A Morning in France

[Aber]

The second & equally important question is of how well or fast the men how could not reach the resistance nests could be organized into the inland or backstop defense.

Behind Omaha are the villages which would provide a natural second line for the 352nd to organise a defence.

In addition there is Kampfgruppe Meyer with 3 battalions, and a StuG battalion, designated for counterattack. Although they will be alerted much later, they will not have suffered from chasing round and clashing with paratroops, and may have more opportunity for an organised attack.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

This has been an extremely well thought out WI Carl. Your scenarios are always a pleasure to read.

What I've been doing is going methodically through the books & reviewing the events/accounts in chronological order. Some of this I'm putting into this thread. Usually when doing a review like this I note a bunch of names, times and page numbers to fix the sequence in my mind. This thread is another way of doing this. The PoD is something I've had in my mind for a couple years. I read 'The Germans in Normandy' and had been struck by exactly how ignorant they were of the fleet anchoring off the coast in the dark. That led to the PoD here. The question at the moment is more of a academic or theoretical strategy question as I've not investigated deeply the probability of the PoD. What I am trying to do here is trace out a few of the effects of catastrophic surprise on the 6th June battle. The question of the PoD I'll address separately after more research, and elsewhere.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Lt Schaf did not care for the order to move closer to the beach and engage the Tommies directly with his battery. But Col Hof cut off any argument. The battery swiftly got underway and headed towards Lion sur Mer. The battery was to rendezvous with the 3 battalion of the 736 infantry regiment. It was a relatively short distance but the column was harassed by enemy aircraft. A couple kilometers from Lion sur Mer enemy small arms fire also engaged them.

Sgt Major Hollis of the Green Howards decided the company had subdued the nest of bunkers & pillboxes. Captain Lofthouse appeared along a communications trench, sorting the platoons out. He conferred briefly with the Sgt Major & they got the company moving on into the interior. La Riviere lay behind them in minutes as they advanced south against scattered rifle & MG fires.

By 10:30 Corporal Portway was starting to think the advance inland was better organized than the training exercises. Around him the 231st Brigade was feeling its way through a seemingly random network of enemy rifle and MG fires. Some AT guns had been overcome in a set piece attack, with Vickers MG and mortars supporting against the enemy guns.

Corporal Werner Kortenhaus stared at his watch as he lay in a hollow against a tree. It was 09:40 & he was taking cover from the third strafing attack since the battalion had started doing at 08:00. The number of enemy aircraft overhead were beyond belief & Kortenhaus wondered why they were able to move at all. Other times they had halted or turned entirely off the road to allow other units speed past. The road they had initially followed had been straight with no trees adjacent for cover. The present lane was not much better. Minutes later the company officers strode down the column and bade the vehicles to turn across a a farm field and filter between a few houses onto another road. Now they were headed west towards Caen. as 10:00 based the column was shaking itself out and rolling along the new road. Every eye scanned the sky for the filters turning onto them. A pall of smoke columns filled the sky between the lightening clouds and the not yet in sight roofs of Caen. Kortenhous wondered if they were going to fight the Tommies in the city.

Just north of the village of Hermanville the commander of the 185th Brigade felt considerable satisfaction. The last few hours had seen them across the beach and inland, then properly assembled as planned for the push south. They had a straight road to the edge of Caen. Brigadier Perece Smith judged they would be pushing off shortly after 11:00. Reconnaissance had reported plenty of enemy in and beyond the village, but wherever they had found the enemy in the past hours they had been confused and each bit of opposition had given way quickly. On the right the sound of a fight had tapered off earlier. Smith had overheard some firing from heavy cannon, but those had evidently been seen off & he hoped for good. There had been plenty of German artillery, but it seemed confused as well with many salvos landing where there were few Brits.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

The five hours since dawn & the alarm seemed like forever to Lt Poppel. His company had skirmished with a few enemy paras on the outskirts of Caen, then moved through the town to engage them across the Vire. There a chaotic battle developed. Poppels men found a mix of German units acting in confusion. Some seemingly leaderless groups were paralyzed or attempting to retreat. A hand full of Ossies has even surrendered to the German paras. What they might have expected from the Yanks Poppel did not know but it appeared the German paras had given them a bit of a beating. For the past couple hours the idea seemed to be to advance to St Mere Englise. It had been tough enough against the enemy paras, but just a few minutes ago tanks had appeared among the enemy, the high turreted type with the 7.5cm gun. There were at least two in sight & Poppel wondered how to get the AT gun they had passed up a half hour earlier into action against them. He assumed it was still emplaced several hundred meters to the east and completely out of sight of the just arrived tanks.

Col Taylor of the 16th Inf decided it was time the regiment CP moved forward. He take the A section forward first. The Adjutant had already been sent to the new CP location with some clerks to scout it and select buildings for the HQ sections. He made a quick review of the last reports from the battalions. They had all moved off the beach, leaving the few residual Germans to the following mass of combat and support units. Inland they'd found thick with Germans, in all manner of defense positions. The last few batches of prisoners questioned were as confused and surprised as any they'd talked to that morning. It was clear the enemy was formed on their back up line behind the beach as best they could, but sections of that had seemingly been taken on the fly by companies of the 16th Inf. Company C had apparently wandered through a gap unknowingly and taken 115 prisoners who had blindly moved in behind them. Coleville was clearly going to be a problem. The companies advancing to it were taking casualties and not reporting any progress.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

It was nearly 10:00 & the engineer platoon of Lt Garret was working its way up the U5 causeway exit from the beach. There had been some MG and mortar fire from a distance in the first quarter hour, but that had faded after some distant small arms fire in the same direction. Scouts had picked their way along the causeway ahead of them & a trickle of messengers had passed both ways as the 3rd Platoon worked at removing mines. The messenger returning had told them the Airborne was on the far end & had a mess of Kraut prisoners.

Lt Col MacNeely of 2d bn 8th Infantry fretted as his lead squads worked their way up the U6 lane between the marsh and shallow ponds of the inundation between the beach dunes and the village of Pouppeville. Some sort of German position on the beach to their left rear tried to interfere with a mortar and MG fire raking the elevated roadway. The artillery observers settled that with repeated salvos from the cruisers off shore. Company C of the 70 Armored battalion had followed them up to the U6 & positioned for supporting fire, but there was next to nothing to shoot at. No enemy fires were forth coming from Pouppeville & to the north along the inundation orange cloth panels indicated the Airborne controlled the buildings. The lead infantry squads were better than halfway across. Snaking back from them Neely could see a long dispersed line of infantry stretching back into the dunes. The battalion had been under German artillery fire crossing the beach & now everyone had gotten religion about dispersal and spacing in the files. He wondered if the trailing company was even off the beach & into the dunes yet.

Inside Poupeville 2dLt Briene was collecting a sizable crowd of German prisoners. Earlier his scratch platoon had attacked some houses on the west side of the village had grenaded or shot a few defenders. The remainder resisted in a disorganized fashion. Some fled into the open at the head of the causeway and caught fire from the 8th Inf squads. As the village was secured Maj Gen Taylor passed through to greet the lead of the 8th Inf. A Captain Mabry, the 2d bn S3 officer was with the leading squads & made the official link up with Taylors 101 Airborne and the 4th Inf Div. Tanks passed thru Pouppeville a few minutes later.

Further north on UTAH beach the first Bn 8th Inf had worked its way along the U4 causeway & met the 101st at a farmhouse called Audouville-la Hubert. Unfortunately the narrow causeway had been cratered by a few stray bombs and the vehicles trying to move west were stuck in the muddy holes. The files of 8th infantry men had to detour into the water to get around the vehicle crews working at clearing the block.

North of St Marie du Mont paratroopers of the 101st lounged about guarding some German howitzers captured early in the morning. A roving collection of paratroops that had just landed at first light found the battery manned by a skeleton crew of sentries. They'd quickly rounded them up, then settled in to fight off the rest of the German gunners as they came up from their billets a few hundred meters away. The gunfire attracted other paras and by 06:00 the fight had degenerated into a mix of paras & artillerymen scattered between the howitzers and farm houses. At this point the Germans decided they'd had enough and began surrendering, both their officers dead or wounded and the first sergant dead. Some barns in St Marie du Mont had become packed with German prisoners. The 101st divisions S-2 wondered at the wisdom of such a concentration. They seemed quiet enough. Those he'd interviewed had been shocked and demoralized by the abrupt para assault. Still he'd be glad when they could be moved to the beach & out of his hair.

 

[Aber]

It looks as if the effects of the PoD are:
A far better position behind Utah beach
Much lower casualties on Omaha beach, but a tougher fight inland
Slightly better position at the British beaches - I suspect any improvement will come from Gold and Juno, rather than Sword.

In particular the Canadians crossing the Caen-Bayeux road and dominating Carpiquet, and armoured brigades pushing as far as Villers Bocage will change the battle for Caen significantly.

 

[O'Alexis 89]

In other words:
A D-Day going better than IOTL's.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

It looks as if the effects of the PoD are:
A far better position behind Utah beach
Much lower casualties on Omaha beach, but a tougher fight inland
Slightly better position at the British beaches - I suspect any improvement will come from Gold and Juno, rather than Sword. ...

Been wondering the same thing myself. The PoD does not waive away the heavy loss of tanks @ O beach which makes the inland battle tougher for the 1st ID. The knock on effects do raise the possibility of tanks inland 1-2 hours faster on the others. Was reading about the battle around the German Hillman position & could not yet see that going any faster.

 

[JonKenobi]

Wonder how this will affect things down the road. If the western allies were in a better position on D-day they might link up with the Russians further East then OTL.

If that happens we might see a unified Germany instead of the East West split.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Way to far down the line for me. At this point I'm just trying to sort out a few of the more obvious changes for 6th June.

Have not had any messages concerning the PoD for a week. Either everyone has figured it out, or gave up.

 

[Zheng He]

Way to far down the line for me. At this point I'm just trying to sort out a few of the more obvious changes for 6th June.

Have not had any messages concerning the PoD for a week. Either everyone has figured it out, or gave up.

Just following with considerable interest...

 

[Cryhavoc101]

If the British and or Canadians can possibly have forces at least in the northern outskirts of Caen by night fall that would certainly be interesting

With the Canadians punching further South earlier than OTL - A delayed 21st Panzer response might head North West rather than North - or spread itself far too thin

 

[Aber]

Way to far down the line for me. At this point I'm just trying to sort out a few of the more obvious changes for 6th June.

The immediate changes are fairly obvious.

After that the key will be German counterattacks as the relevant units will have less notice, and be facing a different situation on the ground, so the fights will happen at different places.

Key issues for the Allies are how quickly they can capture Carentan, move westwards over the Douve, and whether they can get armoured brigades south of the Caen-Bayeux road.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Colonel Howard Johnson passed midmorning organizing a continual series of attacks on the high ground St Comte du Mont capped. For some four hours it had been ad hoc collections of troopers from his 501st PI Regiment & starts from the other regiments breaking up confused bands of Germans, Poles, or Russians. In the last hour or so Johnson had organized enough of his battalions he could stay at the small collection of radios and HQ staff that comprised a CP. Unfortunately as his regiment pulled together the enemy had as well. The resistance along the ridge the road from Carentan to St Mere Englise & points north ran along had gotten tougher. The appearance of a platoon of tanks from the beach was offset by reports of enemy paras attacking just a few hundred yards away. He wondered briefly if they had somehow identified his CP and were headed for that. Another bit of better news was he had made contact with a forward observer for the navy. The man & his radio operators were getting positioned to direct fire on the village of Haute Addeville. Resistance there was stalling the efforts of his second Battalion to clear the enemy between them & more advanced parties of Airborne further west up the slope to St Comte.

What comprised his 1st Bn was preoccupied with holding the locks and footbridge at La Barquette & skirmishing with malcontents in the marsh on the north side of the Douve river.

 

[Driftless]

skirmishing with malcontents

 

[Simon]

I suspect any improvement will come from Gold and Juno, rather than Sword.

IIRC didn't Sword beach have some interesting offshore topography that meant fewer ships could be landed at the same time than the other beaches?

 

[Aber]

IIRC didn't Sword beach have some interesting offshore topography that meant fewer ships could be landed at the same time than the other beaches?

Not sure it was just offshore reefs, but Sword (and Utah) was a landing on a 1 brigade front, not 2 brigades/RCTs like the other beaches.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

For the 185th Brigade the 11:00 departure time came & there was no movement forward. The 8th Brigade was having trouble clearing a strongpoint a couple kilometers south Hermanville. As it was the riflemen of the 8th Brigade were going to delay their luncheon if they were to clear the entrenched enemy from the Hermanville-Caen road by midday.

Corporal Kartenhaus wondered about lunch himself. The column was halted yet again in the streets of Caen. they had yet to reach the bridge. Adjacent were only residential houses & not a bistro or bakery in sight. Breakfast had been a haphazard affair & not much of it in any case. It looked like the iron ration of only hard bread he had in his bag. Those thoughts were interrupted by the explosion of several aircraft bombs a few hundred meters away & out of sight beyond the next few row of houses. Since the detonations were in the direction they were headed Corporal Kortenhaus wondered if they would have to back up the column and seek another route.

Captain Kimball Richmond of L Company 16th Inf Regiment had at the moment some 25 men under his command. Several will still strays from another company. Since topping the bluff overlooking Omaha beach around 08:00 he had continued to collect whatever solders were at hand and lead them south. The fight on the bluff had been in some ways tougher than in the bunkered strong points. There had been a lot more Germans. Abruptly after a stand up fight in the trenches, buildings, and treelined fences the Germans had fallen back. As he pushed through the fields southwards there were congealed knots of Germans, usually among farm buildings or small woods. Progress agains them had become tougher. A few minutes earlier the battalion commander had caught up with Richmond and discussed the need to push on south. H outlined a simple plan to break the position directly in front of Richmond and by pass those to the flanks. A few minutes later more of Richmonds company joined him trippling his strength. Now he awaited a promised artillery observation team that would bring naval fires on the enemy cluster.

Lt John McCarthy was busy emplacing his 81mm mortar platoon some 500 meters from Richmonds L Company. Most of the ammunition salvaged along the beach was gone. Expended supporting the infantry in taking a strong point overlooking the beach. The handful of rounds for each of his four tubes would have to do until more found its way from the beach.

Commander James Marshal of the USS Doyle took mental note of the destroyers remaining ammunition and estimated a time he would be leaving his gunnery station to return to port for resupply. As expected most of the magazine had been expended during the morning. After the initial bombardment of the OMAHA Beach sector there had been a considerable dead time with nothing over the shore fire control radio frequency. They had been ordered inshore to start support & lacking radio contact had edged up into shoal water in the hope of spotting targets. Even from 1000 yards or less it had been difficult. The log book showed that at 08:10 radio contact had finally been made with a SFCP, but radio direction had been spotty for some time after. There was still a lot of haze and even with the ships powerful binoculars and gun sights it had been difficult to identify the hidden bunkers and GIs closing in on them. Between 8:30 & 09:30 the targets visible faded away & the locations moved inland beyond the bluffs. The Doyle was worked out to a better position & now was firing some 2000 yards inland @ 11:07.

Lt Col John Williamsons 2d bn 18th Infantry landed on Easy Red O Beach only three minutes late @ 09:48. The boat commodore had doubts about pushing in through the congestion, but boats were pulling out & Lt Col Williamson thought his infantry could easily file through the chaos, even if they had to leave the vehicles on the beach for a while. Getting off the beach had been slow. A enemy AT gun in a well positioned bunker had prevented much movement up the exit draw. Eventually a pair of tanks had worked their way around to where they could put shots through the embrasure before they were hit. After that some infantry from the 16th Reg had overrun a MG supporting the bunker. At 11:00 the battalion was infiltrating the minefields inland.

Lt Ferking had managed to reestablish a artillery OP. In the second floor of a farm house he was conveniently just a house away from a battalion CP of the 352 Div. It had taken no small effort to locate and dig up the telephone line Ferking had know was buried nearby. He & his NCO had run a new line to the house and established orientation with the battery. The Americans were already attacking when Ferking had gotten some salvos started. After only a half hour of firing the battery informed Ferking they were out of ammunition & would only fire a emergency mission. He & the NCO remained at the OP until the battalion CP withdrew.

Major Pluskatt had been largely out of action. His effort to return to the artillery CP had been frustrated by the lack of transportation. The staff car was nowhere to be found. Probably one of the numerous wrecked vehicles he"d seen since since leaving the beach. At the Command Post near Colleville he'd found the infantry regiment HQ preparing to retreat to a secondary position further south. He conferred briefly by phone with his HQ which resulted in little more than he ought to establish a new OP to support the infantry regiment. Lacking communications equipment he made arrangements to rendezvous with a vehicle from the artillery regiment.

Lt Colonel Griffths led his battalion of the Highland Light Infantry slowly through the village of Bernieres. The leading 8th Canadian Brigade were not advancing as expected & the tail of their transport and support vehicles still closed the streets. It was tempting to settle in to the side & wait for traffic to move faster, but they continues to shuffle forward to the far side. Griffiths & the rest thanked god the German artillery was falling elsewhere that on their packed crowd.

Ahead Brigadier Cunningham of the 8th CB was frantically trying to sort out the command. Still badly mixed from the landing it was difficult to get a proper attack on. The sort of adhoc methods that had go them through the first hours were not gaining enough ground and the opposition was clearly congealing on a secondary defense line. Part of that seemed to be formed on a battery position from where four or more field cannon were stalling the Canadians. Furthermore his fire support was failing. The navy guns were slow to respond & the field artillery regiment was masked by the low ridge the 8th CIB had just crossed.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Midday at HQ LXXXIV Corps Lt Gen Marcks gloomily studied the map again. It was clear the beach defense had failed completely. He wasn't seeing anything indicating contact with more than a very few of the resistance nests & the divisions were all trying to form a defense several kilometers inland. So much for all the effort that had been put into the fortifications. No point in dwelling on that. The problem at had was to stabilize a line. That was problematic as the reserves were thin. Only the 21st PzD was close enough to intervene immediately & it had become embroiled in fighting the airborne attack at Caen. The 12th SS was on its way but no useful estimate on when it might arrive. Local reserves were all he had. The most urgent need seemed to be on the flanks, around Caen & north of Carentan. Technically a corps and army boundary lay east of Caen, but Marcks had ignored that is his discussions with his staff. The 21st PzD needed to restore the situation there & break though to the beaches. He'd had the 30th mobile brigade released to him as well. They were to reinforce the 352 ID & counter attack any overextended enemy east of Carentan. From Carentan north the 6th Para Regiment should be able to at least delay the enemy. Beyond that it was really up to the adjacent corps & what Dollman might do with the rest of 7th Army.

Lt General Dollman had less optimistic view than what LXXXIV Corps was forwarding to him. It was clear the para attack north of Carentan was catastrophic. Half the 709th Static Division had seemingly disappeared. The enemy had a bridgehead across the Meredet River. While the 91st ID had forwarded optimistic reports from mid morning Dollman judged this was no isolated para drop. He judged the enemy was landing on the la Madaline beach in corps strength. They clearly intended to move for Cherbourg as swiftly as possible. What was stunning from Dollmans point of view was that they were attacking in corps strength at three other location across the entire Calvados coast as well. This was no raid and unlikely to be a diversion. the beach defense so much had been invested in had collapsed in a couple hours. This was no accident, the enemy was coming to Normandy with everything they had. He had word there was no invasion at all in the 15th Armys sector. Of reinforcements HQ Army Group G could tell him nothing beyond the release of the 12SS & 21st divisions. If Berlin expected this invasion to be destroyed forthwith he needed the armored corps from Paris forthwith.

Major General Hubner made the decision to get ashore. After near six hours it was certain the assault was a success. Now it was also certain chaos was not resolving ashore. He did not blame Cota or the regimental commanders. It was that their thin communications suites & staff were not up to the task of coordinating a reinforced division. Aggravated no doubt by equipment & personnel losses. Getting his forward command group set up ashore and operating was the best he could do at the moment. As he waited for the boats to be loaded he went over the remaining landing schedule with his CoS Lt Col Pratt. Then sent a final note to Lt Gen Gerow the V Corps commander.

On JUNO sector Major General Keller was already ashore & growing in frustration. Keller found creating order tougher than anticipated. The 8th & 9th Brigades were not advancing as fast as the following waves were coming in. clogging the streets inland, the beach exits, and beach itself. A big problem was the inability of the artillery regiment ashore to fire over the high ground behind the beach, there were communications issues, & the simple fact that the Germans had thrown together a line of hasty strong points a kilometer or two inland. The first priority was to get the naval fires on the congealing enemy positions & off the residual scheduled fires that were addressing 'suspected' positions. That was going to be difficult as the communications staff ashore had no extra equipment to replace lost items or radio operators. Neithers was the small liaison section his HQ able to do much at the moment to speed communications from the SFCPs to the ships. The other action was to put the tanks to the fore, to lead the infantry onto the resistance points. This the staff could accomplish personally by walking down the streets and shout until the blocking vehicles got out of the way of the tanks. A sure but not necessarily fast process.

 

[wizz33]

last line is cut of