Authors: Anthony G Williams
The burning ships provided convenient beacons in the night sky as the S-boote crept slowly forward, anxious to make no noise or wash which might be detected by the escorts lurking around the teeming shipping lanes.
The Kapitänleutnant
had only a few of the fast torpedo boats in his Flotilla, after days and nights of intensive bombing of their Cherbourg base, but each was carrying two torpedoes in their tubes with two more reloads, set
for shallow running to ensure that they did not pass beneath the shallow-draft LCTs.
The Flotilla had approached from the land, hoping to confuse the radar on the defending ships, but
were
now entering the danger area.
The silhouettes of ships were visible against the glowing sky and the Kapitänleutnant assessed their size and calculated the range.
About three thousand metres.
Suddenly, a searchlight speared out nearby, swept over the sea, passed over, swung back and caught one of the
Flotilla
.
The Kapitänleutnant screamed an order and the S-boot surged forward as the supercharged diesels roared.
To either side he could see the other four boats leaving plumes of spray as they raced towards the targets.
Two and a half thousand metres, he thought – nearly there.
Behind them, the destroyer which had spotted them was turning to give chase, but could not hope to catch the 40-knot boats; they were not called Schnellboote for nothing!
Guns flashed and the feared thumping of the 57mm Bofors pursued them.
The boats snaked and swerved to throw off the aim but pressed on, ever closer.
Two thousand metres!
He checked his line on the nearest ship and gave the order.
The two torpedoes lanced forward into the night but the Kapitänleutnant did not stay to watch their course; his boat heeled round in a tight curve and headed for the masking protection of the shore.
Behind him, one of his
Flotilla
flashed into flame and shuddered to a halt.
No time to stop – the Royal Navy would have to pick up any survivors.
The S-boote turned again onto a reverse parallel course with the destroyer, slowed to a crawl.
The crew held their breath.
Suddenly, booming explosions reverberated across the sea and two – no, three – ships staggered under the impact of the torpedo strikes.
Half an hour later, the remaining S-boote slowly accelerated away from the battleground back to their base, their task completed.
Their low silhouettes and the proximity of the land had enabled them to escape.
As they steadied on a course back to Cherbourg, the Kapitänleutnant began to relax, and congratulated himself on a difficult task, well executed.
It was almost his last thought.
He stared at his huge shadow, suddenly projected onto the sea in front of him, and just had time to realise that they had not escaped, after all, before the torrent of cannon and machine gun fire from the radar and Leigh-light equipped Hereford tore his boat to pieces.
The Kapitän of the U-boot saw the flames thought his periscope and grimaced as he guessed their source.
It had been hard enough reaching this point, given the tremendous efforts made by the Allies to stop them.
Constant bombing of their pens by the massive ‘earthquake’ radio-controlled 5,000 kg bombs, nightly minelaying by the RAF in the approach channels to their bases, intensive day-and-night anti-submarine patrols by warships and aircraft; the pressure was never-ending.
This was especially bad over the past few weeks, with the Allies determined to block any U-Boote trying to interfere with the invasion. Even the small and sophisticated new Type XI coastal submarines like his own, equipped with Schnorkels as well as powerful motors and massive batteries for high underwater speed and endurance, were frequently trapped and sunk.
He turned back to focus on the burning ships on the horizon.
One attack, then out – if he was lucky.
The Panzer Lehr Division Major grappled to control his impatience and frustration as his tank company had to pause yet again to clear away a tangle of vehicles and trees chopped down to block the roadways.
There would be an accounting, he thought grimly, with these ‘Free French of the Interior’ once the invasion had been thrown back into the sea.
Once the bulk of the blockage had been shifted he waved on his tanks, the Panthers grinding they way over and through, clearing the path for the support vehicles following on behind.
The Major sat back as his command car roared forward once again, checking his map and calculating distances and times.
It had taken most of the day for OKW to sort out all of the information flowing in about heavy raids on Italy, Denmark, Southern France and the Pas-de-Calais, and identify the
Late in the afternoon, von Rundstedt had ordered his reserve Panzer units into action.
They had made good progress through the night but dawn had broken and they still had thirty kilometers to go to reach the nearest of the landing sites.
He gritted his teeth; the Allies had had a virtually uninterrupted twenty-four hours to consolidate their landings. The small tank units spread along the coastline had proved no match for the quantity of armour the Allies had been able to put ashore; the huge ‘hovercraft’ had proved a most unwelcome surprise, bypassing immediately many defences which it had been calculated could hold out for days.
He looked back and grimaced at the long plume of dust thrown up by the churning tracks of the Panzers,
then
he looked round at the sky.
They would not have long to wait, he knew.
Ten minutes later, as they were passing through an apparently deserted village, the first deadly shapes appeared over the rooftops, resolving rapidly into the expected formation of fighter-bombers.
The USAAF P-47s paused for a moment to line up then swept in, wing guns blazing.
His driver hauled the vulnerable command car off the road and down a side street, seeking cover.
Behind them, the usual chaos of battle; the roaring of tank and aircraft engines, the rapid tearing noise of the planes’ guns, the deeper hammering of the automatic FlaK, the explosions as bombs and rockets detonated, shock waves sweeping through the streets, blowing in windows and doors and shaking the command car.
The attack lasted for only a few minutes, although it seemed much longer.
The command car gingerly nosed back into the main street.
At first the Major could see little through the smoke and flames.
As the fresh breeze cleared the air, he saw wrecked houses on either side of the road, one tank blown sideways by a close bomb hit.
Then hatches started popping open on the other tanks as the crews emerged to check the damage.
A quick roll call showed only the one tank lost to a bomb; it would take more than heavy machine guns to penetrate a Panzer IV’s armour.
Furthermore, the crews of the armoured Flakpanzers, with twin 30 mm MK 103 cannon, claimed two aircraft destroyed.
His satisfaction was soon diminished, however, as news came from the rear of his column.
Fuel tankers and other unarmoured support vehicles had been massively hit.
The Major ordered the Panzers forward again with a heavier heart.
He had his tanks, all right, but little chance of refuelling or rearming them.
They had enough for one battle,
then
would have to pull back or abandon their vehicles.
Still, they had no choice but to go on; the invasion must be thrown back!
The landing beaches were the site of intense but organised activity.
The construction of complex artificial harbours had been rejected in favour of building more landing ships, capable of depositing their cargoes directly onto the beach.
A steady shuttle of these built up piles of supplies, which an ant-like procession of vehicles moved to storage areas further inland.
Each landing zone had some partial protection from the worst of the weather provided by a screen of ‘Corncob’ blockships forming curved ‘Gooseberry’ breakwaters.
Within the sheltered area were some Lobnitz floating pontoons – ‘Whales’ – which provided pierheads for conventional ships to disembark their troops and supplies.
The landing grounds provided diffuse radar returns so had so far proved difficult targets for the big German long-range guided missiles, and several concentric rings of light and medium AA guns on flak pontoons moored by the Gooseberries deterred a closer approach. However, the topmasts of several ships indicting the position of wrecks further out to sea provided a silent demonstration of the hazards of approaching the coasts.
Inland, the Allied consolidation of the beachhead was progressing more or less to plan.
Companies and regiments were being formed up (with some adjustment for the gaps left by the men and cargoes which had failed to make it) and moved out to join the steadily-moving front line, an ill-defined area disputed by groups of infantry and the occasional small armoured units; the bocage was not a country suited to the evolution of major formations.
The Allied High Command was hopeful that Caen and Cherbourg would fall into their hands with little delay.
Lt General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, the commander of Fortress Cherbourg, glared down from his considerable 1.9 metre height at his subordinates, his expression grim. He let them stew for a few moments before speaking, reflecting that most of them had grown too soft on the comforts of static garrison duty in this hospitable land. He had been astonished but grateful to be hauled unceremoniously away from the Eastern Front, where he had expected to stay for some months before reassignment. His feeling of gratitude did not last long. In just four days since the Allied landing, the powerful British armoured forces, supported by the ever-present fighter-bombers, had smashed through his weak garrison divisions, leaving the remains to be mopped up by the infantry units following on behind. They were now probing his defence perimeter, less than ten kilometres from the city. Meanwhile the remote coastal batteries had been knocked out by pinpoint bombing raids using those massive, concrete-piercing guided bombs, while the immediate defences of the port were being heavily shelled by battleships. His position was hopeless, he knew, but his orders were clear: Hitler had ordered the defending troops to fight to the last bullet to give time for port facilities to be demolished. It was highly unlikely that this could be achieved.
His officers shuffled uncomfortably.
Time for them to receive their orders.
One thing he was sure of: they would not like them.
The clean roar of the Hercules engines was music to the ears of the ground crews tending the new Brigands. The RAF corporal studied them in satisfaction as they lined-up for takeoff. The planes were bristling with sixteen rockets, eight double-stacked under each wing, waiting their turn to be called up to the ‘cab rank’, ready to pounce on the slightest sign of resistance at the request of the Forward Air Controllers riding with the leading army units or patrolling the skies in AOP Austers. The tempo had been intense and unrelenting for four days now, the Allies desperate to keep the Germans reeling, giving them no time to organize a defence line before they were through it and hitting them again. Very much like the Blitzkrieg which led to the fall of France in 1940, their Squadron Leader had said, only this time the Germans were on the receiving end.
As the roar rose to a howl and the fighter-bombers accelerated along the makeshift runway hacked rapidly out of the ground by engineers, the corporal cursed the swirling dust for the thousandth time. It got everywhere, considerably multiplying the maintenance required for guns and engines. And into the food and drink as well, he thought glumly.
Three days later the first Allied troops stood on top of the Forte du Roule, on a steep cliff overlooking Cherbourg. The massively constructed fortress, which had proved such an obstacle to the Allies in Don’s time, had been hit by a succession of super-heavy, radio-controlled, armour-piercing bombs and now stood cratered and derelict, a straggle of traumatised survivors being led away. From this vantage point the soldiers looked down on the great port city, the view obscured by the smoke from many fires. Much of the firepower of the Allied fleet had been focused on capturing Cherbourg as quickly as possible and a new weapon was being tried; proximity-fuzed shrapnel shells which burst over the targets, showering them with high-velocity steel balls. These were flaying the German units trying to carry out their demolition orders, without significantly damaging the port facilities. Small-arms fire could be heard in the distance where infantry units were working their way into the city in a race against time to seize the port intact.
One week after the invasion, the American tank crews were still learning the foibles of their new Pershing heavy tanks and the best way of dealing with them. Their confidence had been rising steadily following some hard-fought victories against the Panther tanks, with few casualties suffered in return. The main problem was the need for constant maintenance to keep the under-developed vehicles on the road.
A smell of coffee drifted across the laager as the tankers awoke, crawling from underneath the tarpaulins stretched from the side of their vehicles, cursing at the attentions of the mosquitoes which seemed immune to the deterrent creams.