Virtue Magazine

On June 5th, the Allied army entered Rome, capturing the first Axis capital of the war. This seemingly momentous event was hardly a blip on the radar at that point in history, however. The next day, the hugest amphibious operation in history was launched against the French coast of Normandy. The Allies struck at precisely the right time. Because of foul weather, most Germans believed the attack would be postponed, and Erwin Rommel, probably the only man capable of turning back the invasion, was in Germany celebrating his wife’s birthday and preparing for a meeting with Hitler.

The invasion was preceded by paratroopers being dropped into the Normandy countryside to seize important junctions and nodal points critical to the inland advance. In the darkness, many drops went awry, and men wandered about for days separated from their units. However, they spread confusion and panic in the German rear areas, and several important objectives were achieved.

The attack forces landed early in the morning. There were five landing beaches: Omaha and Utah for the Americans, Juno, Gold, and Sword for the British and Canadians. Detachments of French, Polish, and other European nationalities were included in the attacking force. Opposing them were German units who had been savaged time and time again in Russia, and were composed mostly of men in their mid-30s. Some units included Russians who had defected from Stalin’s brutal regime, but were none too anxious to fight the Western Allies. The most formidable divisions in the landing area were the 729th Infantry, defending Omaha Beach, and the 21st Panzer, which lay astride the route to Caen, an important junction which British Field Marshal Montgomery planned to capture on the first day.

The landing was preceded by massive air and naval bombardments, which were by and large successful. Each beachhead was easily secured, except at Omaha. There, the bombardment was inaccurate, and the defenders were largely unfazed. They met the attacking American “Big Red” 1st Infantry Division and 29th Infantry with withering machine gun and artillery fire, which pinned the Americans down on the beach for several hours. The issue was in doubt for several hours, as the dogged American infantrymen crawled forward over the blood-soaked sand, and the Germans resisted desperately. This was the invasion’s most critical hour. If Omaha was not secured, the entire operation was likely to fail. The possibility of retreat was discussed, but dismissed. The attack must go forward. One American officer on the beach declared above the gunfire, “We’re getting murdered here; we may as well move inland and get murdered.”

Move inland they did. Assisted by destroyers who moved dangerously close to the beach to shell the German position, they finally broke through the concrete defenses, and secured the beachhead, suffering some 2,000 casualties. On the other beaches, success was gained much more easily. The primary problem was that most of the amphibious tanks were lost, but the beachheads were secured. Only one serious counterattack was made, launched by the 21st Panzer Division, reformed after grueling service in Africa. Elements of the division reached the beach, but could not throw the British back into the sea. However, they prevented Montgomery from gaining his objective of Caen. Behind schedule as usual, Montgomery would not seize that vital objective for more than a month.

Alerted to the invasion, Rommel rushed back to the battlefield, and struggled to orchestrate a counterattack. But the divided High Command insisted on using the panzer divisions to patch holes in the line instead of being held in reserve for counterattack. Perhaps the two finest divisions to fight in the war, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer, were thrown into the line, and fought the British and Canadians with incredible skill and valor. The fighting with the Canadians was particularly brutal, with numerous atrocities by both sides. Many of the German troops were 18 year olds fresh from the Hitler Youth, but they proved their mettle in the most desperate of circumstances. The British advance was painfully slow, not surprisingly, for they faced the most formidable German divisions. The skill of the German divisions was most admirably demonstrated when Michael Wittmann, the greatest tank ace in history, destroyed 20 British tanks and armored vehicles in 5 minutes, shortly before Caen fell.

It would be up to the Americans to strike the decisive blow. They too labored against ferocious German defenders, who took advantage of the hedgerow country to blunt the Allied advantage in armor. But the Allies enjoyed two immense advantages. First, they owned the skies, and their planes bombed and strafed German forces mercilessly, with no opposition whatsoever from the Luftwaffe. Only the weather could keep them from the skies. Storms did create some problems, but the technological triumph of the Mulberry Harbors, which allowed the Allies to supply their armies without seizing a major port, allowed the offensive to go forward.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Hitler believed the Normandy landings were a feint, and that the major invasion, led by George Patton, was yet to come, at Calais. The German commanders on the scene, Rommel and von Rundstedt, were formidable enough, but besieged by air, ground, and sea, they could do little but hold, and beg Berlin for reinforcements. Some 18 divisions sat idle around Calais, but Hitler, blind to reality, refused to release them for service in Normandy. Fresh infantry divisions would have allowed Rommel to withdraw his panzer divisions from the main line, and launch a counterattack that perhaps could have driven the Allies back into the sea. Instead, they were ground to pieces in a war of attrition they could not possibly win.

It was only a matter of time. Finally, on June 27th, the Americans captured the port of Cherbourg, though it would be of minimal importance, because of the excellent demolition job the Germans did on harbor installations. They continued to grind their way through hedgerow country, both sides suffering monstrous casualties, until merciless air bombardments finally ground the Germans to a nub, and the breakthrough occurred. By that time, the German high command was in disarray. On July 2nd, Hitler had replaced von Rundstedt with Field Marshal von Kluge, a slap in the face to Rommel. Still, Rommel commanded Army Group B, which was doing the fighting. He constantly pleaded with Hitler for freedom of maneuver and reinforcements, but the Fuhrer’s constant answer was, “Do not give up an inch!” Secretly, Rommel began to lend his assistance to the underground conspiracy to depose the Fuhrer, and began to consider opening up the Western Front, allowing the Americans and British to take Berlin before the Russians arrived. But he was severely wounded on July 17th, one day before the Americans captured St. Lo. He would recover, only to be forced to commit suicide by Hitler for his complicity in the assassination plot.

Caen fell on July 9th. The American breakthrough rushed to meet the British pincer at Falaise. Hitler’s planned counterattack failed miserably, and the Germans, exhausted by weeks of merciless fighting, fell back to Falaise. Thousands were slaughtered by Allied bombing and shelling, and only remnants escaped, falling back in a route towards the German border. The battle for Normandy had been won, and it seemed the war was as good as over.

Perhaps an equally important offensive tore the Germans apart in Russia. Army Group Center was all but destroyed by ferocious Russian attacks, recapturing Minsk, and crossing the Bug River into Poland. By August, they were on the outskirts of Warsaw. Hopeful of quick liberation, the Polish resistance rose up and attacked the German occupiers. Stalin ordered the Red Army to halt, for fear a government friendly to the Allies may arise in Poland, and the SS was called in to suppress the uprising. They did so with such brutality that Hitler’s generals protested, and the Army was sent in to finish the job in a more humane fashion. The Russian advance in central Poland was halted for the time, but to the north, they cut off Army Group North in the Courland pocket, and made their first incursions on German territory.

As winter 1944 approached, the outlook was exceedingly bleak for the Axis. The Germans were besieged from east and west, Finland was looking for terms, and Hungary and Romania could no longer be relied upon. In the Pacific, the Allies invaded and captured Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, and launched the first bombardments of Japan with B-29s on July 14th. With resistance in New Guinea all but ended, McArthur began to plan his cherished invasion of the Philippines, another critical step on the road to Tokyo.