Despite the weather, whenever and wherever the invasion came it was Rommel’s intent to bring it to a grinding halt at the water’s edge. Adolf Hitler was also convinced that the destruction of the Allied landings would be the sole decisive factor in the entire conduct of the war and would contribute significantly to its final result. Hitler had overextended himself fighting on two fronts at once, and the decision to invade Russia and his interference with his generals in the running of it saw his offensive campaign in the east grind to a halt deep inside Russian territory. As the defeats began to mount, he continued to convince himself that he could afford to trade space for time, but the shortage of men and materials were his difficulty. Hence, if he could arrest the advance of the Allies on their arrival almost as soon as their offensive in the west had begun, Hitler could buy time there; perhaps even discourage a demoralised and defeated Allied Army into reorganising and reconsidering their options, but most certainly their timetable. Perhaps even their very faith in themselves. Stop them on the shoreline; achieve an operational pause in proceedings; make a pact with Stalin and/or otherwise consolidate his still not inconsiderable military might on one front, and he could still win. As it was, most of the best of his army was in the east facing the Russians. What was in the west would have to stiffen its resistance by defending behind his impregnable Atlantic Wall, and being led by Rommel.
***
Strictly speaking, Field Marshal von Rundstedt (OB West) had territorial command but Rommel had sought and been granted responsibility by Hitler to inject his energies and enthusiasm into the situation. Rommel relished the challenge, and an appointment began with an inspection tour of the Atlantic Wall, only to find it far from being the impregnable ‘Fortress Europe’ made much of by the propagandists. A previous coastal assault on Dieppe by primarily British and Canadian forces in August 1942 had been defeated and proved costly for the Allies. A certain amount of complacence, and even willing delusion, had been taken from this by the Germans, and anyway it was believed that while Normandy was a possible invasion site, Calais had to be the most logical point for the Allies to attack. It was the shortest cross Channel route from southern England to northern France and from there through to Berlin was the most direct and so shortest supply route. So it was here that Hitler had concentrated his Atlantic Wall, strongly fortified its port, and erected significant concrete coastal defences.
Elsewhere, Rommel found many gaps, weaknesses and shortcomings along the defences of France’s northern shoreline. He filled these weak points with physical barriers: pillboxes, gun emplacements (artillery set in reinforced concrete block houses), mines and yet more mines. Still, Rommel could not get enough mines and he was short also of war materials, steel and concrete and the labour force to build beach obstacles. So he improvised, creating conscript French labour battalions, felling trees from woods and designing obstacles of his own, often with mines or fused shells placed on them. These crude, simple but deadly barriers were erected in large numbers between high and low tide water marks. Effective, they were of varying types: criss-crossed lengths of steel, some from redundant railway tracks, were cut and welded together in a jagged, protruding triangular starfish shape; concrete cones called ‘dragons’ teeth’; another steel gate-like barrier configuration known as ‘Belgian Gates’; and tree trunks, wooden beams and poles were set deep into the sand projecting seawards with mines attached. All were designed to repel the shore-bound invasion craft, to impale and rip open the hulls of landing craft or cause damage or death with exploding mines and shells. Overall, to cause disruption and confusion or to force the off-shore disembarkation of troops, thus exposing them to gunfire for longer.
Rommel also flooded large areas of open fields inland to counter would-be spots for parachutists or glider-borne troops to be dropped into. Another deterrent he used was to set poles in fields linked with barbed wire, which became known as Rommel’s asparagus. It was intended that these would tear apart the flimsy gliders as they attempted to land. What preparations were possible Rommel undertook, driving his men hard and unapologetically. In so doing he intended to conduct the defence of Europe at the water’s edge, firmly convinced that the first twenty-four hours of the invasion would be vital. He was going to halt the Allies as they disembarked the landing craft and bring their advance to a standstill on the blood-soaked sands; this cut short any hope of its continuance and ended any thought of invasion before it got started.
He knew that the Allies were likely to use a support attack in co-ordination with the main invasion, not necessarily simultaneously with the main assault, perhaps the former as a feint, a ruse, hoping to draw out the German reserves and instead focus their main effort in landing elsewhere. There was much German analysis of the previous Allied amphibious landings in Morocco, Sicily and Salerno and the German Army believed they had a good grasp and understanding of how the Allies intended to fight their way ashore. However thorough, methodical and credible their examinations and conclusions were, they were still left with two questions about the invasion: Where and When?
Unlike Rommel, General von Rundstedt (OB West) believed that the landings were unstoppable, but that the initial defensive efforts would be successful if they helped to delay and contain the first wave. He believed that the invasion was best dealt with after they had landed because then it would be known where to deploy their reinforcements, massed together in strength while the Allies were still disorganised, weak, confused and isolated – trying to gain footholds in separate bridgeheads. Rommel felt the reinforcements would never reach the front line, as they would be destroyed by Allied air strikes before they could be moved into place. By this stage of the war the Allies had air and sea superiority and Rommel believed this was a critical factor. The two views of defending against the invasion persisted. Convinced in his own assessment of the situation, Rommel continued to execute his preparations, making ready his course of action; not for him the paralysis of analysis. Deep down he was fearful of the unexpected, the Allies effecting something sudden and surprising. It was a battle of wits also, each side attempting to out think the other.
On Monday 5 June, ‘Imminence of Invasion is not recognisable’ was the tone, tenor and stated evaluation in OB West’s ‘Estimate of Allied Intentions’, approved for despatch by Field Marshal von Rundstedt to Hitler’s headquarters Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), Armed Forces High Command, later in the day. With the weather as it was, together with no apparent indicators to the contrary, they were comfortable in that assessment. In fact, many of the high-level German field commanders in OB West had been summoned to conduct a Kriegsspiel (a tactical exercise without troops) away from the northern French coastline to ‘war game’ on maps at Rennes in Brittany. Ironically, this scenario was about to unfold on the ground on 6 June at Normandy.
Having made their way to Rennes, some of the German staff car drivers congregated and tuned a radio to the frequency of a German propaganda station, ‘Radio Paris’, from which its German-American presenter, ‘Axis Sally’, would play popular wartime tunes mixed with propaganda messaging beamed towards the Allied forces, who irreverently referred to her as the ‘Berlin Bitch’. Mildred Gillars was her real name and she was to serve a twelve-year sentence for treason after the war, dying in 1988 in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of eighty-seven. There was an Irish variant, William Joyce from Galway, famously known as ‘Lord Haw Haw’, who would introduce his pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts with ‘Germany calling, Germany calling’, telling Allied and Irish listeners that ‘Mangan’s clock on Patrick Street, Cork is ten minutes slow’ and other similar messages to unsettle and otherwise attempt to prey on the subconscious of his audience. He broadcasted several times a day throughout the entire war years, after which he was arrested and subsequently hung for treason – the last man to be so sentenced – by the British in 1946 in Wandsworth Prison in England. In 1976, his daughter, Heather Iandolo, was to succeed in having his remains brought to Bohermore Cemetery in Galway.
There was a stranger wartime tale of two Irishmen,