Well, actually there were some French who landed at Normandy, but that is beside the point. Eisenhower was talking about the vulnerability of the Normandy landings in the first few days and the disaster that could have occurred had the 2nd Panzer Division, Das Reich, succeeded in reaching Normandy within three days which would have been normal. Due to the French Resistance it took fragments of Das Reich between a week and three weeks to reach Normandy by which time the Allies were well entrenched. Rommel had said, “The war will be won, or lost, on the beaches.” He was correct.
Das Reich was badly beaten up when they arrived having been constantly harassed and attacked by the Resistance. Bridges had been blown up, rail lines designed to transport the troops and tanks destroyed, ambushes everywhere, roads blocked by fallen trees, and even the destruction of the telephone connection between the sub pens and the interior. Havoc was the word of the day according to my husband who was part of it all.
>Well, actually there were some French who landed at Normandy, but that is beside the point. Eisenhower was talking about the vulnerability of the Normandy landings in the first few days and the disaster that could have occurred had the 2nd Panzer Division, Das Reich, succeeded in reaching Normandy within three days which would have been normal. Due to the French Resistance it took fragments of Das Reich between a week and three weeks to reach Normandy by which time the Allies were well entrenched. Rommel had said, “The war will be won, or lost, on the beaches.” He was correct.
>Das Reich was badly beaten up when they arrived having been constantly harassed and attacked by the Resistance. Bridges had been blown up, rail lines designed to transport the troops and tanks destroyed, ambushes everywhere, roads blocked by fallen trees, and even the destruction of the telephone connection between the sub pens and the interior. Havoc was the word of the day according to my husband who was part of it all.
I think you’ll been reading resistance propaganda stories. There was big effort to play up the french resistance during and after the war. Honest studies of French resistance has shown it be quite weak and not very productive compared to Norway or Poland.
I’ve read multiple German sources on Normandy and they don’t even mention the French resistance being a factor.
You are correct that the Panzer divisions were chewed up by the time they got close to the beachhead but this was due to allied fighter bombers. The German army found it was impossible to move by day because allied fighter bombers were hitting anything that moved everywhere in the Normandy area. Every single road,rail, and river was being hit over and over again. It frustrated German leadership to no end and it’s something that Rommel predicted would happen based on his experiences in North Africa.