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| Portrait
of a Fox
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| Rommel:
Opting for a different strategy in Normandy |
Erwin Rommel,
the scourge of the British 8th Army in North Africa,
was 52 years old in the summer of 1944. Born the son
of a mathematician schoolmaster in the Wurttemberger
region of southern Germany, he at first considered a
career in mathematics. But in 1910 he joined the army,
distinguished himself with bravery and skill in World
War I and became the paragon of a military man. Sober,
shrewd, quiet, businesslike, he was also called by his
biographer Desmond Young, “cold, cunning, ruthless,
untiring, quick to decision, incredibly brave.”
Rommel never
joined the Nazi Party, but he found much to admire in
Hitler, especially his fearlessness and, at least for
a time, his uncanny military judgment. In the late 1930s,
Rommel wrote a book on tactics that earned him the admiration
of the Fuhrer, who placed Rommel on his personal staff.
Hitler heeded Rommel’s request in 1940 and gave
him command of the 7th Panzer Division with which he
wreaked havoc in the Battle of France and became a national
hero. Hitler called on him to drive the British out
of Egypt in a quest for the Suez Canal and Middle East
oil. True to form, Rommel applied blitzkrieg tactics
to the desert.
Eating and
sleeping with his men in the front lines, risking their
dangers and deprivations, Rommel was a soldier’s
general. And he very nearly seized Cairo. Had it not
been for the British (unknown to him) intercepting and
decoding wireless transmissions to and from his headquarters,
Rommel might well have accomplished Hitler’s orders.
Indeed, as leader of the Afrika Corps, he so bedeviled
the British with cunning and surprise that these attributes
earned for him his famous monicker, “The Desert
Fox.”
Rommel’s
eventual defeat in North Africa and the fact that he
was never enamored of Nazis or SS troops, however, did
not stop Hitler from placing him in charge of the Fifteen
and Seventh Armies defending France.
Although
he was a blitzkrieg man by inclination, Rommel felt
the best strategy in Normandy was to crush the anticipated
invasion at water’s edge. He had reason to be
optimistic. The Allied attempts at Dieppe, Salerno and
Anzio had demonstrated that with proper preparations
and a bit of luck, defenders could smash a landing,
or at least bottle it up. With the Allies struggling
on the beaches, Rommel would then throw in his armored
divisions and drive them into the sea.
This strategy
was much contested by Rommel’s superior, von Rundstedt.
The OB West commander disdained fixed defenses—having
outmaneuvered the Maginot Line in 1940—and believed
the Allies could gain a toehold on the beaches no matter
what the Germans would do. His theory was to hold troops
and panzers back from the beaches and then launch a
crushing armored counterattack when the attackers were
relatively weak, barely organized and short on supplies.
In addition
to von Rundstedt’s doubts about his strategy and
Hitler’s retention of crucial Panzer reserves,
Rommel found himself further hobbled by deception and
lack of intelligence. Despite its relative narrowness,
the English Channel proved to be an opaque wall beyond
which the Germans could see little or nothing. German
spies in Britain had all been caught or compromised
in some way so that any intelligence fed back to Berlin
was leading military planners there to believe the main
Allied invasion would strike Pas de Calais. Efforts
by Luftwaffe spy planes were corralled by the Royal
Air Force so that, for the most part, they spotted only
what the RAF wanted them to see. Moreover, the British
had mounted a huge deception effort, including the fabrication
of the fictitious First U.S. Army Group led by General
George Patton, supposedly building up in the east of
England for a massive attack at Pas de Calais.
Still, Rommel
saw through some Allied deceptions. He reckoned that
the invasion would strike at one place, not two or more.
He predicted that it would commence with a night parachute
drop, followed by a first wave at dawn during low tide.
He figured that the moon and tides for such a strike
would be best in June between the 5th and the 7th and
the 12th and the 14th. But having determined this much,
the crafty Desert Fox then concluded that the weather
was too stormy for an Allied attack during the first
period and set off on June 4 for Germany and a celebration
of his wife’s birthday, June 6. —BCS
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| An
AMVET Recalls D-Day
by Nelson Rummel
Preparations
for the assault on Fortress Europe began long before
June 6, 1944. Company A, 507th MP Battalion (V Corps),
to which I was assigned, participated in four invasion
exercises in southwest England between February and
April.
On May 14,
my platoon was temporarily attached to the 18th Infantry
Regiment of the 1st Division (Big Red One). We were
then transported to an assembly area, which encompassed
the length of the southern shores of England for a distance
of l0 miles inland. This was a tightly secured area
constantly patrolled by security forces who did not
allow anyone to leave. On June 1, we [were] transported
to the port of Weymouth, where we boarded an LCT, a
box-like, shallow-draft open craft with a hinged ramp
for a bow and a platform for the Navy crew on the stem.
The LCT contained our platoon, a jeep with a trailer
loaded with explosives and the crew.
On June
4, the crew received orders to leave for a rendezvous
area. A few miles out, however, these orders were countermanded
and we returned to port. At 4 a.m., on June 5, orders
were again received to depart, and this time it was
for real.
Although
the storm of the previous day had abated, the weather
remained bad, with overcast skies and a strong wind
causing 3-foot waves in a choppy sea. We bobbed about
until approximately 6 a.m., on June 6, when we caught
sight of OMAHA BEACH
shrouded by the smoke of the naval and air bombardment.
As the skies
lightened, an armada of ships and small craft stretched
across the horizon. The noise of battleships and other
vessels firing rose and fell. These sights and sounds
boggled the mind and infused a feeling of awe among
all who were witnesses.
At 11 a.m.,
our craft started its run toward the landing area, but
heavy enemy shelling forced the crew to abandon the
attempt. Finally, at 3 p.m., we started what became
our final run to the beach. [When] our craft came to
a halt and lowered the ramp, the sight that greeted
us was less than inviting—since the ramp disappeared
into the water (which we soon learned came up to our
chests) about 100 yards from dry land. The beach extended
only a short stretch before it reached a low sea wall.
Then there was a grassy plain for a distance until it
rose to some bluffs about 150 feet high.
At this
point, each of us weighed almost 300 pounds, including
our own body weight, plus combat boots, steel helmet,
web belt (with ammunition, canteen, first-aid kit, knife
and bayonet), gas mask, knapsack (with underwear, socks
and K-rations) and, above all, a carbine (at this point,
literally carried above the head). The walk to dry land
was far from easy, with shell holes to be stepped in
and man-made obstacles to avoid.
It was about
4 p.m. when we first set foot on the soil of France
with nowhere to go. The beach was littered with the
debris of war and occupied by GIs, wounded, dead and
ambulatory. Those still able to function were trying
to determine how and when they could reestablish their
units and move forward. Our unit found space along the
sea wall, where we could take stock of our situation
and regroup. The head count showed that we had lost
one of our own to enemy fire.
At 6:30
p.m., as we moved from the beach toward our objective,
we noticed enemy shells impacting in a line from the
bluffs but fortunately stopping about 50 yards from
us. With a feeling of relief, we continued for about
200 yards, where we stopped briefly to reestablish our
bearings. We resumed our march inland about 7 p.m. [and]
continued on to our C.P., about half a kilometer east
of the village of Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, where we dug
foxholes in an apple orchard for an overnight stay.
On awakening
the next morning, we found ourselves pinned down by
a sniper who kept raining apple blossoms down on us
for most of the morning. “Apple Blossom Time”
by the Andrews Sisters is a song that has always remained
in my memory.
From this
beginning, we continued through France, Luxembourg,
Belgium [and] Germany, ending at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.
This part of the journey had its events and episodes,
but nothing could approach the experience of the assault
of the Normandy beachhead.
Nelson
Rummel is a member of Post 30 in Nutley, N.J., and editor
of NEW JERSEY
AMVETS, published by the Department of New Jersey.
This article is reprinted with permission from the January,
1994, issue of that newspaper. |
| A
Man a Common Touch: Cornelius Ryan
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Ryan:
writing about the courage and despair of people caught
up in war
UPI/Bettmann |
Late in 1959,
the 15th anniversary of the invasion of France, there appeared
a modest-sized book called The Longest Day: June 6,
1944. The author was 39-year-old Cornelius Ryan, an
Irish-born reporter assigned by a London newspaper to cover
the American GIs in Britain during the war. Since that time,
he had emigrated to the United States, become an American
citizen, married and settled into magazine work.
Despite the
fact that another book on the invasion had appeared only
months earlier, Ryan’s unpretentious volume caused
a small sensation. From that time forward, D-Day would be
indelibly etched into the folklore of the American experience,
with Ryan himself forever linked to it. The reasons for
the success of The Longest Day can be debated.
One that stands out, though, is the title. It comes not
from some gigantic battle plan such as OVERLORD,
or from commander jargon such as “D-Day,” or
even from the side of the Allies. Rather, it comes from
an informal and anxious observation that the opposing general,
Erwin Rommel, made to his aide prior to the invasion.
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| Courtesy
Simon & Schuster |
Some reporters,
on hearing the story of Rommel’s worrisome remark,
would have let it slide. Ryan, however, saw it as giving
voice to what thousands of men and women would feel that
day—terror, pain, elation, liberation, grief, confusion—a
day that none who lived through it would ever forget.
Although uttered
by a commanding general, a field marshal, the remark cuts
to the experience of the men who commanded no one but themselves,
who jumped or waded, gathered up equipment or helped where
they could, in the greatest battle of the century. By taking
the book to the level not only of the commanders who worried
about the fates of tens of thousands, of corps and divisions,
but also of the men who felt the concussion of mortars and
the sand in their faces, Ryan struck a chord with readers
than resonates still.
Probably because
he understood that no matter what the complexity of the
battle, or its geopolitical significance, for each of the
men involved, it was really a matter of great simplicity:
deal as best you can with your fears, then do your job as
best you can.
Cornelius Ryan,
“Connie” to most, was the first born of a soldier
in the British army and an Irish-nationalist mother. Ryan’s
father John (from whom he received his middle name) was
not successful in civilian life, but managed to send his
oldest son to England for education. Young Ryan worked for
a time for a politician, but bolted for what he knew would
be his profession—journalism, like that of irascible
grandfather, Cornelius, a notorious gadfly in Ireland.
He worked hard
at Reuters learning the trade, then moved to the more prestigious
London Daily Telegraph. One day the owner, Lord
Camrose, called young Connie into his office and said, “Ryan,
we’ve got to have someone reporting the doings of
these American chaps. Since you’re Irish, would you
mind?” Ryan was never sure what being Irish had to
do with it, but he accepted. The work was rough sledding
at first, landing among a group of men the likes of which
he had never met. Said Ryan, “Among those brash, irreverent,
confident [American] soldiers, I found my spiritual home.”
One of Ryan’s
best friends, and editor of A Bridge Too Far about
the battle at Arnhem in September 1944, was Jerry Korn,
himself the co-pilot of a bomber on D-Day. Korn, too, pursued
journalism as a career and met Ryan in the early 1950s when
both worked for Collier’s magazine.
Asked how Ryan
came up with the idea for The Longest Day, Korn
replied, “As far as I know, it was entirely his idea.
He had been there and had never forgotten it. He had hoped
for years to get a chance to write about it. He first approached
Life about underwriting him, but Life could not
handle such a big project. Reader’s Digest,
however, did.
“The thing
that made Connie’s book succeed was the scope of the
research, the notion of quoting so many of the people who
actually took part. He talked to so many of the men that
you really did get a sense of what it must have been like
to have been there.” Nobody had ever written anything
like that. The reviewers rallied to it, and the fact that
there had been a book out on the same subject just months
before meant nothing when The Longest Day appeared.
It's a bit hard to appreciate now what a kind of literary
bombshell that was.”
Korn recalls
that Ryan was an extraordinary researcher. “He was
meticulous, and a very careful writer; accuracy was everything
to him. The thought of being caught in an error was appalling
to him; and so there really were no errors. He did most
of his interviews face to face and had a knack for asking
the right questions. In many cases, the interviewees were
surprised, I’m sure, at the kinds of questions he
was asking, which to them must have seemed irrelevant. But
what he got was a 3-dimensional view of what happened and
how it affected each person.”
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At
his home in Ridgefield, Conn., Ryan edits his “hanging
manuscript,” pages of which were hung as each
was written.
UPI/Bettmann |
But that was
really only the start. Korn recalls, “It’s almost
incomprehensible the amount of work that went into the making
of his books even after the interviews and field work were
complete. He had filing cabinets jammed with research. He
must have had millions of words of research filed away very
carefully so that he could always get what he needed. The
result was not only popular acclaim for his books and sales
to match, but international respect. Says Korn, “My
best recollection is that the French, the British and the
Germans all were greatly impressed by The Longest Day.”
Ryan grew as
a writer and as a respected man as the years flowed by.
He was asked to give talks and lectures. He wrote the screenplay
for the film version of The Longest Day, which
appeared in 1962.
He was sometimes
criticized for going into too much detail, but he was just
as often praised for “brilliant reporting within the
well-told story.” He is reported to often have said,
“I am a reporter. If I am some help to serious historians,
I’ll be satisfied. I’m not a great writer, but
I know I combine a vast amount of material into a dramatic
context. There is no reason for history to be dull.”
He wrote The
Last Battle, a book on the struggle for Berlin in the
waning weeks of the war, that came out in 1966. He then
went to work on what may have been his most ambitious book,
A Bridge Too Far. But he was always linked with
D-Day and the men who struggled in the effort to get a toehold
in Normandy.
In 1974, Ryan
was awarded the highest honor the French government can
bestow, the Legion of Honor. Not long after, he succumbed
to cancer at age 54. A Bridge Too Far, which he
had written during the four years of pain and body deterioration
that marked his struggle with disease, had just been published
and was second on nonfiction bestseller list.
At his burial,
veterans of the 82nd Airborne Division acted as the honor
guard. Walter Cronkite read from The Longest Day,
and General James Gavin presented Kathy with the flag that
had draped her husband’s casket.
As reported
by his wife, co-author of A Private Battle, Ryan
often went to the cemeteries in Normandy. There, he said
to her, “Nobody knew their names until I began research
for The Longest Day. No nation ever gave them any medals—those
paratroopers who dropped from the skies, the air and naval
personnel involved in D-Day, and the infantrymen who stormed
ashore in the crucial first three assault waves. I guess
I wrote The Longest Day because I never understood
why nobody seemed to care about the names of the ordinary
men and the civilians involved. If I ever did anything right
in my life, I made their names immortal.”
His favorite
passage from The Longest Day, one that reportedly
he worked on over and over and which he knew by heart, reads
in part, “The men of the invasion fleet heard the
roar of the planes. Wave after wave passed overhead . .
. Nobody said a word. And then as the last formation flew
over, an amber light blinked down through the clouds on
the fleet below. Slowly it flashed out in Morse code three
dots and a dash: V for Victory.” —BCS
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