The coast of Normandy, the evening of June 5th
OKW predicts the start of the hostilities (the invasion) to be the middle of May. The 18th seems to be a likely date. Nevertheless, that is of course not a certainty. The main attempt in Normandy, then in Brittany. It is presumed that the enemy will bomb the ground positions with large caliber bombs, concentrated to small areas, and will try to eliminate the coastal forces the same way. It’s further presumed that the enemy will insert a powerful fleet bombardment. The use of completely new weaponry will not be excluded as a possibility. Important parachute landings could take place at night.
It is required to disperse and camouflage our troops with great care and bury everything that is not under concrete. Inside the country, in the Cotentin, a special alertness is demanded against airborne troops.
Keep an eye on the sky!
– OKW orders received by Field Marshal Rommel’s headquarters in La Roche Guyon, 10 May 1944.[1]
The fifth of June grew late in Normandy. The wind had eased slightly throughout the day, but out among the sand dunes at the hamlet of La Madeleine, the gusts were still quite powerful. La Madeleine, situated on the east coast of the Cotentin or Cherbourg peninsula, had transformed from an idyllic excursion spot before the war to an isolated and restricted area. Its uniformed occupants now called the place WN5[2] “Strongpoint 5.” It was surrounded by mines, barbed wire, sand dunes, and water.
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The sea, flooded marshes, ditches, small channels, and brooks formed a deadly labyrinth as defense against airborne enemy landings. The German guards, who had tossed their coats too early, shielded themselves against the wind. Under steel helmets they scouted the foam-whipped sea, whose thundering swell rolled over the beach and broke furiously against a forest of mine-infested beach obstacles before retreating, depleted of its force. It was timeless like the sea itself.
The soldiers of the 919th Infantry Regiment of the 709th German Infantry Division held the area from the Vire River to a little west of Cherbourg—in other words, the entire eastern coast of the peninsula. They thought it unlikely that the Allied troops would concentrate an invasion attempt on their area. The 709th Infantry Division had been in the area for close to a year, and there was little news to write home about. No, it seemed that Normandy was the place for recreation. If one wanted action, one had to transfer to the area around Pas de Calais held by the 15th German Army. However, there were none in General Dollman’s 7th Army who wanted to get in the same situation as the men in General Salmuth’s 15th. There, Allied bombs fell around the clock. Despite this, the area around “Strongpoint 5” would within a few hours be known to the world as “Utah Beach.” The German guards continued their routine inspection rounds, blissfully ignorant of the fact that an armada, which would bring the everyday implications of war to Normandy, was just behind the horizon where the grey sky met the grey ocean.
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A few miles east, inside the concrete bunker down the road leading from Vierville sur Mer, everything was quiet this Monday in June. From the bunker, the crew had a lengthwise view along the beach. The storm raged on as fiercely here as it did on the east side of Contentin. The waves rolled in at almost two yards high, and with an infernal vehemence pounded against a tall seawall that ran the eastern length of the slightly curved beach. Inside the seawall, and within the flat area that followed, a steep knoll rose about thirty-five yards tall. This knoll was packed with fortified positions. The beach was the only place in the approximately 33 km stretch between the mouth of the river Vire and the village of Arromanches that was useful for a large-scale landing of troops. The Germans had concentrated their positions to each end of the beach and to four valleys or slopes that led up from the sand. Overall, the Germans had almost two hundred strongly fortified positions along the eight-thousand-yard-long crescent-shaped beach. A formidable defense.
The rumble of the sea came and disappeared with the wind. A strip of light cut diagonally down from the low, chasing clouds before it closed again and became gray once more. The beach that stretched eastward from Vierville sur Mer would within twenty-four hours be etched in history as “Omaha Beach,” or simply “Bloody Omaha” among those who stepped ashore there. However, no one had told the scouting guards from the 352nd Infantry Division what was lurking far out there behind the lead-grey horizon.
Arromanches, a small, picturesque village about halfway between Vierville sur Mer and the mouth of the river Orne, lay in a rift valley in the coastal plateau with a roughly two and a half mile long curved sand beach facing the sea. Inside, the landscape carefully rose to the same level as the plateaus on the sides. Thanks to German fortifications the picturesque character of the little fishing village was conspicuously absent in these early evening hours, and a touch of drama clutched the grey houses timbered in white-painted wood. For this village in twilight, doomsday was only hours away. Only six houses would stand intact when night once again set over it twenty-four hours later. The Allies called the area “Gold Beach.”
Graye, Courseulles sur Mer, Bernieres sur Mer, St. Aubin sur Mer—all of them lay weathered and windswept among the sand dunes, dotted with grey stone houses that defied the wildness of the landscape and created shelter for the people there. From outside the dunes, the frothing sea could be heard like a threatening rumble between howling gusts of wind. Silent, bristling, and impenetrable, the German beach obstacles stood guard like a magical forest. Beaches that had earlier been recreational spots were now a courtyard of death, plotted on the Allies’ map of operations as “Juno Beach.”
Even farther east, by Quistreham, violent waves tossed against the breakwater. Perhaps the forces of nature wanted to establish a show of strength in front of the witnesses to history—to prove that mankind’s advanced technology wasn’t enough to win over nature itself. Today, nature. Tomorrow, mankind. Even this place, under the haunting skies, had long time ago received its code name: “Sword Beach.” Above the mouth of the river Orne, the naked call of a seagull cut through the air before quickly being absorbed by a gust of wind. The darkness was ready to set in. Would the “Amiens” come tonight?
This was the coast where the Germans had constructed their invasion defense—an artificial defense possessed of the men who had built it and feared by the Allies. The Atlantic Wall. But it wasn’t here that the Allies would meet their greatest obstacles. Once again, nature itself would be the most difficult force to overcome. It would take weeks and months of countless battles before the Allies could fight their way out of this treacherous, easily defendable landscape. The Allied soldiers would forever remember Normandy’s hedgerows, earthworks, sunken roads, ditches, and stone walls with fear. It was a landscape that invited small violent fire assaults and sniping. A landscape made for defense.
Caen, St. Lô, Sainte-Mère-Église, Carentan, Le Carrefour, Mont Castre, Cherbourg, Caen, Troarn and Caumont. These cities would be etched into history as sites of heroism and tragedy. The places were as numerous as Normandy’s many crossroads. Many would remain unknown to history. Here were places that would cost the Allies 6,000 men to advance half a mile. Yet although history’s spotlight was merely hours away, Normandy’s fields lay as deserted and silent as they had for hundreds of years. The trees swayed threateningly in the wind. The hedges that crowned the fields rustled with leaves. Shadowy, secretive. Frightening. The moon appeared through a crack in the haunting skies and cast a gloomy glow over the landscape. Sentries moved about anxiously.
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[1] OKW, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
[2] WN means Wiederstandnest
For the benefit of folks not familiar with the term, "Wiederstandsnest" means "Resistance Nest."
The other term, "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht," means, "German Army High Command."
Great essay.
This kinda bothsideism I can handle!