The biggest ‘blowup’ behind the scene in the early
stages of the liberation of France- a miscarriage long enshrouded in mystery-occurred
over the near break-out by the British a fortnight before the Americans
actually burst the front at Avranches. This British blow, by the Second Army
under Dempsey, was struck on the extreme opposite flank, east of Caen.
It was the most massive tank attack of the whole campaign, delivered by three
armored divisions closely concentrated. They ha been stealthily assembled in
the small bridgehead over the Orne, and poured out from it on the morning of
July 18th after an immense carpet of bombs had been dropped, for two
hours, by two thousand heavy and medium aircraft. The Germans in that sector
were stunned, and most of the prisoners taken were so deafened by the roar of
the explosions that they could not be interrogated until at least twenty-four
hours later.
But the defenses were deeper than British intelligence had thought. Rommel,
expecting such a blow, had hurried their deepening and reinforcement . . . The
brilliant opening prospect faded soon after passing through the forward layers
of defense. The leading armored division became entangled amid the village
strongholds behind – instead of by-passing them. The others were delayed by
traffic congestion in getting out of the narrow bridgehead, and the spearhead
had come to a halt before they came on the scene. By afternoon the great
opportunity had slipped away.
Montgomery had not planned to break out on this flank, and was not banking on
it. But he would have been foolish not to have reckoned the possibility of a
German collapse, under this massive blow, and exploit it if it occurred..
Dempsey thought a speedy collapse was likely, and had moved up himself to the
armored corps HQ so as to be ready to exploit it: ‘What I had in mind was to
seize all the crossings of the Orne from Caen to Argentan’- that would
establish a barricade across the German’s rear, and trap them more effectively
than any American breakout on the Western flank could do. Dempsey’s hope of a
complete breakthrough was very close to fulfilment at midday on July 18th.
In view of his revelation of what he has in mind it is amusing to note that
many assertions that there was no idea of trying to reach Falaise – for Argentan,
his prospective goal, was nearly twice as far.
Dempsey, too, was shrewd enough to realize that the
disappointment of his hopes might be turned to compensating advantage. When one
of his staff urged him to protest against press criticism of the failure of
‘Goodwood’, he replied: ‘Don’t worry – it will aid or purpose, and act as the
best cover-plan.’ The American breakout on the opposite flank certainly owed
much to the way the enemy’s attention has been focused on the threat of a
break-out near Caen.
But the breakout at Avranches, far to the west, carried no such immediate
chance of cutting off the German forces. Its prospects depended on making a
very rapid sweep eastward, or on the enemy clinging on to his position until he
could be trapped. In the even, when the breakout came at Avranches, on July 31st,
only a few scattered German battalions lay in the ninety-mile-wide corridor
between that point and the Loire. So the American spearheads could have driven
eastward unopposed. But the Allied High Command threw away the best chance of
exploiting this great opportunity by sticking to the outdated pre-invasion
program, in which a westward move to
capture the Brittany ports was to be the next step.
[The break-out at Avranches was made by the US 4th Armored Division under John S. Wood. I had spent two days with him shortly before the invasion and he had impressed me as being more conscious of the possibilities of deep exploitation and the importance of speed than anyone else. Even Patton had then, in discussion with me, echoed the prevailing view at the top that the Allied forces must ‘go back to the 1918 methods’ and could not repeat the kind of deep and swift armored drives that the Germans, especially Guderian and Rommel, had carried out in 1940.
Telling me later what happened after the breakout, Wood said: ‘There was no conception of far-reaching directions for armor in the minds of our top people, nor of supplying such thrusts. I was still under the First Army, and it could not react fast enough. When it did react, its orders consisted of sending its two flanking armored divisions back, 180 degrees away from the main enemy, to engage in siege operations against Lorient and Brest. August 4th was a black day. I protested long, loud and violently – and pushed my tank columns into Chaeaubriant (without orders) and my armored cavalry to the outskirts of Angers and along the Loire, ready to advance on Chartres. I could have been there, in the enemy vitals, in two days,. But no! We were forced to adhere to the original plan – with the only armor available, and ready to cut the enemy to pieces. It was one of the colossally stupid decisions of the war.]
The diversion to capture the Brittany ports brought no benefit. For the Germans in Brest held out until September 19th – forty-four days after Patton had prematurely announced its capture – while Lorient and St. Nazaire remained in the enemy’s hands until the end of the war.
It is evident that the German forces would have
had ample time to pull back to the Seine, and form a strong defensive
barrier-line there, except for Hitler’s stubbornly stupid orders that there
should be ‘no withdrawal’. It was his folly that restored the Allies’ lost
opportunities and enabled them to liberate France that autumn.
The war could easily have ended in September 1944. The bulk of the German forces in the West had been thrown into the Normandy battle, and kept there by Hitler’s ‘no withdrawal’ orders until they collapsed – and a large part were trapped. The fragments were incapable of further resistance for the time being, and their retreat – largely on foot – was soon outstripped by the British and Americans mechanized columns. When the Allies approached the German border at the beginning of September, after a sweeping drive from Normandy, there was no organized resistance to stop them driving on –into the heart of Germany. After the war, General Blumentritt, who was Chief of Staff of the German Army in the West, summed up the situation in a sentence: ‘There were no German forces behind the Rhine at the end of August our from was wide open.’
After the war, General Student said:
The sudden penetration of the British tank forces into Antwerp took the Fuhrer’s Headquarters utterly by surprise. At that moment we had no disposable reserves worth mentioning either on the Western front or within out own country. I took over command of the right wing of the western front on the Albert Canal on September 4th. At that moment I had only recruit and convalescent units and one coastal-defense division from Holland. They were reinforced by a panzer detachment – of merely twenty-five tanks and self-propelled guns.
At that time, as captured records reveal, the Germans had barely 100 tanks available for action on the whole Western Front, against more than 2,000 in the Allied spearheads. The Germans had only 570 serviceable aircraft to support them, whereas the British and American aircraft then operating on the West Front totaled over 14,000. Thus the Allies had effective superiority of 20 to 1 in tanks and 25 to 1 in aircraft.
But just as complete victory appeared within easy reach, the Allies’ onrush petered out. During the next two weeks up to September 17th, they made very little further progress.
The British spearhead, after a pause to ‘refit, refuel and rest.’ Resumed its advance on the 7th, and soon secured a crossing over the Albert Canal east of Antwerp but in the days that followed it only pushed eighteen miles further – to the Meuse-Escaut Canal. That short stretch of swampy heath country was interspersed with small streams, and the German parachutists, fighting with desperate courage, put up a resistance out of all proportion to their slight numbers,. The First American Army came up level with the British but pushed no deeper. . .
Meanwhile the German build-up along the front covering the Rhine was progressing faster than that of the Allies, despite Germany’s inferiority of material resources. In mid-November a general offensive was launched by all six Allied armies on the Western Front. It brought disappointingly small gains, at heavy cost. Only in the extreme south, in Alsace, did the Allies reach the Rhine, and that was of little importance. In the north they were still left nearly thirty miles distant from the stretch of the river covering the vital area of the Ruhr. It was not gained until the spring of 1945.
The price that the Allied armies paid for the missed opportunity in early September was very heavy. Out of three-quarters of a million casualties which they suffered in liberating Western Europe, half a million were after their September check. The cost to the world was much worse – millions of men and women died by military action and in the concentration camps of the Germans with the extension of the war. Moreover, in the longer term, in September the Russian tide had not yet penetrated into Central Europe.
What were causes of a missed opportunity so catastrophic in its consequences?
One heavy handicap was the large, aborted drop of airborne forces near Tournai on the Belgian frontier south of Brussels.. The ground forces arrived before the drop was due to take place but the withdrawal of air transport in preparation for it caused a six-day suspension of air supply to the advancing armies, costing them 5.000 tons of supplies. In petrol that would have been the equivalent to one-and-a-half million gallons – enough to have carried two armies to the Rhine without pausing, while the enemy was still in chaos.
Another factor was that a large proportion of the supply tonnage for the northwestern trust was devoted to the replenishment of ammunition that was not needed, so long as the enemy was in a state of collapse, instead of concentrating on maintaining the supply of petrol needed to keep up the pursuit and allow the enemy no chance of rallying.
A third discovery is that the flow of supplies to Montgomery’s thrust was seriously reduced at the crucial time because 1,400 British-built three-ton lorries, and all the replacements for this model, were found to have faulty pistons. If these lorries could have been used, a further 800 tons of supplies could have been delivered daily to the Second Army – sufficient to maintain two more divisions.
A fourth point, of still wider significance, was the great handicap caused by the lavishness of the British and American scales of supply. The Allied planning was based on the calculation that 700 tons of supplies a day would be consumed by each division, of which about 520 tons a day would be required in the forward area. The Germans were far more economical, their scale of supply being only about 200 tons a day for a division. Yet they had to reckon with constant interference from the air, and from guerillas – two serious complications from which the Allies were free.
The self-imposed handicap that the Allies suffered from their extravagant scale of supply was increased by the wastefulness of their troops. One glaring example was over jerricans, which were so important in refueling. Out of 171/2 million jerricans which were sent to France since the landing, only 21/2 million could be traced in the autumn!
Another big factor in the failure of the northern thrust was the way that the US First Army became stuck in the fortified and coal-mining web around Aachen – a strategic ‘entanglement’ which virtually became a vast ‘internment camp’, as Salonika had been for the Allies in WW I. In analysis it becomes evident that the abortiveness of the US Army’s thrust – to which nearly three-quarters of the American supply tonnage was devoted, at Patton’s cost – arose from Montgomery’s demand that the bulk of this army should be used north of the Ardennes to cover his right flank. The space between his own line of advance and the Ardennes was so narrow that the US First Army had little room for maneuver or chance of by-passing Aachen
The war could easily have ended in September 1944. The bulk of the German forces in the West had been thrown into the Normandy battle, and kept there by Hitler’s ‘no withdrawal’ orders until they collapsed – and a large part were trapped. The fragments were incapable of further resistance for the time being, and their retreat – largely on foot – was soon outstripped by the British and Americans mechanized columns. When the Allies approached the German border at the beginning of September, after a sweeping drive from Normandy, there was no organized resistance to stop them driving on –into the heart of Germany. After the war, General Blumentritt, who was Chief of Staff of the German Army in the West, summed up the situation in a sentence: ‘There were no German forces behind the Rhine at the end of August our from was wide open.’
After the war, General Student said:
The sudden penetration of the British tank forces into Antwerp took the Fuhrer’s Headquarters utterly by surprise. At that moment we had no disposable reserves worth mentioning either on the Western front or within out own country. I took over command of the right wing of the western front on the Albert Canal on September 4th. At that moment I had only recruit and convalescent units and one coastal-defense division from Holland. They were reinforced by a panzer detachment – of merely twenty-five tanks and self-propelled guns.
At that time, as captured records reveal, the Germans had barely 100 tanks available for action on the whole Western Front, against more than 2,000 in the Allied spearheads. The Germans had only 570 serviceable aircraft to support them, whereas the British and American aircraft then operating on the West Front totaled over 14,000. Thus the Allies had effective superiority of 20 to 1 in tanks and 25 to 1 in aircraft.
But just as complete victory appeared within easy reach, the Allies’ onrush petered out. During the next two weeks up to September 17th, they made very little further progress.
The British spearhead, after a pause to ‘refit, refuel and rest.’ Resumed its advance on the 7th, and soon secured a crossing over the Albert Canal east of Antwerp but in the days that followed it only pushed eighteen miles further – to the Meuse-Escaut Canal. That short stretch of swampy heath country was interspersed with small streams, and the German parachutists, fighting with desperate courage, put up a resistance out of all proportion to their slight numbers,. The First American Army came up level with the British but pushed no deeper. . .
Meanwhile the German build-up along the front covering the Rhine was progressing faster than that of the Allies, despite Germany’s inferiority of material resources. In mid-November a general offensive was launched by all six Allied armies on the Western Front. It brought disappointingly small gains, at heavy cost. Only in the extreme south, in Alsace, did the Allies reach the Rhine, and that was of little importance. In the north they were still left nearly thirty miles distant from the stretch of the river covering the vital area of the Ruhr. It was not gained until the spring of 1945.
The price that the Allied armies paid for the missed opportunity in early September was very heavy. Out of three-quarters of a million casualties which they suffered in liberating Western Europe, half a million were after their September check. The cost to the world was much worse – millions of men and women died by military action and in the concentration camps of the Germans with the extension of the war. Moreover, in the longer term, in September the Russian tide had not yet penetrated into Central Europe.
What were causes of a missed opportunity so catastrophic in its consequences?
One heavy handicap was the large, aborted drop of airborne forces near Tournai on the Belgian frontier south of Brussels.. The ground forces arrived before the drop was due to take place but the withdrawal of air transport in preparation for it caused a six-day suspension of air supply to the advancing armies, costing them 5.000 tons of supplies. In petrol that would have been the equivalent to one-and-a-half million gallons – enough to have carried two armies to the Rhine without pausing, while the enemy was still in chaos.
Another factor was that a large proportion of the supply tonnage for the northwestern trust was devoted to the replenishment of ammunition that was not needed, so long as the enemy was in a state of collapse, instead of concentrating on maintaining the supply of petrol needed to keep up the pursuit and allow the enemy no chance of rallying.
A third discovery is that the flow of supplies to Montgomery’s thrust was seriously reduced at the crucial time because 1,400 British-built three-ton lorries, and all the replacements for this model, were found to have faulty pistons. If these lorries could have been used, a further 800 tons of supplies could have been delivered daily to the Second Army – sufficient to maintain two more divisions.
A fourth point, of still wider significance, was the great handicap caused by the lavishness of the British and American scales of supply. The Allied planning was based on the calculation that 700 tons of supplies a day would be consumed by each division, of which about 520 tons a day would be required in the forward area. The Germans were far more economical, their scale of supply being only about 200 tons a day for a division. Yet they had to reckon with constant interference from the air, and from guerillas – two serious complications from which the Allies were free.
The self-imposed handicap that the Allies suffered from their extravagant scale of supply was increased by the wastefulness of their troops. One glaring example was over jerricans, which were so important in refueling. Out of 171/2 million jerricans which were sent to France since the landing, only 21/2 million could be traced in the autumn!
Another big factor in the failure of the northern thrust was the way that the US First Army became stuck in the fortified and coal-mining web around Aachen – a strategic ‘entanglement’ which virtually became a vast ‘internment camp’, as Salonika had been for the Allies in WW I. In analysis it becomes evident that the abortiveness of the US Army’s thrust – to which nearly three-quarters of the American supply tonnage was devoted, at Patton’s cost – arose from Montgomery’s demand that the bulk of this army should be used north of the Ardennes to cover his right flank. The space between his own line of advance and the Ardennes was so narrow that the US First Army had little room for maneuver or chance of by-passing Aachen
That badly entangled army was unable to give
Montgomery any help in the next phase, too, when he launched his mid-September
drive for Arnhem. But here too the British also paid forfeit for an
extraordinary oversight.
That badly entangled army was unable to give Montgomery any help in the next phase, too, when he launched his mid-September drive towards Arnhem. But here the British also paid forfeit for an extraordinary oversight. When the 11th Armored Division raced into Antwerp on September 4 it had capture the docks intact, but made no effort to secure the bridges over the Albert Canal, in the suburbs, and these were blown up by the time a crossing was attempted two days latter- the division then being switched eastward. The divisional commander had not thought of seizing the bridges immediately he occupied the city, and no one above had thought of giving him orders to do so. It was a multiple lapse – by four commanders, from Montgomery downwards, who were usually both vigorous and careful about important detail.
Moreover, barely twenty miles north of Antwerp is the exit from the Beveland Peninsula, a bottleneck only a few hundred yards wide. During the second and third weeks of September the remains of the German 15th Army, which had been cut off on the Channel coast, were allowed to slip away northward. They were ferried across the mouth of the Scheldt and escaped through the Beveland bottleneck. Three divisions arrived in time to strengthen the enemy’s desperately thin front in Holland before Montgomery launched his drive for the Rhine at Arnhem, and helped to check it.
What in the other side’s view would have been the Allies’ best course?
When interrogated, Blimentritt endorsed Montgomery’s argument for a concentrated thrust in the north to break through to the Ruhr, and thence to Berlin, saying:
He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a breakthrough, coupled with air domination, would have torn to pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians.
Blumentritt considered that the Allied forces had been too widely and evenly spread. He was particularly critical of the attack towards Metz:
A direct attack on Metz was unnecessary. The Metz fortress area could have been masked. In contrast, a swerve northward in the direction of Luxembourg and Bitburg would have met with great success and caused the collapse of the right flank of our 1st Army followed by the collapse of our 7th Army. By such a flank move to the north the entire 7th Army could have been cut off before it could retreat behind the Rhine.
General Westphal, who on September 5th replaced Blumentritt a Chief of Staff on the Western Front, took the view that the choice of the thrust point was, in the circumstances, less important than a concentrated effort to drive home any thrust.
The overall situation in the West was serious in the extreme. A heavy defeat anywhere along the front, which was so full of gaps that it did not deserve the name, might lead to a catastrophe, if the enemy were to exploit his opportunity skillfully. A particular source of danger was that not a single bridge over the Rhine had been prepared for demolition, an omission which took weeks to prepare . . . Until the middle of October the enemy could have broken through at any point he like with ease, and would then have been able to cross the Rhine and trust deep into Germany almost unhindered.
What are the main conclusions that emerge in the light that has since been thrown on this crucial period?
Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ plan of advance on the Rhine, designed before the invasion of Normandy, would have been a good way to strain and crack the resistance of a strong and still unbeaten enemy. But it was far less suited to the actual situation, where the enemy had already collapsed, and the issue depended on exploiting their collapse so deeply and rapidly that they would have no chance to rally. That called for pursuit without pause . . .Persistent pace and pressure is the key to success in any deep penetration or pursuit, and even a day’s pause may forfeit it.
But throughout the Allied forces there was a general tendency to relax after they drove through Belgium. It was fostered from the top . . . John North in his history of the 21st Army Group, based on official sources, has aptly summed up the situation: ‘a “war is won” attitude of mind . . prevailed among all ranks.’ In consequence, there was little sense of urgency among commanders during the vital fortnight in September and a very natural inclination among the troops top abstain from pushing hard, and avoid getting killed, when everyone assumed that ‘the war is over.’
The best chance of a quick finish was probably lost when the ‘gas’ was turned off from Patton’s tanks in the last week of August, when they were 100 miles nearer to the Rhine, and its bridges, than the British.
Patton had a keener sense than anyone else on the Allied side of the key importance of persistent pace of pursuit. He was ready to exploit in any direction – indeed, on August 23rd he had proposed that his army should drive north instead of east. There was much point in his subsequent comment: ‘One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans that fit the circumstances. I think the difference between success and failure in high command depends on its ability, or lack of it, to do just that.’
But the root of all the Allies troubles at this time of supreme opportunity was that none of the top planners had foreseen such a complete collapse of the enemy as occurred in August. They were not prepared, mentally or materially, to exploit it with a long-range thrust.
That badly entangled army was unable to give Montgomery any help in the next phase, too, when he launched his mid-September drive towards Arnhem. But here the British also paid forfeit for an extraordinary oversight. When the 11th Armored Division raced into Antwerp on September 4 it had capture the docks intact, but made no effort to secure the bridges over the Albert Canal, in the suburbs, and these were blown up by the time a crossing was attempted two days latter- the division then being switched eastward. The divisional commander had not thought of seizing the bridges immediately he occupied the city, and no one above had thought of giving him orders to do so. It was a multiple lapse – by four commanders, from Montgomery downwards, who were usually both vigorous and careful about important detail.
Moreover, barely twenty miles north of Antwerp is the exit from the Beveland Peninsula, a bottleneck only a few hundred yards wide. During the second and third weeks of September the remains of the German 15th Army, which had been cut off on the Channel coast, were allowed to slip away northward. They were ferried across the mouth of the Scheldt and escaped through the Beveland bottleneck. Three divisions arrived in time to strengthen the enemy’s desperately thin front in Holland before Montgomery launched his drive for the Rhine at Arnhem, and helped to check it.
What in the other side’s view would have been the Allies’ best course?
When interrogated, Blimentritt endorsed Montgomery’s argument for a concentrated thrust in the north to break through to the Ruhr, and thence to Berlin, saying:
He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a breakthrough, coupled with air domination, would have torn to pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians.
Blumentritt considered that the Allied forces had been too widely and evenly spread. He was particularly critical of the attack towards Metz:
A direct attack on Metz was unnecessary. The Metz fortress area could have been masked. In contrast, a swerve northward in the direction of Luxembourg and Bitburg would have met with great success and caused the collapse of the right flank of our 1st Army followed by the collapse of our 7th Army. By such a flank move to the north the entire 7th Army could have been cut off before it could retreat behind the Rhine.
General Westphal, who on September 5th replaced Blumentritt a Chief of Staff on the Western Front, took the view that the choice of the thrust point was, in the circumstances, less important than a concentrated effort to drive home any thrust.
The overall situation in the West was serious in the extreme. A heavy defeat anywhere along the front, which was so full of gaps that it did not deserve the name, might lead to a catastrophe, if the enemy were to exploit his opportunity skillfully. A particular source of danger was that not a single bridge over the Rhine had been prepared for demolition, an omission which took weeks to prepare . . . Until the middle of October the enemy could have broken through at any point he like with ease, and would then have been able to cross the Rhine and trust deep into Germany almost unhindered.
What are the main conclusions that emerge in the light that has since been thrown on this crucial period?
Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ plan of advance on the Rhine, designed before the invasion of Normandy, would have been a good way to strain and crack the resistance of a strong and still unbeaten enemy. But it was far less suited to the actual situation, where the enemy had already collapsed, and the issue depended on exploiting their collapse so deeply and rapidly that they would have no chance to rally. That called for pursuit without pause . . .Persistent pace and pressure is the key to success in any deep penetration or pursuit, and even a day’s pause may forfeit it.
But throughout the Allied forces there was a general tendency to relax after they drove through Belgium. It was fostered from the top . . . John North in his history of the 21st Army Group, based on official sources, has aptly summed up the situation: ‘a “war is won” attitude of mind . . prevailed among all ranks.’ In consequence, there was little sense of urgency among commanders during the vital fortnight in September and a very natural inclination among the troops top abstain from pushing hard, and avoid getting killed, when everyone assumed that ‘the war is over.’
The best chance of a quick finish was probably lost when the ‘gas’ was turned off from Patton’s tanks in the last week of August, when they were 100 miles nearer to the Rhine, and its bridges, than the British.
Patton had a keener sense than anyone else on the Allied side of the key importance of persistent pace of pursuit. He was ready to exploit in any direction – indeed, on August 23rd he had proposed that his army should drive north instead of east. There was much point in his subsequent comment: ‘One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans that fit the circumstances. I think the difference between success and failure in high command depends on its ability, or lack of it, to do just that.’
But the root of all the Allies troubles at this time of supreme opportunity was that none of the top planners had foreseen such a complete collapse of the enemy as occurred in August. They were not prepared, mentally or materially, to exploit it with a long-range thrust.
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