too welcome as cover. ing the boats. But, as they hit the water, their heavy equipment dragged them down and soon they were struggling to keep afloat. Some were hit in the water and wounded. Some drowned then and there.... But some moved safely through the bullet fire to the sand and then, finding they could not hold there, went back into the water and used it as cover, only their heads sticking out. Those who survived kept moving forward with the tide, sheltering at times behind under-water obstacles and in this way finally made their landings. Within minutes of the ramps being lowered, A Company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been 36

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

killed or wounded.... It had become a struggle for survival and rescue. The men in the water pushed wounded men ahead of them, and those who had reached the sands crawled back into the water pulling others to land to save them from drowning, in many cases to see the rescued men wounded again or to be hit themselves. Within twenty minutes of striking the beach A Company had ceased to be an assault company and had become a forlorn little rescue party bent on survival and the saving of lives.” And so it was to be for many others on D-Day. Company C of the 2nd Rangers, coming in just to the west of the Vierville draw shortly after A Company, lost 35 of 64 men. Company G of the 2nd Battalion, 116th Regiment, which should have landed between the Vierville and les Moulins draws, ended up in scattered groups just to the east of les Moulins. Half the groups gained some protection from the smoke of brush fires set alight by explosions on the bluffs, but those landing farther to the east ran into heavy machine-gun fire, and one boat team lost 14 of its complement of 31. Company F, 2nd Battalion came ashore just to the east of its planned sector, directly in front of les Moulins; half the company, unprotected by smoke, came under heavy fire and took 45 minutes to cross the exposed beach, many of the men using the beach obstacles for some sort of protection. Half were cut down. The other half of the company managed to reach the protection of the shingle bank, but by then they had lost all their officers and were largely disorganized. Company E of the same battalion, meant to land on Company F’s left flank, veered over a kilometer to the east and ended up in scattered groups in the 1st Division’s sector. Two of its boats made good landings with only two casualties, but a third was hit by an artillery shell, and the others came under heavy machine-gun fire. The company commander, Captain Lawrence Madill, was killed. There were two reasons for so many of the assault boats landing well to the east of their designated positions: the strong current running laterally eastward and the difficulties of navigating through the smoke and beach obstacles. By 7 AM, A Company had been cut to pieces at the water’s edge, F Company was disorganized with heavy losses, G Company was scattered but had some groups preparing to move west along the beach to find their assigned objective, and E Company was nowhere to be found in the Blue and Gray sector. A Special Engineer Task Force, which in the Blue and Gray sector comprised the 146th Engineer Combat Battalion and a number of naval combat demolition units, had the mission of preparing eight 50-meter gaps through the German obstacle belt in just 30 minutes. It ran into trouble even before coming ashore. Delays in loading and navigational problems resulted in four of the assault teams arriving 10 or more minutes late and only three finding their designated disembarkation points. Most were swept to the east, and a number landed where there were no infantry or tanks to give them covering fire. The conditions under which the teams had to work could not have been worse. Apart from enemy fire, friendly infantry sheltering behind the obstacles due for destruction and others passing through them toward the sea wall caused severe delays. In addition, only six of the Sherman dozer tanks assisting the engineer task force reached the beach in working order, and three of these were soon disabled by artillery fire. Nevertheless, despite appalling casualties, two gaps had been cleared in the 116th’s sector by 7 AM. Sadly, the equipment for marking these gaps had been lost, so they were invisible in high water conditions. At 7 AM, the second assault wave began touching down in a series of landings that lasted 40 minutes. The U.S. War Department’s official narrative has this description: “The later waves did not come in under the conditions planned for their arrival. The tide, flowing into the obstacle belt by 0700, was through it an hour later, rising eight feet in that period; but the obstacles were gapped at only a few places. The enemy fire, which had decimated the first waves, was not neutralized when the larger landings com-

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:18 AM Page 37

Soldiers of the U.S. 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division assaulted Omaha Beach along with the troops of the 29th Infantry Division on D-Day. These men of Company E, 16th Regiment have just exited their Higgins boat, which embarked from the transport USS Samuel Chase.

menced. No advances had been made beyond the shingle, and neither tanks nor the scattered pockets of infantry already ashore were able to give much covering fire.... Mislandings continued to be a disrupting factor, not merely in scattering the infantry units but also in preventing engineers from carrying out special assignments and in separating headquarters elements from their units, thus hindering reorganization.” The other three companies of the 1st Battalion, 116th Regiment were scheduled to land on a one-kilometer front to the east of the Vierville draw at 7 AM in support of its now decimated A Company. Only two or three sections did so. B Company’s assault craft failed to recognize the essential landmarks, and the company ended up scattered a kilometer on each side of the A Company survivors. Those who did land in the right place suffered the same fate as their comrades, and the company commander, Captain Ettore Zappacosta, was killed. Company C landed 10 minutes later in relatively good shape, but a kilometer to the east of the Vierville draw. Drifting smoke gave it protection from direct fire, and it suffered only five or six casualties but lost all its flamethrowers, 60mm mortars, bangalore torpedoes, and demolition charges when the boat carrying them overturned in the surf. The company found itself on its own but sheltered by a meter-high wooden sea wall. Company D (Heavy Weapons) was less fortunate. One boat was swamped and had to be abandoned, another was sunk by a mine or artillery round, and a third stopped 100 meters offshore. The company commander, Captain Walter Schilling, was killed—the third in the same battalion that morning—and only three of its six medium mortars, three of its 11 machine guns, and a limited amount of ammunition were brought ashore. Major Sidney V. Bingham, Jr., the commander of the 116th’s 2nd Battalion, had been among the first to reach the shingle, but for nearly an hour he had no radio to contact the widely scattered elements of his battalion, and his attempt to organize an assault at les Moulins was unsuccessful. He did manage to get about 50 men across the shingle near a prominent three-story house at the mouth of the draw, and although he person-

ally led a group of 10 men nearly to the top of the bluff east of the draw, they were unable to knock out an enemy machinegun nest and had to return to the house. The last company of the 2nd Battalion, the Heavy Weapons Company, had become dispersed during the run-in to the beach, and its machine-gun platoon and two mortar sections ended up in the 1st Division’s sector; the rest of the company, after suffering heavy casualties, found themselves around les Moulins. At approximately 7:15 AM, Lt. Col. Max Schneider’s Ranger force of eight companies approached the Vierville draw in 18 landing craft. Two companies were from the 2nd Rangers and six from the 5th. Three other companies of the 2nd Rangers, under Lt. Col. James Rudder, were at this time assaulting the German strongpoint at Pointe du Hoc, but nothing had been heard from them and it was wrongly assumed that the assault had failed. Schneider soon assessed the situation in front of him and ordered his force to swing east. Even so, A and B Companies of the 2nd Rangers landed where A Company of the 116th had been decimated and suffered the same fate. Only about half reached the sea wall. Fortunately, the 450 men of the 5th Rangers came ashore halfway between the D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

37

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/8/14 4:00 PM Page 38

Vierville and les Moulins draws with only five or six casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Meeks’s 3rd Battalion of the 116th should have followed the 2nd Battalion onto the two-kilometer sector of beach astride the les Moulins draw between 7:20 and 7:30. In fact, it came ashore a few minutes late, well to the east, with part of L Company and the whole of M Company in the 1st Division’s zone. Fortunately, there were only a few casualties, and it is clear that the later assault waves had a much easier time than those landing on or just after H-hour. By 7:30 AM, the exhausted men of the 116th Infantry Regiment were lining the whole of the sea wall or shingle embankment in their sector of Omaha Beach. In some areas, notably in front of the German strongpoints guarding draws, losses in officers and NCOs were so high that remnants of units were practically leaderless. Engineers, Navy personnel from wrecked craft, and elements of other supporting units were all mixed in with the infantry. And now there was a problem of morale. The tide was drowning wounded men who had been cut down on the sands, and bodies were being carried ashore just below the shingle. Stunned and shaken by

38

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

what they had experienced, the men found the sea wall and shingle bank all too welcome as cover. Ahead of them, with wire and minefields to go through, was the area between the sea wall and the bluff, and this was fully exposed to enemy fire. Beyond that were the bare and steep bluffs. It was into this desperate and seemingly hopeless situation that Cota, the deputy commander of the Blue and Gray, and Colonel Charles Canham, the commander of the 116th, and their command groups disembarked at 7:30. Losing only one officer, they landed more or less halfway between the Vierville and les Moulins draws and found C Company of the 1st Battalion, some 2nd Battalion elements, and 450 men of Max Schneider’s Provisional Ranger Force to their left and right. In most places the men were crowded shoulder to shoulder, sometimes several rows deep. Realizing that the situation was now critical and that they had little or no chance of storming the enemy strongpoints defending the Vierville and les Moulins draws, Cota and Canham resolved to advance up the bluffs. This involved crossing the flat salt marsh, some 100 meters deep, devoid of cover and blocked by a double-apron wire fence and an antipersonnel minefield. The bluffs themselves were up to 30 meters high, steep and bare but pockmarked with small folds and depressions that provided some cover. Fortunately, the main German defenses were sited to cover the beach and the draws themselves rather than the ground in between. Cota immediately took personal command of one group of soldiers, and after the first man was cut down as he tried to move through a gap blown in the wire, led the way himself in the dash to the foot of the bluff roughly halfway between the draws. Cota has been credited with the exhortation, “There are two kinds of soldiers on this beach— those who are dead and those who are going to die! So let’s get the hell off this damned beach!” However, those words were actually spoken by Colonel George Taylor of the 16th Regimental Combat Team, 1st Division. There were countless other acts of bravery by young officers and NCOs as they started breaching the wire obstacles and leading their men off the beach and through the minefields. Company C of the 116th, under Captain Berthier Hawks, who had suffered a crushed foot in the landing, led the way at about 7:50. Then, at 8:10 AM, Max Schneider gave the codeword “Tallyho.”

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:19 AM Page 39

These two iconic images of the landings at Omaha Beach on D-Day were captured by Life magazine photographer Robert Capa. The impetuous photographer accompanied U.S. troops to Omaha Beach and hurriedly snapped a number of frames at the sector code-named Easy Red Beach. When the rolls of film were delivered for developing, an overanxious technician dried the emulsions too quickly and destroyed all but 10 of the photographs Capa had risked his life to obtain. In the above photo, a soldier struggles through the churning surf toward cover. In the photo on the opposite page, soldiers utilize heavy beach obstacles as refuge against withering German fire directed from the heights above Omaha Beach.

It was the order for each platoon of Rangers to make their own way up the bluff and on to their designated assembly area south of Vierville-sur-Mer. According to the memorial plaque to the Rangers in the Vierville draw, this happened after Cota gave the order, “Rangers, lead the way!” Colonel Canham, despite a severe wrist wound, also led a mixed group of 2nd Battalion men up another part of the bluff nearer to les Moulins at about the same time. Once on the hillside, the various groups were protected from direct fire and by the smoke from the grass fires. In some places the smoke was so thick that men put on their gas masks. Cota tried to contact the 1st Division during his move up the bluff to report his own actions and to find out what was happening on the other part of Omaha, but without success. By 8:30 AM, the last of more than 600 men were leaving the sea wall, and a half hour later the crest of the bluff had been secured. No Germans were found in the trenches there, and remarkably few casualties had been incurred. Along with C Company of the 116th, there were men from B, F, G, and H companies, the 121st Engineers, most of the 5th Rangers, and of course Cota and Canham with his Regimental Headquarters. In the case of H Company, a machine-gun platoon had moved laterally all the way from the 1st Division’s part of the beach. But the moves up the bluff had been uncoordinated, with few of the men being aware of what was going on except in their immediate vicinity. On reaching the top of the bluff, no one could see more than a couple of hundred meters because of the many hedgerows, and most had no idea what to do next. When Cota arrived, he found elements of the 116th and 5th Rangers scattered all over the fields beyond the crest, with the furthermost groups near the coastal road. Some sporadic long-range machine-gun fire was coming from the direction of Vierville, and the occasional artillery round landed in the general area, but there was no organized opposition. Even so, it was another hour before Cota was able to bring some order to the mixed

force and get units moving again. He personally organized some of the men into fire and maneuver teams and led the advance across the open fields. The small number of Germans in the area retreated, and the Americans were soon able to advance along the track connecting les Moulins to Vierville-sur-Mer. Again C Company of the 116th was in the lead, entering Vierville shortly before 11 AM. Cota’s group was not far behind. No Germans were found in the village, but a platoon of B Company advancing toward the Chateau Vaumicel, just south of Vierville-sur-Mer, had to overcome a small German resistance nest and then beat off a counterattack. The Germans had deployed from three trucks coming up from the south. Canham’s group of 2nd Battalion men with some Rangers attached had been equally successful in their move from the beach, and they arrived in Vierville-sur-Mer with few casualties. Just before midday, C Company of the 116th and B Company of the 5th Rangers began a move down the coast road toward Pointe du Hoc. About 500 meters out of Vierville-sur-Mer, however, they were halted by enemy machine guns. A full-scale attack by the main Ranger force to overcome this opposition was planned for the early evening but was later cancelled. The Rangers were now an essential part of the force defending the hard-won gains south and west of Vierville-sur-Mer, and Colonel Canham was not prepared to risk losing them. His force had few heavy weapons and no tanks or supporting artillery. Some guns of the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion had been landed on the beach, but the crest of the bluff prevented them firing in close support. At 6:30 PM, John Metcalfe, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, after finally managing to leave the cliff area to the west of the Vierville draw, reported to Colonel Canham in Vierville-sur-Mer. This was the first time that the regimental commander became aware of the true state of his 1st Battalion, and it would be another five hours before he learned the full facts about his 2nd and 3rd Battalions at the D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

39

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:19 AM Page 40

head of the les Moulins draw near St. Laurent-sur-Mer. By midday Cota and Canham had much of which to be proud, but the main task of clearing the two draws to enable tanks and vehicles to exit the beach was unfinished. At around 1 PM, a heavy naval bombardment, including fire from the battleship Texas, was directed at the strongpoints guarding the Vierville draw, and it was not long before a destroyer reported Germans leaving the concrete emplacements to surrender. Shortly afterward, Dutch Cota, with his aide and four men, calmly walked down the road to the beach to see why no vehicles were coming up. After receiving some scattered small-arms fire and capturing five Germans, whom they made lead the way through a minefield, the Cota group reached the beach to find the sad remnants of A Company of the 1st Battalion and some Shermans of B Company of the 743rd Tank Battalion farther to the east. Cota found that despite their heavy casualties, the loss of some 75 percent of their equipment, and isolated enemy snipers, Lt. Col. Robert Ploger’s 121st Engineers were about to start work on the obstacles in the draw. However, there were not enough infantry available for the systematic mopping up of the Germans still in the area, and the engineers themselves had to send out combat patrols to do the job, delaying their proper mission. Dutch Cota continued his walk along the promenade to see what had happened at les Moulins. He was unaware that shortly before 10 AM the commander of V Corps, General Gerow, had ordered Colonel Eugene Slappey’s 115th Regiment of the Blue and Gray to land in support of the beleaguered 116th. Slappey’s men had been loaded into a dozen large landing craft, each capable of carrying a company and putting them, dryshod, straight onto the beach. The problem, however, was navigating these slow 246-ton craft through an uncleared obstacle belt in the face of continuing artillery fire. For the men of the 115th there was an additional problem—their vehicles 40

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: After hours of harrowing combat and finally gaining the upper hand at Omaha Beach, these soldiers of the 16th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division rest in the shelter of the steep cliffs at Omaha Beach. This photo was taken in the vicinity of the French seaside village of Colleville-sur-Mer. OPPOSITE: Several weeks after the Allied landings in Normandy, soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division ask a Frenchman for information. Although the landings of June 6, 1944, were successful, the action at Omaha Beach was by far the costliest for the Allies. The landings there had taken place in the early morning, and several hours later the issue remained in doubt, causing General Omar Bradley, commander of U.S. ground forces in Normandy, to contemplate withdrawing the troops from Omaha Beach.

were not due to come ashore on D-Day, and so they were carrying abnormally heavy loads including extra ammunition. The 115th was ordered to land near the les Moulins draw, but it soon became clear to the captains of the landing craft that in the absence of cleared and marked lanes through the beach obstacles a landing in that sector was out of the question. They asked for new orders and, despite the chaos there, were told to come ashore in the 1st Division’s sector, about 1,500 meters east of les Moulins. Although the landing was difficult, with several craft colliding, it was achieved with remarkably few casualties. Slappey soon received orders from the deputy commander of the 1st Division to attack and secure St. Laurent-sur-Mer, which was thought to be defended by about a company of Germans. He in turn ordered his 1st Battalion to cut off the village from the rear while the other two battalions attacked it frontally. The 115th’s advance and attack on St. Laurent-sur-Mer did not go as planned. Although the 1st Division had marked a few lanes through the minefields below the bluffs, the men of the Blue and Gray did not trust them, and progress was painfully slow. Lt. Col. William Warfield’s 2nd Battalion did not start its attack on the village until late afternoon. Even then, naval gunfire fell short, causing a number of casualties in the battalion, and the attack, despite the support of four Shermans of the 741st Tank Battalion from the 1st Division, ground to a halt. Slappey gave orders for the 2nd Battalion to break off the action and link up with the 1st Battalion. The latter had reached an area south of St. Laurent-sur-Mer near the Formigny road at about 6 PM after running into snipers and mortar fire, which killed its commanding officer, Lt. Col. Richard Blatt. Major James Morris took command. Major Victor Gillespie’s 3rd Battalion still had not reached the St. Laurent-sur-MerColleville-sur-Mer road when darkness fell shortly after 10 PM. On arrival in the les Moulins sector in the mid-afternoon, Dutch Cota found the resistance there still strong enough to block any vehicular movement, and by this time the beach had become heavily congested with vehicles. Elements of the 81st Chemical Battalion, three engineer battalions, naval fire control parties, advance elements of artillery units, medical detachments, antiaircraft units, and even a British RAF group had all

D-Day14 29th at Omaha_Layout 1 4/8/14 4:00 PM Page 41

started to come ashore before 8 AM, making it difficult if not impossible for the Shermans trying to support the infantry. Indeed, half-tracks, jeeps, and trucks all found themselves on a narrowing strip of sand without any exits opened through the impassable shingle embankment. It was one huge traffic jam. Enemy artillery and mortars had easy targets. Cota also found that although the 3rd Battalion of the 116th, less M Company pinned down on the beach in the 1st Division’s sector, had reached the high ground east of the les Moulins draw, its attempt to move south had been blocked by Germans in and near St. Laurent-sur-Mer. It made less than a kilometer’s progress during the rest of the day, mainly because small enemy machine-gun detachments in well-prepared positions covered the open ground over which it had to advance to its assigned assembly area west of the village. By last light, the bulk of the 3rd Battalion, the command group, and a few remnants of the 2nd Battalion were therefore still at the head of the les Moulins draw. They were unaware of the presence of the units of their sister regiment, the 115th, only a kilometer away to their southeast. General Gerhardt, commander of the 29th Division, had come ashore during the midafternoon and set up his command post in an old quarry in the Vierville draw, but until Dutch Cota met him early that evening he had no real idea of the whereabouts of his two regiments ashore. Cota briefed him as best he could, although even he was not fully aware. By last light on June 6, C Company of the 116th, the 5th Ranger Battalion, and A, B, and C Companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion were defending the solid stone buildings on the western edge of Vierville-sur-Mer. Colonel Canham’s regimental command post and elements of the 1st and 2nd Battalions were about one kilometer southwest of the center of the village, and C Company of the 121st Combat Engineer Battalion was holding the Chateau Vaumicel. The 9th Squad, 3rd Engineer Platoon had breached the concrete wall at the bottom of the Vierville draw at 5 PM, and the rest of the company had cleared enough of the remaining obstacles to allow vehicles to move into the village by nightfall. The tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion went into bivouac 100 meters west of the village at about midnight. Sixteen Shermans had been lost, and one was disabled. In the St. Laurent-sur-Mer area, elements of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 116th were at the head of the les Moulins draw, which was still barred by enemy resistance in the old strongpoints. The 1st Battalion, 115th Regiment was a kilometer south of St. Laurent-sur-Mer by the road to Formigny, the 2nd Battalion a kilometer southeast of the village, and the 3rd Battalion 1,500 meters to the east. In the case of artillery, all but one of the guns of the 111th Battalion supporting the 116th had been lost, and none of those of the 110th, due to support the 115th, had been landed. The commanding officer of the 111th, Lt. Col. Thornton Mullins, was wounded soon after leading his advance party ashore, and he died a few hours later. Five self-propelled guns of the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion had been lost in the morning, but the rest of the battalion had come ashore during the afternoon and one battery had

moved inland at 6 PM to support the 115th Regiment near St. Laurent-sur-Mer. The American losses on D-Day were horrendous. The 116th Regiment alone suffered 1,007 casualties: 247 killed, 576 wounded, and 184 missing. Sadly, the peacetime system of recruiting complete companies from specific towns and areas led to some tragic consequences. Bedford, Virginia, a village of only some 3,000 people, lost 23 men on D-Day, with 22 of them, including three sets of brothers, in A Company, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry. A number of historians have criticized the American plan for the Omaha landings. They say that the assault craft were launched much too far out to sea and that the initial attacks were directed head-on

against the German strongpoints rather than at the more weakly held areas between these strongpoints. While it is certainly true that the longer than strictly necessary run-in to the beach caused difficulties with navigation and led many units to land much farther to the east than Continued on page 98 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

41

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:24 PM Page 42

Horsa gliders that transported British airborne troops to their D-Day objective, the bridge over the Caen Canal, lie broken in a field adjacent to the bridge. The glider pilots made their landings with pinpoint accuracy.

A bold British glider assault seized a pair of vital bridges in the early hours of D-Day.

O

n a darkened airfield at 2230 hours on June 5, 1944, a reinforced company of British gliderborne infantry, D Company of the Second Battalion, Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox & Bucks), boarded gliders, prepared to start the invasion of France. Their commanding officer, Major John Howard, watched them in the night’s dim, shuffling forward under the heavy load of their weapons and equipment. He recorded, “It was an

42

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

amazing sight. The smaller chaps were visibly sagging at the knees under the amount of kit they had to carry.” There was more to their burden, however, than just Sten guns and spare ammunition. On their shoulders rested responsibility for securing the left flank of the entire Allied DDay invasion force. A pair of small bridges was situated south-southeast of Sword Beach, the easternmost of the five landing points. If they remained in Axis hands, they provided fast access for German armored units to counterattack the beaches. If taken by the British, they could be used for the advancing British ground units. The mission of these glider troops was to seize the bridges in question. Major Howard’s orders weighed heavily on his mind as they set out on their monumental mission: “Your task is to seize the [bridges] over R. Orne and canal ... and to hold them until relief….” The preparation for this attack had been in the works long before Howard and his men boarded their gliders. Once the Allied command decided on the Normandy coastline for Imperial War Museum

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:24 PM Page 43

R E D I GL SAULT BY CHRISTOPHER MISKIMON

AS

E G D I R B S U S A G E P ON

the invasion of France, planning began on how to secure the beaches and pave the way for the advance inland. On the invasion’s left flank, attention quickly focused on a pair of bridges just a few miles northeast of the French city of Caen. The bridge over the river Orne allowed fast access for the invasion force to move east after landing. Conversely, it could allow German units to quickly move toward Sword Beach and attack the British 3rd Infantry Division as it struggled to get ashore. Just 470 meters west of the Orne Bridge sat a bridge over the Caen Canal, a manmade waterway that flowed directly to Sword Beach. Together these crossing points were vital avenues to whichever army held them. The east-west road that crossed the bridges led east to the village of Ranville, roughly 1,000 meters away, and then out to the countryside. To the west, the road crossed the canal bridge and came to a crossroads around 260 meters distant. This crossroad led north to Sword Beach or south toward Caen. On the west bank of the canal sat the village of Benouville.

Over time a plan formed to seize of the bridges using gliderborne infantry. There were certain advantages to using gliders for such an assault. They were quiet and would be towed by transport aircraft; the German occupation force was by now used to hearing Allied planes overhead and hopefully would not pay much attention to them. This would provide a cover for the incoming gliders and help achieve surprise. Also, using gliders kept the attacking force concentrated. Paratroopers could be D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

43

Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-300-1865-06; Photo: Speck

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 44

Two weeks prior to D-Day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the German defenses in Normandy, inspects troops of the 21st Panzer Division. This inspection took place in the vicinity of the landing zone of the British 6th Airborne Division.

scattered by wind or varying speed, altitude, and direction of their aircraft. Even a good airborne drop would require time for the parachutists to concentrate and move on their objective. A glider force could touch down already concentrated with one planeload of soldiers ready to move upon landing. If the gliders could land close together a large force could be quickly brought to bear. The British 6th Airborne Division was charged with landing to the east of Sword Beach on D-Day and capturing the vital bridges. Like any airborne unit, it was not heavy enough to resist the sort of determined counterattacks the Germans could be expected to make and would need the 44

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

more heavily equipped regular infantry and armored formations coming from the beaches to arrive as quickly as possible. The division contained two parachute brigades and one air landing (glider) brigade. The force for the bridge assaults was drawn for the 6th Air Landing Brigade commanded by Brigadier H.K.M. Kindersley. The division commander, Maj. Gen. Richard Gale, went to his brigade commanders with the plan for the bridges, explaining to one of them, “The seizing of the bridges intact is of the utmost importance for the conduct of future operations ... the speedy overpowering of the bridge defenses will be your first objective and it is therefore to be seized by the coup de main party. You must accept risks to achieve this.” Gale asked Kindersley which of his company commanders might be up to the challenge. Kindersley chose Major John Howard, the commander of D Company. Howard, a former enlisted man, had risen quickly through the NCO and officer ranks after the war began because of his ability and professionalism. He had completed one enlistment during the 1930s and was a policeman until recalled to duty after the war started. He impressed superiors with his skill and subordinates with his willingness to share their difficulties. To see if Howard and his men had what it took, a three-day exercise was conducted, with the troops required to seize three bridges intact and hold them until relief arrived. They succeeded and ensured their place in the vanguard of the entire invasion force. After the exercise Howard was told what his mission would be and that D Company would certainly be “the first British fighting force to land on the continent.”

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 45

They would not be alone, however. Gale wanted the coup de main effort to be reinforced, so Howard was told he could choose any two platoons from his regiment to be attached to his company. Also, a detachment of Royal Engineers from the division’s 249th Field Company would provide the expertise needed to disable any demolitions placed on the bridges by the Germans. Howard chose two platoons from the Ox & Bucks B Company to join his unit. The detailed plan for the attack came together over the coming months as the troops trained hard for their task, even though due to secrecy needs they did not know their exact mission. They would embark aboard six Horsa gliders that would each hold a platoon plus a small group of engineers. Howard wanted flexibility in his plan and equipped his platoons so each could attack a bridge by itself if necessary. During training he envisioned the different ways things could go wrong and tried to compensate. Also, each platoon cross-trained so it could perform in another’s role as needed. The training was arduous, but it bonded the men together. Howard also had good officers who shared hardships with their men and were aggressive and capable. Along with their training, the glider troops benefited from access to constantly updated intelligence estimates. Photo reconnaissance flights provided timely images of the bridges and their defenses; over time the British noted improvements being made, such as the installation of an antitank gun and the construction of bunkers. Another invaluable source of information was the local French Resistance network. This included Madame Vion, who ran a Both: Imperial War Museum maternity hospital on the south end of Benouville. She collected information from resistance operatives and passed it on to her contacts in Caen during her periodic trips there for medical supplies. One of her primary sources of information was the conversation at the Café Gondree, located on the west bank of the canal near the bridge. The owners, Georges and Therese Gondree, simply kept their ears open and listened to the conversations of the various German soldiers who frequented the establishment. Therese was from Alsace and spoke German, while Georges spoke some English. The intelligence effort gave them a fairly accurate picture of the bridge’s defenses. About 50 troops guarded the two spans, drawn from the 736th Grenadier Regiment of the 716th Infantry Division. This unit was composed largely of conscripted men from German-occupied nations, such as Poles and Russians with some, mostly older, Germans mixed in. German NCOs and officers led the formation. The bridge defenses were commanded by Major Hans Schmidt. From the layout of the defenses, the Germans expected any concerted attack on the bridges to come from the east. Most of the machine guns at each bridge were oriented to the east while the single antitank gun installed at the canal bridge was located on the east side as well. Several bunkers were also constructed, and trench systems radiated around the bridges

for riflemen and machine gunners. Barbed wire entanglements were also emplaced, but these were mounted in such a way as to be easily movable. Preparations had been made to destroy the bridges if necessary, but the explosives themselves had not been installed. This was due to fear of raids by the French

TOP: Taken some time after D-Day, this photograph depicts the bridge over the Caen Canal and the Café Gondree on the left bank. The café was turned into an aid station shortly after the action near Pegasus Bridge began. ABOVE: Hamilcar gliders of the British 6th Airborne Division land near the town of Ranville, France, on June 6, 1944. These gliders are carrying Tetrarch light tanks to support the offensive operations of the airborne troops. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

45

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 46

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: Photographed a month after its heroic seizure by soldiers of the British 6th Airborne Division on D-Day, Pegasus Bridge is quiet and appears to bear few scars from the fight. Two Horsa gliders are visible at right, still lying in the field where they landed on D-Day. BELOW: The coordinated attack by elements of the 6th Airborne Division in the predawn hours of D-Day was intended to take the German defenders of Pegasus Bridge by surprise. The seizure of the bridge was accomplished according to plan and in no small part due to the accuracy of the glider landings. OPPOSITE: Glider troops of the 6th Airborne Division assemble near their wrecked glider in a field outside the town of Ranville. Moments earlier, the glider had careened through a stone wall during landing. Many of the casualties sustained by the glider troops were due to rough landings.

Map © 2013 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

46

As the platoons sat in their gliders, the soldiers tried to pass the time by singing. Private Wally Parr led the group with a song called “Abby, Abby, My Boy.” Parr had been in the company practically since the beginning and was once almost RTU’d (Returned To Unit) for a disciplinary infraction. Howard had personally intervened on Parr’s behalf, believing the man would be an asset once in action. Parr stayed in the company but lost his corporal’s stripes. Now, with his loud, cockney-accented voice, he sang one song after another. In the front of the glider, Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork concentrated on piloting the aircraft once it was free of the bomber. A series of turns had to be made during the Imperial War Museum

Resistance which might try to blow up the bridges anyway. Some of these defenses, such as the antitank emplacement and the bunkers, were begun only the month before on orders of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who toured the coastal defenses and found them wanting. He ordered a number of improvements throughout the area, including the upgrades to the bridge defense network. Now, on the night of June 5, the six gliders hung from tow lines attached to Handley Page Halifax bombers, the whole group making its way across the English Channel. Three platoons would land at the canal bridge in a field to its southeast: 25 Platoon, led by Lieutenant “Den” Brotheridge, would lead off with three men detailed to throw grenades through the embrasures of the bunker on the east bank, thought to be where the demolition controls were kept. The remainder of 25 Platoon would cross the bridge itself and seize the western side. Lieutenant David Wood’s 24 Platoon would remain on the east side and clear all the German positions there. Finally, in the last glider to land, Lieutenant R. “Sandy” Smith’s 14 Platoon would follow Brotheridge’s men across to the west side and reinforce them. The other three platoons would land near the river bridge to its northwest. Lieutenant Tony Hooper’s 22 Platoon was tasked to overrun the defenses and swarm the east side of the bridge. The men of 23 Platoon under Lieutenant H.J. “Todd” Sweeney would stay on the west side and take hold of the defenses there while Lieutenant Dennis Fox’s 17 Platoon in the last Horsa would reinforce the first two groups. The sappers attached to each platoon would disable any explosives on the bridges while the glider pilots would unload and distribute the extra ammunition and equipment. Once taken, the code words “Ham and Jam” would be sent to confirm the seizure of the bridges. With both in British hands, the glider infantry would hold until relieved by the 7th Battalion, 5th Parachute Brigade, whose commander would take over when he arrived.

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 47

Imperial War Museum

descent, exactly on time, or the glider could wind up miles off course. Next to him copilot Staff Sergeant John Ainsworth held a stopwatch to time each turn and phase of the landing. The other glider pilots likewise prepared for their landings. Seated nearby, Private Willy Gray had a much more serious problem. Before taking off he helped himself to plenty of tea and a bit of rum and now had to urinate badly. With nothing to do for it, he joined in the singing. Taking a break from his own singing, Parr asked loudly, “Has the major laid his kit yet?” On every training flight, Major Howard had suffered from airsickness and experienced the natural result. For whatever reason, this time his troubled stomach was calm, and its contents remained in his belly. Howard took the joke well and laughed with the rest of the glidermen. Finally, at 0007 hours, June 6, 1944, it was time to cast off the tow line. The bombers roared off for their diversionary attack on Caen, and the gliders began their descent toward the bridges. At three minutes and 42 seconds, Ainsworth said simply, “Now!” and Jim Wallwork turned the glider to starboard. The glider lost altitude rapidly, and seconds later Ainsworth gave the signal for a second right turn that brought the glider onto course for the landing field next to the canal bridge. At first they could see nothing ahead of them, only the antiaircraft searchlights and tracer fire behind them in Caen, firing on the bombers. Then, just as in their training, there it was. The bridge with its distinctive shape, the bunker, the antitank gun, and fields around it all were clearly visible. The barbed wire sat on the north side of the landing strip. During training Howard told Wallwork he wanted the nose of the glider right against the wire. The pilot was dubious as to whether it could be done but promised he would do his best. At 0016 hours, he did just that. The glider touched ground and skidded across the landing field, coming to a halt right at the wire. The aircraft stopped so suddenly both pilots were thrown out the front, crashing through the windscreen and landing in front of the glider. In the rest of the glider, 25 Platoon sat stunned for a few seconds. Major Howard was unconscious for just a moment. His seatbelt had broken, throwing him forward where he hit his head on the ceiling. The impact forced his helmet down over his eyes. When he came to, he thought he was blind for a moment. Behind him, Lieutenant Brotheridge opened the glider’s door and told a nearby Bren gunner, “Gun Out!” The platoon quickly recovered and got out. The bridge was a mere 30 yards away. Private Gray, also carrying a Bren gun, charged toward the bridge; his mission was to clear a barn on the west side. As he neared the span he saw a German soldier and fired a burst at him. The enemy soldier went down, and Gray carried on

“I SAW HIM CLIMBING OVER THE WALL ... I SHOT HIM AS HE WAS GOING OVER– I MADE CERTAIN TOO. I GAVE HIME QUITE A LOT OF ROUNDS, FIRING FROM THE HIP—IT WAS VERY CLOSE RANGE.” across the bridge, firing as he went. He reached the barn and tossed in a grenade before emptying the rest of his magazine into the structure. When he went inside to check, it was empty. Meanwhile, Wally Parr’s mission was to knock out the machine-gun bunker with grenades. His had gone so dry that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He finally freed it by shouting, “Come out and fight, you square-headed bastards!” By the time he got onto the bridge, he had recovered. Now shouting “Ham and Jam!” he went to the bunker, opened the door, and threw in a grenade. When he heard someone still alive inside, Parr pulled the door open again and sprayed the interior with his Sten gun. As Wally Parr was clearing his bunker, Lieutenant Den Brotheridge was leading D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

47

Imperial War Museum

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 48

ABOVE: The airborne troops holding Pegasus Bridge were instructed to hold until relieved. These Royal Marine Commandos march through the town of Colleville-sur-Orne en route to the bridge and the relief of the lightly armed airborne soldiers. OPPOSITE: Partially concealed in a ditch, glider troops of the 6th Airborne Division guard a crossroads near Ranville on June 7, 1944. Their glider is seen across the road where it landed the previous day.

his platoon across the bridge. Someone on the German side fired a flare which now hung over the scene. Perhaps the flare’s light exposed the young officer to enemy view or it may have been simple bad luck, but just then a burst of machine-gun fire lashed out across the bridge. A bullet hit Brotheridge in the neck, and he fell to the ground mortally wounded. So intent were his men on the attack no one noticed he had fallen until moments later. Wally Parr later recalled just reaching the café when someone called out, “Where’s Denny?” He looked around and saw someone lying in the roadway. Running back to him, Parr discovered it was Brotheridge. The private was struck by the idea 48

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

of his lieutenant spending so much time preparing for this night only to die in the first minutes. “My God!” he thought. “What a waste!” To the German sentries guarding the bridge that night, the attack was overwhelming. Private Vern Bonck, a young Polish conscript, had just turned over his post to Private Helmut Romer, an 18-year-old from Berlin. Bonck ran into another Polish draftee, and the two headed off to visit a late-night bar. Romer and the other sentry now on duty were to face the British attack. The antitank gun was unmanned, and the soldiers in the bunker and trenches dozed at their positions. They had ignored the antiaircraft fire and distant bombing; such things were commonplace by now. They had dismissed the noise made by the glider landing as falling wreckage from a bomber, again not uncommon. There was no mistaking what they saw next. Dark, screaming figures raced out of the darkness, faces blackened, firing automatic weapons. The young Romer did the only thing he could; he turned and ran the other way, shouting “Paratroopers!” as he ran past the other sentry, who apparently fired the flare before being shot down, possibly by Brotheridge. The soldiers in the bunker and trenches were quickly overwhelmed. A short distance up the road leading west, veteran German paratrooper Sergeant Heinrich Hickman heard the weapons fire and recognized it as British. He had been out collecting some soldiers on guard duty and was on his way back to his unit. He told two of the soldiers to get out of their car and take the right side of the road while he and the other two took the left. They had crept to within 50 meters or so of the bridge when Hickman spotted the British soldiers advancing toward him. What he saw frightened even him. He remembered that it was “at nighttime when you see a Para running with a Bren gun, and the next with a Sten, and no cover round my back, just me and four youngsters who had never been in action. So I could not rely on them—in those circumstances, you get scared.... So I pull my trigger, I fire.”

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 49

His first target was Billy Gray, who was just reloading after spraying the barn. Gray fired back, but neither hit the other. The British soldier ducked back into the barn, so Hickman shifted his fire toward the bridge. Inside the barn, Gray finally took a moment to empty his bursting bladder. Outside, Hickman expended the rest of his ammunition and realized it was time to go. Motioning to the four privates, they all got back into their car and raced off toward Caen. With the bridge in British hands his 15-minute trip back to his unit would now take six hours as he diverted around Caen. At the bar, Vern Bonck rushed out into the street with his fellow Pole when the firing started. They ran up the street to the intersection west of the bridge. They took one look at the pitched battle and ran south on the road toward Caen. After running a while they stopped and talked about what to do. Their conclusion was simple; the pair fired all their cartridges and ran back into Benouville. There, they reported to their superiors that enemy paratroopers had attacked the bridge and that they had fought until running out of ammunition before retreating to make their report. By now the other gliders had landed and more British troops surged onto the bridge. The second glider, containing Lieutenant David Wood’s 24 Platoon, skidded to a halt mere yards from the first. It broke in two pieces, and Wood was thrown out onto the ground, though he managed to keep a grip on the bucket of hand grenades he was carrying. On the ground next to him were Private Harry Clark and several others. Fortunately, none of the grenades detonated. They moved off, and Clark remembered helping to clear the trenches. He ran past an abandoned MG34 machine gun, an unfired belt of ammunition hanging from its feed tray. “There was a lot of firing going on and a lot of shouting,” Clark said. “We cleared the trenches on the other side very quickly ... nothing really in the way of strong opposition.” The third glider, carrying Lieutenant Sandy Smith’s 14 Platoon, had a hard landing as well. It bounced heavily and sent Smith flying through the cockpit Perspex. He landed in front of the glider, stunned. Luckily, Lance Corporal Madge came up to him and said, “Well, what are we waiting for, Sir?” Somehow, that snapped Smith back into focus, and he led his able men toward the bridge. Several of his men were injured and stayed in the glider for the time being, including Captain John Vaughan, the group’s medical officer. Tragically, Lance Corporal Greenhalgh, likely out of his senses as well, wandered into an undetected marsh pond near the glider and drowned. As Smith moved onto the bridge limping from an injured knee, a German threw a grenade at him. A fragment from the blast struck the officer in the wrist, and the German tried to flee. “I saw him climbing over the wall ... I shot him as he was going over— I made certain too. I gave him quite a lot of rounds, firing from the hip—it was very close range,” Smith recalled. Madge ran up and asked if he was all right. Smith inspected his torn wrist and replied. “Christ! No more cricket!” Imperial War Museum

Smith moved on and was soon outside the Café Gondree. Upstairs, Georges poked his head out to see what was happening. Smith saw him and in the heat of the moment fired at him. Luckily, the fire went high and the Frenchman ducked in time. He took his wife and daughters to the cellar to await the battle’s conclusion. A short time later there was a knock at the café door. Georges opened it and saw two British soldiers in black face paint. They asked in French if there were any Germans in the building. After telling them there weren’t, the café owner beckoned them inside. There, he took the apprehensive men toward the cellar, using gestures to convey his family was down there. Finally, one of the Englishmen must have realized what Georges meant, because he

told his comrade, “It’s all right, chum.” When the Frenchman realized they were speaking English, he began crying for joy. His wife and children began kissing them until their faces were smudged with the black camouflage paint. Wally Parr recalled later giving one of the daughters, D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

49

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 50

five-year-old Arlette, a chocolate bar. It was the first she had ever had. Within a short time the café was converted into an aid station. Casualties were brought into the main room while the dining table became a makeshift operating table. Captain John Vaughan would practice his skills here aided by Therese Gondree, who was a trained nurse. Out in the yard Georges grabbed a shovel and dug up some 90 bottles of champagne he had buried when the German occupation began in 1940. This he began giving out to whichever British troops came to the café. As the day went by many of the glidermen found an excuse to go to the café and get their free drink. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Wood thought his platoon had finished clearing the buildings near the bridge and had started back to report to Major Howard with his platoon sergeant and batman. As they moved off, a hidden German fired a burst of submachine gun fire that managed to hit all of them. Wood collapsed with a wound to the leg. Luckily, the platoon medic, Lance Corporal Harris, came along quickly and treated him. Wood recovered, but the injury left him with one leg slightly shorter than the other. Howard, who had set up a command post in the trenches near the bridge, initially was unaware he had lost two of the platoon commanders so early in the fight. His radioman, Corporal Tappenden, was with him. Howard first learned of the loss of Den Brotheridge. The loss of a key leader was only exacerbated by the fact the lieutenant’s wife Margaret was pregnant and due to deliver any day. Before long he learned all three of his officers were wounded or injured to some degree. Still, the canal bridge was in British hands. At the Orne River Bridge, the first glider to land carried 23 Platoon under Lieutenant “Todd” Sweeney. Unfortunately, the glider had struck an air pocket on the way down and landed hundreds of yards from the bridge, perhaps as many as 1,300 yards by one account. Its occupants had no choice but to unload and make for the bridge as quickly as possible. The glider 50

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

with Lieutenant Fox’s 17 Platoon had better luck, at least in the landing. The touchdown was smooth, and Fox jumped up to open the door but it would not budge no matter how hard he pulled on it. Then, Sergeant “Wagger” Thornton came up beside him and said, “You just pull it forward, Sir.” In his excitement Fox had been tugging the wrong way. With the door now open the soldiers poured out, but another problem arose. A soldier, Tommy Clare, did not have the safety properly engaged on his Sten gun. When he hit the ground the weapon was jarred and fired a burst into the air. Quickly the platoon formed up under the wing of the glider and listened. Quiet greeted them and Fox said simply, “To hell with it, let’s get cracking.” The platoon moved out, and almost immediately a German machine gun opened fire from the far bank. Wagger Thornton was thinking ahead, however. He had already set up a 2inch mortar. He put two bombs on the machine-gun position, and the crew fled into the dark as British soldiers sprinted across the bridge. One of them took over the now abandoned weapon and started firing at its former crew. Within a matter of seconds, the river bridge was also in British hands, this time without any casualties. Minutes later, Sweeney and 23 Platoon arrived. The two lieutenants gathered to confer. Sergeant Thornton recalled Sweeney asking Fox what was happening. Fox, recalling their training back in England, replied, “The exercise went very well, but I can’t find no bloody umpires to find out who’s killed and who’s alive!” A message was sent to Howard via radio reporting the seizure of the bridge intact. There was still no sign of the third glider, however, and ultimately there would not be. Carrying Lieutenant Hooper’s 22 Platoon along with the mission’s second-in-command, Captain Brian Priday, the last glider flew off course. It landed some eight miles away at the Varaville Bridge. So now Howard and his men had completed the first part of their mission. They had seized the bridges. Now they had to hold them with one platoon missing and several of their officers wounded, missing, or dead. Considering this, Howard modified his plan. He felt the biggest threat to his position came from the west. The British 6th Airborne was landing in the area to the east of the river bridge and would soon saturate it, providing a level of protection. Indeed, at 0050 hours, the first wave of paratroopers flew overhead and dropped to the east around Ranville. The men of Company D had a front row seat as tracer fire and searchlight beams mixed with the descending parachutes. Meanwhile, radioman Corporal Tappenden started sending the signal, “Ham and Jam,” signifying both bridges were captured intact. After frustrating minutes of transmission, finally an acknowledgement was received. Howard ordered 17 Platoon to the canal bridge to bolster the defense. When they arrived, Howard pushed them to the road intersection west of the bridge, where armored vehicles had been heard moving. Each glider carried a PIAT antitank weapon, but at the time only one could be found in working order. It was given to 17 Platoon with a few rounds of ammunition. Sergeant Thornton took the weapon and made ready. It was now about 0200 hours. As the British soldiers took cover around the intersection, three German armored vehicles rumbled down the road in the darkness. Thornton took a position 30 yards from the T-junction and watched as the armored vehicle began moving cautiously toward the bridge. The Englishman later reported he was “shaking like a leaf” and it was hard to see. Nevertheless, he took careful aim and fired at the looming black shape. The springloaded spigot in the PIAT launched its bomb straight into the side of the enemy vehicle. Immediately, an enormous explosion shattered the night air and flames rose into the gloom. Four crewmen bailed out of the vehicle, and Wagger’s assistant on the PIAT opened fire on them. A fifth man was apparently trapped inside the flaming wreckage. The other two vehicles beat a hasty retreat the way they had come as the wreck continued to burn for over an hour.

Imperial War Museum

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:41 PM Page 51

AT 1330 HOURS, A FEW OF THE GLIDERMEN HEARD BAGPIPES. SEVERAL OF THEIR COMRADES SCOFFED AT THEM, BUT A FEW MINUTES LATER THE SOUND GREW LOUDER AND CLOSER. IT WAS THE 1ST SPECIAL SERVICE BRIGADE COMMANDED BY LORD LOVAT. Three days after it was secured by airborne troops on D-Day, the bridge over the Caen Canal allows British vehicles to cross the waterway. The span was later renamed Pegasus Bridge in honor of the heroic airborne assault and referencing the insignia of the 6th Airborne Division.

Later reports variously identified the armored vehicle as a PzKpfw. IV tank, a captured French Char B1 tank, or a half-track. The unit identified as the first to reach the bridge in these vehicles was probably Panzer Pioneer Company 1. Such a unit would probably not have had tanks, but easily could have had halftracks. If they were loaded down with explosives and mines, as an engineer vehicle would be, it would explain the pyrotechnic display of burning and exploding ordnance. Whatever the case, the Germans made a mistake trying to advance with armor unsupported by infantry. To the east at the river bridge, the glidermen were also meeting the Germans. Some of Sweeney’s 23 Platoon spotted a group of soldiers moving along the riverbank toward the bridge. Since the British 6th Airborne had landed, a challenge was given since it was expected the paras would gather at the bridge. A reply was heard, but it was in German. The defenders opened fire, wiping out the whole group. Sadly, when the platoon checked after daylight, one of the dead was found to be a British Para, a pathfinder apparently captured and brought along. Shortly after the German patrol was wiped out, the sound of an armored vehicle was heard approaching from the east. An armored attack was of great concern to Sweeney.

Like his comrades at the canal bridge, he had only a single PIAT. Within moments a German half-track came down the road followed by a motorcycle. Sweeney’s troops were hidden in the ditches alongside the road and watched as it approached. As it passed, the British opened fire, peppering the vehicle, but it continued across the bridge. The British troops on the other side also opened fire, and a Corporal Jennings threw a grenade into the open topped half-track as it passed him. The German vehicle veered, crashing into the ditch. With the action over, the British checked the vehicle and found a wounded German, none other than the commander of the bridge defenses, Major Schmidt. Wounded in the leg, he was taken for medical attention by Captain Vaughan. Schmidt spoke good English and proceeded to harangue the doctor with threats of Hitler throwing the Allies back into the sea. Afterward, he begged to be shot for having failed in his duties. Finally, Vaughan gave him a shot of morphine; within minutes Schmidt was much calmer and even thanked the doctor for treating him. An alternate version of the story had Schmidt arriving at the bridge in a staff car after a night with his mistress, but that version turned out to be untrue. Starting at 0300 hours, paras of the 7th Battalion, Parachute Regiment began trickling in to bolster the defenses. One of them was Lieutenant Richard “Sweeney” Todd, like the earlier mentioned Sweeney also nicknamed for the murderous barber (at the time, any British soldier named Todd or Sweeney seemed to earn the sobriquet). He and his paras began to relieve the glider troops, many of whom were sent to reinforce elsewhere. A number of them were sent to man the German antitank gun mounted in its defensive emplacement, called “Tobruk,” on the east side of the canal bridge. Wally Parr was one of those on the gun. Quickly they discovered a warren of tunnels. Using a flashlight, Parr searched the tunnel under the gun and found a shaking, frightened German soldier hiding under a D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

51

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:34 PM Page 52

AP/ TopFoto / The Image Works

Royal Marine Commandos dig trenches and prepare defensive positions near Pegasus after relieving the glider troops who had taken the bridge across the Caen Canal hours earlier. Several of the gliders used by the airborne troops are visible in this photo, and the damage to the nose of one of the aircraft is prominent.

blanket. Nearby, Sergeant Thornton found three German soldiers sleeping in an underground barracks, rifles stacked nearby. Thornton removed the rifles, and Lieutenant Fox went to rouse the captured Germans. He pulled the blanket off the first man and said repeatedly in German, “Komm!” The sleepy German, thinking it was a friend joking with him, responded with an expletive. Wagger Thornton collapsed in laughter at the spectacle, while Fox, taken aback, left the job to his amused sergeant. Thornton alerted the Germans to the seriousness 52

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

of their plight with a short burst from his Sten gun. One German prisoner could not believe what had happened but eventually wound up sharing pictures of his family. With sunrise, enemy snipers began firing on anything that moved around the canal bridge. A medic attending to Lieutenant Smith was shot through the chest as he stood up, crying “Take my grenades out!” He was worried another shot might explode the deadly little bombs on his chest harness. Thornton found two more prisoners, who turned out to be Italian slave laborers. Howard ordered them released and given food. To the surprise of the British, the two Italians went out to the landing field, now littered with Horsa gliders, and began putting up the antiglider poles they had been ordered to install by the Germans. Overhead, a pair of Spitfire fighters flew by at 0800 hours, their pilots seeing the recognition signals the British laid out to show they had seized the bridges. One of the fighters dropped a package of the early edition newspapers from England. None of them mentioned the landings, but Howard recalled his men being more interested in the comic strip adventures of the character Jane. An hour later, Maj. Gen. Gale came walking down the road with two of his brigadiers, Nigel Poett of 5th Parachute Brigade and Hugh Kindersley of 5th Air Landing Brigade. Minutes after the officers arrived, Howard’s men faced their next threat, this time from the water. A patrol boat approached down the canal from the north, armed with a 20mm cannon. When it got within 50 yards, Corporal Claude Godbold fired a PIAT

D-Day14 Pegasus Bridge_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:34 PM Page 53

round striking the boat behind the wheelhouse. It slewed over to the bank, and the crew, including its fanatical Nazi commander, an insult-spewing teenager, was taken prisoner. Eventually a fed-up British soldier shut the boy up by hitting him in the shoulder with a rifle butt. As the German boat crew was marched off to captivity, a second boat advanced from the south. Parr and the men manning the antitank gun were trying to get it operational. They had figured out how to load it but were still having trouble with the firing mechanism when one of the men simply tried a button and sent a round downrange. Reloading, they turned the gun on the boat but missed with their first shot. Adjusting, they fired a second round, which hit the boat now some 300 yards distant. The enemy craft turned around and withdrew, but not before Parr and company gave it a parting shot, another hit. Now the newly formed gun crew was getting used to its weapon. Parr spotted a water tower he thought was a perfect spot for the enemy to observe the bridges. He put two rounds through it to the cheers of his fellow soldiers. Water gushed from the four small holes left by the round’s entry and exit; they had fired armor-piercing shot, which held no explosive filler. Parr next turned his attention to a chateau to the south. Suspecting it as well, he shouted “Number 1 gun, fire!” and proceeded to put three rounds into the building’s roof. Howard was nearby and heard the shout, which he found odd considering there was only one gun in the area to begin with. Quickly he ordered Parr to cease fire; the chateau was actually the maternity hospital run by the local resistance leader, Madame Vion. After a while his fellow soldiers became annoyed with Parr for all his shooting; each time the cannon fired it attracted a swarm of bullets in return. Howard ordered him to stop firing. At 1000 hours, the men of D Company saw a rare occurrence on D-Day, the appearance of a German aircraft overhead. The fighter roared down toward the bridge, sending the infantrymen scrambling for cover. The German pilot released a bomb that soared down, hit the bridge, bounced off, and splashed into the canal. Howard, having taken cover in the pillbox, was very impressed by the pilot’s accuracy but relieved his ordnance had been a dud. Midday came and went, and D Company grimly held onto the bridge despite the incoming fire. Still, no concerted attack by forces materialized. With the airborne landings, the beach assaults, and everything else being thrown at them on June 6, mounting an attack to retake the bridges proved beyond the Germans that day. At 1330 hours, a few of the glidermen heard bagpipes. When they said so, several of their comrades scoffed at them, but after a few minutes the sound grew louder and closer. It was the 1st Special Service Brigade commanded by Lord Lovat. Since radio communication was spotty at best, he had posted piper Bill Millin at his side, knowing the bagpipe would be a good recognition signal. Lieutenant Sweeney recalled a D Company man standing up and playing a bugle in return. Within minutes Lovat was shaking hands with Howard, who apologized for the incoming mortar fire. Apparently Howard thought it was coming from the area of the maternity hospital but had orders not to fire on it. The commandos began running over the canal bridge, where several were hit by the ever-present snipers. It was a hard crossing for the commandos, but at least now the linkup between the landing forces and the glider troops had taken place. Howard’s force would remain at the bridge, but the pressure had slackened somewhat with the arrival of Lovat’s troops. As afternoon turned to evening, German sniping and indirect fire were still coming in but lacked the strength to threaten D Company’s position. Just before nightfall, a massive British glider drop occurred, hundreds of them landing nearby. The bombers towing them dropped supply canisters from their bomb bays. Soon afterward, friendly soldiers riding in jeeps came pouring down the road and crossed the bridge on their way east. It was all a welcome sight.

Even more welcome was relief, which came a few hours later, not long before midnight. The 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment marched up to the bridge, and Howard turned the defense over to them. Company D had completed its mission. They were among the first Allied soldiers to land in France on D-Day and the first to enter combat with the Germans. It was a very impressive job for the company’s first time in combat. In their honor, the canal bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge in recognition of the unit’s shoulder patch, while the river bridge became known as Horsa Bridge. Major Howard was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions and leadership. Months after the battle, Wally Parr was reading an American magazine that contained an article about the battle for the bridge. It mentioned how the dastardly Germans, in their cruelty, had shelled the local maternity hospital during the battle. He would later say, “This was the first and last time I had shelled pregnant women and newborn babies.” The seizure of the bridges was featured in Cornelius Ryan’s postwar book The Longest Day, widening publicity of this action. When the film version of the book was made in 1962, the role of Major Howard went to actor Richard Todd, the former para lieutenant who was at the bridge on June 6. The Gondrees continued to run their café and served free drinks to veterans of D-Day each year on June 6. The café and bridge area are now considered national monuments, and a museum is nearby. The bridge itself was replaced when the canal was widened postwar, but the original bridge sits at the museum. Also on display are a Horsa glider and Major Howard’s beret along with various weapons and relics related to the battle. It is a fitting honor to the memory of a small group of men who risked so much doing their part to liberate France from the Nazi yoke. Christopher Miskimon is a regular contributor to WWII History. He is an officer in the Colorado National Guard’s 157th Regiment. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

53

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:10 PM Page 54

WE’LL START

THE WAR

FROM HERE Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., made a fateful D-Day decision on Utah Beach, as troops of the 4th Infantry Division poured ashore. In this aerial view of the initial D-Day landings on the Normandy coast, American troops can be seen struggling toward shore from their landing craft amid a storm of German small arms fire. Some U.S. casualties lie wounded or dead in the surf and at the water’s edge.

54

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:10 PM Page 55

eering through the predawn darkness at the slowly emerging shoreline 300 yards away, the little man with the famous name prepared once again to set foot in France as a soldier of the liberation. As the time neared 6:30 AM on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., would not have wanted to be anywhere else. Indeed, Roosevelt had been forced to beg repeatedly for the opportunity to land with his soldiers on Utah Beach. As he explained to his immediate superior, Maj. Gen. Raymond O. “Tubby” Barton, commanding officer of the 4th Infantry Division, “It will steady the boys to know I am with them. They’ll figure that if a general is going in, it can’t be that rough.” Now, bobbing alongside the troops in a wildly careening LCVP, Roosevelt gripped the walking cane he used to get around on his bum left knee—the unwelcome souvenir of a German machine-gun bullet he had taken at BY ROY MORRIS JR. Ploisy, near Soissons, in July 1918. He had already used his cane to fend off the well-intentioned assistance of one of his men as they got ready to jump into the landing craft from their transport ship Bayfield, 11 miles off the French coast. “Get the hell out of my way,” Roosevelt had growled goodnaturedly. “I can jump in there by myself. I can take it as well as any of you.” No one who knew Ted Roosevelt doubted the truth of that statement. At 57, he was the oldest man in the entire Allied invasion force now in the midst of storming ashore on the northern coast of France in the greatest amphibious assault in military history. He would be the only general to personally Brigadier General hit the beach on D-Day, a fitting feat for the firstTheodore Roosevelt, Jr., born son of the legendary adventurer who had led was the son of the his fabled Rough Riders up San Juan Hill almost famous president. exactly 46 years earlier. The Roosevelts, father and son, always led from the front, a trait that had nearly cost the younger Roosevelt his star the year before. The Army’s II Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, had removed Roosevelt and his immediate superior, Maj. Gen. Terry Allen, from command of the 1st Infantry Division for taking unnecessary personal risks and for “wantonly sacrificing their men” in a reckless frontal assault at Troina, Sicily. Eleven months later, the unlucky Allen remained in professional limbo, but Bradley transferred Roosevelt to the 4th Infantry Division in England, where he helped the Allied high command prepare for the upcoming invasion of Nazi-held France. Roosevelt was uncomfortably aware that he still labored under something of a cloud, both personally and professionally. Fellow general George S. Patton, himself no slouch when it came to taking chances in the heat of battle, echoed the party line at Army headquarters when he described Roosevelt as an officer having “great courage, but no soldier.” Roosevelt would soon have the opportunity to test both parts of Patton’s terse evaluation under the most trying of battlefield conditions. As 175,000 Allied troops began thrashing through the surf toward France’s Normandy coast at H-hour on D-Day, Roosevelt gathered himself mentally and physically for the challenge ahead. By all rights, he should have been back on the Bayfield, or even back in England itself. Not only was he 57 years old, with a permanent limp from an old bullet wound and severe arthritis in his shoulders and arms, but he also had a bad heart, something he had kept secret from both his family and his fellow officers. He was suffering from fibrillations, irregular heartbeats that frequently left him breathless and weak. It was a potentially life-threatening condition, although just

P

All photos National Archives unless credited otherwise

now, with German bullets zinging overhead and artillery shells dropping onto the beach in front, a fatal heart attack was the last thing on Roosevelt’s mind. A hundred yards from the sandy stretch designated Utah Beach by Allied war planners, the game little general dropped into the water, walking stick in one hand and silver-plated .45-caliber pistol in the other. Like his father in Cuba, Roosevelt had reached his “crowded hour.” It would be a fateful moment for both the general and his troops. Utah Beach, an unexceptional stretch of sand dunes and sea oats nine miles long and centered on the Nazi strongpoint at Les-Dunes-de-Varreville, was located at the far western end of the Allied line. West to east, the intended landing zones were designated Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. Already, the main American objective, Omaha Beach, was the focus of a brutal, swirling firestorm, as German defenders blazed away with machine guns, artillery, mortars, grenades, rockets, and small arms. Smoke from the gunfire hung darkly in the sky. It was obvious that the initial wave of assault troops there was taking a heavy pounding. As Roosevelt and the 4th Infantry came ashore on Utah Beach, Nazi resistance was limited to a few desultory volleys from riflemen of the 919th Regiment concealed in trenches behind the four-foothigh concrete seawall in front of La Madeleine, a landmark dune in the middle of the beach. A fortuitous combination of unforeseen circumstances—the loss of control vessels to guide the assault, a thick cloud of smoke from supporting Allied naval fire, and a strong tidal current sweeping everything to the west—had forced the division’s 20 LCVPs over a mile south of their original objective. Roosevelt, to his credit, immediately recognized the error. He located Captain Howard Lees, commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry, crouched at the top of a sand dune with his men. Peering at their maps, the general and the captain quickly situated themselves as German 88mm cannon shells began raining down D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

55

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:10 PM Page 56

from the sand-peppered sky. “Hey, this doesn’t look like what they showed us,” Lees said, referring to the tabletop model the officers had trained on back in England. Roosevelt told him to sit tight and calmly walked back down to the beach to reorient himself. By now, the lead troops of the 4th Division were beginning to bunch up, as successive waves of LCVPs pitched their load of men, sputtering and thrashing, into the rough seas 100 yards offshore. Sergeant Harry Brown caught sight of the general, wearing a green woolen knit cap—he hated wearing a helmet—strolling along “with a cane in one hand, a map in the other, walking around as if he was looking over some real estate.” Sand showered down on Roosevelt from artillery explosions, but he only brushed the dirt impatiently from his shoulders and kept walking. One shell, landing uncomfortably close by, caught a group of American solAmerican troops climb into a landing craft off the coast of Normandy for transport to the invasion beaches on June 6, 1944.

56

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE, MABRY ENCOUNTERED A SQUAD OF WOULD-BE DEFENDERS COWERING IN A DITCH ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. EIGHT MORE GERMANS SURRENDERED TO THE BRASH YOUNG SOUTHERNER. SENDING THEM BACK TOWARD THE BEACH UNDER A WHITE FLAG, MABRY AND PIKE PUSHED ON ACROSS THE FLOODED AREA.

diers broadside as they were wading ashore. A dozen men went down, and a lone figure emerged from the smoke and staggered onto the beach, his face blackened and his eyes staring. Roosevelt yelled for a medic and ran over to the shellshocked man. Putting his arm around the man’s shoulders, he spoke gently to him. “Son,” he said, “I think we’ll get you back on a boat.” As more German shells plunged onto the beach, Roosevelt jumped into a nearby foxhole for safety. It was a lucky choice: He landed atop Commodore James Arnold, the Navy control officer for Utah Beach. Together, the two ranking officers assessed the situation. Soon there would be over 22,000 men and 1,800 vehicles— tanks, trucks, and jeeps—bunched up behind them. The division’s primary objective was to seize the major causeways leading inland from the beach toward Ste.-Marie-du-Mont and Les Forges and link up with troopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, who had dropped behind German lines the night before to secure the high ground around St.-Martin-de-Varreville and Ste.Mere-Eglise. Once clear of the beach, the American units would drive northward along Route N17 toward the vital port of Cherbourg, linchpin of the entire Cotentin Peninsula, which thrust outward into the Atlantic like a giant thumb. The problem, which Roosevelt and Arnold immediately recognized, was that the misplaced landing had planted the first wave some 2,000 yards south of their intended location. Instead of coming ashore above La Madeleine, where the causeways known as Exits 3 and 4 came together on the beach road, the 4th Division had landed at La Grande Dune, just above Exit 2. The question was whether to funnel the entire division onto the single exit where they were coming ashore, or whether to move—or attempt to move—the men a mile northward to the original site. Roosevelt, Arnold, Colonel James Van Fleet, and Lt. Cols. Conrad Simmons and Carlton MacNeely held a hasty council of war in Arnold’s foxhole. It was Roosevelt’s

ABOVE: Utah Beach was the westernmost of the five Allied invasion beaches on D-Day. A fortuitous landing in the wrong place by the 4th Infantry Division and a difficult decision by Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., helped the liberators gain a solid foothold on the European continent. BELOW: Captain George Mabry, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, was in the thick of the fighting around Utah Beach.

decision to make, and he made it without hesitation. “I’m going ahead with the troops,” he said. “Get word to the Navy to bring them in. We’ll start the war from here.” That said—and it was a saying that would make Roosevelt famous—the general began organizing the drive toward Exit 2. Continuing to exhibit total disregard for his own safety, Roosevelt paced back and forth from the seawall to the surf, grabbing officers and enlisted men and heading them in the right direction. Lt. Col. Arthur Teague, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Regiment, plowed ashore on a landing craft that hit the beach at full speed. With German shells dropping 75 yards behind him, Teague began stumbling toward the seawall when he heard someone shouting his name. It was Roosevelt. “He told me we had landed way to the left of where we were supposed to have landed and he wanted us to get this part of the beach cleared as soon as possible,” Teague recalled. “He wanted action from my men immediately after landing and asked me to get them down the beach as soon as I could.” Teague obeyed at once, throwing out a skirmish line that rousted a handful of German soldiers from a trench behind a sand dune. Meanwhile, advancing Americans began stepping on land mines the enemy had sprinkled under the marshy ground beyond the beach. The captured Germans professed ignorance of any mines until Teague forced them at gunpoint to accompany the skirmishers inland. Then the prisoners suddenly remembered where the mines were located, and Teague’s men were able to tiptoe their way safely past the minefield. Behind them, on the beach, Army engineers and Navy Seabees were planting explosive charges to clear the way for half-tracks and tanks to offload from their LSTs. The engineers had arrived in the second wave, jumping off their landing craft into waist-deep water. Each man carried between 50 and 75 pounds of TNT or plastic explosives on his back, along with several cartons of cigarettes they had been issued just before depart-

ing. To lighten their loads, the men reluctantly jettisoned their cigarettes. “We were wading in cigarettes up to our knees,” Sergeant Richard Cassiday of the 237th Engineer Combat Battalion remembered. Cassiday set to work planting charges near the seawall. He was about to detonate an obstacle when he saw a familiar figure walking nearby with a cane. “Go knock that bastard down, he’s going to get killed!” Cassiday shouted. “Somebody said, ‘Do you know who that is?’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s Roosevelt, and he’s going to get killed.’” The general moved on, unconcerned, just before the charge went off. Not everyone was as lucky as Roosevelt. Captain George Mabry of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment, landed with the third wave at Utah Beach. Thrashing through the cold, waist-deep water, Mabry alternately battled cramps and enemy rocket fire. “Just before I got out of the water,” he recalled, “Corporal Speck, one of my baseball players when I coached the team at Fort Benning, was lying there. He had been hit in both legs. I reached down to help him but he stopped me. He said, ‘Captain, your place is inland. Leave me alone and get moving.’ It was a tough thing to do, to leave him. But he kept insisting my place was inland. I moved forward.” On the beach, Mabry saw a mortar round hit a fellow soldier squarely on the top of the head. The man was carrying an armful of 81mm mortar ammunition, and the enemy round caused the ammunition to detonate. The man’s body instantly disappeared, and Mabry felt something hit him on the thigh—it was the man’s thumb; nearby lay his stomach. “No one dead or alive was near it,” Mabry said. “It was a stark, grotesque sight.” Farther inland, Mabry caught sight of Roosevelt, waving his inevitable cane and urging the new arrivals to keep moving forward. Climbing a sand dune, Mabry saw a group of five Germans suddenly jump up and begin firing at him. He Benjamin M. Mabry

Map © 2004 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:10 PM Page 57

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

57

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:27 AM Page 58

returned fire, killing a Nazi who was about to fling a potato-masher grenade at him. The other four immediately, if unexpectedly, surrendered. Mabry handed them over to a wounded corporal and kept going. It was now midmorning, and the German resistance at Utah Beach was crumbling. Mabry, who would later win the Medal of Honor in the Hurtgen Forest, gathered a handful of men from G Company, 2nd Battalion, including a crack shot named Ballard armed with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and headed for an enemy pillbox guarding the entrance to the causeway at Exit 1. The group was joined by two Sherman tanks from the 70th Tank Battalion, which had just trundled ashore. Diving into a ditch to avoid German machine-gun fire, Mabry ordered Ballard to spray the emplacement with a burst

58

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

from his BAR. It was met with return fire from the pillbox. The tanks joined in the fray, and after a shell penetrated one of the pillbox’s slit openings, a white flag poked out of the embrasure. Thirty-six Germans surrendered. They were soon joined by another 25 prisoners who capitulated to an American flamethrower. Exit 1 was now open. Mabry, a 1940 graduate of Presbyterian College in South Carolina, continued his advance down the causeway. Together with Sergeant Malvin Pike of E Company, the industrious young lieutenant came to a hedgerow bordering a field surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Suspecting the field was mined, Mabry recalled being taught in England “that if a length of straight wire extended skyward from the corner posts, the minefield was a dummy ... if the wire curled like a corkscrew, it was a live field. I saw a straight line extend from the corner post closest to us.” Testing the quality of his training, Mabry crawled under the wire and into the field— it was unmined. Continuing on, the two Americans came under fire from Germans on the other side of a flooded field opposite the causeway bridge. They returned fire, dropping two of the enemy within 10 yards of the bridge. More Germans appeared on the right of the causeway, attempting to outflank Mabry and Pike, but shots from the opposite side of the hedgerow—it sounded like M-1 rifle fire to Mabry—drove the Germans back. Mabry dashed across the bridge, where he spotted a huge aerial bomb wired to the span. “The Germans we had shot had probably been on their way to blow the bridge,” he thought later. On the other side of the bridge, Mabry encountered a squad of would-be defenders cowering in a ditch on the side of the road. Eight more LEFT: The bloodiest fighting of Germans surrendered personally to the brash young D-Day took place at Omaha Beach. Southerner. Sending them back toward the beach under Here, American troops round up German soldiers and laborers, a white flag, Mabry and Pike pushed on across the many from Eastern Europe, who flooded area toward the village of Pouppeville. Catchhad been impressed to work on ing sight of a helmet disappearing into some bushes at the Atlantic Wall defenses. the other side of the field, Pike raised his rifle to fire. BELOW: The Germans constructed thousands of steel obstacles Mabry held him back. called hedgehogs, anchoring “You know,” he said, “the paratroopers are supposed them on and near the Normandy to have taken this town. Let’s not shoot any of our parabeaches to block the progress of troopers.” Just then an orange flare shot up from behind Allied landing craft and armored vehicles. the bushes—a sign of friendly troops. Mabry waved a piece of orange cloth in reply. Two soldiers wearing Kevin Hymel American flag patches on their shoulders rose warily from their cover. One of them, Lieutenant Eugene Brierre of the 101st Airborne, took note of the distinctive four-starred shoulder patch on the other men’s uniforms.”Fourth Division?” he asked. “Yes,” said Mabry. “Who’s in charge here?” Brierre replied. “I am,” said Mabry. “Well, General Taylor is right back here in Pouppeville and wants to meet you,” said Brierre. Just then, Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne, climbed through the hedgerow, returned Mabry’s crisp salute, and shook his hand. It was 11:05 am. The infantry and the airborne had made their first contact in France. Soon more 4th Division troops began moving up the causeway into Pouppeville. One scout, carrying his rifle like a squirrel gun, came across Sergeant Thomas Bruff of the 101st Airborne. “Where’s the war,” he called good-naturedly. Bruff, who had landed eight miles from

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:27 AM Page 59

After consolidating their positions on Utah Beach and catching their breaths behind the cover of a stone wall, U.S. troops begin the long trek inland on the morning of D-Day.

his intended drop zone the night before and had fought all night with a group under the personal command of General Taylor, was in no mood for pleasantries. “Anywhere from here on back,” he growled. “Keep going, buddy, you’ll find it.” Meanwhile, three miles north, Colonel Russell “Red” Reeder pushed inland with his 12th Infantry Regiment. His immediate objective was St.-Martin-de-Varreville, where he was supposed to link up with the 82nd Airborne. Coming under German artillery fire, Reeder moved his men into a flooded field alongside Exit 2. He had been told that the flooded areas were about ankle-deep, but Sergeant Clifford Sorenson, one of Reeder’s men, quickly learned differently. “That flooded area was in some places up to your waist and the irrigation ditches were over your head,” said Sorenson. “Some brave souls would swim across the irrigation ditches and throw toggle ropes back and haul the rest of us across. So much for aerial reconnaissance.” It took several hours for the regiment to cross the inundated farmland, but they managed to do so without losing a single man, despite sporadic sniper fire from the Germans across the way. When the men were safely on high ground, Reeder signaled for Lt. Col. Charles Jackson to turn right with the 1st Battalion and head for St.-Martin-de-Varreville. At a crossroads, Jackson and his force came under heavy artillery fire and scattered for cover. At the same time, a jeep came tearing up to Jackson from Exit 2. On the hood was General Roosevelt. “Well, Chuck, how are things going?” Roosevelt asked the astonished Jackson, who explained the situation as best he could. “Let’s go up to the front,” Roosevelt said. “We are at the front,” Jackson replied. “See those two men [50 meters away]? They are the leading scouts of Company A.” “Let’s go talk to them,” Roosevelt said. They did, then continued on toward St.-Germain-de-Varreville, where the regiment would link up with the 82nd Airborne for the night. It was now midafternoon, and the 4th Division had driven several miles inland on all four major causeways. Resistance was scattered, but still dangerous for the advancing Americans. The 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment hit the beach at 1 pm and headed northwest toward St.-Germain-de-Varreville, slogging through the flooded fields. Bob

Meyer, a BAR man with Company G, was with one group that came under fire from a German SS officer waiting in ambush with his men. Captain Robert Russell, a graduate of the storied Virginia Military Institute, was nearly cut in half by the unexpected outburst. The Nazi then “dropped his weapon and threw up his hands,” Meyer recalled. “This might have gotten him captured, except that, as he put up his hands, he was laughing. It was his last laugh. Our executive officer, Joe Jackson, who weighed 240 pounds with no fat, stuck him with a bayonet and pitched him like a bundle of grain. We weren’t too fond of our captain but he was one of us. We went through the rest of that German group like a hot knife through butter.” Sergeant Nathan Fellman, an ammunition specialist with the 12th Regiment, got separated from his unit soon after landing. Linking up with some paratroopers from the 101st Airborne, he moved warily through the French countryside. Two German snipers in a tree almost got Fellman, but the paratroopers cut them down with a burst of fire. Continuing on, the men came to a barn beside a trail. Two paratroopers ran up and pitched a hand grenade inside. Before it could explode, five German solD-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

59

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:28 AM Page 60

diers rushed out with their hands up, yelling, “Kamerad!” The men were lined up while the paratroop commander wondered aloud what to do with them. “Kill them,” another paratrooper said, and the Germans were mercilessly mowed down, “Chicago-gangster style,” Fellman recalled. When he asked the sergeant why the men had been killed, “he said his landing instructions were to kill all enemy and he merely followed his orders. There were no provisions for taking captives.” Fellman, who was Jewish, conceded that the sergeant had probably done the right thing, under the circumstances, “but even though I had no love for the Germans, I would rather not have had this experience.” It was a hard war on both sides. Malcolm Williams, a North Carolinian in the 12th Regiment, remembered being greeted personally by General Roosevelt after his landing craft scraped bottom at Utah Beach. “He said to us, ‘How do you boys like the beach?’” Williams recalled. The rest of the day wasn’t so pleasant. Moving through the now-familiar flooded areas, Williams and his comrades would some60

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: Additional troops and equipment land on Utah in the hours after the first waves secured the beach. By late afternoon more than 22,000 men and 1,800 vehicles had landed and pushed inland. OPPOSITE: Men of the 101st Airborne Division assemble in a farm yard near Utah Beach. Troops from the 4th Division linked up with Airborne units on the afternoon of June 6.

times step into a hole and sink in over their heads, forcing them to swim for several feet before reaching shallow ground. Ahead, they could hear machine-gun fire coming from the causeway. Passing through some woods, Williams’ group came upon some dead paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd Airborne, “tied by their feet, hung up a tree and then cut all the way down their bodies with a knife. I also saw where wounded had been tied to a bed and then the house burned down around them.” Not all sights were so horrific. At Ste.-Marie-du-Mont, a village just beyond Pouppeville, French baker Pierre Caldron had been awakened before sunrise by the sound of gunfire. A German officer had been billeted at Caldron’s home, but had left two days earlier. Looking out his second-floor window, Caldron caught sight of an American paratrooper moving through the yard. The soldier pointed a rifle at Caldron, but fortunately for the Frenchman, he was wearing his white baker’s hat. “I think he must have thought I was a medic from my hat,” Caldron reasoned. The American moved on without firing. At 7 am, a railway guard from the village rushed into Caldron’s house, kissed him on the cheek, and cried, “They’re here! They’re here! They’ve landed, and if you don’t believe me, here’s an American cigarette.” At 10 o’clock the first American infantrymen moved into the village. A stocky soldier with the 4th Division grinned at Caldron and shouted, “Vive la France!” The baker could only nod back—he didn’t trust himself to speak. By late afternoon, some 22,000 men and 1,800 vehicles had landed successfully at Utah Beach and churned inland, pushing aside all enemy resistance. At nightfall, the exhausted troopers bedded down at St.-Germain-de-Varreville, Les Forges, and other reassembly points near the vital N17 highway to Cherbourg. Thanks to the swift thinking and unflap-

D-Day14 Utah Beach_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:29 AM Page 61

pable nerve of Roosevelt and his senior officers, the landing at Utah Beach had been a stirring success, made all the more remarkable by the rough handling the other American units had endured at Omaha Beach before they could get through that killing ground. Major General Thomas Handy, right-hand man to Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, had waded ashore at Omaha Beach to see for himself what the landing was like. “It was terrible along that damned beach,” he recalled. But Utah Beach was a different story. “The performance of the 4th Division was remarkable,” Handy reported. “It was a new division that had never been blooded. We all thought Utah was going to be more of a problem than Omaha—the damned terrain swampy with causeways; one gun at each could stop tanks from coming through.” The Germans never got the chance. Rough Rider that he was (he had been adopted by his father’s regiment and had actually bivouacked with the famous cavalrymen when they returned to America from Cuba in 1898), Roosevelt had not given the Germans time to stop him. True to his word, he had started the war when and where he wanted, and because he did, the Allies had made their first crucial lodgement on the European land mass. From there they would not be driven off. In the weeks that followed, Roosevelt and the 4th Division drove steadily toward Cherbourg, where the Germans put up a strong last-ditch defense. Hedgerow to hedgerow the Americans fought their way up the Cotentin Peninsula, taking heavy casualties as they went. (At Chateau de Fontenay, a 200-year-old mansion situated alongside a pivotal roadway, one company of the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry lost almost as many men in one morning as the entire division lost in the day-long landing at Utah Beach.) Accompanied by the 9th and 79th Divisions, which had landed a few days after D-Day, the men of the 4th slogged steadily onward. Roosevelt, as usual, was in the midst of things, serving for a time as military governor of Cherbourg after the vital port city surrendered on June 26. He relinquished his quasi-political post to rejoin the division as it took part in the breakout campaign to capture St. Lô and drive ever deeper into Normandy. Along the way he had come into possession of a captured German truck that his men had repainted and turned over to him for a mobile headquarters. It was this truck that Roosevelt bragged about in a letter to his wife Eleanor (not the Eleanor Roosevelt who was married to his cousin, Franklin) on July 10. “The truck arrived yesterday at a most opportune moment,” Roosevelt reported, “for the old chassis had begun to feel the strain of these last few years of combat. I was a pretty sick rabbit.… The Doc came and said with a little embarrassment that my troubles were primarily from having put an inhuman strain on a machine that was not exactly new. Anyhow, he gave me something to make me sleep, and this morning I was almost as good as new.” The next day, Roosevelt put in a full day’s work in the field, then retired to his little truck to rest. He was overjoyed by a surprise visit from his son Quentin, a young lieutenant with the 1st Division who had landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day (the Roosevelts

were the only known father and son team to accomplish that feat). The two spent the better part of three hours catching up. “We talked about everything—home, the family, my plans, the war—having a swell time,” Quentin wrote to his mother. “He hadn’t expected me to drop in and was terribly happy when I left him, as I was.” Later that night, Roosevelt died peacefully in his sleep in the back of his truck, the victim of a massive heart attack. Unknown to Roosevelt, at the time of his death the paperwork was waiting to be signed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower promoting him to major general and giving him command of the 90th Division. Instead, on Bastille Day, July 14, Roosevelt was buried with full military honors at Ste.-Laurent-sur-Mer. Omar Bradley, George S. Patton, Raymond Barton, and three other general officers stood at attention while enlisted men from the 4th Division carried the flag-draped casket to its rest. Two months later, President Roosevelt presented the general’s widow with her husband’s posthumous Medal of Honor at a private ceremony at the White House. The citation praised Roosevelt “for gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” at Utah Beach on June 6. “His father would have been proudest,” the president said. (TR, too, would eventually receive a posthumous Medal of Honor for his heroic performance at San Juan Hill, making the Roosevelts the second father and son to win Medals of Honor after General Douglas MacArthur and his father, Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur.) Ted Junior would have been prouder still of the tribute paid to him years later by his old commander, Omar Bradley. When asked by a reporter what was the single bravest feat he had ever witnessed in his long career, Bradley said simply, “Four words: Ted Roosevelt. Utah Beach.” Noted author Roy Morris, Jr., lives and writes in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His latest book, Fraud of the Century, describes the circumstances surrounding the disputed U.S. Presidential election of 1876. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

61

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 62

The men of Rudder’s Rangers had a suicidal D-Day mission: knock out the Germans’ big guns atop Pointe du Hoc.

I

N the early morning of June 6, 1944, LCA 668 (Landing Craft, Assault), carrying First Sergeant Len Lomell, Staff Sergeant Jack Kuhn, and most of the 2nd Platoon, 2nd Ranger Battalion, cut through the choppy, green waters of the English Channel. As the men poked their helmets out of the top of the boat, they were looking at what would be center stage of one of the greatest amphibious landings in history. They saw, heard, and felt the intense bombardment on the shore, demonstrating the full might of the American and British battleships, destroyers, and bombers. The sight mesmerized the 22 young Rangers. Through the smoke and fire, the men watched as scores of rockets from a naval barge ignited and streaked through the air. Not far behind Lomell, LCA 858 carried Lieutenant George Kerchner and his 1st Platoon. Massive shells from the battleships passed directly over their heads. “We were close enough to hear and feel some of the muzzle blasts,” Kerchner later remarked. “One of the rocket-firing craft that was near Omaha Beach fired their rockets. This was also a terrifying thing; I think there were a thousand or more rockets on these landing craft, and they fired in salvos of maybe 10 or 15 at a time. It was just one continuous sheet of fire.” “How can anybody live through that?” thought Kerchner.

62

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

A

As the small flotilla of British-crewed craft carrying the Rangers of Force A plowed through waves of the channel, something seemed off. In LCA 668, Lomell knew it. Through the mist and spray, the dark, rocky cliffs of what appeared to be Pointe et Raz de la Percée came into view. Len Lomell turned to his close friend Jack Kuhn. “Hey, Jack! Look at this. That’s not the Pointe. That’s C Company’s target.” Kuhn nodded. Lomell moved across the crowded landing craft towards the British coxswain who was piloting the craft and asked him if they were headed in the right direction. The coxswain nodded affirmatively. Lomell pressed the issue. “Are you sure you are right about this?” From the photos that Lomell looked at during the training exercise, he was sure the 10 landing craft, three DUKWs, and other small boats in Force A were at least two miles off course from Pointe du Hoc and heading in the wrong direction. In the dense smoke and haze, guiding the flotilla in ML-304 (Motor Launch), Lieutenant Colin Beever of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve was in fact dangerously off course. In Beever’s defense, the new 970 radar equipment was at fault. Introduced a month earlier, the equipment tested well in controlled settings but failed on D-Day. Dog Company and the rest of Force A were mistakenly heading toward Pointe et Raz de la Percée, Force B’s objective. The error in navigation would change the course of history by putting Force A nearly 40 minutes behind schedule in reaching their target. About 100 yards from what was clearly Pointe et Raz de la Percée, Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, commanding the 2nd Ranger Battalion, realized the error and ordered Beever to change course and turn west toward Pointe du Hoc. The operation’s entire timetable was now blown. The follow-on force known as Force C—which included Able and Baker companies and some elements of Headquarters Company of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and Lt. Col. Max Schneider’s Fifth Ranger Battalion—would not be heading to Pointe du Hoc because they never received the appropriate radio signal from Force A. Hence, Force C headed to its second objective, Omaha Beach. Dog Company, along with the rest of Force A, was now on its own and outgunned, heading straight for Pointe du Hoc with no follow-on reinforcements. Late, but back on course, the DUKWs and assault craft of Ranger Force A raced towards Pointe du Hoc. With the flotilla just a few hundred yards from the Norman coast, the Germans peppered the landing craft with machine-gun fire, hitting several men. N

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 63

ALL

ODDS BY PATRICK O’DONNELL This photo, which vividly depicts one of Pointe du Hoc’s daunting cliffs was, like most photos in this article, taken within a day or two of the battle. Initial resupply for the 2nd Ranger Battalion on top was done like the assault: via ropes and ladders borrowed from London's fire brigades.

National Archives

WWII QUARTERLY

63

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 64

64

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

called for Dog Company to land on the western side of the Pointe, but Rudder, in an effort to keep everyone together, ordered all craft to land on the eastern side of the 500-yard rocky peninsula, landing at approximately 7:08 AM, nearly 40 minutes behind schedule. Shortly after landing, communications officer LieuWE RECEIVED tenant James Eikner signaled “Tilt,” indicating that Force A was behind schedule and Schneider’s Force C should NO ORDERS TO pursue their secondary objective, Omaha Beach. MysteriFIRE, BUT THE ously, the radios were not operating properly. ENEMY WAS Acknowledgement was “receipted,” according to Eikner, THERE BELOW but Schneider’s records show that they never got his message; the only message received by the 5th was a word that US SO WE like Charlie.” Even the guide-crafts’ radios were FIRED! AT THAT “sounded inoperable and unable to send the same message. MOMENT WE These two bizarre circumstances—Beever’s navigation WERE NERVOUS error and the inoperable radios—created an auspicious BUT ACTIVE. WE chain of events that resulted in Force C landing on Omaha Beach instead of their primary objective, Pointe du Hoc. FIRED FROM THE After waiting an extra 10 minutes, with still no message EDGE WITH OUR from Rudder affirming his landing on Pointe du Hoc, MACHINE GUNS.... Schneider redirected his boats to their secondary target, Omaha Beach. This alteration in Schneider’s plans changed WE TARGETED the outcome of the invasion by putting his men exactly THE AMERICANS where they were needed, though the initial wave sustained AS THEY EXITED heavy casualties. The first elements of Force C to reach their objective, THE LANDING “Dog Green” beach, were craft bearing A, B, and HeadCRAFT. quarters Companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, which landed on a shoulder of the Vierville Draw, where the Germans constructed a deadly Widerstandsnest or “Resistance Nest.” In a bloody scene immortalized in the movie Saving Private Ryan, waves of men from the 2nd Ranger Battalion were cut down in a kill zone containing numerous bunkers with enfilading machine-gun fire. German antitank guns and mortars mercilessly fired upon the incoming Rangers, who later dubbed the area “The Devil’s Garden.” Seeing Dog Green was shut down and the enormous losses A, B, and Headquarters Companies were taking and being waved off by landing control on the beach, Schneider, a veteran of Ranger landings in Africa, Sicily and Italy, ordered the 5th to land on a quieter beach known as Dog White, located next to Dog Green beach. (Elements of Force C landed on the boundary between Green and White beaches. Captain Edgar L. Arnold’s B Company landed on Dog Green and the 5th’s A Company and the HQ boat on Dog White. Other portions of the 5th landed to the east on Dog Red.) The extra battalion landing in the right place at exactly the right time proved crucial to the American breakout from Omaha Beach. Near the seawall on the beach, men of Schneider’s battalion ran into Brig. Gen. Norman Cota, assistant division commander of the 29th Infantry Division, who uttered the famous command to the men of the 5th: “Rangers, lead the way!” With that, the 5th broke out of the beachhead and flanked the German defenses at Omaha. Force B’s attack on Pointe et Raz de la Percée would also prove critical. Using “bayonets and their bare hands,” the men of Charlie Company scaled the cliffs and took out numerous German mortar positions that were zeroed in on Omaha Beach. At Pointe du Hoc, the delay of Rudder’s Force A had given the Germans precious time to recover from the initial shore bombardment and contest the landing. The original Allied plan called for the shore bombardment to cease at 6:30 AM, only minutes

“

“

As bullets flew by, fierce waves pounded the incoming landing craft, and the icy froth of the churning channel waters soaked the men, who frantically bailed water to avoid sinking. Most of the men became seasick. The Army had issued them paper bags, but no one had time to use them. “We were taking on water,” Men were throwing up as we were bailing seawater out of the landing craft. I know I did.” The turbulent channel waves relentlessly lashed LCA 860, nearly capsizing the craft carrying Captain Harold K. “Duke” Slater, Lieutenant Morton McBride, Sergeant Antonio J. Ruggiero, Technician 5th Class Raymond J. Riendeau, and 17 other men from Dog Company. With his boat a mere 20 yards in front of them, an anxious Lomell stared back at The Duke. The roar of the waves crashing into the boats drowned out the dull hum of the craft’s motor. Inside the British-made boat, Slater and his men feverishly bailed water with their helmets to keep from drowning. Waves from the channel cascaded over the sides of the craft, filling the boat, and drenching everyone inside. They were sinking, and Force A’s supply boat was also taking on water. Remarkably, despite the swirling seas and incoming German fire, the men were focused on a standing bet they had made about who would reach shore first. One hundred dollars would go to the winners. Spawned at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, the Rangers’ highly competitive ethos and winning spirit permeated their every bone and fiber. Lomell and the men of LCA 668 were determined to win. Focused on being the first boat to land on shore and not realizing the deadly force of the channel’s currents, several men on board Lomell’s boat and Kerchner’s landing craft cheered and applauded when they saw Duke Slater’s craft going down. Lomell remembers some of the men saying, “That’s one less group we have to compete with. We’ve only got Kerchner now.” Over a half an hour late, Rudder’s flotilla, minus Slater’s foundering LCA and the Rangers’ supply boat, headed for the eastern side of Pointe du Hoc. The original plan

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 65

firing my machine gun but also witnessed grenades being thrown. There were also mortars ahead of me [that] fired onto the beach below. I stood up from my trench, picked up my weapon, and kept firing, uncertain how many times I fired.” One Ranger recalled the fury of the German defense: “As we approached these cliffs, all hell broke loose. We could hear the zing of the bullets, and a few artillery shells being lobbed in .... [We] heard the splatter of the machine guns and the German riflemen up on the edge of this cliff shooting down at us. There was a Ranger sitting across from me who was shot in the chest. A Stars and Stripes photographer vomited on me.”

National Archives

before the Rangers were supposed to begin assaulting the cliffs. (Beever’s navigation error likely saved the lives of many of Rudder’s men. Their delay in landing on Pointe du Hoc prevented them from being hit by B-26 bombers, which bombarded the Pointe 20 minutes late (between 6:25 and 6:45 AM––the exact time when Force A was scheduled to land). But now, the Germans were ready and waiting for Dog Company’s frontal assault, due to the extra 30 minutes afforded by Force A’s late arrival. Nineteen-year-old German Private Wilhelm Kirchhoff of 2nd Battalion, Werfer-Regiment 84 vividly described the scene: “The American landing craft were coming from the [east] and were fully loaded with men and material. When they arrived, the waves were very high and the little boats were thrown about violently. Once they hit the beach, the ramps dropped and the men charged out. “We received no orders to fire, but the enemy was there below us so we fired! At that moment we were nervous but active. We fired from the edge with our machine guns…. We targeted the Americans as they exited the landing craft. They were firing up [at us] but were out in the open.” Kirchhoff and the other members of his regiment were dug in near a bunker on the eastern edge of the Pointe. All told, about 120 of them, including 15 men from the Wer-

Marching through the southern English port city of Weymouth, U.S. Rangers head to the boats that will take them across the English Channel to either death or glory.

fer Regiment, took full advantage of their superior position and firepower to resist the Rangers’ landing. “From the Pointe we started throwing grenades until we couldn’t see them anymore,” recalled Rudolf Karl, an artillerist NCO atop the Pointe. “For the Americans down on the beach, the effect would have been devastating. They had no protection there at all.” Machine-gun bullets slapped the water in front of the Rangers’ incoming boats and “potato-masher” grenades rained down on the Americans. According to Kirchhoff, even “radio and telephone operators in the trenches ... fired with their weapons. I continued

Fittingly, Rudder’s craft hit the 30-yard strip of rocky beach first. Bombs and artillery shells from the Allied ships had blasted away part of the cliff face where it met the narrow beach, creating massive underwater craters near the base of the peninsula. As Jack Kuhn’s landing craft approached Rudder’s boat near the rocky shore, Kuhn looked up at the ominous precipice. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

65

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 66

Momentarily stunned by what he saw, his Thompson slipped out of his hand and into the several inches of seawater and floating vomit that filled the bottom of the craft. Inside the cramped boat, Kuhn turned to Corporal Sheldon Bare and snapped, “Bare, I lost my Thompson!” Bare reached down into the filthy, brackish water and fished out Kuhn’s weapon. “Here you go, Jack,” he said as the boat neared the shore. From his position on LCA 668, Lomell ordered the grapnel rockets fired at the cliff. Ironically, “the grapnels seemed like a lifeline, but were just as likely to lead the men to death as to life. Climbing the ropes would take the men out of the frying pan of German machine-gun bullets and potato mashers landing on the beach and into the fire of the battle on top of the cliff.” Several yards away from Lomell, Fox Company Commander Captain Otto Masny tensely estimated when to fire the grapnels from his boat. He noticed several craft had fired too soon, causing the rockets to fall short and miss the cliff. Masny barked at the British coxswain guiding his craft to the Pointe, “Don’t fire those things until I give the word! We’ve got plenty of time.” To hammer home Masny’s order, Lieutenant Richard A. Wintz pulled out his .45. “You drop those gates or let those charges go before I give the order, and I’ll put a bullet in your head.” On board LCA 668, the loud explosion caused by the coxswain’s firing the grapnel rockets jarred Lomell as he stared at the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc looming in front of him. SPLASH! The ramp dropped, and the coxswain barked, “All right, everybody out!” Lomell’s boat had stopped several yards short of the shoreline. “We had amphibious DUKWs but [there were] so many underwater craters they couldn’t get in too close to the cliff.” Lomell led the group. As he stepped off the ramp, he completely disappeared from view. A massive underwater bomb crater had swallowed up the first sergeant. The icy water, just 42 degrees, rushed around him 66

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

as he quickly submerged eight feet below the surface. Bullets pierced the silence underwater as he swam out of the crater and joined the other men, who had avoided the hazard. “Ow!” Lomell felt a sudden sting of pain through his right side. A German machinegun bullet barely missed his ribs and went through the fleshy portion of his torso. Not realizing where it came from, Lomell spun around and came face to face with Private Harry Fate. “Harry, you son of a bitch. You shot me!” Fate pleaded his innocence. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t try to kill you!” “I was about to kill him for doin’ it,” Lomell admitted later. After all, Lomell had busted Fate from sergeant to private just a few weeks prior. After losing his stripes, Fate had made a veiled threat to Lomell: “That’s all right. You know all first sergeants get their due in combat. I’ll see you in combat.” Breaking the standoff, Bill Geitz, Lomell’s medic, socked the first sergeant in the jaw and knocked him down, yelling, “Len, he didn’t do it! He didn’t do it!” The altercation lasted only a few seconds before Lomell snapped out of his rage and focused on assaulting the cliff towering in front of his men. Minutes later, George Kerchner’s LCA 858 touched down next to Lomell’s boat. Before the craft landed, Kerchner thought about the half-hour delay and felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding. “Holy hell,” he thought, “someone made a hell of big mistake sending us in here. We’ll never get up there.” Kerchner looked in front of him. Twenty feet of murky water stained with a reddish mixture of Ranger blood and clay from the cliffs lay between him and the shore. Kerchner looked back at his men, “OK, let’s go!” As he turned back around, the green lieutenant slipped and found himself submerged in eight feet of water in the same shell hole Lomell had fallen into minutes earlier. “Oh, hell, here we go!” he thought BELOW: Pointe du Hoc is shrouded in smoke and angrily as he “doggy paddled” to keep his dust from bombs dropped by Ninth Air Force A-20 head above the water. The men of 1st Pla“Havoc” medium bombers, April 15, 1944. toon saw what happened and moved Unknown to the Allies, the raid caused the Geraround the crater. “I remember being angry mans to relocate their 155mm guns over a mile inland. OPPOSITE: Map shows position of the Gerbecause I was soaked ... wringing wet. I mans’ big guns before they were secretly moved turned around and wanted to find someback from the cliffs. To reach them, the Rangers one to help me cuss out the British Navy had to climb sheer cliffs and fight their way for dumping me in this eight feet of water,” through closely knit machine-gun and 37mm antiaircraft gun positions while avoiding minefields. remembered Kerchner. But the ripping sound of a German bonesaw MG 42 machine gun as it zeroed in on 1st Platoon silenced any cussing Kerchner intended to unload on the British coxswain. From the top of the cliff, the German soldiers relentlessly fired down on the incoming Americans. As German machine gunner Kirchhoff related, “Until that moment, I had probably fired 10,000 rounds. I had switched barrels several times but the flash hider still sometimes got red hot.” On the beach, a bullet ripped into Sergeant Francis Pacyga’s arm. The same bullet blew out the kneecap of Pfc. Lester Harris, causing him to drop his weapon. National Archives

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 67

Map © 2013 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Kerchner, armed with just his .45, grabbed Harris’s discarded M1 and led his men to the side of the cliff. Running about 25 yards down the beach, Kerchner found Rudder. Kerchner informed him that Duke Slater’s boat was missing and “presumed capsized,” so Kerchner now commanded Dog Company. Under heavy fire, Rudder turned to Kerchner and yelled, “Get the hell out of here and get up and climb that rope!” As the men of Dog dashed toward the cliff, MG 42 machine-gun bullets kicked up the gravel around them. “I thought I was kicking up pebbles and dirt. But they were actually bullets that were hitting the sand and kicking up the dirt around me,” one Ranger explained. Months of training kicked into gear. The men ran like rabbits towards the base and began to climb. Several Rangers returned fire as they rushed to the ropes, but the German defenders took their toll as more and more Rangers went down. When Dog started climbing, Sheldon Bare fired at the Germans, but as the men neared the top, he ceased fire. “I stopped firing because I didn’t want to hit our men on top of the cliff,” recalled Bare. Then it was Bare’s turn to make the hazardous climb. “The ropes were slippery, and the Germans were cutting them. (Some of the grapnels contained burning fuses, which deterred

the Germans from cutting the ropes because they mistook them for explosives.) Some dropped grenades,” he remembered. “Further to my left, I saw the grappling hooks that the Americans fired to the top of the cliff. But one of the artilleryman crawled forward and cut the rope,” recalled Kirchhoff, the German WerferRegiment private. “The Americans were unable to climb up. They remained on the beach but kept trying.” Some of the men, like Private Sigurd Sundby from Dog Company, struggled with the ascent. “The rope was wet and kind of muddy; my hands just couldn’t hold. They were like grease, and I came sliding back down. I wrapped my foot around the rope and slowed myself up as much as I could, but my hands still burned.” As Sundby slid back down the rope, he landed near another Ranger. “What’s the matter, Sundby, you chicken? Let me—I’ll show you how to climb.” Corporal Wilbur K. “Bill” Hoffman described the confusion: “I was assigned a specific rope [and] to a specific [German] gun. I was supposed to do some specific damage. I had a big stick of C-2 in my pocket. I just grabbed a rope, and somebody yelled, ‘Hey, hey, that’s mine!’ They were firing down at us and throwing down potato-masher grenades, and they also cut some ropes. I don’t really know how we got up the cliff.” As the 225 Rangers from Assault Force A crowded the tiny beach, machine guns, grenades, and small arms fire peppered them. Making the climb even more perilous, the Germans had also booby-trapped the cliff face with “roller mines.” (According to interviews with French civilians living in the area, the Germans had suspended numerous shells in intervals along the cliff face.) Precursors to the IEDs of today, roller mines were old French artillery shells suspended on wires. Cutting the wires would detonate the shells. Accounts suggest that the Germans detonated one shell, causing a landslide near Easy Company climbers. Lomell soon realized the ropes his boat had fired at the cliff weren’t allowing the men to climb fast enough. He ordered the D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

67

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 68

Rangers to assemble the four-foot metal sections of ladder they carried to assist with the climb. With the ladders in place, Lomell concentrated all of his energies on climbing. Adrenaline coursed through his body, allowing him to ignore the searing pain from the gunshot wound in his side. Exhausted, Lomell’s muscles strained to carry him upward. Climbing next to the first sergeant was 2nd Platoon’s radio operator, Sergeant Robert Fruhling. Interspersed with the din of battle, Lomell could hear the ominous sound of crumbling rock as the face of the cliff gave way with each foothold. Running out of strength from making the treacherous handover-hand ascent while avoiding enemy fire, the wounded Lomell clung to the wet rope. Straining to lift his body the last few feet, he finally crested Pointe du Hoc. RRRRRRRRRRR! The incessant fire from the MG 42s rained down on the men. From the top of the cliff, Lomell looked down and spotted Fruhling, who was now near the summit, but barely hanging on. Fruhling cried out for help. Unable to reach the radioman, Lomell provided covering fire from his Thompson and shouted, “Hold on! I can’t help you!” Lomell then spotted Sergeant Leonard Rubin, an “excellent athlete with a powerful build,” and called out, asking him to help the struggling Ranger. Just as Fruhling was slipping down the rope, Rubin grabbed him by the nape of his neck and, with a mighty swing, hoisted him over the top of the Pointe. “Medic! Medic!” Cries of dying and wounded men sounded up and down the beach. Ranger medic Frank South struggled to answer each call. South carried on his back what amounted to an aid station, complete with plasma, bandages, and other first aid supplies. A machine-gun nest on top of the cliff had a “superb enfilading position,” South noted. “We were caught in its field of fire.” South scrambled to assist his fellow Rangers. Dodging the machine-gun fire from the cliff, he reached one Ranger with a sucking chest wound and dragged him 68

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

towards an indentation in the cliff face where it met the beach. There he began to treat the man. Moving as quickly as he could, the medic was soon joined by the battalion surgeon, Doc Block. As Block looked up from treating one of the wounded Rangers, he saw one of Fox Company’s strongest climbers, Sergeant L-Rod Petty, scaling the cliff above him. Each boat had two or three excellent climbers or “top monkeys.” But at that moment, the waterlogged rope was getting the best of Petty. As he slid back down, a nearby Ranger joked, “Hey, L-Rod, you’re going the wrong way!” Petty landed a few feet from Captain Robert W. “Doc” Block of the battalion medical section. As Petty looked over towards Block, the surgeon ordered, “Soldier, get up that rope to the top of that cliff! It’s up you’re supposed to go.” “Pissed off” Petty acidly snorted, “Go to hell, captain! What’s it look like I’m trying to do?” Petty scrambled back up the rope. Nearby, his close friend and “pet ape” from F Company, Staff Sergeant. Herman E. “Herm” Stein, struggled to make his way up the slick line. Suddenly, Stein felt as if the rock itself was pushing him away from the rope. Stein looked down and realized that his “Mae West,” or life vest, had inflated. Tearing it Using a mound of rubble created by shelling that made the initial climb during the attack somewhat shorter, off, he continued to hoist himself up the Rangers raise supplies to the top of Pointe du Hoc. slimy rope. THUD! Small arms fire had just hit the Ranger in front of him. Yelling down, Stein barked, “Cole’s been hit! Hit the dirt!” so the men climbing below him would stay low when they reached the top of the cliff. Throughout the carnage, Dog stayed focused on the mission and most of the men in Force A made it to the top. When one man fell, another took his place. By 7:20 AM, nearly all of the 22 men in Lomell’s boat successfully scaled the cliff. Sniper, machine-gun, and 37mm antiaircraft fire ripped through the air. Lomell thought to himself, “God damn it, we made it this far; we will beat them! We’re in their land. We’re gonna regroup here.” As they had been trained to do, small groups of men now set out to complete their mission: find the guns of Pointe du Hoc and destroy them. Somehow, Sheldon Bare survived the onslaught of machine gun fire and potato masher grenades that rained down while he slowly hauled his 185-pound frame over the top of Pointe du Hoc. But his ordeal wasn’t over. More small arms and artillery fire greeted him and the other men of Dog Company like a swarm of angry bees. Finding unknown reserves of energy, the young Ranger dove into a shell hole occupied by Captain Sammy Baugh, E Company’s commander. “A sniper got me,” National Archives

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 69

Baugh told Bare. A bullet had gone through the back of Baugh’s hand, piercing the grip of his .45-caliber pistol and exploding the magazine. “His hand was a bloody mess, so I gave him white sulfa powder and bandaged his hand,” recalled Bare. It was Bare’s first taste of combat. With the bravado and naiveté that comes with “being only 21 years of age,” the green Ranger turned to the severely wounded officer and said, “I’ll get that son of a bitch.” Reflecting on the incident 65 years later, Bare said, “I don’t know how he knew it was a sniper…. I got out of the crater hole and started in the direction Baugh told me. I don’t know how far away the German was from me, but I got out of the crater hole about 15 feet and got shot.” The German bullet seared into Bare’s right shoulder and burrowed into his back. It felt like it “almost took my arm off,” he recalled. “Mother******! Son of a bitch!” Bare blurted at the German sniper, dropping his rifle and diving back into the hole with Baugh. After the Allied air forces and warships bombarded Pointe du Hoc with hundreds of tons of bombs, the pockmarked top of the cliff resembled the surface of the moon. The men of Dog Company dashed from one shell hole or bomb crater to another. The deadly fire of a 37mm antiaircraft gun zipped by. Zigzagging across the landscape, Lomell momentarily leaped into the shell hole shared by the groggy and badly wounded

Captain Gilbert Baugh and Sheldon Bare. Lomell noticed Baugh’s wound right away. “It blew his hand off, or most of it.” Concerned, Lomell asked him if he was OK. Lomell knew the mission came first but compassionately told both men, “We’ll send back a medic.” Leaving the wounded Rangers in the relative safety of the crater, he and a small group of Dog Company men made their way to gun position number four. When they got there, they stared at the empty emplacement in shock. To deceive Allied aerial reconnaissance, a telephone pole had replaced the 155mm gun that was supposed to be there. Ranger Sigurd Sundby looked inside the emplacement, which held a tangled bunch of wires. Unsure what the wires were for,

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

69

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 70

he said to himself, “Well, I better cut them, just in case.” Terrified by the battle going on around him, at that moment Sundby fell victim to the call of nature. “I must have gotten scared, because I had to take a crap, so I pulled my pants down. I took a crap,” he explained. In a textbook example of Ranger tactics, the men, acting on their own initiative, broke up into small groups to achieve their objectives. Sundby separated from Lomell and his small group and emerged from the gun emplacement, bumping into Sergeant Richard J. Spleen. A strong, silent type who “kept to himself,” Spleen spotted two Germans firing upon them. 70

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

“I see two of them,” Spleen said to Sundby. Spleen leveled his M1 Garand at the Germans and “shot up the two Jerries.” But they managed to flee into the labyrinth of tunnels connecting the bunkers atop Pointe du Hoc, disappearing into the moonscape. Another officer then shouted at the two men to go after several snipers who were picking off Rangers on the face of the Pointe. Spleen pointed in the direction of one sniper and the two men split up. Sundby attempted to flank the German by moving around a small knoll. As he did so, he saw two men from Fox Company behind their machine gun. Sundby approached the weapon, but saw that the gunner had been shot right between the eyes. The other man had been killed, too. “He must have put his head up, and they got him,” thought Sundby. At that moment, Sundby realized that he was standing, making himself an easy target for the snipers. A bullet snapped by his ear as he lunged to the ground. He landed in a depression that provided cover from the sniper’s bullets. Moving forward, he found that he had crawled right into a morass of manure. “You know what it was? It was the darn settling pond where they must drain out the manure for the liquid to fertilize

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 71

National Archives

their fields,” Sundby remembered. Coated in the cow dung, Sundby ran for better cover. Someone hollered, “Get down!” Another bullet passed close to his ear. “And this time I saw it come through a little tree right in front of me,” Sundby said, “and I saw the bark snap out. Then I dove down after that. I crawled away, and I got up on the hedgerow again. And I had kind of an idea where the bullet, what direction it was coming from, so I got up there and put my rifle in there, and got behind some brush—it was kind of a bush there. And I was just looking out there, and I couldn’t spot that sniper. “But I figured, I saw a tree out there, and I thought maybe he’s up in that tree. So I kept my eye on that. I didn’t fire any shots right then because I thought he would move or something, so I could see him. Then I couldn’t shoot. So I waited there.” While Sundby was pinned down, Lomell’s small group moved toward gun emplacements five and six. Again, the 155mm guns, the focus of their entire mission, were not in their emplacements. Here, too, Lomell noticed the Germans had replaced the steel barrels of the actual guns with telephone poles. At first glance, it seemed the Rangers had undertaken the mission for naught. Where were the guns? At this point, Lomell had gone through three emplacements without finding any guns. He said to himself, “Jesus Christ, there’s no guns here. They gotta be somewhere.” Avoiding the insistent 37mm fire, Lomell dashed for another shell hole. In the crater Large craters caused by Allied shells pit the rocky crouched about a dozen men from Dog beach below Pointe du Hoc’s cliffs. A landing craft Company, including men from George Kerdisgorging troops and supplies is visible. chner’s 1st Platoon; Germans in nearby bunkered positions and farm buildings were giving the Dog Company men hell. Several men fixed bayonets on their M1 Garands, planning to make an over-the-top, World War I-like charge. Lomell remembered, “We were gonna charge across. We were gonna come out the shell crater as fast as we could and hit those encasements and see what the hell was there.” Staff Sergeant Morris Webb was one of the first out of the hole. “Webb jumped the gun,” remembered Lomell. After ducking rifle and machine-gun fire, Webb dove back into the crater—and directly onto the scalpel-like steel of another Ranger’s ten-inch bayonet. It impaled Webb’s thigh, digging deep into the muscle. Lomell treated Webb, sprinkling sulfa powder on the fresh wound and throwing a bandage on it. “Webb, you stay here,” barked Lomell. The charge across Pointe du Hoc had been costly. In the process of moving from one shell hole to another and avoiding German fire, Lomell had lost half of his men— some only wounded and some dead.

Despite the losses, Lomell knew he must complete the mission. “Our mission and the mission of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, D, E, and F Company, was to get up on those cliffs and destroy those guns. The next part of our mission was to establish a roadblock and prevent any vehicles coming from the east with Germans toward Omaha Beach. The third part was to cut off any communications that we could and hold the line.” The men separated into small groups, each trying to accomplish their primary objective of destroying the guns. Their search for the guns developed along three axes. About a dozen men from Dog Company, led by Len Lomell, moved from gun position number six toward the coastal highway. Fox Company paralleled them on the eastern side of Pointe du Hoc. Another pocket of men, led by Sergeant Frank Rupinski of Easy Company, advanced down the middle between the other two groups. En route to the coastal highway, First Sergeant Lomell and his men knew they had to overcome several bunkered buildings that served as German crew quarters. From his training and his memory of photographs presented at various briefings, Lomell remembered that the Germans had mined the entire area. The Rangers would have to traverse these dense minefields. In addition, the 37mm antiaircraft gun on their right flank was tearing up the area around them, putting up a lot of fire. As the Rangers advanced upon the bunkered position, Lieutenant Ted Lampres and a couple of E Company men approached Lomell. “What are you doing, Len?” Lampres asked. “What I’m gonna do is move up and throw a bazooka into them and blow the whole God damn thing up,” Lomell replied, moving the bazooka into position. Unfortunately, the loader forgot to pull the pin on the bazooka round, and it failed to detonate. Meanwhile, the antiaircraft gun bore down on Dog Company. “The son of a bitch was giving us a really hard time,” recalled Lomell. Lieutenant Lampres and D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

71

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 72

National Archives

several men moved off to the right flank to try to take out the AA gun. From the shell hole, Lomell and his men studied the crew quarters. “We’re gonna hit ‘em hard,” Lomell told his men. The Rangers charged. “We were hooting and hollering, yelling ‘EEAAGGHH!!’ We wanted to scare the shit out of them,” recalled Lomell. The Americans attacked the quarters, firing their Thompsons and M1s into the buildings. Many of the Germans were unarmed, dashing for their weapons as they were putting on their shirts and uniforms. While some of the enemy fought back tenaciously, others ducked into underground tunnels. As the Rangers pushed inland in pursuit of the enemy, a creeping artillery barrage exploded behind them. Lomell’s men charged forward to the coastal road with a deadly rain of steel at their backs. The first sergeant’s small group included his best friend, Staff Sergeant Jack Kuhn. The two best friends each led a column of men, one on either side of the sunken road. The men soon came across a centuries-old stone barn. Suddenly, Lomell grabbed Kuhn’s arm, threw him into the doorway of the Norman barn, and rushed inside himself. Kuhn was startled. “Why’d you do that?” “Didn’t you see that Jerry kneeling on the road, aiming at us?” Lomell asked in amazement. Kuhn peeked around the doorway. Two German rounds barely missed the Ranger sergeant. Lomell poked his tommy gun through a window of the barn and fired at the Germans. He missed. Kuhn went to fire his tommy gun, but a bullet had struck the ammunition clip where it inserted into the weapon, rendering it useless. Meanwhile, elements of George Kerchner’s 1st Platoon came up the side of Pointe du Hoc with Rudder’s command group. The 37mm gun continued taking its bloody toll, while small bands of Rangers made their way toward the projected gun positions. The Germans counterattacked, emerging from craters and trenches and the rub72

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOVE: Two Navy officers from USS Texas examine a German pillbox atop Pointe du Hoc. A box of machine-gun ammunition is at lower left, while a dead soldier, covered by blankets, lies at bottom right. OPPOSTE: The battle over, surviving Rangers take a break in a shell crater atop the cliff.

ble of Pointe du Hoc. Similar to a game of whack-a-mole, Germans began popping up all around the maze of ruined trenches and underground shelters and bunkers. For the Rangers, the pockmarked surface of the Pointe made it difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Kerchner rounded up most of his 1st Platoon along with other members of Dog Company. The German AA gun continued to fire at his group while 1st Platoon tried to take it out with rifle fire. Pinned down, they had difficulty even getting a shot off. In an attempt to flank the gun, Kerchner jumped into the communication trench. “I was by myself at this time, and I have never felt so lonesome before or since in my life because every time I came to a corner in this communications trench, where I had to make a turn to see what was in the next 25-yard section, I didn’t know whether I was going to come face-to-face with a German or not.” Kerchner stooped low as he darted through the trench. His loneliness gave way to sadness when he caught sight of Bill Vaughan, one of Lomell’s climbing “monkeys.” The Ranger officer related, “I realized as soon as I saw him that he was dying. He had been practically stitched across with a machine gun. He wasn’t in any pain because he was hit too bad. I knew he was dying.” The lieutenant from Baltimore approached the mortally wounded Ranger and compassionately told him, “Bill, we’ll send a medic to look after you.” Kerchner continued skulking cautiously through the trench, eventually meeting up with the rest of his men, much to his relief. Together, they found their way through the labyrinth until it emptied out near the ruins of a farmhouse. Finally out in the open, 1st Platoon pushed on toward the coastal road, their secondary objective. When Dog Company sergeants Bill Cruz (who had been hit in the arm on the beach before scaling the cliffs, but, like many of the Rangers, he carried on in spite of the pain) and William Robertson reached the top of Pointe du Hoc, they ran into Lt. Col. Rudder. Despite also being wounded, Rudder’s charismatic presence inspired the men around him. The men were told to guard the area that Rudder had designated as his new command post, but the persistent crack of deadly sniper fire filled the air around them. Sergeant Cruz and another Ranger fired at the sniper, but missed. Suddenly, machinegun and antiaircraft fire from the 37mm opened up. Rudder looked at both men and said, “Go after it.” Whenever the Rangers opened fire, artillery rained down on their heads. As they

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 73

crawled forward through the countless shell craters, they came upon approximately 10 men pinned down near gun position number six, including Richard J. Spleen of D Company and Harold D. Main of E Company. Together, the Rangers held their fire “for fear of drawing 88 fire.” The small group crawled west in an attempt to get a better position on the German machine-gun nest and the AA gun. Cruz spotted a German soldier waving a helmet on a rifle, attempting to draw the Rangers’ fire and expose BILL HOFFMAN RECALLED: their positions. “Somebody [in our group] came up from behind and unwisely fired on this decoy. Right away, 88 fire HE HAD NO and mortar fire hit.” HEAD AND NO Because the men were bunched up in the craters, they BLOOD. HE WAS took off in different directions to avoid being hit in one group. When the men separated, Cruz found himself alone COVERED WITH in the maze of tunnels and craters. He yelled out, “Is anyYELLOW DYE. body there? Is everybody all right?” THE SHRAPNEL Sergeant Main responded, “[We’re] OK.” JUST TOOK HIS Cruz waited for 15 minutes. Small-arms fire crackled in the distance. The Ranger NCO started crawling back HEAD OFF, NICE across a crater and took fire from snipers. He reached a AND CLEAN. HE trench near gun position six, where he spotted Spleen, who WAS ALL was recently separated from Sundby, and two other men in YELLOW. I SAID a trench right nearby. “All the sudden, [a] lot of firing, machine guns and machine pistols ... [began hitting] close TO MYSELF, to the west. He saw Spleen’s men throw down their guns WHAT THE HELL out of the trench they were in, surrendering.” Cruz kept IS THAT? IT WAS quiet, hugging the ground. “The firing died down and after the first few seconds, he MY FIRST saw no one. Later, crawling out back toward the command INTRODUCTION post he passed a pile of weapons, lying on the ground near TO DEATH IN gun position number six—eight or nine rifles, some pistols, THE WAR. and four Thompsons.” Later, the Rangers found some of the

packs from the captured group. Cruz was the sole survivor. Another Ranger also found himself alone. Bill Hoffman was the only Ranger in an underground bunker atop Pointe du Hoc. “I managed to get over to a bunker, not the one I was supposed to be in, but I got in there. They were shelling us pretty good. Inside the bunker things got quiet.” Hoffman ended up in a room full of German bicycles, where he considered his next course of action. “I was sitting there trying to make up my mind when I heard this God-awful explosion in the corridor between the rooms. It scared the hell out of me.” “What is that? What am I gonna do?” Hoffman wondered. After a second explosion, Hoffman threw one of the bicycles out into the hallway. Seeing fins from a bazooka round nearby, he thought, “Oh, my God, they have our equipment!” Suddenly, a voice barked out, “Come out with your hands up!” “Geez, they speak really good English,” Hoffman thought. After sticking his hand out into the hallway to make sure they weren’t planning to shoot, he slowly emerged. In front of him stood an American lieutenant and a sergeant, who was holding a grenade. “Hey, Sarge! What are you going to do with that?” asked Hoffman. “I’m going to roll it right down that hallway,” replied the sergeant. “What are you doing in here?” the lieutenant asked Hoffman. “I’m getting out of the artillery fire.” “We got word there were Germans in here,” said the lieutenant. “There are no Germans here, just me,” Hoffman replied. Bleeding and exhausted from climbing and fighting through the trenches, First Sergeant Lomell looked at his remaining men and said, “Follow me.” The firefight in the farm buildings had taken its toll. Still, Lomell led the most sizable force on top of Pointe du Hoc. The small band headed along a dirt road that led to the blacktop coastal road. (In 1944, the coastal road was called GC32. Today it is known as D-514.) The men made their

National Archives

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

“

73

“

National Archives

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:37 PM Page 74

way towards the intersection. Abruptly, a wall of small-arms fire enveloped the Ranger patrol. Jack Conaboy, one of Lomell’s platoon sergeants, was flattened in the middle of the inter- section. “Len! Len! I’m hit!” “Where’re ya hit?” “In the ass,” responded Conaboy. “Well, get the hell over here,” said Lomell. With a burst of adrenaline, Conaboy jumped up and ran towards the ditch where Lomell and the others had taken cover. Conaboy dropped his pants, and Lomell inspected the wound. The bullet didn’t go all the way, through. “You’re lucky; you’ve got a souvenir

here.” Lomell pulled out the bullet and packed the wound with sulfa powder. After taking care of Conaboy, Lomell’s group cautiously made their way down the coastal road. Suddenly, Lomell and Kuhn spotted a platoon of about 35 heavily armed Germans. They knew engaging them would be suicide. The men flattened themselves in the ditch as the Germans marched past. “Three men against 35 was stupid, and it would ruin our mission,” recounted 74

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

Lomell. “So we let them pass.” A stone fence paralleled the road. Suddenly, a German soldier appeared in an opening in the fence and looked down the highway. Not detecting the Americans, he ran across the road and right up to where Jack Kuhn was hiding. Kuhn jumped up and fired point blank with his tommy gun, hitting the German in his chest. “My slugs must have cut the strap on his weapon, for it fell to the ground about three feet in front of me. The German ran a few steps and dropped.” Johnson asked Kuhn to retrieve the dead German’s MP 40 submachine gun. As Kuhn attempted to grab the machine pistol, he saw another German soldier aiming at him. “I had no way to protect myself and felt I was about to be shot.” Just then, bullets from Lomell’s Thompson ripped into the German, killing him, but not before one of the enemy’s bullets struck the road next to Kuhn, barely missing him. At this point, Lomell and Kuhn decided to have the men pair up and keep searching for the missing guns: “There’s a minefield on our left full of mines. ‘Well,’ we decided, ‘there’s nobody but us, so let’s split up into twos.’” Lomell and Kuhn set off together and soon discovered tire tracks in the lane. Lomell realized that the grooves couldn’t have been made by a simple farm wagon—the impressions were far too deep. Something massive had crossed the earth. “We figured we ought to take a look.” Lomell and Kuhn moved down the sunken road, which cut through several pastures and high hedgerows. “You could have hid a column of tanks in it, that’s how deep it was,” recalled the first sergeant. The two Rangers carefully traversed the road, moving about 100 yards down the country lane. Lomell scouted out the position while Kuhn covered him, then the two men switched off, or “leapfrogged,” as they made their way deeper and deeper into German territory. Suddenly, Lomell and Kuhn came upon a picturesque, lush apple orchard. “My God, there they are!” Lomell said to himself. Lomell turned to Kuhn. “My God. Look at them. They’re ready to go.” The long, 155mm barrels of the guns of Pointe du Hoc loomed directly in front of them. Five of the K418 guns—the German designation for the former French artillery pieces—had been towed inland and pointed at Utah Beach. They could easily have been turned around and used to fire upon Omaha Beach as well. Netting covered in fake leaves was draped over the five guns. But the sixth gun was mysteriously missing. Amazingly, not a soul stood guard near the artillery. For over 65 years, historians have debated why the Germans failed to man the guns. The most plausible theory is that when the Rangers took out the German forward observation posts, they took out the German eyes on Pointe du Hoc, severing communication with the gun crews. As Small Unit Actions notes, “All that can be stated with assurance is that the Germans were put off balance and disorganized by the combined efforts of the bombardment and assault, to such an extent that they never used the most dangerous battery near the assault beach but left it in position to be destroyed by weak patrols.” The Germans could clearly see Utah Beach. It’s a mystery why they didn’t fire directly on that sector, even without official orders. However, they could see about 75 to 100 Germans assembling several hundred feet away in the corner of an adjoining field.

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:38 PM Page 75

Getty Images

ABOVE: General Henry “Hap” Arnold, chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces, and Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower inspect a 155mm German gun discovered hidden in the Normandy woods. OPPOSITE: Rangers relax or get medical treatment at Lt. Col. Rudder’s rough-hewn command post while German prisoners march past Rudder, top right. Below him, the U.S. flag is laid out to let Allied ships know that the area is under American control.

“The Germans were in various states of undress,” noted Lomell. “They were putting jackets and shirts on; they were being rallied. They were being talked to by some officer standing in his vehicle. This is now about eight in the morning.” It appeared to Lomell that the group included the 35 heavily armed Germans who narrowly missed discovering him and Kuhn just minutes earlier. Lomell asked Kuhn for his incendiary grenade, adding it to his own. With Kuhn covering him, Lomell climbed over towards the guns. Armed with only a submachine gun, his .45, and two thermite grenades, he moved into position near the artillery. He placed a thermite grenade on two of the guns. “The thermite grenade was special for this type of action because we were going to lay them on the moving parts of the artillery and destroy the movable gears in the guns.” Lieutenant Lomell pulled the pins. POP! A molten, metal-like substance flowed over the parts, seeping into the crevices and welding them together so that they were inoperable. Remarkably, the nearby Germans didn’t detect the first sergeant. Kuhn wrapped his field jacket around the butt of his tommy gun, using it to smash the sights of all five artillery pieces. “I didn’t know if I was going to get back, so I wanted to do as much damage as possible.” Lomell and Kuhn’s actions—the actions of two men who were willing to risk their lives for the mission—had a profound impact on the entire invasion. Not thinking about anything other than the mission, Lomell scurried back over to Kuhn and whispered to him, “We’ve got to get more grenades.” Kuhn and Lomell dashed back a hundred yards or so down the road, where they met other men in their platoon and asked for their incendiary grenades. With his field jacket full of incendiaries, Lomell ran back towards the guns with Kuhn at his side. When they reached the guns, Kuhn trained his Thompson on the Germans in the field. The first sergeant placed thermite grenades on the three remaining guns. As Lomell fin-

ished rigging the last field piece, Jack said, “Hurry up! Hurry up!” After pulling their pins, Lomell scrambled over a nine-foot-tall hedgerow, where Kuhn was standing. Then “the whole world blew up,” as Lomell and Kuhn flew off the hedgerow and onto the sunken road. “Dust and the stones and the brush came out of the sky. Ramrods and all kinds of things fell around us.” “What the hell just happened?” asked Lomell. Unbeknownst to the two men, Sergeant Frank Rupinski from Easy Company had detonated an ammunition store near the guns, causing a massive explosion. (Rupinski had led a patrol from E Company and advanced on the guns from the east. Accounts differ, but besides blowing the ammunition store, his group may have placed grenades in the barrels of the guns after Lomell had already disabled them.) It was now approximately 8:30 AM. Two Dog Company Rangers, Leonard Lomell and Jack Kuhn, had achieved what scores of bombers dropping hundreds of tons of bombs, and the massive 14-inch guns of the battleship Texas, as well as a constant bombardment from off-shore destroyers had failed to achieve. Thanks to them, five of the six guns of Pointe du Hoc would never fire again. (After locating the sixth gun nearby, a patrol from Easy Company soon eliminated it.) Rejoining the other men, Lomell dispatched two volunteers to relay the news that they had accomplished the mission. Ironically, he chose Private Harry Fate, the man he accused earlier of shooting him in the side. Sergeant Gordon Lunning accompanied Fate. Going back through the country roads, traversing the moonscaped surface of Pointe du Hoc, Lunning and Fate fought their way back to the German bunker that Rudder had converted into a command post. The runners from D Company arrived at the command post at approximately 9:00 AM, where Lunning encountered Lieutenant James Eikner and told him the news. Eikner Continued on page 98 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

75

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:46 PM Page 76

“Canadian Fishes” STORM THE BEACH The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division paid a heavy price to ensure victory on D-Day.

Soon after landing at Juno Beach, Canadian troops became hotly engaged in urban fighting in a multitude of small towns and villages. Here Canadian soldiers, using a “Grizzly” medium tank (the Canadian variation of the M4 Sherman) for cover and fallen tree branches for concealment, advance toward an enemy-held French town.

76

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

National Archives

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:46 PM Page 77

ON

June 7, 1944, D+1, two volunteer Canadian 3rd Division, 9th Infantry Brigade regiments, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders (the North Novas) and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment (the Sherbrooke Fusiliers)—together with volunteer units from the Camerons of Ottawa and Forward Observers from the 14th Field Regiment—fought an important but now generally forgotten battle in Normandy. Forgotten or not, the outcome of this battle can be considered to be a significant factor in preventing a planned German attack into the D-Day landing beaches that could have split the Allied invasion force in two. In June 1944, the Canadian military was a completely voluntary force; there was no conscription in Canada. The Canadian Army consisted of 405,834 men and women who had volunteered for General Service. Of these volunteers, only about 100,000 men were in the First Canadian Army, which was preparing for its role in Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy. From west to east, the Allies’ beachheads were code-named Utah (to be initially assaulted by the 4th U.S. Infantry Division), Omaha (1st U.S. Infantry Division with a regiment of the 29th Infantry Division attached), Gold (50th British Infantry Division), Juno (3rd Canadian Infantry Division), and Sword (3rd British Infantry Division). Utah and Omaha were the responsibility of the American First Army, while the three other beaches were the responsibility of the British Second Army. All told, these five beaches comprised an invasion sector more than By Herb Kugel 50 miles long. Three airborne divisions (the U.S. 82nd and 101st, and the British 6th, which included a Canadian airborne battalion), with glider components, would arrive before the seaborne landings took place to seal off the invasion sites and prevent German reinforcements from attacking the amphibious forces. The Canadian beachhead known as Juno was a five-mile length of sand and dunes and seaside vacation homes stretching west to east from Bernières-sur-Mer through Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, and Graye-sur-Mer to Courseulles-sur-Mer. The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. R.F.L. “Rod” Keller, was made responsible not only for capturing Juno, but also for striking inland (southward) from there once the coastal defenses had been overcome. To allow for orderly and synchronized landings, Juno Beach was divided into two primary assault sectors that were then further divided into subsectors. From west to east, the sectors were Mike (divided into Green and Red subsectors) and Nan (divided into Green, White, and Red subsectors). Mike-Green was the farthest western and Nan-Red the farthest eastern of the Juno Beach subsectors. The Canadian 3rd Division’s 9th Infantry Brigade (the Highland Brigade, under Brigadier D.G. “Ben” Cunningham) was assigned to the First Canadian Army for Operation Overlord. The 9th Brigade had been designated a “reserve brigade,” but on D-Day it was an assault brigade because it was on the eastern flank of the Canadian push southward into Normandy. The 9th Brigade’s task was to land after the 7th and 8th Brigades had secured Juno Beach, move past the 8th Brigade assault troops, and then fight its way inland. The Canadian 3rd Division’s General Staff had defined three D-Day lines: Yew, Elm, and Oak, which respectively marked three objectives in D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

77

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/10/14 11:42 AM Page 78

Braving fire coming from Germans holed up in beachfront houses, Canadian troops of the 9th Infantry Brigade disembark from their landing craft at the Nan Red Beach sector of Juno Beach, June 6, 1944.

German armored unit in the area. As the 7th and 8th Brigades waded ashore and struggled to capture Juno Beach, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, General Keller, on board the converted merchant ship (which was now a D-Day command ship, the “cruiser” HMS Hillary), struggled to make sense out of the conflicting reports he was receiving. He was forced into making a crucial decision: Where would he order the 9th Brigade to land? The preferred plan was to have the 9th Brigade land at both Bernières-sur-Mer and St. Aubin-sur-Mer; an alternate plan was to land the brigade at Courseulles-sur-Mer. More 9th Brigade troops, some carrying bicycles, wade Initially, Keller was unaware that the Navy ashore at Juno Beach. Many of the bikes were soon abanhad closed the beach at St. Aubin-sur-Mer doned by the soldiers who found they attracted German fire. because of intense German gunfire. When he learned this, he reluctantly ordered the entire take Caen, something they were ordered to brigade to land at Bernières-sur-Mer, a narrow “Nan-White” beach whose exits were do on D-day, but failed to accomplish. already packed with 8th Brigade men and equipment––the equipment ranging from light What was omitted from the Oak mission bicycles to trucks and tanks. The bicycles were initially brought ashore to be used to statement were many of the operation’s speed up the infantry advance on country roads but were quickly cast aside because they details. It is said that “the devil is in the were easy targets for German snipers. details,” and this was certainly true of OperCunningham’s brigade had waited tensely, as the North Nova Scotia Highlanders War ation Oak. To reach Carpiquet, the Cana- Diary, 3-6 June, 1944, recorded: “At 0630 hours all wireless sets were on listening watch dians would have to fight their way through to keep the Battalion informed of the progress of the assault battalions. At 11:00 AM the the German-occupied villages of Villons-les- orders came through that we were to land.” (0630 was really 0430, as England was using Buissons, Buron, Authie, and Franqueville; Double Daylight Saving Time, the clock being set back two hours.) while they were doing this, their left (east) Once landed, Cunningham had orders to push through the 8th Brigade units as soon flank would be wide open to attacks by as the 8th had captured Beny-sur-Mer, code-named “Elder,” which would be the brigade’s marauding units of the 21st Panzer Divi- assembly area. Beny-sur-Mer’s time of capture is uncertain but it was taken sometime sion, which, at that moment, was the only around noon by C Company of Le Régiment de la Chaudière, a unit from the French78

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

Both: Imperial War Museum

their D-Day invasion plan. The North Nova’s and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ objectives as laid out for Objective Oak were clear. Quoting the Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ regimental log: “To spearhead the advance south to the west of Caen and assist the 7th Brigade in Operation Oak to secure the capture of Carpiquet and its airfield, then to meet the anticipated counterattack.” What was critical and not included in this mission statement was that the 9th Brigade was also to make contact with units from both the British 3rd Division, operating east of the Canadian 9th Brigade, and the Canadian 7th Brigade, operating west of the 9th Brigade. The three units were to form a powerful spearhead and continue to push inland. However, for this spearhead to succeed, it was crucial that the British

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:04 PM Page 79

Map © 2011 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Canadian forces came ashore between two British infantry divisions, the 3rd and 50th. One of the Canadians' major objectives was the seizure of Carpiquet Airport east of Caen and 20 miles inland.

Canadian Province of Quebec that had been assigned to the 8th Brigade. The 9th Brigade reached the shore with the second assault wave; the 9th’s first regiment to land was the North Novas. Though reported times vary and often conflict, it appears that the North Novas began coming ashore near Bernières-surMer at 11:40 AM––a time when the narrow invasion beach was already very heavily congested with 8th Brigade troops and equipment. At 12:05 PM, 9th Brigade Head- quarters erroneously reported, “Beaches crowded, standing off waiting to land.” However, 15 minutes later, at 12:20 PM, headquarters signaled that the 9th Brigade had landed and its units were ready to move inland toward the assembly area at Elder. No matter what headquarters reported, it appears that the North Novas and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers were not completely ashore until 2:00 PM and, because of congestion at the beach exits, did not begin moving toward Beny-sur-Mer until 4:05 PM. They were followed by the brigade’s two other regiments, the Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Highlanders, and the Highland Light Infantry of Canada. At 6:20 PM, the North Novas and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, acting together as the 9th’s advance attack force, left the Benysur-Mer assembly area to continue their push inland. The Stormont and Highland Regiments remained in the assembly area. The lead North Nova-Sherbrooke Fusilier unit was the Reconnaissance Troop of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, traveling in Stuart light tanks (a tank built by the Cadillac Division of General Motors and powered by a Cadillac V8 engine). They were followed by the North Nova’s C Company, mounted on the carriers of the regiment’s Carrier Platoon, which was followed by the Machine Gun Platoon from C Company of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. (On D-Day, the Cameron Highlanders’ 1st Battalion landed on the beaches of Normandy, the only Ottawa unit to do so. The Camerons functioned as a divisional reserve and served much of the following months D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

79

Both: ullstein bild / The Granger Collection, New York

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/10/14 11:44 AM Page 80

80

If the 88s were not lethal enough, the Shermans were built with an unfortunately high profile that furnished a prominent target, which made detecting the tank a simple matter. When a Sherman was hit, it readily exploded in flames because it was propelled by gasoline rather than diesel fuel. Gilbert, again quoting the Sherbrooke logs: “We soon got to find out what the Germans called our tanks—‘Tommy cookers.’” Gilbert did not report what the British Tommy tank soldiers thought of the Sherman, but in the same, dark vein, the Americans named their Sherman tanks With his comrades looking on, a wounded soldier of the “Purple Heart boxes” and, with similar 12th SS Panzer Division (“Hitlerjugend”) receives medical bleak humor, they called them “Ronsons” attention during a lull in the battle for Juno Beach. (after a popular cigarette lighter that, according to the advertising slogan, “lights first time, every time”). Nevertheless, the North Novas and the spread out at company and platoon levels, Fusiliers, with their dangerous tanks, conproviding machine-gun and mortar suptinued to push southward against German port for the 3rd Canadian Division’s mortar and machine-gun fire. They fought infantry battalions.) their way to Villons-les-Buissons and were The Cameron Highlanders were folnow about four miles from Carpiquet. lowed by a troop of M10 tank destroyers With British Double Daylight Savings from the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, these Time, they would have had plenty of dayweapons being built on the chassis of the light left to take Carpiquet. However, the American M4 Sherman tank. Next came brigade was ordered to halt by Lt. Gen. the balance of the North Novas’ Support Miles C. Dempsey, commander of the Company, followed by an advance guard British Second Army, under whom the 3rd riding on the tanks of the Sherbrooke Canadian Division served. Fusiliers. In total, this was a mixed force of Dempsey’s decision was based on events Commanding SS-Panzersome 300 men. around Caen. Shortly after 4:00 PM, a scout grenadier Regiment 25 was However, riding on a Sherman tank was troop of the British Staffordshire Yeomanry Standartenführer (Colonel) Kurt “Panzer” Meyer, shown especially dangerous. Three-quarters of the reported that a 21st Panzer battle group conin 1943. A rabid Nazi, he was 27th Armoured Regiment’s battle tanks sisting of 50 tanks and a battalion of tried for war crimes in 1945 were M4 Sherman Mk III 30-ton medium infantry, advancing from Caen, was moving and condemned to death, tanks. The Sherman was completely outtoward the gap between the Canadian Juno but was later released. gunned and inadequately armored comand British Sword Beaches. Dempsey acted pared to the heavier German Panther and in haste and ordered all three of his assault Tiger tanks. Particularly lethal was the Gerdivisions—the divisions from Sword, Juno, man 88mm antitank gun, originally an anti- and Gold Beaches—to dig in. Dempsey did not know that the German battle group he aircraft gun that had been modified and then feared was approaching had already been ordered to withdraw. Dempsey’s “dig in” orders used as a field piece to successfully decimate went out sometime after 7:00 PM, and General Keller’s headquarters confirmed the order Allied tank and infantry units in Egypt, at 9:15 PM. Libya, and Russia. In any confined area, the To Dempsey’s cautious reasoning, it was dangerous to allow the Canadians to concasualties that an 88 could cause were hor- tinue advancing south in the dark and further extend their unprotected left (east) flank rific. Trooper L.J. Gilbert, a tank soldier with in an area where German armored units were active. He felt it would be better to wait the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, summed it up in until dawn and hope that the British assault troops could overcome the resistance they few words: “Their eighty-eights were really were facing and take Caen, then join with the Canadians and quickly capture the Caenterrible. We had nothing like them.” Carpiquet airport. What Dempsey was hoping for did not happen because the British D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/10/14 11:46 AM Page 81

Imperial War Museum

did not capture Caen. called it the “Murder Division.” After receiving Dempsey’s order to halt, General Cunningham commanded his vanNo matter what the division’s name, the guard to stop and dig in. The two regiments formed a fortress on the high ground around “boy soldiers” were dedicated, ruthless, the crossroads between the villages of Anisy and Villons-les-Buissons. The North Novas and highly trained fighters. Their officers and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers were totally alone when night fell; the brigade’s other reg- and noncommissioned officers were iments were still at their assembly area at Beny-sur-Mer. The Canadians spent an uneasy recruited from the elite 1st SS Division night, staring and listening in the blackness. Sherbrooke Fusilier tank commander Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s perSergeant T.C. Reid later recalled: “What a bastard of a night, no time for sleep, no time sonal bodyguard regiment. The vast to eat, no time for anything but looking into the dark and wondering what’s ahead.” majority of rank-and-file soldiers and The Canadians were attacked and fought several skirmishes with nomadic groups of panzergrenadiers (motorized or mechadisorganized German stragglers. At the end of D-Day, some 14,000 Canadians had been nized infantry) in the division were intellisuccessfully landed, and the North Nova and Fusilier Regiments of the Canadian 3rd gent boys who had been indoctrinated Infantry Division had penetrated farther into France than any other Allied force. How- from a very young age with the brutal ever, on the evening of D-Day, they were unaware how precarious their situation was tenets of Nazism’s perverted theologies. becoming, or how unexpectedly grim it would become the next day. The young troops became the living D-Day caught the German top military echelon flat-footed; Feldmarschal Erwin Rommel, commanding Army Group B, which was responsible for Normandy’s defense, was at his wife’s birthday party back in Germany. Generalleutnant Edgar Feuchtinger, who commanded the 21st Panzer Division (which was already in the Normandy area), was apparently visiting his mistress in Paris, though later he pushed hard to deny this. Because Hitler had not believed the invasion would strike the Normandy beaches (he, like many in the German high command, fell for the Allies’ Canadian infantrymen, some with motorcycles and bicycles, deception plan and was convinced the along with men from the Royal Marine Commandos, crouch attack would come at the Pas de Calais), on a road during a German mortar attack early on D-Day. there was only one panzer division near the the coast—Feuchtinger’s. At about 9:30 AM, Rommel was notified of the landings, whereas Hitler was embodiment of Hitler’s concept of ideoinformed when he awoke, sometime logically and racially pure Aryan warriors. around noon (senior officers were said to be The commander of SS-Panzergrenadier afraid to wake him). After Hitler awoke, it Regiment 25 was the fanatical 33-year-old is believed that it was not until about 4 PM SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) Kurt that he released three reserve panzer divi“Panzer” Meyer. Tall and rigidly arrogant, sions: the 12th SS Panzer, the Panzer Lehr, Meyer was the epitome of the Nazi Aryan. and the 21st Panzer. He had shown no qualms about comOne of the units that moved northward manding his young soldiers to kill civilians, toward Caen was the 12th SS Panzer Divinor had he displayed any remorse whatsion’s Panzergrenadier Regiment 25. It soever about ordering them to commit suiarrived in the Caen sector about midnight of cide rather than allowing themselves to be D-Day. The 25th was a regiment of Hitlercaptured. He said: “Remember, the last jugend (Hitler Youth) soldiers, and the round in your magazine is for yourself.” North Novas and the Sherbrookes would The Hitler Youth, much to the frustrasoon be facing “child soldiers” between 16 tion of its officers, had been ordered by and 18 years of age in a division that some Hitler to remain on standby duty south of called the “Baby Division,” while others Lisieux, 28 miles east of Caen, and not to

UNAWARE THAT THE ODDS WERE RAPIDLY TURNING AGAINST THEM, THE CANADIANS DID NOT HESITATE AS THE RESERVE SQUADRON RECEIVED ORDERS TO SEND ONE TROOP AFTER ANOTHER FORWARD TO BURON TO ASSIST THE VANGUARD.

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

81

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:47 PM Page 82

The Art Archive

move until Hitler gave the command personally. After Hitler’s orders finally came through late on the afternoon of D-Day (reported times vary), it had taken Meyer and his regiment about eight hours to reach the Caen area; a significant amount of the regiment’s travel time was spent hiding in roadside ditches trying to survive powerful Allied air attacks. The German 716th Infantry Division, commanded by Generallieutenant Wilhelm Richter, was responsible for defending both the Canadian and British target beaches. Richter recalled a late-night DDay meeting between Meyer, Feuchtinger (who, besides commanding the 21st Panzer Division, also acted as liaison for the elite German armored unit, the Panzer Lehr Division), and himself. A counterattack was planned for D+1 that would have the 21st Panzer Division operating east of Caen while, west of Caen, the 12th SS Panzer Division, together with the Panzer Lehr Division, were to sweep forward into the Canadian beachhead, cut it, and then smash it into the sea. During this meeting, Meyer, perhaps recalling August 1942 when the Canadian 2nd Division was decimated on the beachhead dur-

82

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

ing the abortive invasion at Dieppe, proudly announced that he would “throw those little Canadian fishes into the sea.” Even after it became obvious that Caen would not be taken on D-Day, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, who commanded the British and Canadian ground units, did not modify his orders. General Keller commanded the North Novas and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers to continue fighting their way inland. The orders were passed down the chain of command and, at 6:45 AM on D+1, Ben Cunningham sent word that the advance was to continue as soon as the men were ready. The two regiments moved out in the same order they had used during the previous day and now advanced toward Villons-lesBuissons, a town northwest of both Buron and Authie. Initially, the Canadians faced little opposition—only sporadic sniper and mortar fire. They moved across a gently rolling plain marked by occasional clusters of trees, farm hedges, and haystacks. They passed through tiny villages where farmers lived and worked among clumps of small houses, barns, and outbuildings, their cluster of farms surrounding a village center comprising a church, a few small shops, and an occasional tiny café. Stretches of stone wall were a part of each community, as was a horse pond. Had a war not been going on, it would have been a quiet, picturesque scene. Villons-les-Buissons was taken at about 9:30 AM during a pincer attack in which a German antitank gun and a 16-barreled mortar were destroyed. The North Novas’ Company A moved around the west side of the village, while Company B came around the village’s east side. The remainder of the regiment proceeded directly into and through the town. While Villons-les-Buissons was being taken, A Company advanced to the west of Les Buissons, a town southwest of Villons-les-Buissons. The Canadians encountered and cleared a small group of snipers and machine guns. This took time, however, so when the company was free to continue, the rest of the battalion had moved ahead of them. They were now on their own. B Company then ran into trouble. They were riding on Shermans when they suddenly came under heavy fire from St. Contest, a village west of Buron. As the shelling was obviously to defend Buron, it became grimly certain to the Canadians that if St. Contest was still in German hands, then so was Buron, and, if Buron was still under German control, it was assured that nearby Authie and Caen were also still held by the enemy. It also seemed obvious to the Canadians that the British 3rd Division, on their left flank, had been unable to keep parallel with them, according to plan. The North Novas and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers found that they were alone and unprotected on either flank. The Canadian 7th Brigade was keeping parallel with the 9th Brigade but was too far to the right (west)—so much so that none of its units was visible to the North Novas or the Sherbrookes. It was, therefore, very doubtful if the 7th could be of any help if the situation became worse, which it soon did. Unaware that the odds were rapidly turning against them, the Canadians did not hesitate as the reserve squadron received orders Grizzly tanks of the Canadian 3rd Armored Brigade kick up dust as they to send one troop after another forward to roll toward the front in Normandy. Buron to assist the vanguard. The Sher-

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:47 PM Page 83

National Archives

German soldiers, captured by Canadian troops in Normandy, are marched back to a prisoner-of-war holding pen. The Germans did not always treat captives according to the rules of war, as several massacres of Allied troops would soon prove.

brooke Fusiliers moved quickly and silenced both the German mortar and machine-gun fire, and Buron soon fell. The Canadian push toward Carpiquet was planned on the assumption that they would be facing only units of the 21st Panzer and the 716th Infantry Divisions. Allied air reconnaissance did not report that an entire panzergrenadier regiment, complete with a battalion of PzKpfw IV Ausf (commonly known as the Panzer IV) medium tanks, each mounting a 75mm main gun, was arriving at St. Germain and was assembling on the back slope south of the Caen-Bayeux road. St. Germain was a short distance from the Abbaye d’Ardenne and the Canadians soon painfully learned that the towers of the Abbaye had become Kurt Meyer’s headquarters. The Canadians did not yet know about Kurt Meyer. If the North Novas and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers didn’t know about Meyer, he didn’t know about them yet, either, but the two regiments would soon be under the powerful and totally unexpected and unprepared-for attacks by Meyer’s SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25. Meyer’s elite Hitler Youth faced the two volunteer Canadian regiments, the North Novas being mainly farmers and fishermen in civilian life, and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, who were mostly volunteer mill and factory workers. Whereas Meyer’s “baby soldiers” were commanded by experienced and brutal officers, most of whom had learned their craft in vicious battles in Russia, the men of the Canadian 3rd Division were rightly called “amateur soldiers.” Although many of the division’s generals were graduates of Canada’s Royal Military College, most of the other officers, from colonel on down through lieutenant (except for the very few who had served in World War I), were simply “citizen soldiers” without any combat experience. Many of these “amateurs” had trained for as long as five years, repeating countless drills without ever seeing any blood. That changed on D-Day; it would change much more on D+1. This upcoming battle would be the first battle for both groups. Meyer set up his headquarters in the Abbaye d’Ardenne, just over a mile from Authie.

The Abbaye consisted of an imposing group of medieval buildings that included an early Gothic church, a chateau, and several farm buildings, encircled by stone walls and surrounded by fields of grain. Meyer made the church tower his command post because the Abbaye was on high ground, and this, coupled with the height of the tower, gave him an unrestricted view of the area. At about 1 PM, the Canadians spotted German armor about a half mile east of Authie and a tank battle began. Sergeant T.C. Reid, writing in his log, reported: “I discovered two [German tanks] at about a distance of 800 or 900 yards. [I was instructed] to take the one on the left and my gunner, Trooper L.J. Gilbert ... with his first, his second and third shots burnt said tank up. In the mean time, Sergeant Cathcart, who had come up and joined us, or Lt. MacLean, I couldn’t truthfully say, blew the other [tank] up.” Reid then went on to log the Sherbrooke Fusilier victory in the battle for Authie: “[Our tanks] were running line abreast. The first house we came to gave forth machine-gun fire so I lobbed high explosives (H.E.) in the windows. Those [Germans] that ran out on the road were smacked down by our machine gun fire. We shoved on again and it was a breeze....” Authie had been taken. What happened after that was not a breeze. Meyer’s corps headquarters had ordered the 12th SS and 21st Panzer units to begin their combined attack against the Canadian beaches at 4 PM, but the unexpected arrival of the North Novas and the Sherbrookes removed all possibility of surprise, and had also raised the chance of his regiment being outflanked. Meyer could not wait until 4 PM and then attack the beaches. Even though his forces were not completely ready, he would hit the “Canadian fishes” at once. A surprised Meyer had watched the Canadian approach from the Abbaye d’Ardenne tower and had seen the Canadians pass directly in front of his 2nd Battalion panzers. He later wrote in his autobiography, Grenadiers: “Was I seeing D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

83

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:47 PM Page 84

National Archives

clearly? An enemy tank was pushing ... [Going forward] then stopped.... The commander opened his hatch and observed the terrain. Was he blind? Didn’t he realize he was only 200 meters from [our Second Battalion panzers]? The enemy was showing us its unprotected flank.... I then saw what was happening.… The tank had been sent forward to provide flank cover. The enemy tanks were rolling towards Authie from Buron. My God! What an opportunity. The tanks were moving right across [our front]…. The enemy formation was showing us its unprotected flank….” Meyer readied two of his three infantry battalions and, also, three Panzer IV companies, with about 50 Panzer IV tanks between them. At about this time, Major Don Learment, who was commanding the Canadian spearhead, felt he could hold Authie and began to organize its defenses. Able Company, advancing on the west, was ordered to dig in on the high ground behind Authie while the rest of the battalion would hold at Buron. Although this was a textbook response to the expectation of an enemy counterattack, it required naval and artillery support to succeed, something the Canadians did not have. The naval problem was straightforward. A young Royal Navy officer bearing the title Forward Observer, Bombardment, and attached to the 9th Brigade, broke into tears when he lost radio contact with his ship, the light cruiser HMS Belfast, a cruiser that was “light” in name but not in clout. Belfast’s main armament was the BL Maxis 6-inch gun, which could send a shell to a maximum distance of 14 . Using guns with this range, the Belfast, with its four triple-gun turrets, could typically fire at a maximum rate of eight rounds per gun, per minute. Luckily for some Canadians, the young officer’s radio was later repaired with radio parts taken from damaged tanks. For other Canadians, the repair came too late. (Today the Belfast is a floating museum, moored on the River Thames between the London and Tower Bridges.) The ground delay involved the 14th Field Regiment which, like the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, was a divisional 84

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

Canadian troops ambush a German convoy in a French village in Normandy.

support unit designed to be sent where needed. The regiment consisted of the 34th, 66th, and 81st Field Batteries, each battery consisting of four field “Priest” 105mm selfpropelled guns, these guns derived from American experiences with howitzers mounted on half-tracks. (The weapon was nicknamed “Priest”by its British crews because of its pulpit-shaped machine-gun turret.) Unfortunately, when two of the 14th’s batteries reached Basly, they came under fire and were held up by mortars coming from Douvres-la-Déliverande, a town southwest of Luc-sur-Mer. Because of this holdup, the 14th could not provide artillery support to the North Novas or the Sherbrookes for two hours. The two regiments were thus without either sea and ground support when Kurt Meyer launched his attack. When Meyer struck, he struck hard. A Squadron of Sherbrooke tanks was attacked by German armor, and the two forward troops on Authie’s west side were forced to retreat after losing three of their six tanks. Similarly, B Squadron, to the east of the village, fought a close-range battle before heavy artillery fire and losses forced it to withdraw. Sergeant Stan Duke of the North Nova Scotians recalled: “Within minutes most of our tanks had been knocked out; everything happened so fast we never had a chance. The Shermans went up like torches, explosions first, fire, smoke and screaming men.” With their armor support gone, about 100 North Novas were suddenly cut off and left alone trying to defend both themselves and their Authie position. The only tank they could call upon was a single Firefly, the British variant of the American Sherman, but fitted with a British 17-pounder (76.2mm, 4-inch) antitank gun as its main weapon. Able Company, on the high ground north of Authie, was still digging in when the Germans attacked, but without armored or artillery support; they were quickly surrounded and taken prisoner. The battle for Authie itself began with a heavy barrage fired by 12th SS artillery; this was followed by a tank-infantry attack. The Canadians held out for more than an hour, beating back several German charges and inflicting more than 100 German casualties but, outnumbered and without support, the Canadians were forced to surrender. Surrendering to the Hitler Youth became a death warrant for many Canadian prisoners of war. It started when the Hitler Youth began murdering Canadian prisoners in the streets of Authie but did not end there. Canadian POWs were also killed at the Abbaye d’Ardenne, Buron, and elsewhere. In Authie, at the southern end of the village,

D-Day14 Canadian D-Day_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:02 PM Page 85

the Canadian POWs were first disarmed and then told to remove their helmets. They were then shot at close range and, after this, the Hitler Youth soldiers obscenely mutilated the bodies of the prisoners they had just murdered. In one incident, German soldiers propped up the body of a murdered Canadian soldier, shoved an old hat onto his head, and then stuffed a cigarette box into his mouth. In another incident, eight lifeless Canadian bodies were dragged onto the street and repeatedly run over by passing Hitler Youth tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles. Horrified French onlookers later testified that the SS troops “whooped like drunken pirates” at what they were doing. (A street corner in southern Authie was named Place des 37 Canadiens in honor of the 37 Canadian prisoners murdered there.) The murders at the nearby Abbaye d’Ardenne were equally brutal. After the Abbaye had quickly filled with Canadian POWs, 10 were randomly chosen and moved to the chateau next to the abbey; an 11th POW was brought there later. That evening all 11 men—five North Nova and six Sherbrooke POWs—were taken from the garden and shot to death. Ten bodies were found later, six with crushed heads. On D+2, seven more North Novas were murdered, taken to the Abbaye and then sent one by one to their deaths. They shook hands with their comrades and were escorted by the SS to the Abbaye gardens, where they were each shot in the back of the head. That night another heinous atrocity against Canadian POWs took place on a moonlit back road, the Caen-Fountenay road, in the Normandy countryside. Forty Canadian POWs were taken to a grassy area next to a grain field northeast of the village of Fontenay-le-Pesnel, about 10 miles west of Caen. Once in the field, they were ordered to sit down, facing east. They were clustered together in several rows, with the stretcher cases placed in the middle. As their SS murderers closed in around them, even the most hopeful of the Canadians now realized they were doomed. Any lingering hopes were shattered when Lieutenant Reginald Barker of the 3rd Canadian Antitank Regiment, who was in the first row of the bunched-together prisoners, and would certainly be hit by the bullets from the first German volley, calmly advised, “Whoever is left after the first round, go to the left.” The battle for Buron lasted longer and the Germans suffered heavier casualties. Buron was lost and then recaptured by the Canadians when contact was established with the HMS Belfast, which then began naval support. In addition, the 14th Field Regiment was able to move into a position from which it was able to bring its artillery into action. In spite of being able to hold Buron, the town was later abandoned when Brigade Commander Cunningham decided to move what was left of his battle group to his “Brigade Fortress” in Villons-les-Buissons, a town just five miles north of Caen, in an area that was given the name “Hell’s Corners.” The Canadians lost 110 killed, 192 wounded, and 120 taken prisoner. The 9th Brigade was pulled back from Carpiquet and the Caen-Carpiquet airport at the moment when they were close to capturing them. A furious series of battles had taken place on D+1, battles some military historians claim the Canadians lost because of their inexperience. The Canadians were certainly inexperienced, and though these battles might be regarded as a Canadian defeat, it is also possible that a menace to the entire Allied bridgehead might have developed if the outnumbered and outgunned “Canadian fishes” hadn’t held their own against superior odds. The “inexperienced, amateur Canadians” had destroyed 15 German tanks and killed more than 300 Hitler Youth soldiers. These German casualties, together with Meyer’s decision to quickly mount a piecemeal full-scale attack with his three battalions, effectively tied up these battalions and thus reduced the chances of further immediate largescale German offensive action in the Normandy beachhead area. The D+1 battles for Buron and Authie were over, but the battle for Caen was just beginning. Taking Caen proved to be a bloody and costly fight that finally ended

with the town’s capture on July 20, 1944—44 days after D-Day. Montgomery’s tactics were questioned and criticized during the entire campaign. Eisenhower fumed that “it had taken 7,000 bombs to gain seven miles.” Kurt Meyer was captured on September 6, 1944. The SS commander who wanted his Hitler Youth soldiers to commit suicide rather than surrender was found hiding in a Belgian chicken coop by partisans. The partisans gave Meyer to the Americans, who then handed him over to the Canadians. Aside from deciding suicide was better for his Hitler Youth soldiers than for himself, Meyer never changed his rabid, proHitler attitude, saying to an American interrogator: “You will hear a lot against Adolf Hitler in this camp, but you will never hear it from me. As far as I am concerned, Adolf Hitler was and still is the greatest thing that happened to Germany.” Meyer was put on trial in December 1945 in what had once been a naval barracks in Aurich, Germany. The trial came under the Convening Authority of Maj. Gen. Chris Vokes, who commanded the 3rd Canadian Division of the Canadian Occupation Force. Meyer was found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence of death was soon commuted to life imprisonment by Vokes. This lenient treatment caused a firestorm in Canada, and even as late as 1981 Vokes was apparently trying to defend his questionable action: “We ... discussed the question of responsibility of a commander for the action of men under his command…. For instance, if one of his soldiers committed murder, was Meyer guilty of murder [?] But there was a vicarious responsibility….” The verdict was debated hotly, but it didn’t matter. Meyer, first incarcerated in a Canadian prison, was soon sent back to Germany and there released from prison in 1954. He became a beer salesman and, ever the loyal SS officer, was active in HIAG, a mutual help association of Waffen-SS veterans. He died in 1961. After Meyer’s trial, there were no further Canadian trials for the murder of POWs. n D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

85

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:34 PM Page 86

T

he first tank of Task Force Raff splashed out of its landing craft and roared onto Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Several more followed with armored scout cars and jeeps in tow. Leading this small force was Colonel Edson Raff, an experienced paratrooper whose mission was to race for besieged Ste. Mère Église, where surrounded soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, under Maj. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, were desperately fighting off German counterattacks. Raff’s mission was vital to the success of D-Day, and he hated it. To the 38-year-old Raff, this was no way to enter a war. Landing by sea was a waste of his talents and training, whereas jumping out of a plane came naturally to him, “like getting out of the bed in the morning.” He was America’s most experienced paratrooper. He had led the first American airborne operation in history in Oran, North Africa, and followed it up with another jump into Tunisia. He even wrote a popular memoir, one of the first of the war, We Jumped to Fight. Why then was he deprived of “hitting the silk” into France along with the rest of the division? A native New Yorker, Edson Duncan Raff graduated from West Point in 1933. Short and bullet-headed, he earned his jump wings while the airborne battalions were being formed. As commander of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, he was tenacious and a tough disciplinarian. His men considered him fearless and aggressive. One of his officers, William Yarboro, called him “a human dynamo” who “just wanted Nazi hides.” His short stature earned him nicknames like the Little Colonel and Little Caesar. Raff was a first-rate instructor and leader of men. In England, prior to the invasion of North Africa, he trained his paratroopers hard, leading them on long night marches over stone wall-bordered fields, teaching them to use knives and

86

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

drive locomotives. He also taught the men to jump with mortars, grenades, and antitank weapons. When a Time magazine reporter asked him why he pushed his men so hard, he answered, “We want to keep them from being eliminated any quicker than they have to.” Commanding the first airborne operation of the war, which was also the most daring, Raff led his battalion into Oran as part of Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, on November 8, 1942. It would be the longest combat parachute mission of the entire war, with 39 planes taking off in England, flying over 1,100 miles and dropping 556 soldiers on two airfields near Oran. The mission took the planes over neutral Spain, at night, with little or no navigational assistance. The inexperienced pilots scattered while dodging thunderstorms. Once over North Africa some of the planes landed in Gibraltar or Spanish Morocco without disgorging their troops. Nine planes made it close

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 87

BY KEVIN M. HYMEL

D-DAY DILEMMA

General Ridgway needed an armored force to help him hold Ste. Mère Église. But could he rely on its commander? Soldiers of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division wade through surf at Utah Beach on D-Day as barrage balloons float in the distance. The capture and defense of the town of Ste. Mere Eglise were essential to the success of Operation Overlord. INSET: Colonel Edson D. Raff, a trained airborne soldier, commanded the U.S. jump into the city of Oran, Algeria, during Operation Torch. Raff may have been ill-suited for his command of a task force in Normandy.

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

87

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 88

88

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

trainer of men with little patience for human weakness. His soldiers would joke, “There’s a right way, a wrong way, and a Ridgway.” He had served several times with the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, and was considered one of “Marshall’s boys.” Ridgway had served as assistant commander of the 82nd Division in January 1941, and took over the division five months later when the commander, Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley, transferred. Soon after, the Army designated the unit as its first airborne division. Ridgway was its first soldier to jump from an airplane. He continued to train the unit, developing airborne techniques and doctrine, until it arrived in Tunisia. The meeting between Raff and Ridgway did not go well. Raff presented a technique he had been working on called “pathfinder.” It called for dropping specially trained paratroopers into a carefully selected drop zone to use flares and whatever communications devices they could carry to mark it off for the following paratroopers. Ridgway and his staff rejected the idea, and Raff accused Ridgway of surrounding himself with yes men. The animosity was mutual. Ridgway immediately disliked Raff and his brusque manDuring a demonstration jump in North Africa, a paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division prepares to exit a transport aircraft. Note the array of gear and the weapon he carries. All photos: National Archives

to their drop zones in Oran, where Raff saw an armored force bearing down on a group of paratroopers. Raff ordered his pilot to drop him and his men behind the tanks. He jumped first and his parachute opened safely, but he smashed into a large rock upon landing and cracked a rib, causing him to spit up blood. The tanks turned out to be American and were already on their way to capture his two airfields. The airborne mission was a failure. Raff’s second drop was more of a success. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean Theater, needed a force to protect the southern flank of British General Kenneth Anderson’s First Army and ordered Raff to jump into Tébessa. Anderson, who frequently clashed with Raff, ordered the attack scrubbed, but Raff turned a deaf ear to Anderson and proceeded with the drop. Upon landing, Raff organized his men and headed for Gafsa. With the help of a tank destroyer unit and well coordinated air cover, Raff enveloped the town. He later entered the town in a half-track “like leading a triumphal parade,” he recalled. Realizing Raff’s success, Anderson told him to hold Gafsa and not to advance. Again, Raff ignored the order and gave the Germans a bloody nose at Faid Pass. Raff’s defiance of Anderson became the hallmark of his personality. He did not care for superiors who did not share his vision of attack. Anderson complained to Eisenhower, who called Raff to his headquarters in Algiers. Eisenhower lectured Raff on his attitude, stressing one word— humility. He told Raff to change his attitude, and the humble response was, “Yes, sir.” Ike promoted Raff to colonel for his success on the battlefield but sent him home to teach at the parachute school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Before Raff left North Africa, he and his staff met with Maj. Gen. Ridgway and the staff of the 82nd “All American” Airborne Division, which had arrived to prepare for the drop into Sicily. Like Raff, Ridgway was a West Pointer. The son of an Army officer, he was also considered a tough

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 89

ner toward superiors, but Ridgway was too busy preparing for the Sicily drop to worry about the Little Caesar, who would soon be going home. While the tension between the two would build until the D-Day invasion, Ridgway did incorporate some of Raff’s men into the ranks of the 82nd Airborne. Many of the men in Raff’s unit, which had been redesignated the 509th, felt Ridgway was jealous of Raff, an attitude Raff did not discourage. Tensions grew when they learned that Raff would be sent home and they would serve only as the reserve force in Sicily because Ridgway picked the 505th to lead the invasion. They were also rankled by a rumor that James Gavin, the commander of the 505th, was Ridgway’s brother-inlaw. He was not. Ridgway proved his mettle in Sicily. Opting to go ashore with the amphibious forces while the 505th dropped in the night before, he went forward on foot to find Gavin while the ground forces had yet to make contact with a single paratrooper. With only one soldier as a bodyguard, Ridgway walked deep into enemy territory, looking for his men. Eventually, he found small groups of paratroopers and assigned them to the ground forces. Once Ridgway found Gavin and the two gathered up the rest of the division, Ridgway always led from the front. He relieved commanders he thought were not aggressive enough or who slowed the division’s progress across the island. At the town of Trapani, Ridgway and Gavin brought up several guns to counter Italian artillery fire. When

An American Sherman tank exits the cargo hold of a landing craft on the beach at Normandy. The deployment of armor was essential to the Allied foothold on Europe.

the Italians zeroed in on the guns’ location, sending the airborne artillerymen scattering, Ridgway calmly strolled up to the guns while shells burst all around him. His brave act encouraged the men to return. Oddly enough, Ridgway’s bravery brought a rebuke from, of all people, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., another commander known for exposing himself to fire. Ridgway considered the reprimand a compliment. Ridgway next sent his men into Italy, parachuting behind American lines in the Salerno beachhead. This time, he turned to Raff’s pathfinder idea and assigned specially trained paratroopers to light the drop zones for his two regiments. The idea D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

89

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 90

ABOVE: French General Edouard Welvert presents the Legion of Honor to American Colonel Edson D. Raff, who led the first U.S. airborne unit into North Africa. This ceremony took place in Algeria while Raff remained at odds with General Matthew B. Ridgway, pictured at RIGHT.

worked. The “All Americans” fought in Italy for three months before most of them were transferred to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion. Meanwhile, Raff penned We Jumped to Fight, his memoir about his fighting in North Africa. It included a “Lessons Learned” section with pointers on fighting the Axis. Raff suggested night offensive operations. “The Germans dislike darkness. Americans can beat them at it.” On defense, Raff wrote, “Your defense must be active. Patrol! Patrol!” Raff had lived these lessons in North Africa. It could be assumed that if he got another field command, he would put them to use. After his time at Fort Bragg, Raff returned to England as the billeting officer for the U.S. 101st Airborne Division. Although experienced and battle-hardened, no one wanted him in a field command. He was denied a regiment, so he became an airborne planner for Bradley, now the commander of the First Army. When Raff volunteered to go into Nor90

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

mandy as a “spare” colonel with a regular infantry division, Bradley transferred him to the 82nd Airborne, virtually forcing him on Ridgway. Ridgway was busy preparing the 82nd for its role at Utah Beach. The invasion plan called for 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions to parachute into Normandy at midnight. Their mission was to secure vital bridges and roads and to wreak as much havoc in the enemy’s rear as possible. In the midst of all this confusion, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division would assault the beach and push inland to link up with the two airborne units. The largest town inland was Ste. Mère Église, the target of the 82nd. If they could take it, the Americans could disrupt any German advance north or south along the main roads inland. Also, with its great cathedral tower, the town was a perfect guidepost for the amphibious troops moving inland. Last, it was an excellent launching point for attacks west. Ridgway knew that once his lightly armed paratroops captured the town the Germans would try to retake it. He needed big guns and armor to hold the town, weapons that could not be parachuted. To guarantee success, Ridgway put Raff in command of an armored task force and ordered him to race for Ste. Mère Église, where he would give the paratroopers the extra punch they needed. Task Force Raff had a secondary mission: between Ste. Mère Église and the beach lay an open field designated Landing Zone W, where a flight of American gliders was scheduled to land at 9 PM on D-Day. Raff’s men were to secure the airfield and protect it from German crossfire. Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, the commander of VII Corps, which was responsible for Utah Beach, considered Raff’s mission vital to success. The task force Raff received was an amalgamation of Army units. It consisted of 17 tanks from the 746th Tank Battalion, four six-wheeled Greyhound armored scout cars from the 4th Cavalry Squadron, and 41 soldiers from the 401st Glider Infantry. The glidermen would ride on the tanks and jump off at the first sign of trouble. Ridgway met with Raff to explain his assignment and his mission. Their second meeting did not go much better than the first. Raff came away convinced that Ridgway was a “conceited, self-centered narcissistic man,” who had almost no use for him. “God help us if we get into combat under him,” Raff later said. His nonairborne role in the invasion was enough “to condemn a man forever.” Raff’s attitude and style earned him a new nickname—Ridgway’s Croaker—a complainer.

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 91

Hangar

Ravenoville Magneville

Le Ham

d er Me r

Map © 2008 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Was Ridgway putting Raff in charge of this force as a punishment, like Raff suspected? Possibly. More likely, Ridgway knew Raff had led his own ragtag armored force in North Africa. Ridgway had probably also read Raff’s memoir and was hoping Raff would recreate the same successful strike force he led in Tunisia. The landings on June 6 were a success. The airborne troops, though scattered, captured Ste. Mère Église and completed most of their assigned missions. The first landing craft of the amphibious invasion hit the beach around 6:30 AM, and men and equipment of

Beauvais

Fresville Le Port Brehay

et

XX

Gourbesville

Cauquigny

Bandienville

82(–)

St. Germain101(–) de-Varreville

Ste.-Mere-Eglise

Les-Dunes -de-Varreville

XX

3

St.-Martinde-Varreville

Mésières

LZ “W”

Haut Gueutteville XX

XX

82(–)

La Fière

4

Foucarville

Siceville

Amfreville

Hamel de Cruttes

Le Bisson

4

2

Reuville

La Grande Dune

AudouvilleTurzueville Ecoqueneauville la-Hubert

II

TF Raff

La Grande Dune

Pont L’abbé

Les Forges Carquebut

1

Sebeville

Chef-du-pont Blasville

Pouppeville Ste.-Marie-du-Mont

TF Raff Hiesville Culoville

Do

uve

Beuzeville-la Bastille

XX

Houseville XX

U.S. Infantry Division XX

U.S. Airborne Division II

U.S. Infantry Battalion Route of 4th Division Forces Baupte Areas of airborne landings

1

German strongpoints held at end of D-Day St. CômeGerman strongpoints du-Mont overrun on D-Day German batteries German resistance at end of D-Day Areas held by U.S. forces at end of D-Day “Exits”

Vierville

101(–)

Angoville-au-Plain

e

uv

Do Basse Addeville

Le Port Brevands

CARENTAN 0

1

2 miles

ABOVE: With infantrymen hitching a ride, a Sherman tank moves across a slope in Normandy headed for the front lines. Colonel Edson Raff commanded a task force charged with supporting airborne troops at the town of Ste. Mere Eglise during Operation Overlord. BELOW: Task Force Raff faced a challenging assignment in coming to the aid of paratroopers at Ste. Mere Eglise. An ad hoc force containing a mixture of units, the Americans faced stubborn German resistance.

Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Barton’s 4th Infantry Division began advancing inland. German troops, shocked and confused, put up resistance but could only slow, not stop, the Americans. Ridgway landed by parachute this time and set up a command post in an apple orchard west of Ste. Mère Église. Without communications equipment, he had no idea how the night drop had gone, much less if the amphibious assault had even taken place. He could not even contact his regimental commanders. “I could only be where the fighting seemed the hottest,” he recalled. Ste. Mère Église was captured by only 150 men in a quick assault that killed 30 Germans and captured another 30. Coincidentally, a number of paratroopers had landed directly in the town earlier, only to be shot as they landed or burned to death when they came down on a burning house. For the rest of the night, the Germans assaulted the town, trying to retake it. At dawn, German armored assaults hit from the north and west, but Ridgway’s men stopped them cold using small arms, bazookas, and six glider-landed antitank guns. Naval gunfire even contributed to the fight as the battleship USS Nevada, directed by a naval liaison officer who jumped into Normandy, smashed the German assaults. The fighting lasted all day. Ridgway, despite his confidence in the ability of his command to hold out, needed Raff’s force, but where was it? Raff’s tanks and vehicles began rolling off their Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) at 1 PM, seven hours after the initial assault. The beach was secure yet hectic as scores of men and machines jammed the few safe roads. German artillery fire exploded as the men disgorged from their landing craft. One of the landing craft holding Raff’s tanks and 54 of his men became separated from the task force and was pinned down on the beach for three hours. Despite the confusion, momentum was clearly in the hands of the Americans, but Ste. Mère Église was still surrounded and getting squeezed by the Germans. Raff had no idea what was happening in D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

91

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/9/14 2:01 PM Page 92

Ste. Mère Église. He did not know if the town was secure or even if Ridgway was alive. But the task force’s mission was clear. Despite the confusion and congestion that reigned on Utah, Raff’s men were able to roll off the beach within the hour. The glidermen mounted the Shermans as Raff and his executive officer, Major Ralph Ingersoll, manned their armored jeep with its .50-caliber machine gun and drove near the head of the column. Raff’s first landmark was the town of Ste. Marie du Mont, where the town’s church

BUT WHAT TO DO WITH RAFF? RIDGWAY COULD NOT SEND HIM HOME. HE WAS TOO MUCH OF A CELEBRITY AND COMBAT VETERAN. RIDGWAY ADDED HIM TEMPORARILY TO HIS STAFF, BUT THE FRICTION BETWEEN THEM SOON DISRUPTED UNIT COHESION. steeple stood distinctly over the treetops. The steeple was now less distinct. Shellfire had torn off its top. As the column roared inland, paratroopers who had dropped the night before climbed onto the tanks to help. Once in the town, Ingersoll noticed a dead German who had been “ironed flat like a figure in a comic strip” by passing tanks, trucks, and jeeps. A military policeman waved the column through an alley and into open ground where it rocked and roared for three miles until it came to the crossroads of Les Forges. 92

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

The column had covered more than half the distance to Ste. Mère Église and had encountered no Germans. At Les Forges, the column turned right and aimed for its goal less than two miles away. Ahead, the road dipped, and a wooded ridge, Hill 20, loomed over the last half mile with a small creek crossing the route of advance. Task Force Raff was now approaching Landing Zone W, where the gliders would come down at 9 PM. There were already a few wrecked gliders strewn across the valley from previous landings. Raff’s tankers slowed as the ridge came into view. They knew if the Germans were to make a stand, this would be the perfect location for it. Raff encountered a tanker from another unit who told him: “I got this far, and then some GI flagged me down; he said there’s something on that hill that’s stopping the infantry.” Raff ordered a scout car and a tank forward. The two vehicles roared about 300 yards down the twisting road when suddenly the Germans opened fire. With a crack, an 88mm gun fired, hitting the scout car. The shell did not explode, but the force of the impact hurled the car backward into the tank, ripping off one of its tracks. The crews of the two vehicles made it back to Raff’s jeep. Raff had only about two hours before the gliders began landing. He ordered the men to assemble for an attack, but the confines of the hedgerow country delayed preparations until 7:30. Once the tanks were spread out with the glidermen riding on top, Raff ordered: “Move up the left, away from the main road, use the cover of the hedgerows, move crossfields and take the enemy in flank.” Five tanks rolled off the road and into a field to the left, another five to the right. They spread out and began to engage the enemy guns. Cannon fire echoed across the valley as the American 75s dueled with the German 88s. Rapidly, two tanks on the right were struck and one hit a mine. A gliderman saw the first one erupt, killing the commander and wounding several of the men. The tanks on the left halted at the creek as one tank bogged down in the soft soil. The rest of the tanks stuck close to the Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., gained fame road and fired at the flashes on the ridge. for leading the 4th Infantry Division ashore on D-Day. Raff raced forward to assess the situation, He is shown at his command post in Ste. Mere Eglise on where a captain assured him that the fields July 12, 1944, the day he died of a heart attack. ahead were probably mined. One tank from the column, under the command of a Staff Sergeant Buza, made it across the creek and closed on the ridge, roaring up to the high ground. Buza then went on a tear, knocking out four German guns and several vehicles while his machine gunner raked the area, killing and wounding scores of enemy soldiers. Buza radioed his captain, asking for instructions. He told the captain he was alone. None of the other tanks could make it forward in support. He could not proceed to Ste. Mère Église by himself. The captain ordered him back. Raff was stymied and now had a crisis on his hands. He knew the gliders would soon come soaring down between his force and the town. Surprisingly, Colonel James Van

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 93

Laden with supplies and reinforcements, U.S. gliders approach a landing zone in Normandy. Aircraft that have previously landed are seen on the ground below.

Fleet of the 4th Division’s 8th Infantry Regiment arrived on a reconnaissance patrol, and Raff pleaded with him to launch an attack against the enemy guns. Van Fleet declined. His men had been fighting all day. They had reached all their assigned objectives with limited casualties but were exhausted. Van Fleet was not willing to risk them on an ad hoc mission while he was trying to secure his positions against enemy counterattacks. In Ste. Mère Église, Ridgway, too, realized the looming danger facing the gliders. He had no way of contacting anyone about the predicament, and his men were incapable of securing the landing zone if Raff could not. Ridgway ordered his men to mark the drop zone northwest of the town where the 505th had landed that night, but it was in vain. At 9 PM, Raff’s worst fear was realized. Right on time, C-47 transports appeared, flying low over the valley and towing British Horsa and American Waco gliders. Enemy guns fired at the large, steady, and slow-moving planes and gliders. Raff looked

across the valley and realized his burning tanks looked like LZ markers in the fading light, “So unerringly did they [the C47 pilots] release the gliders over the valley,” he said. In a last attempt, Raff and his men tossed orange smoke grenades into the fields to their rear hoping it would divert the gliders to a safe area. This too was in vain. The Germans concentrated their fire on the C-47s as the glider pilots released their tow cables and descended. The C-47s, relieved of their strain, circled above and headed back to England. German fire caught two of the planes, and they exploded over the enemy-held ridge. Gliders soared in, not making a sound except for the wind rustling over their wings. The Germans held their fire until the silent planes came into range. Suddenly, they erupted again. The gliders ran the gauntlet, skidding along the fields and crashing into the far corners of the hedgerows. Most of the British Horsas, made entirely of wood, smashed into splinters and disintegrated before stopping. Raff’s men and tanks opened up with everything they had on the Germans in hopes of reducing their fire. Dazed glidermen stumbled from the wrecks and ran for Raff’s troops, the others joined with the paratroopers defending Ste. Mère Église. With his attack stalled and the sun setting, Raff circled his tanks and settled in for the night. His force had penetrated further into enemy territory that day than any other unit from Utah Beach. But Raff’s mission was not complete. To compound matters, he did not send out a patrol to at least try to reach Ridgway to let him know that help was tantalizingly close. He ignored his own rule of “Patrol! Patrol!” And he forgot his rule that Germans disliked darkness. On this evening, Raff did not even challenge them. Ridgway did. After defending his besieged position for almost 24 hours, he ordered one of his staffers, Walter Winton, to lead a patrol to find the 4th Infantry Division command post and report on the 82nd’s situation, find artillery support, and determine Raff’s whereabouts. Winton set D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

93

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 94

out and successfully reached Barton’s command post after midnight, delivering the news about the airborne assault. Barton vowed to send help at first light, then reported the information to Collins, who was aboard a ship offshore. Early the next morning, Raff met again with Van Fleet about a joint assault. While they conferred, one of Raff’s staff officers led an unsuccessful flank attack on Hill 20. Although most of the Germans had fled, those who remained easily repulsed the small force. At 6:30 AM, Raff’s force advanced cautiously while Van Fleet’s troops took the ridge. Raff’s force now had company; right behind his command jeep rolled a half-track carrying Van Fleet and Collins, who had come ashore. Surprisingly, the first American ground soldier into Ste. Mère Église was not the Little Caesar, but instead a paternal gen-

94

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

eral. Fifty-seven-year-old Brig. Gen. Teddy Roosevelt Jr., the son of the 26th President of the United States, rode his jeep, “Rough Rider,” into Ridgway’s perimeter early on D+1. Stopping among a group of paratroopers, Roosevelt pushed his helmet back on his head and asked, “Fellows, where’s the picnic?” Roosevelt had landed with the first wave of troops on Utah Beach to encourage men forward and direct traffic. Before the war, Ridgway had served under Roosevelt in the Philippines, and Roosevelt, impressed with Ridgway, recommended him for the Army Command and General Staff School. On the morning of June 7, Roosevelt looked at Ridgway “as if the bullet that could kill him had not been made.” The meeting between the old mentor and his protégé was probably more pleasant than if Raff had been the first one through the line. Raff’s entrance into Ste. Mère Église around 9 AM was anticlimactic. There was no triumphal parade like he experienced in Gasfa. There was work to be done. The men of the 401st Glider Battalion were happy to greet their comrades in the besieged town. The next day Task Force Raff was disbanded. But what to do with Raff? Ridgway could not send him home. He was too much of a celebrity and combat veteran. Ridgway added him temporarily to his staff, but the friction between them soon disrupted unit cohesion. The answer came on June 22, when the commander of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment was killed in combat. RidgThe devastation of the village of Ste. Mere Eglise in Normandy is evidenced in this photograph. The town was eventually occupied by American forces and held against German counterattacks.

D-Day14 Raff_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:35 PM Page 95

The body of an American glider pilot lies in the wreckage of aircraft after crash landing in a field in France on August 7, 1944. Flying gliders proved to be hazardous duty during the Normandy invasion.

way placed Raff in charge of the unit and then transferred it to the 13th Airborne Division. While the paratroopers of the 507th were furious to be out of the 82nd (they would always consider themselves “All Americans”) Raff was pleased to be separated from Ridgway. Raff breathed fresh life into the 507th. He commanded the unit well during the Battle of the Bulge and became the first American paratrooper to jump into Germany on March 14, 1945, when he led it in Operation Varsity, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s crossing of the Rhine River. Ridgway, for his part, went on to command the XVIII Airborne Corps and led it successfully for the rest of the war. In retrospect, Ridgway was wrong to assign the armored thrust against Ste. Mère Église to Raff, a paratrooper, no matter how daring and brave he was. He compounded his mistake by piecing together a force from different units. Glidermen, who were supposed to be flown into battle stealthily, were crowded onto tanks. Cavalrymen, whose job it was to scout the enemy and report back to headquarters, were assigned an offensive mission. Tankers from an independent tank battalion, who were trained to support the infantry, moving at the same pace as foot soldiers, were ordered to charge forward, carrying their infantry. No element of Task Force Raff was specifically designed for Ridgway’s precision operation. Ridgway would have been better served had he assigned elements of a tank division the mission given to Task Force Raff. Tank divisions were specifically trained to make headlong dashes, bypassing resistance and racing for objectives, leaving the bypassed enemy for follow-up troops. They were also assigned their own armored infantry, which rode in armored half-tracks. If resistance was too strong to be bypassed, armored infantrymen knew to dismount and engage the enemy in concert with the tanks. Simply put, a task force from an armored division was perfectly suited for the mission. The disruptive relationship between Ridgway and Raff cannot be overstated. In war, command relations can be just as important as technology and firepower. Commanders who get along have an advantage over those who do not. While there is no graph or chart to show that a more trusted subordinate would have tried harder to reach Ridg-

way on D-Day, Raff’s disdain for Ridgway might have clouded his determination. There is also no evidence that Raff spurred on his men by filling them with a sense of urgency. A few days after D-Day, a group of 82nd Airborne paratroopers under Lt. Col. Charles Timmes was surrounded in an apple orchard on the Merderet River. Lt. Col. Arthur Maloney, another “All American,” planned an assault across the La Fiere Causeway to reach Timmes. When one of Maloney’s subordinates balked, explaining that the attack would be a slaughter, Maloney replied, “I know. But Timmes is over there and we must go to his help.” Such sentiments never came from Raff’s mouth when his commander needed him most. After the war, Ridgway rose to higher command levels. He took command of the Eighth Army in Korea and reinvigorated it after it was battered by the Chinese. He was given command of all United Nations forces in Korea after President Harry Truman sacked General Douglas MacArthur. In 1952, he replaced Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe before becoming the Army’s Chief of Staff. An American icon, Ridgway was the face of the American airborne forces in World War II and a leader in the early days of the Cold War. He retired in 1955 as a four-star general. Raff did not achieve the level of fame that Ridgway enjoyed. Kept at the rank of colonel, he went on to command the 77th Special Forces Group, Airborne, and the Psychological Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, where he was a major proponent of issuing green berets to Special Forces soldiers. He retired from the service in 1958. When recalling his World War II exploits, Raff, who led the first and last combat jumps in the European Theater, would skim over his D-Day assignment. The ground job was just too painful a memory for the proud paratrooper. Kevin Hymel is the research director for WWII History. He has written extensively on the war and resides in Arlington, Virginia. D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

95

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 11:00 AM Page 96

Mission Critical: Weather “By that time we had moved down to Portsmouth so that we were operating in Eisenhower’s (forward area) tent camp in Portsmouth. We were either on the telephone in conference, or we were in conference with Eisenhower and his commanders because they were running us. We would come on in, make another presentation; they would weigh it, and they would question it, and then they would weigh it. They would look at the weather, raining like hell ...The morale was low. It was a disagreeable situation. We came up to the final meeting. It either had to be scrubbed, or it had to go. It was touch and go. It was clear that there was going to be time in between two fronts. It was also clear that it wasn’t going to be an absolutely clear night for bombing, and it was going to be kind of rough in the Channel.... “They asked for figures, ‘Well, what’s the chance of bombing visually?’ I said it’s

96 D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

National Archives

Continued from page 37

The weather chart for 1 PM GMT on June 6, 1944.

50-50. I can’t give you any more than that. You probably will get half of your bombers to see the targets. The other half will have to bomb by radar. ‘The paratroopers?’ You will probably have half of them on your target and half of them scat-

tered. ‘How about the sea?’ [I said] it’s over your limits. Eisenhower turned to Ramsay (Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, commander in chief naval forces) and said, ‘Is that going to bother you?’ He said, ‘Hell, no. I will get them on the

D-Day14 Weather-CUT_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/9/14 10:59 AM Page 97

shore.’ He turned to Monty and said, ‘It’s going to make a lot of people seasick going over on that rough stuff. [Montgomery said], ‘They are not going to be seasick. They are so drugged that they won’t know which end is up. Don’t worry about it. As far as I am concerned, the men can operate when they get ashore...’ Then Spaatz and Tedder discussed the visual bombing versus the radar bombing. So Eisenhower said, ‘I say we go. Any comments?’ There wasn’t a comment around the table. So they went.” The actual weather on June 5-6 was much as forecast by Stagg and company. On the 5th, a storm moved through the Channel, bringing unacceptable weather and high winds that would have been catastrophic to any landing attempt. On June 6, the weather was acceptable. No major difficulties were encountered by the naval forces except for problems with some landing craft and amphibious tanks, primarily in the more exposed American sector. Airborne and glider troops went in as scheduled although many were scattered far from their planned drop zones. Fighters and medium bombers operated successfully from about 4,000 feet. The heavy bombers had to bomb on instruments. In spite of all the difficulties, Overlord succeeded in no small part because of the weather support the SHAEF commanders received. Under trying conditions the largest air-sea invasion in history was successfully launched in a short, relatively calm interlude of a generally adverse weather pattern. On June 19, the next possible invasion date after June 6, a severe bout of weather ripped the Normandy beaches, destroyed one of the artificial harbors the Allies had built, and brought resupply to a standstill. Eisenhower wrote a note to Stagg saying, “I thank the gods of war we went when we did!” Gene J. Pfeffer is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, whose assignments included Vice Commander of the Air Force Weather Service. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and works as an aerospace consultant. WWII QUARTERLY

97

D-Day14 Pointe du Hoc_Layout 1 4/8/14 3:38 PM Page 98

B l u e a n d G r ay Continued from page 37

Continued from page 75

planned, the second accusation is quite simply wrong. No companies were directed head-on at the strongpoints, but Omaha was the most strongly defended beach on the Normandy coast, and the interlocking structure of the German defenses ensured that wherever the Americans landed they would come under both direct and indirect fire. Suggestions that the Americans should not have landed on Omaha at all ignore several basic facts. First, their mission at this stage of the campaign was to clear the Cotentin Peninsula and capture the port of Cherbourg. Second, it was militarily unacceptable to leave a gap of more than 40 kilometers between Utah Beach and the Canadian and British beaches in Normandy. Third, it was the only possible landing site between Utah and those beaches. In summary, it has to be said that the performance of the majority of the untried and unbloodied American soldiers on Omaha Beach on D-Day was exceptional, and in the case of some of the leaders of the Blue and Gray, notably Dutch Cota, Charles Canham, Sidney Bingham, and Berthier Hawks, outstanding. Many junior officers and NCOs, like Captain Lawrence Madill of E Company, Lieutenants Anderson of L and Hendricks of G, and Sergeant William Norfleet of D Company, to mention but a few, displayed qualities of great leadership and bravery. It is not surprising that the Stonewallers won 23 Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, and 100 Bronze Stars on this day. Brig. Gen. Cota, Colonel Canham, and Major Bingham were among those who were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

then informed Rudder. “Should I send a message, sir?” Eikner asked. “Yes,” Rudder answered. Most of the Rangers’ radios had been waterlogged or damaged in the landing. Astutely planning for such a contingency, Eikner had brought along a signal lamp. Luckily for the Rangers, Eikner was trained in Morse code and sent off the pre-designated signal to confirm destruction of the guns: “Blow Six.” The lieutenant also requested resupply and reinforcements. As the final contingency, in case all the technology failed, Eikner relied on the wings of a carrier pigeon to relay the message. Slipping a small note inside a tube attached to the bird’s leg, Eikner released it. Initially, the winged messenger failed its duty miserably, repeatedly circling the command post. Eikner threw pebbles at the bird until, finally, it flew towards the Allied fleet. An hour later, the destroyer USS Satterlee responded: “No reinforcements available— all Rangers have landed on Omaha.” Like Lomell and the rest of the men on top of Pointe du Hoc, Rudder and the others in his command post were on their own, and tragically, the guns of their comrades would pose the greatest danger. Several forward artillery observers, including Private Henry Genther and Navy Lieutenant Kenneth “Rocky” Norton, had accompanied the Rangers. Using Eikner’s signal lamp, the men now called in artillery from the nearby Allied warships. They also called in a strafing run from P-47 fighter-bombers. The Thunderbolts arrived first, and the lead plane mistakenly began a deadly dive-bombing raid directed toward Rudder’s command post. Quickly, Eikner spread out an American flag along the side of the cliff. Spotting Old Glory, the American pilot waggled his wings and flew off toward the German positions across Pointe du Hoc. The shore-fire control party then used Eikner’s lamp to call in naval fire upon the German machine-gun nests and the 37mm AA gun that was wreaking so much havoc on them. But an artillery shell from the battleship Texas’s 14-inch guns landed short, detonating near Rudder’s command bunker. The shell killed Captain Jonathan Harwood and Private Genther, also wounding Lt. Col. Rudder and Lieutenant Norton. The fatal round was like an armor-piercing shell containing yellow pigment known as “Explosive D” or Dunnite. A soldier said, “The men were turned completely yellow. It was as though they had been stricken with jaundice. It wasn’t only their faces and hands, but the skin beneath their clothes and their clothes which were yellow from that shell.” Bill Hoffman recalled seeing one of the men killed by the shell. “He had no head and no blood. He was covered with yellow dye. The shrapnel just took his head off, nice and clean. He was all yellow. I said to myself, What the hell is that? It was my first introduction to death in the war.” Already wounded in the leg, Rudder was wounded again by the yellow marker shell. Despite his wounds, he refused to relinquish command and continued leading his men. After Eikner sent out “Praise the Lord,” indicating success, Rudder instructed Lunning and Fate to take a message back to Lomell’s group, which had set up a roadblock— the second part of their mission. Rudder’s orders were simple: “Hold ‘til duly relieved.”

Author Michael Reynolds is a retired major general in the British Army. He is a veteran of the Korean War and the former director of NATO’s Military Plans and Policy Division. Since retiring from the Army, he has written numerous well-received books on the subject of World War II. 98

Rangers

D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY

Reprinted from Dog Company, by Patrick O’Donnell. Available from Da Capo Press, an imprint of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2012.

W-eOne FP Dday14_Layout 1 4/9/14 10:59 AM Page 2

W-DDAY FP Jun14_Layout 1 4/9/14 11:01 AM Page 2