World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF FRANCE: The Fox In the Orchard

Enough dust swirled over the tank-churned roads of Normandy to remind ex-Desert Fox Erwin Rommel of Africa. But there the resemblance ended. There was no room among the copses, apple orchards, and hedge-crossed fields of Calvados for the great sweeps of “land battleships” that Rommel had used in the wastes of Libya.

Perhaps Rommel was restrained by the Fabian hand of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Perhaps he was not a great and daring general, after all. In any case, he frittered away a lot of his armor and more of his chances in local, uncoordinated counterattacks which merely harassed methodical General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. Rommel got nowhere. The Allies made good progress, were fighting a winning battle.

The Job for Monty. Montgomery’s task—a holdover from the first week’s uncompleted assignment—was to use the British and Canadian forces on his left flank as a parry to ward off. Rommel’s jabs, while he used Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley’s U.S. army in a right swing against Cherbourg. Simultaneously, Montgomery had to win the “Battle of the Build-up.” He had to bring in, over the beaches and through emergency landing facilities on the Bay of the Seine, enough men and material to make sure that he could stop the major counterblow by Rommel if & when it came.

Germans’ Guess. In this division of duties, the more spectacular role went to U.S. VII Corps troops, battling toward Cherbourg. Infantrymen of the 4th Division smashed into Montebourg, and the Germans decided this was the main drive, in a straight line for Cherbourg.

Meanwhile, Bradley brought in the 9th Division, teamed it with the 82nd Airborne Division, another battle-tried outfit which had made the first landings in the Cotentin. While the Nazis battered their heads and their armor around Montebourg, the 9th and 82nd struck west.

Passing Through. Battle-weary but still pushing on, the 82nd made a daring crossing of the Douve River. By nightfall Thursday, its general had his command post at a turreted chateau overlooking St.-Sauveur-le-Vicomte. In the morning, the general personally reconnoitered the frail, sagging bridge leading into the crumbling, burning village, decided it would do. The 82nd marched in.

To the north, the 9th Division had taken Néhou. Veterans of Bizerte and Sicily, the men o f the 9th were now fresh from England, itching for more fight.

They got their chance; the 82nd was too spent to exploit its breakthrough. So while one regiment of the 9th pushed west from Néhou, through St.-Jacques, another regiment passed the tired 82nd, pushed through St.-Sauveur in a parallel thrust. The enemy’s 77th Division put up a bitter rear-guard fight, was savagely cut up and broken; those who could, escaped —but the wrong way, to the north.

By 10 p.m. Saturday, the first patrols passed Hill 89 (291 feet) on their way to the west-coast road between Barneville and Portbail. The peninsula was crossed.

The 9th had gained twelve and a half miles in two days—the fastest advance of the campaign. At a crossroads near Barneville stood five German MPs waiting to direct traffic. The traffic that came was American.

Captured, the MPs conceded they were “probably the most surprised men in the entire German Army of Occupation.”

The Nazis’ reaction was small-scale and local, but swift and bitter. Infantry and tanks of the 77th, ordered to withdraw-when it was too late, tried to fight their way through the 9th’s roadblock. The U.S. commander honored them with a “serenade”: every gun within range opened up at maximum rate of fire. The carnage chilled even the victors’ marrow. But the enemy’s attempted sortie failed.

Sealed for Destruction. The 9th had done the job: Cherbourg was sealed off. Around it the Germans had most of three divisions and some Marines. How long could they hold out? The U.S. troops turned north, began to fight out the answer. This week they were within eight miles of their goal, shelling it.

Although the Allied move to envelop, capture and develop Cherbourg as a port was plainly behind schedule, the campaign was running smoothly, overcoming great handicaps. Said Bradley: “The Germans have lost their last chance to drive us into the sea.”

Farther south was the other half of Bradley’s army, the V Corps. Its 2nd Division and 101st Airborne Division took, lost and retook Carentan, lying amid flooded lowlands at the juncture of the two original U.S. beachheads—a naturally vulnerable point. Around the bend in the Bay of the Seine, other U.S. troops fought their way southward.

The Fox and the Book. The ist Division had the difficult task of maintaining a solid front with the British army on its flank. By the textbook, this was the most logical place for Rommel’s strongest counterblow. Rommel followed the book.

Into a quadrangle bounded by Balleroy, Tilly-sur-Seulles, Villers-Bocage and Caumont (see map), both the Allied armies and the enemy threw infantry-tank combat teams. The British got into Tilly, got thrown out, tried to get in again. The cost, in men and vehicles, was becoming too steep.

Abruptly, the British brigadier withdrew his striking force. He telephoned the U.S. commander on his right, asked him please to clear a road which had been assigned to U.S. troops. The American obliged. The British armor charged down the road, flanked Tilly. The Germans, stymied, had to pull out.

Wrong Guess Again. British and Canadian troops on the easternmost sector of the bridgehead met the stubbornest German resistance. Caen held out.

Rommel had stopped the invaders in this area primarily because he (or Rundstedt) had guessed wrong again. They obviously thought that the Allies’ first big objective would be not Cherbourg but Le Havre.

But Rommel could not drive the British back. Reason: he could not bring up sufficient reserves to stage a major counteroffensive. Air power had chewed up his roads and blasted his bridges too thoroughly for fast movement.

Defying the unseasonable onshore wind which on two days neared gale force, transports and landing craft filled the Bay of the Seine. Montgomery methodically built up fire power for a “Monty barrage,” which was expected to announce his drive inland.

Whether he could begin it before Cherbourg was taken, or would have to wait for a big port to serve him, was another one for Rundstedt and Rommel to figure out. Yet another still to be answered: was the Normandy assault the big Allied effort—or was Eisenhower, a foxy strategist himself, planning another in the Calais area, or on the Bay of Biscay, or on the Mediterranean?