The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [225]
In June of 1944, the Germans were in a poor position to defend the continent from invasion.[308] Allied aircraft ruled the skies and Allied ships ruled the sea. This prevented German reconnaissance flights or naval reconnaissance. Unknown to the Germans, all their agents in England were working for the Allies, and the Allies were reading the German codes in real time through the Ultra decrypt program. The French Resistance was feeding additional intelligence to the Allies and they performed key acts of sabotage. The Germans were blind and deaf while the Allies had eyes and ears everywhere.
German generals could guess where the Allies might strike. They knew the Allies demanded air cover, and that limited the places the Allies would land. Beach exits, tides, defenses, phases of the moon, weather etc., all played a role in the German analysis. However, weather was one part of the equation where they came up short. All the Nazi weather ships were destroyed by the English Navy. (The code breakers again) The Germans had problems knowing what the weather would be on any given day along the French coast. The Allies would know because of extensive weather stations at sea and ashore.
The Germans guessed that either the Pas de Calais in the north of France near Belgium or Normandy near Cherbourg were the likely landing areas. The Germans heavily fortified the Pas de Calais beaches because they thought this was the most likely landing spot. They were “aided” in this analysis by an elaborate Allied deception plan designed to make the Germans believe Pas de Calais was the invasion beach. General Patton was put in charge of a large fake army with dummy tanks, trucks, and troops that were visible everywhere. This deception worked so well the Germans thought Normandy was a ruse for a number of days after the landings.
Germany’s fundamental problem was how to defend the long coastline of Western Europe. One way is to keep a large reserve behind a weak outer line and counter attack wherever the invader strikes. Another is a cordon defense, where strong units are placed around the boundaries of the area to be defended with the goal of stopping the attacker at the boundary, then driving him back later with units assembled from other areas of the boundary defense. Two great German generals, Rommel and Von Rundstedt, disagreed on how to mount the defense of France. Rommel wanted a cordon defense because he believed Allied air power was so potent that it would shoot the German reserve troops to pieces before they arrived, and airpower would prevent the move from their reserve positions to the beachhead in a timely manner.[309] Von Rundstedt, very old school himself (anyone with “von” before his name was going to be old school), thought the large reserve was best. He disliked cordon defenses, as most modern military men do, because of its inherent inefficiency and lack of striking power on offense. Von Rundstedt thought the counterattack was the key. He did not want men all over the place knowing about 90 percent of them would be in the wrong spot when the attack came. Rommel insisted the battle must be won on the beaches on the first day of the invasion. Once the Allies were ashore in force, he thought, it was over because Allied air and sea power could continue to deliver troops to France without interruption, and Germany could not match the Allies’ power. Because of the lack of German intelligence and reconnaissance capability, Rommel opted for the cordon defense as his only alternative if he was to stop the Allies on the beaches.
Want to guess who settled the argument? Adolf Hitler—who else? Hitler divided the strategic baby and allowed Rommel to reinforce some of the beach areas with a limited number of troops, but also allowed Rundstedt a reserve. The problem was the