The Air-Armor Partnership
Normandy's most noteworthy tactical air support development, however, was the close partnership between air and armored forces, typified by the "armored column cover" missions perfected by the IX TAC under Quesada. During the Italian campaign, the British had begun operating so-called contact cars that served as mobile air-ground control posts with armored forces. Now, at Normandy, 83 Group under Broadhurst placed "contact cars" with leading British armored forces so that tactical air units would always know the precise location of friendly and enemy forces. The contact cars functioned in close cooperation with tactical reconnaissance aircraft, reducing the time necessary to set up immediate support strikes. This scheme proved its value particularly during the German retreat out of the Falaise Pocket.
Quesada developed a similar system for the American forces in Normandy--an outgrowth of his commitment to the Army's mission and his relationship with Omar Bradley, then commander of the First Army. Bradley admired Quesada's willingness to regard air support "as a vast new frontier waiting to be explored." Because of this, these two strong-willed commanders got along exceptionally well and felt confident enough to express frank opinions. Shortly before the Saint-Lô breakout, Quesada became convinced that Bradley was reluctant to concentrate his armored forces because of the magnitude of German defensive forces along the front. So Quesada made a deal: if Bradley would concentrate his armor, IX TAC would furnish an aviator and an aircraft radio for the lead tank so that it could communicate with fighter-bombers that Quesada would have operating over the column from dawn until dark. Bradley immediately agreed, and a pair of M4 Sherman tanks duly arrived at IX TAC headquarters in Normandy (only a hedgerow away from Bradley's own command post) for trial modification. The modification worked and became a standard element of First Army--and subsequently 12th Army Group as a whole--operations.
The Hawker Typhoon was a most formidable swing-role fighter, proving itself a match for the Bf 109 and FW 190. From D-Day onward, it would make its reputation as a destroyer of Nazi armor and motorized transport.
By the end of July 1944, Quesada's armored column cover operations were receiving enthusiastic support from armor and air forces personnel alike. The 2d Armored Division, for example, had three air support parties: one with the division commander, and one with each of its two Combat Commands. Combat Command A (CCA) found the system particularly useful; their air liaison officer (from the armored forces) rode in a Sherman tank whose crew was entirely AAF except for the tank commander. The tank commander could communicate with his fellow tankers via a SCR-528 radio, while the air liaison officer had a SCR-522 to communicate with the column cover flight. Column cover consisted of four P47s relieved by another flight every thirty minutes. CCA's liaison officer reported:
The planes worked quite close to us, generally with excellent results. . . .
Our best air (reconnaissance) information came from the column cover. On occasions G-2 asked me for specific information, and I asked the planes to get it. In most cases the pilots furnished information to me without request, especially that of enemy motor movements. Before leaving,the flight leader would report to me on likely prospective targets, and I would pass the information on to the incoming flight commander.
On one occasion we made an unexpected move for which no air cover had been provided. Information was received of a group of hostile tanks in some woods three or four miles away. I called direct to a plane operating in the zone of another corps and asked him to relay a request to fighter control center for some fighters. Within 15 minutes about 12 planes reported in to me. I located my tank for the plane commander by telling him of the yellow panel [used for identification of friendly forces, and located on the back deck of the tank], then vectored him on to the woods where the enemy was reported. When he seemed to be over the target, I told him to circle and check the woods under him. He located the tanks, and they were attacked successfully.
In a study done immediately after the war for the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, the Air Effects Committee of the 12th Army Group (a committee composed entirely of ground officers, and thus free of the kinds of built-in bias that might have afflicted a committee composed of AAF personnel) assessed the role of tactical air power in the European campaign. They examined a number of issues, generating a report (which Bradley signed) that endorsed the air support system the AAF employed in assistance to the ground forces. From such document one would hardly imagine that only two years earlier the AAF and Army Ground Forces had been at virtual swords' points over the entire air support issue. The USSBS report stated:
Armored column cover . . . was of particular value in protecting the unit from enemy air attack and in running interference for the spearhead of the column by destroying or neutralizing ground opposition that might slow it down or stop it. . . .
The decision of the Ninth Air Force to give high priority to armored column cover in a fast-moving or fluid situation from the break-out in Normandy to the final drive across Central Europe made a successful contribution to the success of the ground units in breaking through and encircling the various elements of the German armies. . . . [After addressing immediate support needs] the flight leader patrolled ahead of the armored column, as deep as thirty miles along its axis of advance, in an intensive search for enemy vehicles, troops or artillery. This effort permitted our armor far greater freedom of action than would have been otherwise possible.
The Thunderbolt was particularly successful flying armored column cover missions. P-47's of Brig. Gen. Elwood Qeusada's IX Tactical Air Command supported General Omar Bradley's 12 Army Group tankers with on-scene reconnaissance and strike missions that greatly facilitated the American ground assault. Fighter-bomber pilots rode in specially equipped M4 Sherman tanks having aircraft radios, coordinating Thunderbolt support from dawn to dusk.
Normandy operations, typified by Quesada's armored column cover and Broadhurst's contact cars, thus fulfilled a concept born a quarter-century earlier, amid the mud of Flanders: the notion of the airplane as a partner of the tank, as a "counter antitank" weapon. In that war, then-Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, Great Britain's greatest armor advocate, had recognized that cooperation between air and armor forces was "of incalculable importance." Coincidentally, Leigh-Mallory, the commander of Allied tactical air forces in Normandy, had commanded a squadron of tank-cooperation aircraft in the Great War. Perhaps this controversial, gifted airman (who died in a flying accident in November 1944) reflected back in his own mind, as the Normandy campaign unfolded, to those early days of open-cockpit biplanes and awkward, ungainly tanks and the progression of both air and land warfare technology since that time.
The Tank's Formidable Enemies
If the Allied Typhoons and P-47s were friends of British and American armored forces, they also proved implacable enemies of German armored, mechanized, and infantry forces. This was an aspect of Warfare--the airplane as enemy of the tank--that even the formidable Fuller had failed to prophesy. In opposing offensive mobile armor, as in North Africa, the fighter-bomber was of limited use. Now, as German armor typically lay in defensive ambush, or retreated in tight columns, the rocket- or bomb-loaded fighter proved devastating.
A flight of P 51 Mustangs of the 339th FG, under the command of their leading Ace, Francis R. Gerard has started a series of strafing attacks on King Tigers. In the foreground a Königstiger of the 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion is moving at full speed in an attempt to flee the P 51's and to elude the threat of P 47 Thunderbolt fighter bombers, which the Mustangs would have called in as a special anti-tank force.
The Ninth Air Force and the Second Tactical Air Force had vast quantities of fighter-bombers. IX TAC, for example, had twenty four squadrons of Republic P47 Thunderbolts, while 2 TAF had eighteen squadrons of Hawker Typhoons. Both were beefy, powerful aircraft, capable of absorbing considerable battle damage and still returning to base. Of the two, the P47 was the more survivable, in part because it had a radial piston engine. The Typhoon had a liquid-cooled engine and "chin" radiator installation that was vulnerable to ground fire. Affectionately known as the Jug, the P47, on occasion, returned to base not merely with gaping holes from enemy defenses, but with whole cylinders blown off its engine. Pilot memoirs reveal that while the P47 was regarded with affection and even fierce loyalty, the Tiffie (as the Typhoon was dubbed) had earned an uncomfortable respect and awe bordering on fear.
Both fighter-bombers had, for their time, prodigious weapons- carrying capabilities. Both could lug up to a 2,000-lb bomb load, one 1,000-lb bomb under each wing. Typically, however, both operated with smaller loads. A P47 would carry an external belly fuel tank and one 500-lb bomb under each wing; many were also configured so that the plane could carry air-to-ground rockets, typically ten 5-in HVARs (high-velocity aircraft rockets). P47s on an armed reconnaissance mission would usually operate three flights, two armed with a mix of bombs and rockets, and the cover flight carrying only rockets. Over 80 percent of the bombs dropped by P47s during the European campaign were 500-lb weapons; less than 10 percent were 1,000-lb bombs, and the difference was made up by smaller 260-lb fragmentation bombs and napalm. While acknowledging the spectacular effects and destructiveness of rockets, the AAF considered bombs more effective for "road work" due to accuracy problems in firing the solid-fuel weapons.
The British, on the other hand, preferred rockets, the Typhoon carrying eight having 60-lb armor-piercing warheads. Possibly this difference of opinion stemmed from launching methods; the P47s used "zero length" launchers while the Typhoons used launch rails. It could be expected that the rails would impart greater accuracy, stabilizing the rocket immediately after ignition until it had picked up sufficient speed for its tail fins to stabilize it. (There is, however, an interesting report from Montgomery's 21st Army Group that questions the alleged success that British air-to-ground rockets enjoyed against tanks and motorized transport.)
Spitfires of No. 132 Squadron rush towards the Front to give ground support to the advancing Allied forces following the breakout from the Normandy beaches in early June 1944.
Besides their bomb and rocket payloads, the P-47 and the Typhoon both boasted powerful gun armaments. The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns occasionally even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks. Yet Maj. Gen. J. Lawton "Lightning Joe" Collins, Commander of First Army's VII Corps, was impressed enough to mention to Quesada the success that P-47s had strafing tanks with .50 cal. machine gun fire.
Of course, other fighter-bombers operated in Normandy and across Europe, notably the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, North American P-51 Mustang, and Supermarine Spitfire. With the exception of the Lightning (which had a concentrated armament installation that made it a formidable strafer), all of these proved disappointing. Their liquid-cooled engine systems were quite vulnerable to ground fire, and thus they were used far less for ground attack and much more for air superiority operations.
Allied Air over the Battlefield
Virtually immediately the tactical fighter-bombers of the IX TAC and 2 TAF made their presence felt on the land battle. For the first four days of the invasion, they flew from their bases in southern England, but the first rough airstrips were available for use on the Continent onJune 10. Eventually Allied fighter-bomber strips numbered thirty-one in the British zone and fifty in the American. Two problems quickly manifested themselves in these early operations at the front. The peculiar thick dust of Normandy played havoc with the inline engines of the Spitfire and Typhoon, until mechanics fitted special air filters to the aircraft and engineers watered down the runway surface. Second, these forward strips were perilously close to enemy positions and came under frequent shelling. In one case, Typhoons operating from a forward strip attacked German tanks and fortifications a mere 1,000 yards away from the runway, an operation calling to mind more the experience of the Marines and Army at Guadalcanal or at Peleliu than the European campaign.
The ordeal of the German Panzer-Lehr Division offers a good example of the fate awaiting German ground forces in Normandy. Ordered north to confront the invasion, the armored division got underway in the late afternoon of June 6, and came under its first air attack at 0530 on the 7th near Falaise. Blasted bridges and bombed road intersections hindered movement, particularly of support vehicles. So intense were the attacks along the Vire-Beny Bocage road that division members referred to it as a Jabo Rennstrecke--a fighter-bomber race-course. Air attack destroyed more than 200 vehicles on June 7 alone. Despite the rainy weather, which had threatened the Allies' landing on the beachhead, fighter-bombers continued to strike at the Panzer-Lehr Division, to the dismay of German soldiers who had hoped the worsening weather would offer some respite. This was just the beginning of an ordeal that would last throughout the French campaign; Panzer-Lehr was in for some more rough times in the near future.
Spitfires of 412 Sqdn. R.C.A.F. attack targets of opportunity in France shortly after D-Day.
This division was by no means alone in its trials. The 2d SS Panzer Division Das Reich made its way from Toulouse to Normandy, encountering serious delays en route and, in typical SS fashion, responding by murdering and otherwise brutalizing the civilian population of France. Once the division crossed the Loire, it had a taste of real war; as Max Hastings relates,
. . . questing fighter bombers fell on them ceaselessly. The convoys of the Das Reich were compelled to abandon daylight movement after Saumur and Tours and crawl northwards through the blackout. . . . [During a change of command] an Allied fighter bomber section smashed into the column, firing rockets and cannon. Within minutes . . . sixteen trucks and half-tracks were in flames. . . . Again and again, as they inched forward through the closely set Norman countryside, the tankmen were compelled to leap from their vehicles and seek cover beneath the hulls as fighter bombers attacked. Their only respite came at night.
While darkness offered some protection to the besieged Germans, it did not grant total immunity. The 2 TAF used twin-engine De Havilland Mosquitos as night battlefield interdiction aircraft, sometimes having the "Mossies" bomb and strafe under the light of flares dropped from North American Mitchell medium bombers. Later in the European campaign, when the German night air attack menace had largely disappeared, the AAF used Northrop P-61 BlackWidow night fighters in a similar role. Overall, however, their inability to successfully prosecute night attacks to the same degree as daytime attacks frustrated air and ground commanders alike. Bradley's air effects committee noted that there was "never enough" night activity to meet the Army's needs.
Intelligence information from ULTRA set up a particularly effective air strike on June 10. German message traffic had given away the location of the headquarters of Panzergruppe West on June 9, and the next evening a mixed force of forty rocket-armed Typhoons and sixty-one Mitchells from 2 TAF struck at the headquarters, located in the Chateau of La Caine, killing the unit's chief of staff and many of its personnel and destroying fully 75 percent of its communications equipment as well as numerous vehicles. At a most critical point in the Normandy battle, then, the Panzer group, which served as a vital nexus between operating armored forces, was knocked out of the command, control, and communications loop; indeed, it had to return to Paris to be reconstituted before resuming its duties a month later.
A Dispirited Rommel
RAF Mosquitos on a Day Ranger Mission attack a German fighter station shortly after D-Day
Field Marshal Rommel's reaction to being pinned to the ground by Allied tactical air was a repetition of the feelings he had expressed during the dark days of 1942, when scourged by the Desert Air Force. Already by June 9, Admiral Ruge was writing that "the air superiority of the enemy is having the effect the Field Marshal had expected and predicted: our movements are extremely slow." The next day, Rommel wrote to his wife: "The enemy's air superiority has a very grave effect on our movements. There's simply no answer to it." In walks with Ruge, Rommel continued to complain about the invasion situation, "especially the lack of air support." Ruge concluded that "utilization of the Anglo-American air force is the modern type of warfare, turning the flank not from the side but from above." The situation turned increasingly bleak. By July 6, during a dinner party, a "colonel of a propaganda battalion" remarked that soldiers were constantly asking "Where is the Luftwaffe?" In staff discussions about the future--as if one really existed for the Third Reich--Rommel and Ruge concurred that "the tactical Luftwaffe has to be an organic part of the army, otherwise one cannot operate," which showed how little the two men understood the evolution of Allied air power over the previous three years of the war. It was precisely because Allied air power was not subordinate to the armies that it was free to use mass and concentration to achieve its most productive ends--and thereby help the Allied armies the most.
Ironically, Rommel's complaints at this time mirror those of the British and American army leaders of 1941 and 1943, respectively. The field marshal grew increasingly testy about air matters; during breakfast onJuly 16, he was "incensed" at the presumptuousness of a Luftwaffe staff officer who intemperately accused the German army of not taking fullest advantage of Luftwaffe attacks throughout the war. The next day, as Rommel drove to his headquarters after a quick trip to an SS armored unit, two 83 Group Spitfires strafed him, killing his driver, wounding a passenger, and causing their car to plunge off the road, out of control. Rommel, thrown out, narrowly escaped death from a fractured skull. With that, the Desert Fox's war effectively ended. He returned to Germany for treatment and recuperation, dying by his own hand that October when implicated--rightly or wrongly--in the officers' plot to assassinate Hitler, a plot that tragically went awry. Allied tactical air had removed from command the German commander best suited by experience and leadership to oppose the ground forces building up to the breakout from the Normandy lodgement area.
The Heavy Bomber in Air Support
Once ashore at Normandy, the Allies experienced a serious setback from the terrain. Farmers' fields were bordered by thick hedgerows, a bocage that proved a natural boon to German defenders, affording them cover while forcing the Allies to follow predictable paths of advance around it. one of the most difficult problems of hedgerow fighting was preventing tanks from riding up over the hedge and exposing their vulnerable undersides to antitank fire. The solution was disarmingly simple. An inventive sergeant fitted "tusks" to the prow of a tank, which pinned the tank to the hedge and held it in place as the engine punched it through in a shower of dirt. This "absurdly simple" device (in Bradley's words) freed the Army's armored forces for a fast-moving mobile breakout across France.
Any breakout from the lodgement area would require the insightful and creative use of air power, including bomber aircraft such as the American B-17 and B-24 and the British Halifax and Lancaster operating in a troop-support role. Altogether there were six major raids by heavy bombers in support of breakout operations in Normandy. The first of these involved 457 Halifax and Lancaster bombers from RAF Bomber Command on July 7, in support of Montgomery's assault on Caen. The second was an even larger raid by 1,676 heavybombers and 343 light and mediumbombers onJuly 18. On the 25th, American bombers of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces struck at Saint-Lô, preparatory to the First Army's breakout. A fourth attack on the 30th supported the Second British Army south of Caumont. Then an Anglo-American raid on August 7-8 supported the attack of the First Canadian Army toward Falaise from Caen, and the sixth raid, again supporting the attack on Falaise, followed on August 14.
Overall, the Allied high command considered these raids successful, and German soldiers caught in them testified to their devastating (if short-lived) impact upon morale. Field Marshal Hans von Kluge, Rommel's successor, complained that bomb-carpets buried equipment, bogged down armored units, and shattered the morale of troops. Unfortunately, the terrain disruption worked both ways: it hindered the attacker as much as the defender, and, in fact, bought the Germans time to regain some composure and dig in for the follow-on attack. If such air attacks were to be useful, they had to be followed immediately by a follow-on ground assault. When this occurred, Allied ground troops found German defenders dazed and prone to surrender.
The Price of Victory
Unfortunately, heavy bomber missions could cause serious problems. The first two strikes on Caen resulted in numerous "collateral" casualties to French civilians. Sometimes friendly troops were victims of misplaced bomb strikes. In the Normandy campaign, as in other campaigns, air and land forces had to get used to working together. Bradley remarked after the war that "we went into France almost totally untrained in air-ground cooperation." It is difficult to accept this statement at face value because the air and ground forces worked together with an unprecedented harmony. Nevertheless, in the very early stages of Normandy some "disconnects" did occur between the air and land communities. Friendly troops experienced attacks from Allied fighter-bombers. To minimize this danger, air and ground commanders arranged for friendly forces to pull back in anticipation of an air strike against German positions. But if communication failed and the strike did not come off, troops found themselves fighting twice for the same piece of real estate as German forces moved back into the gap. Soon commanders learned to follow-up air strikes with artillery barrages so that friendly infantry and armor forces could close with the demoralized enemy before he recovered and redeployed. Within six weeks after the Normandy landing, air and land forces were so confident of working together that fighter-bombers routinely operated as close as 300 yards to American forces. This was not true, unfortunately, of strategic bomber operations, as the strikes of late July and August clearly indicated.
A Hawker Typhoon, 'Pulverizer 2' flown by F/Lt. Harry Hardy of 440 Squadron RCAF attacks a German panzer unit shortly after D-Day.
The most publicized example of the difficulties of operating heavy and medium bombers in support of ground forces came during the preparatory bombardment for Operation COBRA, the breakthrough attack at Saint-Lô that led to the breakout across France. The COBRA strikes killed slightly over 100 GIs and wounded about 500. Without a doubt, the strikes were badly executed, and serious command errors were made. The first came on July 24, a cloudy day, when COBRA had been initially set for launch. A postponement order reached the Eighth Air Force Commander, Lt. Gen. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, too late: the Eighth's bombers were already airborne. Most crews wisely refrained from bombing due to weather and returned to base. Some found conditions acceptable and did drop. Friendly casualties occurred in three instances. When another plane in the formation was destroyed by flak, a bombardier accidently toggled his bomb load on an Allied airstrip, damaging planes and equipment. A lead bombardier experienced "difficulty with the bomb release mechanism" and part of his load dropped, causing eleven other bombardiers to drop, thinking they were over the target. Finally, a formation of five medium bombers from the Ninth Air Force dropped seven miles north of the target, amid the 30th Infantry Division. This latter strike inflicted the heaviest casualties--25 killed and 131 wounded--on the first day that COBRA was attempted.
The next day, in better weather, there were three more friendly bombings, all by B-24s. First, a lead bombardier failed to synchronize his bombsight properly, so that when he dropped--and eleven other bombers dropped on his signal--a total of 470 100-lb high-explosive bombs fell behind the lines. Then a lead bombardier failed to properly identify the target and took the easy way out--bombing on the flashes of preceding bombs. A total of 352 260-lb fragmentation bombs fell in friendly lines. In the third case, a command pilot overrode his bombardier and dropped on previous bomb flashes; previous bombs had been off target but within a safe "withdrawal" zone. The pilot's bombs fell within friendly territory.
All of the above errors were incidental to the real causes of the tragic bombings--the restricted size of the bomb zone and confusion over whether the air attack would be flown perpendicular or parallel to the front lines. The Army wanted a parallel attack so that short bombs would not land in friendly territory. (Actually, this approach would not guarantee an absence of friendly casualties.)
Spitfires of 222 Squadron, and Hawker Typhoons over the Normandy beaches on D-Day. The Typhoons have begun to peel off into their attack on German positions below, while the Spitfires patrol the skies above.
The AAF, concerned about the run-in to the target and enemy antiaircraft fire, preferred to fly a perpendicular approach. AAF bomber commanders also recognized that the "heavies" were not as precise as the fighter-bombers. They asked Bradley to keep friendly troops at least 3,000 yards from the bomb line; Bradley compromised on a minimal distance of 1,200 yards, with a preceding fighter bomber attack to cover the next 250 yards so that, in fact, the heavy and medium bombers would strike no closer than 1,450 yards--a distance a heavy bomber would cover in approximately fifteen seconds. A distinct aiming point and a split-second precise drop were thus critical.
Despite Bradley's later claims that the AAF was enthusiastic over the strikes, evidence indicates that the strategic bomber people were anything but enthusiastic. In general, the strategic bomber commanders--British as well as American--believed that any diversion from their strategic air campaign against the Nazi heartland weakened their effort. The AAF leadership also had strong feelings--communicated directly to Eisenhower--that the COBRA bombings were questionable because they would involve the dropping of a large quantity of bombs in the shortest possible span of time in a restricted bombing zone.
However, the AAF was overruled and the operation went forward. Whenever American bombers executed a perpendicular run, Bradley alleged that it violated a previous decision. After the short bombings of July 24, Bradley had ordered an immediate investigation of why the strike group had flown a perpendicular course. The AAF replied that such a course had been previously agreed upon, and ground forces had been informed. Shortly before his death, in his autobiography, A General's Life, Bradley charged that the "Air Force brass simply lied," though earlier writings had been far more temperate. One wonders whether this bold statement merely reflected the hardening of age.
In any case, Bradley reluctantly concurred with AAF plans for another attack on July 25 (though he has stated he did so because he was over an "impossible barrel"). During this series of strikes occurred the most sensational casualty of COBRA. Lt. Gen. Leslie J. McNair, former Commander of Army Ground Forces and currently the "commander" of the fictional "1st Army Group," was killed in his foxhole by a direct bomb hit as he waited to observe the follow-up ground attack McNair's death and the other friendly casualties infuriated the ground forces, perhaps in part because they remembered the general's vociferous criticism of the air support organization in 1942-43. Strangely, the tragedy seems not to have harmed ground-air relations at higher command levels. Though Bradley has stated that Eisenhower informed him that strategic bombers should no longer be used to support ground forces, this is not evident Tom Eisenhower's written comments. In fact, American "heavies" continued to be used in troop support missions, notably in the German winter offensive. Eisenhower's comments after COBRA's bombing were far less critical than might have been expected:
The closeness of air support given in this operation, thanks to our recent experiences, was such as we should never have dared to attempt a year before. We had indeed made enormous strides forward in this respect, and from the two Caen operations [the stnkes of July 8 and 18] we had learnt the need for a quicker ground follow-up on the conclusion of the bombing, for the avoidance of Catering and for attacks upon a wider range of targets to the rear and on the flanks of the main bombardment area. our technique, however, was still not yet perfected, and some of our bombs fell short, causing casualties to our own men. Unfortunately, perfection in the employment of comparatively new tactics, such as this close-support carpet bombing, is attainable only through the process of trial and error, and these regrettable losses were part of the inevitable price of experience [emphasis added].
Though the preparatory bombing was tinged with faulty planning, sloppy execution, and bad luck, Operation COBRA itself was a masterful operation. We will probably never know precisely who was responsible for the short bombings. Certainly, the AAF was not entirely to blame. John J. Sullivan's incisive examination of the COBRA operation rightly concluded that there was no duplicity on the part of the AAF (much less "lies"), and that, in fact, the AAF had been most reluctant to undertake the operation at all. The ground commanders did not take adequate precautions to protect their troops, and thus, Sullivan concluded, Bradley and his fellow ground commanders bore "full responsibility" for the bombing casualties to exposed troops. Yet, in fairness, the airmen must share some responsibility--from Tedder and Leigh-Mallory, who did not supervise the operation as thoroughly as they should have, to the individual aircrews who botched their runs.
While there is plenty of blame to go around, one must temper criticism of the COBRA strikes with an appreciation for the losses on the ground during the bitter hedgerow fighting and the effect of the bombing on the German forces. The relatively minor casualties incurred by friendly bombing and the bombing's unqualified success in shattering German resistance (even Bradley was forced to admit that COBRA "had struck a more deadly blow than any of us dared imagine") illustrate how petty the uproar surrounding the bombings really was. Unfortunately, in the postwar folklore of air-land operations, too often the short bombing is the only aspect of COBRA that gets attention. Thus, it is refreshing to read Eisenhower's reasonable, mature, and admirable judgment quoted above. The European Theater commander never lost sight of the most important result: the COBRA bombing devastated German forces and paved the way for the breakthrough that would trigger the breakout and roll back the Wehrmacht to the German homeland itself.
COBRA: Key to Breakout
The main weight of the COBRA bombings fell opposite Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins's VII Corps, on Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein's already battered Panzer-Lehr Division. The initial confusion of the July 24 strikes had misled the German defenders into thinking that they had withstood and repulsed an American attack. They were not prepared for the whirlwind that descended on the 25th. The bombing, Collins recollected, "raised havoc on the enemy side." Though VII Corps, hurting from the accumulated short bombings of two days, did not make great progress in its ground attack on the 25th, Collins shrewdly realized that the German command and control structure had been badly disrupted by the air attack, and he planned a full-scale assault for the next morning. There began the genuine breakthrough. Combat Command A of the 2d Armored Division, ably supported by Quesada's IX TAC and building on the accomplishment of the 30th Infantry Division (which had taken the brunt of the short-bombings), cut through enemy defenses. Breakthrough now became breakout. The stage was set for the drive across Northern Europe.
Bayerlein left a remarkable account of the effects of the COBRA bombing and ground assault on his already war-weary command. In response to postwar interrogation he wrote:
We had the main losses by pattern bombing, less by artillery, still less by tanks and smaller arms.
The actual losses of dead and wounded were approximately:
by bombing 50%
by artillery 30%
by other weapons 20%
The digging in of the infantry was useless and did not protect against bombing. . . . Dugouts and foxholes were smashed, the men buried, and we were unable to save them. The same happened to guns and tanks . . . . it seems to me, that a number of men who survived the pattern bombing . . . surrendered soon to the attacking infantry or escaped to the rear. The first line has [sic] been annihilated by the bombing. . . . The three-hour bombardment on 25.7--after the smaller one a day before--had exterminating morale effect on the troops physically and morally weakened by continual hard fighting for 45 days. The long duration of the bombing, without any possibility for opposition, created depressions and a feeling of helplessness, weakness and inferiority. Therefore the morale attitude of a great number of men grew so bad that they, feeling the uselessness of fighting, surrendered, deserted to the enemy or escaped to the rear, as far as they survived the bombing. Only particularly strong nerved and brave men could endure this strain.
The shock effect was nearly as strong as the physical effect (dead and wounded). During the bombardment . . . some of the men got crazy and were unable to carry out anything. I have been personally on 24.7 and 25.7 in the center of the bombardment and could experience the tremendous effect. For me, who during this war was in every theater committed at the points of the main efforts, this was the worst I ever saw.
The well-dug-in infantry was smashed by the heavy bombs in their foxholes and dugouts or killed and buried by blast. The positions of infantry and artillery were blown up. The whole bombed area was transformed into fields covered with craters, in which no human being was alive. Tanks and guns were destroyed and overturned and could not be recovered, because all roads and passages were blocked. . . .
Very soon after the beginning of the bombardment every kind of telephone communication was eliminated. As nearly all C.P.'s [Command Posts] were situated in the bombed area, radio was almost impossible. The communication was limited to [motorcycle] messen-gers, but this was also rather difficult because many roads were interrupted and driving during the bombardment was very dangerous and required a lot of time.
By any standard, the COBRA bombing had an extraordinary effect on the German defenders, and as the official Army history of the Normandy campaign acknowledges, the COBRA bombing constituted the "best example in the European theater of 'carpet bombing.'" This, of course, does not mean that the subsequent campaign on land was a pushover, for throughout the war, the decimated Panzer-Lehr Division and many other battered Nazi units showed an amazing resiliency, reforming, recuperating, and continuing to fight. Nevertheless, the COBRA operation did put the German army in France on the skids. Ironically, it would be a Nazi command decision which would set the stage for total German destruction in Northern France.
TacAir Omnipotent:
Mortain and the Falaise-Argentan Pocket
Mortain and Falaise, like Wadi el Far'a, Guadalajara, and more recently Mitla Pass and the Kuwait City-Basra Road, have come to symbolize a particular form of warfare: the destruction of closely packed columns of troops and vehicles by constant and merciless fighter-bomber strikes in concert with action on the ground. Any chance of withdrawing with troops, equipment, and vehicles in good order was lost to the Wehrmacht due to the violence of the breakout from the beachhead at Normandy, and Hitler's order to von Kluge to stand firm in Normandy. As a result of Hitler's directive, the Wehrmacht launched a general offensive against Mortain, the weakest spot in the Allied line, on August 7. It failed amid stubborn resistance on the ground and intensive fighter-bomber attacks.
Next Allied forces began to batter the enemy ground forces caught in the Falaise-Argentan pocket--fighting characterized by combined infantry-armor-artillery-air attacks directed against units desperately attempting to escape eastward. Though some German forces did escape through the ever-narrowing gap, they did so without equipment and in a state of disarray and almost complete demoralization. By the end of August, Allied forces had liberated Paris, advanced to the Seine, won the Battle of France, and set the stage for the Battle of Germany. Ahead lay some particularly bitter fighting--notably Montgomery's botched airborne invasion of Holland and the ferocity of the German counterthrust in the Ardennes. But as of the end of August, only the most ardent Nazi would still have faith in an ultimate German victory.
The attack on Mortain was allegedly revealed by ULTRA--the Allies' breaking of the German codes--so that the American forces were able to set up their defense in advance of the German thrust. This might be called the "myth of Mortain." In fact, ULTRA did not offer a forewarning enabling the defenders to prepare for the attack. On August 2, Hitler had ordered von Kluge to prepare for an attack westward to the coastline, but this early indication of trouble ahead did not make its way from the Allied intelligence organizations to Bradley's 12th Army Group. On the evening of the 6th, orders went out for five Panzer divisions to attack through Mortain (which had already fallen to American troops) ninety minutes later--at 1830 hours. ULTRA did not send out this message until midnight, but the German attack had itself been delayed in the field until just after midnight. The Allied signals arrived immediately before the German attack, offering the Americans no time whatsoever to make extensive plans or redeployments for the assault.
Bradley, in his autobiography A General's Life is understandably testy about allegations that Mortain was predetermined by ULTRA intelligence. His argument that he waged the battle without benefit of forewarning is borne out by the account of former ULTRA intelligence analyst Ralph Bennett, who refreshed his own recollections by extensive research into the actual ULTRA messages themselves. Bennett has stated that German update information during the Mortain fighting furnished "cheerful reading" to the analysts, but added little, if anything, to the information Bradley and Montgomery already had in the field from their own combat intelligence operations.
During the battle of Mortain, Typhoons devastated German tank and mechanized columns attempting to reach the French coast. Above is the result of one such attack.
When the ULTRA message did come in, Bradley ordered "all-out" air support the following morning, by which time the American 30th Infantry Division was locked in desperate and stubborn combat with the German tanks. Even here ULTRA played only a minor role, since the midnight attack would have triggered a day of Allied air support anyway, from battlefield requests. During this fighting, the rocket-firing Typhoons of the RAF' s 2 TAF had the responsibility of defending the ground forces and attacking German columns, while the AAF's Ninth AF flew interdiction and air superiority sorties. For the Mortain operation, the Luftwaffe centralized its few fighter resources and attempted to intervene over the battlefield, but the deep cover American air superiority sweeps gobbled them up as they took off, and "not one" (as Lieutenant General Hans Speidel dismally recalled) appeared over the battlefield. The skies over Mortain belonged to the RAF. The weather was poor in the early morning, but as the day went on, the overcast lifted and patches of blue appeared. As the weather improved, Typhoons swarmed over the area, so many, in fact, that some got in each other's way, and several mid-air collisions apparently resulted. A morning recce flight located German tanks near St. Barthélemy, and thereafter, between the first engagements (just after noon) and late afternoon, Typhoons flew a total of 294 sorties over the battlefield.
Typhoon pilot John Golley left a graphic account of operations at Mortain, particularly the battle between 245 Squadron (which was especially active) and the 1 SS PanzerDivision on the road near St. Barthélemy. Their first attacks sprayed the tanks and transports with rocket and cannon fire, and a thin haze of smoke and dust spread slowly over the Norman countryside. The Typhoons broke off as they exhausted their ammunition and rockets, returning again and again to their strip to refuel and rearm. So intensive were the sortie rates that 245 Squadron, ever afterward, referred to August 7 as "The Day of the Typhoon." German commanders were shocked at the magnitude of the air attacks at Mortain, which would be repeated before the month was out at Falaise. On the ground, the 30th Infantry Division stood firm, repulsing the German forces that did close to engage them. Air had saved the day at Mortain, at least preventing a local German success that might have prolonged the campaign in France. As Eisenhower reported:
The chief credit in smashing the enemy's spearhead, however, must go to the rocket-firing Typhoon planes of the Second Tactical Air Force. They dived upon the armored columns, and, with their rocket projectiles, on the first day of the battle destroyed 83, probably destroyed 29 and damaged 24 tanks in addition to quantities of "soft-skinned" M.T. [Motorized Transport]. The result of this strafing was that the enemy attack was effectively brought to a halt, and a threat was turned into a great victory.
With the Nazi spearhead smashed, Mortain degenerated into a five-day slugfest. Foolishly, for a time the Germans continued to press toward Avranches, a move Bradley subsequently termed "suicidal," for Collins's VII Corps was in position to attack the German flanks. Elements of the 2 SS Panzer Division, operating south of the devastated 1 SS Panzer Division, besieged Hill 317, in whose shadow Mortain is nestled. The defenders, a lone battalion, stood firm. Supported by Allied air (including supply drops) and artillery, this battalion heroically held out until relieved by the 35th Division on August 12. Mortain came to an end. In the fighting after August 7, the 2 SS Panzer had joined the rapidly growing roster of German armored formations shattered by Allied combined air-artillery-armor assault. Major General Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, the chief of staff of the German 7 Armee, subsequently agreed that the continuation of the counterattack toward Avranches was a "mistake." Contributing to the German failure was the overemphasis of attacking north, between Mortain and Vire rather than farther south. In any case Mortain must be counted among the most important battles in the west and recognized for what it was--a true example of air-land action. It set the stage for the next and even greater disaster to befall German arms in France--the battle of the Falaise-Argentan pocket. After Mortain, the only course open to the Wehrmacht was headlong retreat toward the German frontier. In that retreat, Allied tactical air would offer no respite.
Closing the Gap at Falaise
In retrospect, air was more critical--and under greater pressure at Mortain than at the subsequent fighting in the Falaise-Argentan pocket. Mortain was an Allied defensive battle whereas Falaise was an encirclement and an attempt to prevent the Germans from escaping out of the trap eastward. As the perimeter closed down, the pocket became a gap, and the Allies struggled to close it. The Falaise campaign probably began on August 7, the same day as the German counterattack at Mortain, when Canadian troops launched a ground assault called TOTALIZE toward Falaise. For the next two weeks, Allied troops--British, American, and Polish--harassed the German forces caught inside the pocket until finally, on August 21, the gap was closed.
But by that time, what could have been a great encirclement echoing some of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front had become something less--a victory, but one qualified by the number of German forces that had been able to flee through the gap. The fact that enemy forces did escape outraged American commanders, from the even-tempered Eisenhower and Bradley to the mercurial Patton. They saw it as yet another example of bad generalship by Montgomery, who pressured the pocket's western end, squeezing the Germans out eastward like a tube of toothpaste, rather than capping the open gap. Patton, ever aggressive, pleaded with Bradley for clearance to cut across the narrow gap, in front of retreating German forces, from Argentan north to Falaise. But Bradley wisely demurred, recognizing that the outnumbered Americans might be "trampled" by the German divisions racing for the gap. "I much preferred," Bradley recollected subsequently, "a solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a broken neck at Falaise."
Eventually, the Canadians pressed south from Falaise, the Americans north from Argentan, and both sought to narrow and close the gap by reaching the road network across and beyond the Dives River, at Trun, St. Lambert, Moissy, and Chambois. The roads beyond led toward Vimoutiers, funneling German forces into predictable killing grounds. Polish forces fought an especially prolonged and bitter struggle at Chambois that echoed Mortain's lone battalion. On August 19, the Poles seized Chambois (soon dubbed "Shambles"), establishing defensive positions on Mont Ormel, to the northeast. Here was an ideal vantage point to call in artillery and air strikes on the German forces streaming across the Dives and past their positions.
Allied fighter-bombers mercilessly attacked Wehrmacht units attempting to retreat through the Falaise-Argentan "gap" to the German frontier; here is one such scene, repeated lieterally hundreds of times in mid-August 1944.
Extremely bitter fighting broke out between Polish and retreating German forces, but the Poles were able to retain control until the gap closed on August 21. The countryside around the Dives and Orne rivers was generally open, with sporadic patches of forested areas. The high ground across the Dives--specifically Mont Ormel--furnished an unparalleled vista of the entire gap area. In the third week of August 1944, this vista was marred by the near-constant bursting of bombs, rockets, and artillery, the ever-present drone of fighter-bombers and small artillery spotters (the latter especially feared and loathed by German forces), the corpses of thousands of German personnel and draft animals, and the burning and shattered remains of hundreds of vehicles and tanks. It was a scene of carnage without parallel on the Western Front.
In the days before the closing of the Falaise gap, the 2 TAF averaged 1,200 sorties per day. The air war was particularly violent from August 15 through the 21st. Typhoons and Spitfires attacked the roads leading from the gap to the Seine, strafing columns of densely packed vehicles and men. Under repeated attack, some of the columns actually displayed white flags of surrender, but the RAF took "no notice" of this since Allied ground forces were not in the vicinity, and "to cease fire would merely have allowed the enemy to move unmolested to the Seine." Typhoons typically would destroy the vehicles at the head of a road column, then leisurely shoot up the rest of the vehicles with their rockets and cannon. When they finished, Spitfires would dive down to strafe the remains.
Because the Luftwaffe was absent over the battlefield, Broadhurst directed 2 TAF wings to operate their aircraft in pairs. Thus, a "two ship" of Spitfires or Typhoons could return to the gap after being refueled and rearmed without waiting for a larger formation to be ready to return. This maximized the number of support sorties that could be flown, and, indeed, pilots of one Canadian Spitfire wing averaged six sorties per day. Nothing that moved was immune from what one Typhoon pilot recollected as "the biggest shoot-up ever experienced by a rocket Typhoon pilot." Another recalled the flavor of attack operations:
The show starts like a well-planned ballet: the Typhoons go into echelon while turning, then dive on their prey at full throttle. Rockets whistle, guns bark, engines roar and pilots sweat without noticing it as our missiles smash the Tigers. Petrol tanks explode amid torrents of black smoke. A Typhoon skids away to avoid machine fire. Some horses frightened by the noise gallop wildly in a nearby field.
Nor was Falaise strictly a 2 TAF operation; the AAF was also heavily committed. Over the duration of the Falaise fighting, air strikes gradually moved from west of Argentan to north, to east, and finally to east of the Dives River. One strike by P47s on August 13 gives a graphic indication of the sizes of German forces open to attack:
That morning 37 P-47 pilots of the 36th Group found 800 to 1,000 enemy vehicles of all types milling about in the pocket west of Argentan. They could see American and British forces racing to choke off the gap. They went to work. Within an hour the Thunderbolts had blown up or burned out between 400 and 500 enemy vehicles. The fighter-bombers kept at it until they ran out of bombs and ammunition. One pilot, with empty gun chambers and bomb shackles, dropped his belly tank on 12 trucks and left them all in flames.
All told, on 13 August, XIX TAC fighter-bombers destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 road and rail vehicles, 45 tanks and armored vehicles, and 12 locomotives. Inside the pocket they reduced 10 enemy delaying-action strong points to rubble.
Four days later another Thunderbolt squadron, below-strength, flew over a huge traffic jam, radioed for assistance, "and soon the sky was so full of British and American fighter-bombers that they had to form up in queues to make their bomb runs." The next day, 36th Group Thunderbolts spotted another large German formation, marked out by yellow artillery smoke. Since the vehicles were in a zone designated as a British responsibility, XIX TAC sat back "disconsolately" while 2 TAF launched a series of strikes that claimed almost 3,000 vehicles damaged or destroyed. On August 19, one Spitfire wing put in a claim for 500 vehicles destroyed or damaged in a single day; that same day, another Spitfire wing claimed 700.
The Corridor of Death
Typhoons, arguably the most devastating ground attack aircraft of WWII, flown by the pilots of RAF 198 Sqdn. destroy a German panzer division at Falaise, in Normandy, August 1944.
Nothing and no one was immune from attack. Colonel Heinz-Gunther Guderian, son of the victor of Sedan, was seriously wounded when his Volkswagen was strafed and set ablaze by an Allied fighter. Major General von Gersdorff was strafed and slightly wounded by a P-38 Lightning at Chambois, and he subsequently reported that "The very strong low flying attacks . . . caused high losses. . . . units of the Army were almost entirely destroyed by low flying attacks and artillery." One country road eastward from Moissy earned the grim sobriquet le Couloir de la Mort: the Corridor of Death. At night, intruder aircraft attacked river crossings and ferries over the Dives. At least 10,000 German soldiers died, and 50,000 fell prisoner. Nearly 350 tanks and self-propelled guns, nearly 2,500 other vehicles, and over 250 artillery pieces had been lost in the northern section alone of the Falaise pocket. Von Gersdorff stated that armored divisions that did withdraw from the gap had "extremely low" strength. For example, the 1 SS Panzer had only "weak infantry" and no tanks or artillery; the 2 Panzer had one battalion, no tanks, and no artillery; the 12 SS Panzer had 300 troops and no tanks; the 116 Panzer had two battalions, twelve tanks, and two artillery batteries; and the 21 Panzer had four battalions and ten tanks. As historian Max Hastings has shown, these figures were by no means unique; four other SS Panzer Divisions could muster no more than fifty tanks among them. (Wehrmacht armored divisions typically possessed an organizational strength of 160 tanks, and approximately 3,000 other vehicles.) The carnage of the battlefield was truly incredible and sickened many fighter-bomber pilots over the site. Eisenhower, touring the gap area two days after it closed, encountered "scenes that could only be described by Dante." Perhaps the twisted allegories of Hieronymous Bosch would have been more fitting a choice, for Dante, at least, offered hope.
With the conclusion of the battle of the Falaise gap came the denouement of the battle of Normandy. These Allied successes did not end the war, which would rage on for another nine months. But Normandy triggered the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. Though much has been written by critics about the remarkable ability of the Wehrmacht to rejuvenate and reform itself, and about the "toughening" and "thickening" of German resistance in the weeks and months ahead, not enough attention is paid to the flip side of this: Where was that strength coming from? German forces were being hastily transferred from the Russian Front (brightening the prospects of an eventual Soviet triumph in the East) and from within the critical bone marrow of the Third Reich itself. Hitler and his minions were spending capital they did not have. The toughening of the resistance at the Western Front was the thickening of a crust--a crust that the Allies would slice through in the fall and winter of 1944-45, exposing the vulnerable Nazi heartland underneath.
Additional Sources: www.brooksart.com
I am a fan of the P-47 Thunderbolt ever since reading "Gabby" Gabreski's war memoir. Gabreski is the fellow who flew back to England with two engine cylinders shot clean off.
One of Gabby's buddys hit a telephone pole with his wing during a strafing run on an enemy airfield. The telephone pole sheared off. One heck of a thump.
Gabreski radiod the Jug pilot to stay in the plane, and to try for England. He got there fine. So did a great big piece of wood stuck in the wing.
Likely a small telephone pole. Still.
Piece about the Poles at the Gap. The writer was an RAF forward observer, a Canadian, attached to the Polish !st Division. This is a first hand account of events at Hill 262.
Major Stefanowicz advanced on Hill 262 and was getting ready to occupy the whole of the crest when he found himself in the presence of the entire German army in full flight, using the Chambois-Vimoutiers road to escape from the encirclement. This road was, in point of fact, their last exit since, with the Americans holding Chambois, it was no longer possible to flee towards Gacé.
The Poles moved their tanks into position…, and commenced the massacre. The German columns came to a standstill under the persistent Polish fire. In panic men abandoned their equipment, setting fire to whatever would burn, cars, tanks and other vehicles. Then they took to their legs to save themselves. The bodies of men and horses strewed the road. When night came, the smoke of burning war material was so dense and impenetrable that visibility was reduced to nil and our Polish allies could advance no further.
On the 19th of August Lieutenant-Colonel Koszutski’s group, reinforced by the 9th Battalion of the Light Infantry, arrived on Hill 262. On the night of August 19th/20th, therefore, two armoured regiments and three battalions of light infantry held this strategic position. It was to be a terrible night.
The Germans were completely surrounded and hemmed in on the plain. They had no option but to attack at this point, apparently the most vulnerable in the containing ring. The tanks were in action for more than seventy hours; the fire was ceaseless, the terrain was crawling with men slipping stealthily along the hedgerows. At dawn, German armoured cars from St-Lambert burst through: S.S. troopers, trapped in 'the pocket' which was becoming a hellish cauldron, assaulted Hill 262 in waves. Their ferocious attacks pinned down the Polish units which were unable to close the whole width of the breach.
It was then that 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps, which had reached Vimoutiers the previous day after fighting its way out of the cauldron, received the order to move off and attack the Poles from the rear. Some Panthers, in a surprise attack, broke through the Polish perimeter and in a few minutes five tanks of the 1st Polish Armoured Regiment were set ablaze while their exhausted crews were still asleep. Supporting the Panthers were battalions of panzer grenadiers. The surprise was complete. There was an indescribable mêlée with vicious hand-to-hand fighting.
The element of surprise, the fatigue of the defenders, the Panther’s superiority over the Sherman and the lack of supplies created a situation such that the outcome of the battle depended on the valour of the men, their will to resist, and their determination to overcome the enemy, or be killed where they fought. Not one man fled! Not one surrendered!
Hard pressed our Poles requested air support: impossible! They were told that in the mêlée the aircrew could not tell friend from foe, the air forces were to concentrate on the approach roads.
What follows is
the account of Colonel Pierre Sévigny, a Canadian, then an artillery observation officer with the rank of Captain, attached to the 1st Polish Armoured Division. At the time of the attack on Saturday, August 19th, he had just joined his brave comrades in a regiment of armoured cavalry.
“At dawn the Polish major asked me to accompany a regiment of armoured cavalry which was about to support the attack on Hill 262 (Boisjos), the capture of which constituted our essential objective. A column of tanks set off for the attack. My vehicle was a Sherman tank armed with a cannon and two machine-guns. I had, in addition, two radio sets: one was for sending fire orders to my batteries which were to the rear; the other was to enable me to communicate with the front-line troops… We soon had the hill in sight: we found ourselves in the middle of hell. A company of German infantry, determined to hold it at no matter what cost, defended the position. Our troops had to annihilate them utterly; not one man would surrender. After several hours of desperate fighting the ground was finally ours: then I was able to observe the scene. The hill, 262 metres in height, was topped by a small wood near which was the old manor house (of Boisjos), half destroyed. The Germans had already dug a considerable network of trenches on its sides…. Enormous stocks of munitions were stored in every possible shelter…. This hill appeared to be essential to the enemy if he were to keep free the only two roads remaining to him.
I could see clearly the two roads in question: the fire of the brigade’s guns would quickly have destroyed any enemy column attempting to pass through. The situation, thus, was favourable enough as far as it went. But…. the Canadians and Americans were showing no signs of life and the morning’s attack had cost us half of our effective strength! In addition, we had had no food for twenty-four hours; we were short of water; and an 88 had killed the doctor and destroyed all the medical supplies!
About three in the afternoon a patrol reported that two German columns were coming up towards us. That was the worst possible news! It meant the severing of our communications with the rear and the complete isolation of our group! Finally the enemy line of approach converged: I gave the order to aim at the crossroads. The batteries were ready, we waited! Fifteen minutes went by…. Utterly and completely motionless…. camouflaged, the troops lay in wait. The two columns reached the crossroads at exactly the same time. As we had foreseen there was confusion, everyone trying to move on to the road together: huge trucks filled with troops, guns drawn by six-horse teams, staff cars, reconnaissance half-tracks and even two enormous assault guns, armed with 88s. The disorder was total! Then, in a voice which I was trying to keep calm, I gave the order: “Fire!” Sixteen guns opened up simultaneously: twenty salvos were fired. Their 100 lb. shells fell on the heaving mass. What a massacre! The gun-layers did their work beautifully! I saw numerous vehicles burst into flames, terrified horses trapped in their harnesses. Men trying to flee….
Their efforts were in vain, a shell soon found them and I saw bodies flying through the air. Another shell lifted the turret from a tank; a tank nearby caught fire. Our machine-guns carried on the slaughter…. Ten minutes later everything on the road was in flames. Ammunition exploded inside the vehicles, killing the occupants.…
On our side we were unscathed! We had, however, to prepare for the counter-attack. Encouraged by this first success we quickly made Hill 262 into a fortified castle. Towards 17.00 we received a discouraging message: the Canadians were at a dead stop five miles away. In spite of all their efforts they could make no further progress without reinforcements. Our only hope hung on the Americans who were coming up from the south; they had to join us during the night. At 21.00 came another message: the Americans, too, had been stopped. Here we were then, by ourselves and completely surrounded!
The Polish major called his officers together and spoke to them all in French, for my benefit:
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the hour is grave. The brigade is completely isolated. The enemy is still fighting: his only escape routes are those you see to the right and to the left. There is nobody except us who can stop them: that is what we shall try to do! Surrender is out of the question! As Poles! This is what I propose to do: the infantry will hold the lower ground and will withdraw to the higher ground only in the last resort, the tanks will remain here in the little wood with engines stopped to save petrol. My Command Post will be in this old house where we are now (Boisjos Manor House).”
Addressing me, he asked:
“Can you lay down fire from your guns right round the hill?”
I replied in the affirmative. Everybody shook hands and we went to our posts. I zeroed in my guns on four points where I expected enemy attacks. That way they would later be able to fire with accuracy whenever they were wanted.
The night began. The men were calm. They did not know how grave the situation was. About midnight there was firing near the crossroads we had already shelled. Once again I gave the order: “Five rounds per gun!” We heard explosions and the cries of the wounded. However, firing broke on the left, then on the right. The enemy was attacking everywhere at the same time. At the foot of Coudehard hill there was bloody, hand-to-hand fighting all night. We lost many men and all we had for the wounded was a little iodine.
Sunday, August the 20th
Daylight came: it was absolutely essential for us to reorganise and contract our defence perimeter. All attacks had been repulsed but our losses during the night had been considerable. And it was still going on! Fortunately our dominating position ensured that we could not be surprised…! We fired without ceasing, the machine-guns and rifles grew red hot!
In the end the enemy pulled back but he still threatened the right. Attention! He was about to pass the first two points I had pre-ranged. I quickly gave the order to my signaller. The shells fell, the Boches were thrown back in disorder!
A lull. We were not short of things to trouble us: the major had been hit in the chest by a shell splinter. We had exhausted our rations, there was scarcely half a bottle of water left per man; ammunition was scarce! Suddenly, over on our left, we heard the sounds of numerous tanks moving! The Canadians! At last! We looked for the green flares. Nothing! We came down to earth: they were German tanks advancing on us.
The major then decided on a bold manoeuvre. The best defence was still attack: and we set off to meet the enemy with twelve tanks! We soon saw the silhouettes of sixteen, enormous, German tanks, Tigers! The battle began and within three minutes of the start we had lost six tanks to one of theirs!
Only the artillery could save us! Crouching in a hole I used a portable radio to send orders to my signaller to relay to the guns. And I waited: had I studied my map thoroughly enough? Had I marked the targets well enough? Would the guns fire in time? The steel monsters were still coming, firing with all their weapons. I saw the sparkling of their machine-guns: their 88s whistled over my head. What were our gunners doing? The leading tank was only 500 metres away…, 400 now, 300, 250, 200! It was all over! I no longer dared look! Yet, I looked again: 150 metres, 100 metres. I dived into the bottom of the hole, pressing my face to the earth, not daring to move. Death would come to me in seconds, of that I was sure…. Instinctively, I murmured a prayer…. Then, suddenly, a hurricane, rolls of thunder, the ground trembling! Death? Life? Could it be possible? Was this help? Our guns were firing! What I was hearing were our shells! And there, in the hole, I laughed and cried! Stupidly I raised my head, but only for an instant! We were saved! With unparalleled accuracy and at a prodigious rate of fire, unknown till then, a cloud of shells burst over the enemy.
The Boche hesitated. Five tanks were burning like haystacks. My gunners had orders to fire all their ammunition! The attack was broken: the Germans retired, pursued by the Poles who destroyed another three tanks! How I congratulated my men on the fine work they had done!
…….. Nevertheless the attack was soon renewed. Our losses mounted constantly…. but now I could not believe my eyes: the Boches were advancing towards us singing, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”! We let them come to within 50 yards, then we mowed down their ranks…. More waves followed.... When the fifth came we were out of ammunition. The Poles charged them with the bayonet! During that day we suffered eight attacks like this! The enemy was exploiting our weakness, but what fanaticism he showed! One of the wounded near me looked like a child: I read the date of birth in his paybook: April, 1931! He was thirteen years old. How horrible!
We took prisoners. Some of those from the Wehrmacht were of Polish birth. They were asked if they would join us: anyone who accepted was given the rifle and paybook of one of the dead! They were unexpected, precious reinforcements. The S.S. and those whose paybooks showed that they had taken part in the invasion of Poland in ’39 received no mercy!
About 6 o' clock the attacks ceased. The battlefield was a scene from a nightmare! On the flanks of the hill thousands of corpses made a veritable rampart. We had been forced back to the top of Hill 262. Around the wood, which was about 600 metres long and 300 metres across, now filled with the wounded, we had dug trenches which were to be held at all cost! Aircraft tried to drop supplies to us but all the containers fell behind enemy lines.
At nightfall that Sunday evening the major called his officers together: out of sixty only four were fit to fight, three lieutenants and myself, all the others, including the major himself, were more or less seriously wounded. Lying in terrible pain on some straw, the Polish major found the strength to pull himself upright and give his instructions. I will never forget his words:
“Gentleman, all is lost. I do not think the Canadians can relieve us. We have no more than 110 fit men. There is no food and not much ammunition: five shells per gun and fifty rounds per man! That is very little…. even so, fight on! It would be useless to surrender to the S.S., you know that! I give you my thanks: you have fought well. Good luck, gentleman, this night we will be dying for Poland and civilisation!”
As he gave me his orders he added,
“Carry on with the same tactics. Afterwards it will be every tank for itself and then every man for himself!”
By now very weak he stopped speaking…. When I got back to my tank the silence was like that of death. Suddenly, in the distance, I heard the rumble of tanks. This time there could be no mistake: these were Shermans, but they were still far off!
Now that communication with the Polish major had become pointless I tried to find some music on one of the radios. I tuned in to a German announcing, in perfect English, the encirclement of an entire Polish division in the Falaise area! He was exaggerating, but he was not exactly lying! I tuned to another station: Strauss waltzes, played by an orchestra in London: I could hear the voices and laughter of the dancers. Over there, a different world was taking its pleasure!
In Canada the theatres in every town would be overflowing with people. I thought of the days when I knew nothing of war…. I thought of my parents…. so anxious at hearing that I was on the continent…. feelings shared by thousands of families throughout the world who prayed for only one thing: that God would protect their sons in the fire of battle.... Now it was finished: in the last forty-eight hours thousands of men had been wiped out before my eyes…. It would soon be my turn!
I was thinking for a long time, and the night went by.
Nearly 4 in the morning, Monday, August the 21st
A shaft of moonlight lit the clearing in front of me: shadows! Immediately came a burst of machine-gun fire. A quarter of an hour later, a new attack! We were losing a lot of men, among them two of the Polish lieutenants: there was only one left!
Half an hour later it was dawn. I went to sleep literally standing up. Suddenly my signaller woke me and I started: “Captain, I can hear our tanks!”
There was no possible mistake! They must have been very close, perhaps 600 metres to the west, and I could clearly distinguish the two, green flares. Between them and us, however, on the side of the hill lay a small, thick wood and the Germans were still in it. What were we to do? If our friends bumped into resistance the likelihood was that they would pull back and look for another way. No hesitation! We had to attack and link up with our relief no matter what it cost.
Immediately I gathered the men. They all agreed: we had to take the enemy by surprise. Luckily his attention was diverted by the noise of the tanks! At the blast of a whistle we went forward! We advanced quickly despite branches, craters and the S.S. Nothing could stop the wrath of the Poles. The Polish lieutenant was in front of me: I saw him fall, hit in the forehead by a bullet. At the same time, from behind a tree, a soldier aimed his carbine at me: I threw myself to one side as he fired: he missed and was instantly bayoneted. A bullet grazed my left shoulder: it was nothing, and we reached the bottom of the hill to see six Shermans firing on us! They finally recognised us and, with our strength increased, we were soon climbing back up that famous Hill 262.
When we reached the Command Post the Polish major greeted us, he was shaking with emotion and I became part of a scene of delirious joy. We laughed, we wept, we embraced each other. The soldiers told long stories in Polish to the Canadians who understood not a word but nevertheless burst into peals of laughter!
Our victory was total, but at a terrible price: only seventy Poles survived the slaughter unhurt: I was the only officer still able to stand!
The Poles now call that hill “Maczuga”, which means “The Mace”. And that is it exactly: the battle of “Maczuga” hill was the final, crushing blow which broke German power."
Pierre SEVIGNY, Montréal
It took DAS REICH well over a week to reach the Normandy battlefield from its start point in Central France.And it was seriously depleted when it arrived. While an excellent article, it tends to overlook the fact that air power played a less significant role at the front. The Allies were over two months behind schedule when they finally broke out with COBRA. While the bocage helps explain the holdup on the American Front, the British were operating more open terrain. And there the key seems to have been German armor, especially the SS and heavy Tiger battalion (See, for example, Operation Goodwood)
On a personal note, my Pop, God rest his soul, landed on Utah Beach on D-Day. He swore to me that he was attacked and bombed, in his landing craft, by two German aircraft. If it wasn't Priller and his wing man, it was a mistaken Allied attack. Pop was in the hills above St. Lo when COBRA was unleashed. He described the bombing to me in great detail. It was one of the most awesome things he saw during the entire war.
In one version of the mythical tale of King Arthur, the young king is hiding in a tree, nervously awaiting his betrothed. After falling, he felt he had to explain himself to the princess. So he recounted how he mysteriously was able to pull a sword out of a stone, entitling him to be king.