The men of the Allied airborne armies had invaded the Continent from the air and secured the initial foothold for the invasion from the sea. Now they awaited the arrival of the seaborne forces with whom they would drive into Hitler’s Europe. The American task forces were already lying twelve miles off Utah and Omaha beaches. For U.S. troops H Hour—6:30 A.M.—was exactly one hour and forty-five minutes away.
*There was also a shortage of glider pilots. “At one time,” General Gavin recalls, “we didn’t think we’d have enough. In the invasion each copilot’s seat was occupied by an airborne trooper. Incredible as it may seem, these troopers had been given no training in either flying or landing gliders. Some found themselves with a wounded pilot and a fully loaded glider on their hands as they came hurtling in through flak-filled space on June 6. Fortunately, the type glider we were using was not too hard to fly or land. But having to do it for the first time in combat was a chastening experience; it really gave a man religion.”
7
AT 4:45 A.M., Lieutenant George Honour’s midget submarine X23 broke the surface of a heaving sea one mile off the Normandy coast. Twenty miles away its sister sub the X20 also surfaced. These two fifty-seven-foot craft were now in position, each marking one end of the British-Canadian invasion area—the three beaches Sword, Juno and Gold. Now each crew had to erect a mast with a flashing light, set up all the other visual and radio signaling apparatus and wait for the first British ships to home in on their signals.
On the X23 Honour pushed up the hatch and climbed stiffly out onto the narrow catwalk. Waves rolled over the little deck and he had to hang on to avoid being washed overboard. Behind him came his weary crew. They clung to the guide rails, water washing about their legs, and hungrily gulped in the cool night air. They had been off Sword Beach since before dawn on June 4 and they had been submerged for more than twenty-one hours out of each day. In all, since leaving Portsmouth on June 2, they had been under water some sixty-four hours.
Even now their ordeal was far from over. On the British beaches H Hour varied from 7:00 to 7:30 A.M. So for two more hours, until the first wave of assault craft came in, the midget subs would have to hold their positions. Until then the X23 and X20 would be exposed on the surface—small, fixed targets for the German beach batteries. And soon it would be daylight.
8
EVERYWHERE MEN WAITED for this dawn, but none so anxiously as the Germans. For by now a new and ominous note had begun to creep into the welter of messages pouring into Rommel’s and Rundstedt’s headquarters. All along the invasion coast Admiral Krancke’s naval stations were picking up the sound of ships—not just one or two as before, but ships by the score. For more than an hour the reports had been mounting. At last a little before 5:00 A.M. the persistent Major General Pemsel of the Seventh Army telephoned Rommel’s chief of staff, Major General Speidel, and told him bluntly, “Ships are concentrating between the mouths of the Vire and the Orne. They lead to the conclusion that an enemy landing and large-scale attack against Normandy is imminent.”
Field Marshal Gerd Von Rundstedt at his headquarters, OB West, outside Paris had already reached a similar conclusion. To him the impending Normandy assault still looked like a “diversionary attack” and not the real invasion. Even so Rundstedt had moved fast. He had already ordered two massive panzer divisions—the 12th S.S. and the Panzer Lehr, both lying in reserve near Paris—to assemble and rush to the coast. Technically both these divisions came under Hitler’s headquarters, OKW, and they were not to be committed without the Führer’s specific approval. But Rundstedt had taken the chance; he could not believe that Hitler would object or countermand the order. Now, convinced that all the evidence pointed to Normandy as the area for the Allied “diversionary attack,” Rundstedt sent an official request to OKW for the reserves. “OB West,” explained his teletype message, “is fully aware that if this is actually a large-scale enemy operation it can only be met successfully if immediate action is taken. This involves the commitment on this day of the available strategic reserves … these are the 12th S.S. and Panzer Lehr divisions. If they assemble quickly and get an early start they can enter the battle on the coast during the day. Under the circumstances OB West therefore requests OKW to release the reserves….” It was a perfunctory message, simply for the record.
At Hitler’s headquarters in Berchtesgaden in the balmy unrealistic climate of southern Bavaria, the message was delivered to the office of Colonel General Alfred Jodl, chief of operations. Jodl was asleep and his staff believed that the situation had not developed sufficiently enough yet for his sleep to be disturbed. The message could wait until later.
Not more than three miles away at Hitler’s mountain retreat, the Führer and his mistress, Eva Braun, were also asleep. Hitler had retired as usual at 4:00 A.M. and his personal physician, Dr. Morell, had given him a sleeping draught (he was unable to sleep now without it). At about 5:00 A.M. Hitler’s naval aide, Admiral Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, was awakened by a call from Jodl’s headquarters. Puttkamer’s caller—he cannot recall now who it was—said that there had been “some sort of landings in France.” Nothing precise was known yet—in fact, Puttkamer was told, “the first messages are extremely vague.” Did Puttkamer think that the Führer should be informed? Both men hashed it over and then decided not to wake Hitler. Puttkamer remembers that “there wasn’t much to tell him anyway and we both feared that if I woke him at this time he might start one of his endless nervous scenes which often led to the wildest decisions.” Puttkamer decided that the morning would be time enough to give Hitler the news. He switched off the light and went back to sleep.
In France, the generals at OB West and Army Group B sat down to wait. They had alerted their forces and called up the panzer reserves; now the next move was up to the Allies. Nobody could estimate the magnitude of the impending assault. Nobody knew—or could even guess—the size of the Allied fleet. And although everything pointed toward Normandy, nobody was really sure where the main attack would come. The German generals had done all they could. The rest depended on the ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers holding the coast. They had suddenly become important. From the coastal fortifications the soldiers of the Reich looked out toward the sea, wondering if this was a practice alert or the real thing at last.
Major Werner Pluskat in his bunker overlooking Omaha Beach had heard nothing from his superiors since 1:00 A.M. He was cold, tired and exasperated. He felt isolated. He couldn’t understand why there had been no reports from either regimental or division headquarters. To be sure, the very fact that his phone had remained silent all night was a good sign; it must mean that nothing serious was happening. But what about the paratroopers, the massed formations of planes? Pluskat could not rid himself of his gnawing uneasiness. Once more he swung the artillery glasses over to the left, picked up the dark mass of the Cherbourg peninsula and began another slow sweep of the horizon. The same low banks of mist came into view, the same patches of shimmering moonlight, the same restless, white-flecked sea. Nothing was changed. Everything seemed peaceful.
Behind him in the bunker his dog, Harras, was stretched out asleep. Nearby, Captain Ludz Wilkening and Lieutenant Fritz Theen were talking quietly. Pluskat joined them. “Still nothing out there,” he told them. “I’m about to give it up.” But he walked back to the aperture and stood looking out as the first streaks of light began to lighten the sky. He decided to make another routine sweep.
Wearily, he swung the glasses over to the left again. Slowly, he tracked across the horizon. He reached the dead center of the bay. The glasses stopped moving. Pluskat tensed, stared hard.
Through the scattering, thinning mist the horizon was magically filling with ships—ships of every size and description, ships that casually maneuvered back and forth as though they had been there for hours. There appeared to be thousands of them. It was a ghostly armada that somehow had appeared from nowhere. Pluskat stared in frozen disbelief, speechless, moved as he had never been before in his lif
e. At that moment the world of the good soldier Pluskat began falling apart. He says in those first few moments he knew, calmly and surely, that “this was the end for Germany.”
He turned to Wilkening and Theen and, with a strange detachment, said simply, “It’s the invasion. See for yourselves.” Then he picked up the phone and called Major Block at the 352nd Division’s headquarters.
“Block,” said Pluskat, “it’s the invasion. There must be ten thousand ships out here.” Even as he said it, he knew his words must sound incredible.
“Get hold of yourself, Pluskat!” snapped Block. “The Americans and the British together don’t have that many ships. Nobody has that many ships!”
Block’s disbelief brought Pluskat out of his daze. “If you don’t believe me,” he suddenly yelled, “come up here and see for yourself. It’s fantastic! It’s unbelievable!”
There was a slight pause and then Block said, “What way are these ships heading?”
Pluskat, phone in hand, looked out the aperture of the bunker and replied, “Right for me.”
PART THREE
THE DAY
1
NEVER HAD THERE been a dawn like this. In the murky, gray light, in majestic, fearful grandeur, the great Allied fleet lay off Normandy’s five invasion beaches. The sea teemed with ships. Battle ensigns snapped in the wind all the way across the horizon from the edge of the Utah area on the Cherbourg peninsula to Sword Beach near the mouth of the Orne. Outlined against the sky were the big battlewagons, the menacing cruisers, the whippetlike destroyers. Behind them were the squat command ships, sprouting their forests of antennae. And behind them came the convoys of troop-filled transports and landing ships, lying low and sluggish in the water. Circling the lead transports, waiting for the signal to head for the beaches, were swarms of bobbing landing craft, jam-packed with the men who would land in the first waves.
The great spreading mass of ships seethed with noise and activity. Engines throbbed and whined as patrol boats dashed back and forth through the milling assault craft. Windlasses whirred as booms swung out amphibious vehicles. Chains rattled in the davits as assault boats were lowered away. Landing craft loaded with pallid-faced men shuddered and banged against the high steel sides of transports. Loud-hailers blared out, “Keep in line! Keep in line!” as coastguardmen shepherded the bobbing assault boats into formations. On the transports men jammed the rails, waiting their turn to climb down slippery ladders or scramble-nets into the heaving, spray-washed beaching craft. And through it all, over the ships’ public-address systems came a steady flow of messages and exhortations: “Fight to get your troops ashore, fight to save your ships, and if you’ve got any strength left, fight to save yourselves.” … “Get in there, Fourth Division, and give ’em hell!” … “Don’t forget, the Big Red One is leading the way ”. … “U.S. Rangers, man your stations” … “Remember Dunkirk! Remember Coventry! God bless you all” … “Nous mourrons sur le sable de notre France chérie, mais nous ne retournerons pas [We shall die on the sands of our dear France but we shall not turn back].” … “This is it, men, pick it up and put it on, you’ve only got a one-way ticket and this is the end of the line. Twenty-nine, let’s go!” And then the two messages that most men still remember: “Away all boats,” and “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name …”
Along the crowded rails many men left their positions to say goodbye to buddies going in on other boats. Soldiers and seamen, who had become firm friends after the long hours spent aboard ships, wished one another good luck. And hundreds of men took time to exchange home addresses “just in case.” Technical Sergeant Roy Stevens of the 29th Division fought his way across a crowded deck in search of his twin brother. “I finally found him,” he says. “He smiled and extended his hand. I said, ‘No, we will shake hands at the crossroads in France like we planned.’ We said goodbye, and I never saw him again.” On H.M.S. Prince Leopold, Lieutenant Joseph Lacy, the chaplain of the 5th and 2nd Ranger battalions, walked among the waiting men and Private First Class Max Coleman heard him say, “I’ll do your praying for you from here on in. What you’re going to do today will be a prayer in itself.”
All over the ships, officers wound up their pep talks with the kind of colorful or memorable phrases that they felt best suited the occasion—sometimes with unexpected results. Lieutenant Colonel John O’Neill, whose special combat engineers were to land on Omaha and Utah beaches in the first wave and destroy the mined obstacles, thought he had the ideal conclusion to his debarking talk when he thundered, “Come hell or high water, get those damned obstacles out!” From somewhere nearby, a voice remarked, “I believe that s.o.b. is scared, too.” Captain Sherman Burroughs of the 29th Division told Captain Charles Cawthon that he planned to recite “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” on the way in to the beach. Lieutenant Colonel Elzie Moore, heading up an engineer brigade bound for Utah, was without a speech. He had wanted to recite a most appropriate excerpt from the story of another invasion of France, a battle scene from Shakespeare’s Henry V, but all he could remember was the opening line, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends …” He decided to give up the idea. Major C. K. “Banger” King of the British 3rd Division, going in on the first wave to Sword Beach, planned to read from the same play. He had gone to the trouble of writing down the lines he wanted. They closed with the passage, “He that outlives this day, and comes safe home/Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named …”
The tempo was increasing. Off the American beaches more and more troop-filled boats were joining the churning assault craft endlessly circling the mother ships. Sodden, seasick and miserable, the men in these boats would lead the way into Normandy, across Omaha and Utah beaches. In the transport areas, debarking was now in full swing. It was a complex and hazardous operation. Soldiers carried so much equipment that they were barely able to move. Each had a rubber-tube life preserver and, besides weapons, musette bags, entrenching tools, gas masks, firstaid kits, canteens, knives and rations, everybody had extra quantities of grenades, explosives and ammunition—often as much as 250 rounds. In addition, many men were burdened with the special equipment that their particular jobs demanded. Some men estimate that they weighed at least three hundred pounds as they waddled across decks and prepared to get into the boats. All this paraphernalia was necessary, but it seemed to Major Gerden Johnson of the 4th Infantry Division that his men were “slowed down to the pace of a turtle.” Lieutenant Bill Williams of the 29th thought his men were so overburdened that “they wouldn’t be able to do much fighting,” and Privage Rudolph Mozgo, looking down the side of his transport at the assault craft that smashed against the hull and rose sickeningly up and down on the swells, figured that if he and his equipment could just get into a boat “half the battle would be won.”
Many men, trying to balance themselves and their equipment as they climbed down the weblike scramble-nets, became casualties long before they were even fired on. Corporal Harold Janzen of a mortar unit, loaded down with two reels of cable and several field phones, tried to time the rise and fall of the assault craft beneath him. He jumped at what he thought was the right moment, misjudged, fell twelve feet to the bottom of the boat and knocked himself out with his carbine. There were more serious injuries. Sergeant Romeo Pompei heard someone scream below him, looked down and saw a man hanging in agony on the net as the assault boat ground his foot against the side of the transport. Pompei himself fell headlong from the net into the boat and smashed his front teeth.
Troops that boarded craft on the decks and were lowered down from davits were no better off. Major Thomas Dallas, one of the 29th’s battalion commanders, and his headquarters staff were suspended about halfway between the rail and the water when the davits lowering their boat jammed. They hung there for about twenty minutes—just four feet beneath the sewage outlet from the “heads.” “The heads were in constant use,” he recalls, “and during these twenty minutes we received the entire discharge.”
The
waves were so high that many assault craft bounced like monstrous yo-yos up and down on the davit chains. One boatload of Rangers got halfway down the side of H.M.S. Prince Charles when a huge swell surged up and almost pitched them back on the deck. The swell receded and the boat dropped sickeningly down again on its cables, bouncing its seasick occupants about like so many dolls.
As they went into the small boats veteran soldiers told the new men with them what to expect. On H.M.S. Empire Anvil, Corporal Michael Kurtz of the 1st Division gathered his squad about him. “I want all of you Joes to keep your heads down below the gunwale,” he warned them. “As soon as we’re spotted we’ll catch enemy fire. If you make it, O.K. If you don’t, it’s a helluva good place to die. Now let’s go.” As Kurtz and his men loaded into their boat in the davits they heard yells below them. Another boat had upended, spilling its men into the sea. Kurtz’s boat was lowered away without trouble. Then they all saw the men swimming near the side of the transport. As Kurtz’s boat moved off, one of the soldiers floating in the water yelled, “So long, suckers!” Kurtz looked at the men in his boat. On each face he saw the same waxy, expressionless look.