Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (29 page)

The bluff behind Omaha Beach which had to be cleared of enemy defenders and then scaled

Norman hedgerows

Norman hedgerows

A bomb crater behind a Normandy beach 70 years after it was first dropped

Inside a German bunker, probably cleared by an enemy flamethrower as evidenced by the charred ceiling timbers

A stained glass church window with gratitude to the American paratroopers who landed on DDay

A monument on the church in Ste Mere Eglise honoring the paratrooper who was caught on the church steeple

The grave of Oberstürmführer Michael Wittmann

Buildings in Normandy still bear their scars from June and July, 1944

The Brittany Peninsula on the west coast of France had to be cleared of all remaining Germans and this assignment was given to General George Patton whose newly operational Third Army was deployed on August 1, 1944. When this task was virtually completed, both Patton and Bradley saw the opportunity of driving through the open country of lower Normandy and the Loire River Valley eastwards towards the Seine and Paris. However, a large pocket of German troops who were ordered to launch a counter-offensive against the Americans presented an opportunity for an encircling action which was pursued prior to advancing towards the Seine. This encirclement became known as the Battle of Falaise Gap where 50,000 German troops were lost.

In spite of the horrific loss, Hitler calculated that if he could hold the Russians until either Germany’s “Secret Weapons” were ready or the Allieds’ united front broke due to conflicting goals and internecine quarrels, he would have a good chance of winning the war in the west. Hitler had conscripted slave labor to provide the manpower necessary to fabricate much of the armaments he needed including the V-1 and V-2 Rockets which German scientists had recently developed. These unmanned missiles were designed to be launched over Britain and were intended to cause such terror in British civilians that Hitler foresaw they would force their government to sue for peace. The Allieds were aware not only of the plans for the rockets, but they knew where they were being built and successfully ran air raids over the factories at Peenemuende. Production was moved and these weapons continued to be made. By the time the V-1 rockets were ready to be used, however, Allied air support was far superior to the German Luftwaffe and many of the rockets were shot down before they could detonate their payloads although many V-1’s as well as the superior V-2 rockets did make it across to England where they succeeded in causing their intended terror, death and destruction. But they did not cause the British to capitulate.

Fighting in Normandy lasted until August 25, 1944 when Paris was liberated. By the end of August, five Allied Armies had fought in Normandy. These forces consisted of twenty-three American divisions, thirteen British divisions plus four Canadian divisions and a division each of Polish and Free French troops. They fought forty-three German divisions who defended each inch of ground ferociously. The cost was great to both sides. Approximately two million Allied troops had been engaged in the battle across Northern France. They suffered over 210,000 killed, wounded or captured. The Germans had approximately one million troops in Normandy and lost about 440,000 killed, wounded or captured.

Once out of Normandy, the fighting continued but moved further east to Belgium and Luxembourg and onwards toward the German borders. The defeat of Germany now depended on the crossing of several more French rivers, breaching the German defenses at the Siegfried Line (what the Germans called their “Western Wall”) and crossing the Rhine River to conquer whatever soldiers remained loyal to Hitler.

As August begins, the American First and Third Armies have been turned loose and Patton is finally in the war. Patton is in France and is now leading the Third Army through the Brittany Peninsula instead of parading around England to further promote the Calais landing deception. We played that bluff for as long as we could, but once we started receiving reports of German tank and infantry movements, we figured the Kraut brass finally woke up and smelled the coffee.