World War II: The Autobiography (61 page)

Towards ten o’clock the officers began running down the column shouting for the drivers to start. We began to edge forward slowly and presently came out on the dark promenade along the sea. There were many ships, both those moving in the sound and those which had brought their bows up on to the hard and had opened their gates to receive the vehicles. We were marked down for the Landing Ship Tank 816. A clamour of light and noise was coming out of its open bows. One after another the vehicles crept down the ramp and on to the great lift that took them to the upper deck. The sailors kept shouting to one another as they lashed down the trucks on the upper deck. All night the thump of army boots against the metal deck went on.

IKE’S DAY BEFORE D-DAY, SHAEF ADVANCE (NEAR PORTSMOUTH), 5 JUNE 1944

Captain Harry C. Butcher

Butcher was the naval aide to Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.

D-Day is now almost irrevocably set for to-morrow morning, about 6.40, the time varying with tides at different beaches, the idea being to strike before high tide submerges obstacles which have to be cleared away.

“Irrevocable” becomes practically absolute around dusk, Ike said this afternoon while talking to the press and radio men, who heard him explain for more than an hour the “greatest operation we have ever attempted” .

This morning Ike went to South Parade Pier in Portsmouth to see the loading of some British soldiers aboard LGILs 600, 601, and 602. He always gets a lift from talking with soldiers. He got one this morning, which partially offset the impatience with which he viewed the cloudy weather which had been predicted clear. While talking to the press he noticed through the tent door a quick flash of sunshine and said: “By George, there
is
some sun.”

This evening Ike and a party, including press, are driving to the Newbury area to see the paratroopers of the American 101st Division load for the great flight – one which Leigh-Mallory said would cost so heavily in lives and planes.

About midnight he will have returned and will stop at the Naval Headquarters for a last-minute check on news, and then return to the camp and bed. He expects to return to the Naval Headquarters around 6.30 to get actual news.

The actual decision was confirmed and made final this morning at 4.15 after all the weather dope had been assembled. During yesterday the weather looked as if we might have to postpone for at least two days, until Thursday, with possibility of two weeks. Pockets of “lows” existed all the way from western Canada across the United States and the Atlantic, and were coming our way. What was needed was a benevolent “high” to counteract or divert at least one of the parading lows. During the night, that actually occurred. During the day, Force U, the U.S. task force which started from Falmouth at the western end of the Channel at 6 a.m. Sunday, had become scattered, owing to the gale-like wind sweeping southern England and the Channel. But Admiral Kirk had heard some encouraging news that the scattering was not as bad as feared. It was enough better by the early-morning session to warrant the gamble, which only Ike could take, and he did, but with the chance of decent weather in his favour for possibly only two days. After that we hope to be ashore, and while weather will still be vitally important, we will have gotten over the historic hump.

Air Chief Marshal Tedder told me that at the Sunday-night meeting when the decision was made to launch
OVERLORD
, subject to final review at the 4 a.m. meeting, Monday morning, the weatherman who had spoken for all the weather services, after having given a rather doleful report, was asked, “What will the weather be on D-Day in the Channel and over the French coast?” He hesitated, Tedder said, for two dramatic minutes and finally said, conscientiously and soberly, “To answer that question would make me a guesser, not a meteorologist.”

Despite the refusal of the weather man to be a “guesser” , Ike had to take the responsibility of making the decision without satisfactory assurance from the meteorologist – responsibility which Tedder said Ike took without hesitation.

What does the Supreme Commander do just now? Before lunch he played this aide “Hounds and Fox” , he being the hounds, and he won consistently, there being a trick in being a hound. We played a game of crackerbox checkers, and just as I had him cornered with my two kings and his one remaining king, damned if he didn’t jump one of my kings and get a draw.

At lunch we talked of old political yarns, he having known my old friend Pat Harrison when he was coming up as a young Congressman. I told the story of the Harrison-Bilbo campaign in which the latter supported Governor Conner for Senator against Pat. One of Pat’s supporters told a rally the trouble with Pat was that he was too damned honourable and should use Bilbo’s tactics. These he illustrated by the famous yarn of Mamma and Papa Skunk and their nine children, which ends with Papa alluding to a new and terrible odour wafting into their nostrils, and adding, “I don’t know what it is, Mamma Skunk and children dear, but whatever it is, we must get some of it.”

So we talked, during the lunch, on Senators and skunks and civet cats.

After lunch I shepherded the press and radio men to our little camp, introducing them all round, especially to Mickey, Hunt, Williams, and the rest. Ike took over in his tent, and as usual held them on the edge of their chairs. The nonchalance with which he announced that we were attacking in the morning and the feigned nonchalance with which the reporters absorbed it was a study in suppressed emotion which would interest any psychologist.

The names, as I recall them, are: Robert Barr, for BBC; Stanley Burch, for Reuter’s; Ned Roberts, of UP, and Red Mueller, of NBC, who had been with us before. In the order named, they are covering colour and personalities of the high command for British radio, British press agencies, American associations, and American networks. In a word, world-wide coverage for the public. Also two lads from the Army Pictorial Service.

Ike has just had a phone call from Beetle at SHAEF Main that de Gaulle, whose visit here yesterday is a story in itself, now says he will not broadcast to-morrow, D-Day, as agreed yesterday. Objects to one paragraph of Ike’s broadcast already recorded. De Gaulle’s objection has to do with his recognition as the exclusive French authority with which we are to deal in France. Ike said that if he doesn’t come through, we’ll deal with someone else, another of those last-minute things that worry the devil out of the SG. General “Red” Bull said yesterday that no one in the world could carry the political and military problems as well as Ike. Got to run to dinner.

D-DAY: A PARATROOPER LISTS HIS KIT, WELFORD AERODROME, 5 JUNE 1944

Donald Burgett, US 101st Airborne Division

The seaborne invasion of Normandy was preceded by an airborne assault by the US 101st, US 82nd and the British 6th Airborne divisions. This airborne assault was intended to protect the flanks of the fwe Normandy beaches where the infantry would land. In the darkness of the evening of 5 June these airborne divisions emplaned on airfields all over the south of England. The paratroopers had to carry fantastic quantities of kit into battle.

My personal equipment consisted of: one suit of ODs, worn under my jump suit – this was an order for everyone – helmet, boots, gloves, main chute, reserve chute, Mae West, rifle, .45 automatic pistol, trench knife, jump knife, hunting knife, machete, one cartridge belt, two bandoliers, two cans of machine-gun ammo totalling 676 rounds of .30 ammo, 66 rounds of .45 ammo, one Hawkins mine capable of blowing the track off a tank, four blocks of TNT, one entrenching tool with two blasting caps taped on the outside of the steel part, three first-aid kits, two morphine needles, one gas mask, a canteen of water, three days’ supply of K rations, two days’ supply of D rations (hard tropical chocolate bars), six fragmentation grenades, one Gammon grenade, one orange smoke and one red smoke grenade, one orange panel, one blanket, one raincoat, one change of socks and underwear, two cartons of cigarettes and a few other odds and ends.

Unsurprisingly, Burgett could hardly walk and had to be helped into the plane by Air Corps personnel. On the flight over, Burgett and his comrades knelt on the floor and rested the weight of the gear and parachutes on the seat behind. The British paratroopers were only slightly less encumbered.

D-DAY: THE AIRBORNE LANDINGS, 6 JUNE 1944

Major Friedrich Hayn,
Wehrmacht
Staff Officer

At 01.11 hours – an unforgettable moment – the field telephone rang. Something important was coming through: while listening to it the General stood up stiffly, his hand gripping the edge of the table. With a nod he beckoned his chief of staff to listen in. “Enemy parachute troops dropped east of the Orne estuary. Main area Breville-Ranville and the north edge of the Bavent forest. Counter-measures are in progress.” This message from 716 Intelligence Service struck like lightning.

Was this, at last, the invasion, the storming of
“ Festung Europa” ?
Someone said haltingly, “Perhaps they are only supply troops for the French Resistance?” … The day before, in the St Malo area, many pieces of paper had been passing from hand to hand or had been dropped into the letterboxes; they all bore a mysterious announcement:
La carotte rouge est quittee.
Furthermore, our wireless operators had noticed an unusually large volume of coded traffic. Up till now, however, the Resistance groups had anxiously avoided all open action; they were put off by the danger of premature discovery and consequent extermination.

Whilst the pros and cons were still being discussed, 709 Infantry Division from Valognes announced: “Enemy parachute troops south of St Germain-de-Varreville and near Ste Marie-du-Mont. A second drop west of the main Garentan-Valognes road on both sides of the Merderet river and along the Ste Mere-Eglise-Pont-FAbbe road. Fighting for the river crossing in progress.” It was now about 01.45 hours.

Three dropping zones near the front! Two were clearly at important traffic junctions. The third was designed to hold the marshy meadows at the mouth of the Dives and the bridge across the canalized Orne near Ranville. It coincided with the corps boundary, with the natural feature which formed our northern flank but would serve the same purpose for an enemy driving south. It is the task of parachute troops, as advance detachments from the air, to occupy tactically important areas and to hold them until ground troops, in this case landing forces, fight their way through to them and incorporate them into the general front. Furthermore in Normandy they could, by attacking the strongpoints immediately west of the beach, paralyse the coastal defences. If it really was the task of the reported enemy forces to keep open the crossings, it meant that a landing would soon take place and they were really in earnest!

D-DAY: THE LANDINGS, 6 JUNE 1944

Throughout the night of 5 June the Allied armada made its way across the Channel, arriving off the Normandy coast in the steely dawn of the 6th, when the troops were ordered into the assault craft in which they would make the final approach.

Lieutenant H.T. Bone, East Yorkshire Regiment

In the Mess decks we blacked our faces with black Palm Olive cream and listened to the naval orders over the loudhailer. Most of us had taken communion on the Sunday, but the padre had a few words to say to us. Then the actual loading into craft – swinging on davits – the boat lowering and finally “Away boats” . While this was going on, all around could be seen the rest of the convoy, with battleships and cruisers firing their big guns every few minutes and destroyers rushing round. One had been hit by something and only the up-ended part of its bows remained in view. As our flotilla swung into line behind its leader we raised our flag, a black silk square with the white rose of Yorkshire in the centre … 11 was some distance to the beaches, and it was a wet trip. All of us had a spare gas-cape to keep us dry and we chewed our gum stolidly. Mine was in my mouth twelve or fourteen hours later and I usually hate the stuff and never touch it. Shielding ourselves from the spray and watching the fire going down from all the supporting arms and the Spits [Spitfires] overhead, the time soon passed … Suddenly there was a jarring bump on the left, and looking up from our boards we saw one of the beach obstacles about two feet above our left gunwale with a large mine on top of it, just as photographs had shown us. Again a bump, on the right, but still we had not grounded. The Colonel and the flotilla leader were piloting us in, and for a few brief minutes nothing happened except the music of the guns and the whang of occasional bullets overhead, with the sporadic explosions of mortar bombs and the background of our own heavy machine-gun fire. The doors opened as we grounded and the Colonel was out. The sea was choppy and the boat swung a good bit as one by one we followed him. Several fell in and got soaked through. I was lucky. I stopped for a few seconds to help my men with their wireless sets and to ensure they kept them dry. As we staggered ashore we dispersed and lay down above the water’s edge.

The bloodiest fighting of the day came at Omaha beach, where the US 1st and 29th Infantry divisions had the ill luck to encounter a crack
Wehrmacht
division, the 352nd, on a training manoeuvre. Omaha was also the most topographically difficult of the beaches, dominated as it is by a high cliff

Captain Joseph T. Dawson, US 1st Infantry Division

We landed at H + 30 minutes [7.00 am] and found … both the assault units rendered ineffective because of the enormous casualties they suffered. Fortunately, when we landed there was some let-up in the defensive fire from the Germans. Even so the boat containing assault unit Company G, which I commanded, took a direct hit from the artillery of the Germans, and I suffered major casualties. I lost about twenty men out of a total complement of 250 from that hit on my boat, and this included my naval officer who was communications link with the Navy, who were to support us with their fire from the battleships and cruisers some 8,000 yards out in the water.