Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (8 page)

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the afternoon if you see no objection. The party would
consist of self, General Hollis, and Tommy only.

Accordingly, on the 7th I went again to Montgomery’s headquarters by air, and after he had given me a vivid account with his maps an American colonel arrived to take me to General Bradley. The route had been carefully planned to show me the frightful devastation of the towns and villages through which the United States troops had fought their way. All the buildings were pulverised by air bombing. We reached Bradley’s headquarters about four o’clock. The General welcomed me cordially, but I could feel there was great tension, as the battle was at its height and every few minutes messages arrived. I therefore cut my visit short and motored back to my aeroplane, which awaited me. I was about to go on board when, to my surprise, Eisenhower arrived. He had flown from London to his advanced headquarters, and, hearing of my movements, intercepted me. He had not yet taken over the actual command of the army in the field from Montgomery; but he supervised everything with a vigilant eye, and no one knew better than he how to stand close to a tremendous event without impairing the authority he had delegated to others.

The Third United States Army, under General Patton, had now been formed and was in action. He detached two armoured and three infantry divisions for the westward and southerly drive to clear the Brittany peninsula. The cut-off enemy at once retreated towards their fortified ports. The French Resistance Movement, which here numbered 30,000 men, played a notable part, and the peninsula was quickly overrun. By the end of the first week in August the

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Germans, amounting to 45,000 garrison troops and remnants of four divisions, had been pressed into their defensive perimeters at St. Malo, Brest, Lorient, and St.

Nazaire. Here they could be penned and left to wither, thus saving the unnecessary losses which immediate assaults would have required. The damage done to Cherbourg had been enormous, and it was certain that when the Brittany ports were captured they would take a long time to repair.

The fertility of the “Mulberry” at Arromanches, the sheltered anchorages, and the unforeseen development of smaller harbours on the Normandy coast had lessened the urgency of capturing the Brittany ports, which had been so prominent in our early plans. Moreover, with things going so well we could count on gaining soon the far better French ports from Havre to the north. Brest, however, which held a large garrison, under an active commander, was dangerous, and had to be eliminated. It surrendered on September 19 to violent attacks by three U.S. divisions.

While Brittany was thus being cleared or cooped the rest of Patton’s Third Army drove eastward in the “long hook”

which was to carry them to the gap between the Loire and Paris and down the Seine towards Rouen. The town of Laval was entered on August 6, and Le Mans on August 9.

Few Germans were found in all this wide region, and the main difficulty was supplying the advancing Americans over long and ever-lengthening distances. Except for a limited air-lift, everything had still to come from the beaches of the original landing and pass down the western side of Normandy through Avranches to reach the front. Avranches therefore became the bottle-neck, and offered a tempting opportunity for a German attack striking westward from the neighbourhood of Falaise. The idea caught Hitler’s fancy, Triumph and Tragedy

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and he gave orders for the maximum possible force to attack Mortain, burst its way through to Avranches, and thus cut Patton’s communications. The German commanders were unanimous in condemning the project.

Realising that the battle for Normandy was already lost, they wished to use four divisions which had just arrived from the Fifteenth Army in the north to carry out an orderly retreat to the Seine. They thought that to throw any fresh troops westward was merely to “stick out their necks,” with the certain prospect of having them severed. Hitler insisted on having his way, and on August 7 five Panzer and two infantry divisions delivered a vehement attack on Mortain from the east.

The blow fell on a single U.S. division, but it held firm and three others came to its aid. After five days of severe fighting and concentrated bombing from the air the audacious onslaught was thrown back in confusion, and, as the enemy generals had predicted, the whole salient from Falaise to Mortain, full of German troops, was at the mercy of converging attacks from three sides. To the south of it one corps of the Third United States Army had been diverted northward through Alençon to Argentan, which they reached on August 13. The First United States Army, under General Hodges, thrust southward from Vire, and the Second British Army towards Condé.
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The Canadian Army, supported again by heavy bombers, continued to press down the road from Caen to Falaise, and this time with greater success, for they reached their goal on August 17.

The Allied air forces swept on to the crowded Germans within the long and narrow pocket, and with the artillery inflicted fearful slaughter. The Germans held stubbornly on to the jaws of the gap at Falaise and Argentan, and, giving priority to their armour, tried to extricate all that they could.

But on August 17 command and control broke down and

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the scene became a shambles. The jaws closed on August 20, and although by then a considerable part of the enemy had been able to scramble eastward, no fewer than eight German divisions were annihilated. What had been the Falaise pocket was their grave. Von Kluge reported to Hitler: “The enemy air superiority is terrific and smothers almost all our movements. Every movement of the enemy however is prepared and protected by his air forces. Losses in men and material are extraordinary. The morale of the troops has suffered very heavily under constant, murderous enemy fire.”

The Third United States Army, besides clearing the Brittany peninsula and contributing with their “short hook” to the culminating victory at Falaise, thrust three corps eastward and northeastward from Le Mans. On August 17 they reached Orleans, Chartres, and Dreux. Thence they drove northwestward down the left bank of the river to meet the British advancing on Rouen. Our Second Army had experienced some delay. They had to reorganise after the Falaise battle and the enemy found means to improvise rearguard positions. However, the pursuit was pressed hotly, and all the Germans south of the Seine were soon seeking desperately to retreat across it, under destructive air attacks. None of the bridges destroyed by previous air bombardments had been repaired, but again there was a fairly adequate ferry system. Very few vehicles could be saved. South of Rouen immense quantities of transport were abandoned. Such troops as escaped over the ferries were in no condition to resist on the farther bank of the river.

Eisenhower was determined to avoid a battle for Paris.

Stalingrad and Warsaw had proved the horrors of frontal Triumph and Tragedy

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assaults and patriotic risings, and he therefore resolved to encircle the capital and force the garrison to surrender or flee. By August 20 the time for action had come. Patton had crossed the Seine near Mantes, and his right flank had reached Fontainebleau. The French Underground had revolted. The police were on strike. The Prefecture was in Patriot hands. An officer of the Resistance reached Patton’s headquarters with vital reports, and on the morning of Wednesday, August 23, these were delivered to Eisenhower at Le Mans.

Attached to Patton was the French 2d Armoured Division, under General Leclerc, which had landed in Normandy on August 1, and played an honourable part in the advance.
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De Gaulle arrived the same day, and was assured by the Allied Supreme Commander that when the time came —

and as had been long agreed — Leclerc’s troops would be the first in Paris. That evening the news of street fighting in the capital decided Eisenhower to act, and Leclerc was told to march. At 7.15 P.M. General Bradley delivered these instructions to the French commander, whose division was then quartered in the region of Argentan. The operation orders, dated August 23, began with the words, “Mission (1) s’emparer de Paris …”

Leclerc wrote to de Gaulle: “I have had the impression … of living over again the situation of 1940 in reverse —

complete disorder on the enemy side, their columns completely surprised.” He decided to act boldly and evade rather than reduce the German concentrations. On August 24 the first detachments moved on the city from Rambouillet, where they had arrived from Normandy the day before. The main thrust, led by Colonel Billotte, son of the commander of the First French Army Group, who was killed in May 1940, moved up from Orleans. That night a Triumph and Tragedy

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vanguard of tanks reached the Porte d’Italie, and at 9.22

precisely entered the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville.

The main body of the division got ready to enter the capital on the following day. Early next morning Billotte’s armoured columns held both banks of the Seine opposite the Cite. By the afternoon the headquarters of the German commander, General von Choltitz, in the Hôtel Meurice, had been surrounded, and Choltitz surrendered to a French lieutenant, who brought him to Billotte. Leclerc had meanwhile arrived and established himself at the Gare Montparnasse, moving down in the afternoon to the Prefecture of Police. About four o’clock von Choltitz was taken before him. This was the end of the road from Dunkirk to Lake Chad and home again. In a low voice Leclerc spoke his thoughts aloud: “Maintenant, ça y est,”

and then in German he introduced himself to the vanquished. After a brief and brusque discussion the capitulation of the garrison was signed, and one by one their remaining strong-points were occupied by the Resistance and the regular troops.

The city was given over to a rapturous demonstration.

German prisoners were spat at, collaborators dragged through the streets, and the liberating troops fêted. On this scene of long-delayed triumph there arrived General de Gaulle. At 5 P.M. he reached the Rue St. Dominique, and set up his headquarters in the Ministry of War. Two hours later, at the Hôtel de Ville, he appeared for the first time as the leader of Free France before the jubilant population in company with the main figures of the Resistance and Generals Leclerc and Juin. There was a spontaneous burst of wild enthusiasm. Next afternoon, on August 26, de Gaulle made his formal entry on foot down the Champs Elysées to the Place de la Concorde, and then in a file of cars to Notre Dame. There was one fusillade from the