D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

  HMS Nelson

  HMS Ramillies

  HMS Roberts

  HMS Rodney

  HMS Warspite

  Royal Navy, Cruisers

  HMS Ajax

  HMS Arethusa

  HMS Argonaut

  HMS Belfast

  HMS Black Prince

  HMS Danae

  HMS Diadem

  HMS Enterprise

  HMS Glasgow

  Royal Navy, Destroyers

  HMS Eglinton

  HMS Kelvin

  HMS Swift

  HMS Talybont

  Royal Navy, Command and Transport Ships

  HMS Empire Broadsword

  HMS Empire Javelin

  HMS Largs

  HMS Prince Baudouin

  HMS Prince Henry

  HMS Princess Ingrid

  Royal Navy, Royal Marines

  41 RM Commando

  47 RM Commando

  48 RM Commando

  Rudder, Lt Col James E.

  Rundstedt, GFM Gerd v.

  Saint-Aignan

  Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer

  Saint-Barthélemy

  Saint-Côme-du-Mont

  Saint-Germain-en-Laye

  Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives

  Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer

  Saint-Lô

  attack on (map)

  battle for begins, 7 July

  bombing of

  casualties

  fall of

  ‘the Major of’

  Saint-Malo

  Saint-Nazaire

  Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives

  Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte

  Saint-Sever, Fôret de

  Saint-Sever-Calvados

  Sainte-Marie-du-Mont

  Sainte-Mère-Eglise

  Sainteny

  Schimpf, GenLt Richard

  Schlieben, GenLt Karl-Wilhelm Graf v.

  Schmundt, GenLt Rudolf

  Schwerin, GenLt Gerhard Graf v.

  Scott, Wg Cdr Desmond

  Scott-Bowden, Cpt

  Sée, river

  Sées

  Seine, river

  German retreat across

  Self-inflicted wounds

  Sélune, river

  Seulles, river

  Sèves, river

  SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force)

  Shanley, Lt Col Thomas J. B.

  Shaving heads

  collaborators

  Shaw, Irwin

  Sicherheitsdienst (SS Security Service); see also Gestapo

  Sicily, invasion of

  Simonds, Lt Gen Guy

  SIS (Secret Intelligence Service)

  Skinner, Padre Leslie

  Slapton Sands

  Smith, Lt Sandy

  Smuts, FM Jan

  Snipers

  Snyder, Lt Col Max

  SOE (Special Operations Executive)

  Sourdeval

  Southwick House

  Souvenir hunting

  Spaatz, Gen Carl A. (‘Tooey’)

  Speidel, GenLt Hans

  SS

  Einsatzgruppe B

  Stagg, Gp Cpt Dr James

  Stalin, Josef.

  Stalingrad

  Stauffenberg, Oberst Claus Graf Schenk.

  Stülpnagel, Gen. Inf Carl-Heinrich v.

  Sword beach(map)

  Talley, Col Benjamin B.

  Tangermann, ObLt

  Tank troops, fear of fire

  Taute, river

  Taylor, Col George A.

  Taylor, Maj Gen Maxwell D.

  Teague, Lt Col

  Tedder, ACM Sir Arthur

  Teheran conference

  Tessel

  Tessy-sur-Vire

  Thomas, Maj Gen G. I.

  Thury-Harcourt

  Tilly-la-Campagne

  Tilly-sur-Seulles

  Touques, river

  Tracy-Bocage

  Tresckow, GenMaj Henning v.

  Troarn

  Trun

  Tulle

  Turqueville

  U-boats

  Ultra intercepts

  Unger, Oberst v.

  US Army

  Central Base Section

  combat exhaustion

  discipline

  Fourth of July celebrations

  Graves Registration

  losses in Normandy

  mechanization.

  replacement system

  sacking of officers

  supply trains

  training

  US Army, Armies

  12th US Army Group

  First US Army (map)

  Third US Army

  US Army, Corps

  V Corps

  VII Corps

  VIII Corps

  XIX Corps

  XX Corps

  US Army, Divisions

  1st Inf

  2nd Armd

  2nd Inf

  3rd Armd

  4th Armd

  4th Inf

  5th Armd

  5th Inf

  6th Armd

  7th Armd

  8th Inf

  9th Inf

  28th Inf

  29th Inf

  30th Inf

  35th Inf

  79th Inf

  80th Inf

  82nd Airborne

  83rd Inf

  90th Inf

  101st Airborne

  US Army, Brigades and Regiments

  6th Engineer Special Bde

  8th Inf

  12th Inf

  16th Inf

  18th Inf

  22nd Inf

  23rd Inf

  36th Armd Inf

  39th Inf

  115th Inf

  116th Inf

  117th Inf

  119th Inf

  120th Inf

  137th Inf

  175th Inf

  314th Inf

  315th Inf

  325th Glider Inf Rgt

  358th Inf

  501st Parachute Inf Rgt

  502nd Parachute Inf Rgt

  505th Parachute Inf Rgt

  508th Parachute Inf Rgt

  US Army, Rangers

  2nd Battalion

  5th Battalion

  US Army, Counter Intelligence Corps

  USAAF

  IX Tactical Air Command

  Eighth Air Force

  Ninth Air Force

  bombing accuracy

  fighter-bomber attacks on German troops

  and Operation Cobra bombing

  USAAF, Groups

  363rd Fighter Group

  388th Bomber Group

  405th Fighter Group

  US Coast Guard

  US Navy

  US Navy, Battleships

  USS Arkansas

  USS Nevada

  USS Texas

  US Navy, Cruisers

  USS Augusta

  USS Quincy

  USS Tuscaloosa

  US Navy, Destroyers

  USS Corry

  USS Harding

  USS Satterlee

  US Navy, Command and Transport Ships

  USS Ancon

  USS Bayfield

  USS Samuel Chase

  USS Shubrick

  Utah beach(map)

  V-1 flying bomb (‘Diver’)

  ‘anti-Diver’ operations

  Valognes

  Vannes

  Varaville

  Vaucelles

  Vercors, FFI battle

  Verrières ridge

  Vichy regime (Etat français)

  Viénot, Pierre

  Vierville (Cotentin)

  Vierville-sur-Mer (Omaha)

  Villebaudon

  Villedieu-les-Poêles

  Villers-Bocage (map)

  Vimoutiers

  Vire, town

  Vire, river and valley

  Volksdeutsche

  Waffen-SS

  advance to the front

  discipline

  and Hitler

  indoctrination

&nb
sp; morale

  rivalry with German Army

  Waffen-SS, Corps

  I SS Panzer

  II SS Panzer

  Waffen-SS, Divisions

  1st SS Pz-Div Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler

  2nd SS Pz-Div Das Reich

  9th SS Pz-Div Hohenstaufen

  10th SS Pz-Div Frundsberg

  12th SS Pz-Div Hitler Jugend

  17th SS Pzgr-Div Götz von Berlichingen

  Waffen-SS, Regiments etc.

  1st SS Pzgr-Rgt

  2nd SS Pz-Rgt

  Deutschland-Pzgr-Rgt

  Führer-Pzgr-Rgt

  19th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  20th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  21st SS Pzgr-Rgt

  25th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  26th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  37th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  38th SS Pzgr-Rgt

  101st SS Heavy Pz Bn

  102nd SS Heavy Pz Bn

  Wagner, Gen Eduard

  War damage

  Warlimont, Gen d. Art Walter

  Warsaw uprising

  Weintrob, Maj David

  Weiss, Lt Robert

  Westover, Lt John

  Weyman, Brig Gen

  Whistler, Lt Rex

  Whitehead, Don

  Williams, Brig E. T.

  Wilmot, Chester

  Witt, Brigadeführer Fritz

  Wittmann, Obersturmführer Michael

  Witzleben, GFM.

  Wolfsschanze, Rastenburg

  Wood, Maj Gen John S.

  Ziegelmann, ObLt

  Zimmermannn, GenLt Bodo

  Acknowledgements

  College Park, Maryland; Dr Conrad Crane, director of the US Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and his staff; the staff of the National Archives at Kew; the Trustees and staff of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives; Alain Talon at the Archives Départementales de la Manche; Frau Jana Brabant at the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg-im-Breisgau; and Frau Irina Renz of the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte in Stuttgart. As well as Sebastian Cox, I am also grateful to Clive Richards, the senior researcher at the Air Force Historical Branch, for his assistance.

  At the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Dr Gordon H. Mueller, Jeremy Collins and Seth Paridon could not have been more welcoming while I worked on the Eisenhower Center archive. I was also deeply touched by the kindness of everyone at the Mémorial de Caen: Stéphane Grimaldi, Stéphane Simonnet, Christophe Prime and Marie-Claude Berthelot, who put up with me for so long and so often.

  I also owe a great deal to those who so kindly lent me their own diaries and letters or those of their parents. I am most grateful to David Christopherson, who sent me the diary of his father, Colonel Stanley Christopherson; Professor J. L. Cloudsley-Thompson; James Donald; L. B. Fiévet (the great-nephew of Raoul Nordling); Brigadier P. T. F. Gowans, OAM; Toby and Sarah Helm for the diary of their father, Dr Bill Helm; the late Myles Hildyard; and Charles Quest-Ritson for the collected letters of his father, Lieutenant T. T. Ritson, RHA. Others, such as Morten Malmø, Miles d’Arcy-Irvine and Philip Windsor-Aubrey, have offered leads and supplementary material, and William Mortimer Moore sent me his unpublished biography of General Leclerc. Dr Lyubov Vinogradova and Michelle Miles have helped with research and Angelica von Hase has again checked my translation and provided many useful details.

  Once more, this whole project has been immeasurably assisted by Andrew Nurnberg, my literary agent for the last quarter of a century, by my editor Eleo Gordon at Penguin and by Lesley Levene, the copy-editor. But as always, my greatest thanks go to my wife, Artemis Cooper, who has edited, corrected and improved the text from start to finish.

  Notes

  ABBREVIATIONS

  ADdC Archives départementales du Calvados, Caen

  AdM Archives de la Manche, Saint-Lô

  AFRHA Air Force Research Historical Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

  AHB Air Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, Northwood

  AN Archives Nationales, Paris

  AVP Archives de la Ville de Paris

  AVPRF Arkhiv Vneshnoi Politiki Rossiiskii Federatsii (Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation), Moscow

  BA-MA Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau

  BD Bruce Diary, Papers of David Bruce, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia

  BfZ-SS Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Sammlung Sterz, Stuttgart

  CAC Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge

  CMH Center of Military History, Washington, DC

  CRHQ Centre de Recherche d’Histoire Quantitative, University of Caen

  CWM/MCG Canadian War Memorial/ Mémorial Canadien de la Guerre

  DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas

  DTbA Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, Emmendingen

  DWS Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

  ETHINT European Theater Historical Interrogations, 1945, USAMHI

  FMS Foreign Military Studies, USAMHI

  HP Harris Papers, RAF Museum, Hendon

  IfZ Archiv des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte, Munich

  IHTP-CNRS Reports from the German Military Commander in France and the synthesis of the reports from the French prefects 1940-44, edited by the German Historical Institute Paris and the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, revised by Regina Delacor, Jürgen Finger, Peter Lieb, Vincent Viet and Florent Brayard

  IMT International Military Tribunal

  IWM Imperial War Museum archives, London

  LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, London

  LofC Library of Congress, The Veterans’ History Project, Washington, DC

  MdC Mémorial de Caen archives, Normandy

  MHSA Montana Historical Society Archives

  NA II National Archives II, College Park, Maryland

  NAC/ANC National Archives of Canada/Archives Nationales du Canada

  NWWIIM-EC National World War II Museum, Eisenhower Center archive, New Orleans

  OCMH-FPP Office of the Chief of Military History, Forrest Pogue Papers, Forrest C. Pogue’s interview notes for Supreme Command, Washington, 1954, now with USAMHI

  PDDE The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Vol. III, The War Years, edited by Alfred D. Chandler, Baltimore, MD, 1970

  PP Portal Papers, Christ Church Library, Oxford

  ROHA Rutgers Oral History Archive

  SHD-DAT Service Historique de la Défense, Département de l’Armée de Terre, Vincennes

  SODP Senior Officers’ Debriefing Program, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

  SWWEC Second World War Experience Centre archive, Horsforth, Leeds

  TNA The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), Kew

  USAMHI United States Army Military History Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

  WLHUM Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London

  WWII VS World War II Veterans’ Survey, USAMHI

  In addition the private diaries of the following people have been used:

  Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Christopherson, Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry

  Lieutenant William Helm, 210 Field Ambulance, 177th Brigade, 59th Infantry Division

  Captain Myles Hildyard, intelligence officer with 7th Armoured Division

  Lieutenant T. T. Ritson, RHA

  1

  THE DECISION

  p. 2 ‘For heaven’s sake, Stagg’, J. M. Stagg, Forecast for Overlord, London, 1971, p. 69

  ‘pre-D-Day jitters’, Harry C. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, London, 1946,

  p. 479

  p. 3 Plan Fortitude, TNA WO 219/5187

  p. 4 ‘Garbo’, TNA KV 2/39-2/42 and 2/63-2/71

  Ironside, TNA KV 2/2098

  ‘Bronx’, TNA KV 2/2098

  destruction of airfields, Luftgau West France, TNA HW 1/2927

  Bletchley watch system, TNA HW 8/86 p. 5 ‘Latest evidence suggests . . .’, TNA HW 40/6
/>
  ‘my circus wagon’, Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower , New York, 2002, p. 518

  ‘to establish a belt . . .’, TNA WO 205/ 12

  ‘There is no doubt . . .’, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 1939-1945, London, 2001, p. 575

  p. 6 ‘Nice chap, no soldier’, Cornelius Ryan interview, Ohio University Library Department of Archives and Special Collections

  ‘national spectacles pervert . . .’, Alanbrooke, p. 575

  ‘My hat is worth ...’, Duff Hart-Davis (ed.), King’s Counsellor, London, 2006, p. 196-7

  ‘Monty is perhaps . . .’, LHCMA Liddell Hart 11/1944/11

  ‘The bloody Durhams . . .’, Harry Moses, The Faithful Sixth, Durham, 1995, p. 270. I am most grateful to Miles d’Arcy-Irvine, Major Philip Windsor-Aubrey, Major C. Lawton, Harry Moses and Richard Atkinson for their help on this incident

  p. 7 ‘unsatisfactory’, NA II 407/427/24132

  ‘hayseed expression ... pragmatic ...’, Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, New York, 1993, p. 35

  p. 8 ‘made everyone angry’, Major General Kenner, chief medical officer, SHAEF, OCMH-FPP

  ‘The landings in . . .’, quoted in Butcher, p. 525

  Omaha reconnaissance, Major General L. Scott-Bowden, SWWEC T2236

  p. 9 ‘When we left . . .’, Robert A. Wilkins, 149th Combat Engineers, NWWIIM-EC

  ‘As we passed through . . .’, Arthur Reddish, A Tank Soldier’s Story, privately published, undated, p. 21

  p. 10 ‘I’ve been fattened up . . .’, quoted in Stuart Hills, By Tank into Normandy, London, 2002, p. 64

  ‘All are tense . . .’, LofC

  ‘The women who have come . . .’, Mollie Panter-Downes, London War Notes, London, 1971, p. 324

  ‘One night . . .,’ Ernest A. Hilberg, 18th Infantry, 1st Division, NWWIIM-EC

  p. 11 ‘Had it not been fraught . . .’, Stagg, p. 86

  ‘If I answered that . . .’, ibid., p. 88

  p. 12 ‘Good luck, Stagg . . .’, ibid., p. 91

  ‘Gentlemen . . . The fears . . .’, ibid., pp. 97-8

  ‘Eisenhower’s forces are landing . . .’, Butcher, p. 481

  ‘the sky was almost clear . . .’, Stagg, p. 99

  2

  BEARING THE CROSS OF LORRAINE

  p. 14 ‘an empty feeling . . .’, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 1939-1945, London, 2001, pp. 553-4 (5 June)

  ‘The British had a much . . .’, Colonel C. H. Bonesteel III, G-3 Plans, 12th Army Group, OCMH-FPP

  p. 15 ‘display some form of “reverse Dunkirk” . . .’, TNA HW 1/12309

  ‘My dear Winston . . .’, CAC CHAR 20/ 136/004

  ‘peevish’, Butcher quoting Commander Thompson, Harry C. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, London, 1946, p. 480

  ‘Winston meanwhile . . .’, Alanbrooke, p. 553