Supreme Commander (79 page)

The Americans had achieved a penetration and were on the verge of scoring a complete breakthrough. Brooke continued to complain in his diary about Eisenhower’s lack of strategic sense, but the Supreme Commander’s insistence on attack everywhere had brought about the crisis of the war in the West. If the Germans could not hold the line, American troops would pour through the gap and be free in the enemy rear. Eisenhower was rushing divisions over to the Continent to prepare for the exploitation and was ready to activate the U. S. Third Army, with Patton commanding, to take advantage of the situation. Fresh divisions under Patton, unopposed behind German lines, with their flanks protected by Allied air forces and their mobility insured thanks to their tanks and trucks, would create havoc. Short of the West Wall, the Germans had nothing to stop them with.

Eisenhower was fully aware that the crisis had come and was desperately anxious to make sure the opportunity was not lost. The Supreme Commander continued to press Montgomery. “Never was time more vital to us,” he told the British general on July 28, and “we should not wait on weather or on perfection of detail of preparation.” He wanted Montgomery to speed up Second Army’s main blow, telling him that “I feel very strongly that a three division attack now on 2nd Army’s right flank will be worth more than a six division attack in five days’ time.” He urged Montgomery not to waste an hour. “I am counting on you and as always will back you to the uttermost limit.”
¹⁸
Montgomery, beginning to share the spirit of urgency, ordered Dempsey to throw all caution overboard and “to accept any casualties and to step on the gas for Vire.”
¹⁹

Bradley needed no special urging. On July 28 his forces captured Coutances, completing Operation COBRA. He immediately began to exploit his victory, ordering four U.S. corps to press their attack southward. He told Eisenhower his men were feeling “pretty cocky” and refused to have their enthusiasm dampened by reports that the enemy
was sending reinforcements. “I can assure you,” Bradley said, “that we are taking every calculated risk and we believe we have the Germans out of the ditches and in complete demoralization and expect to take full advantage of them.”
²⁰

The German high command was as aware of the crisis at hand as Eisenhower. On July 27 Von Kluge got Hitler’s permission to transfer a Panzer corps from the British front to Bradley’s side of the line, and to move two divisions to Normandy from Pas de Calais and a third there from the Atlantic coast of France. Hitler did turn down Von Kluge’s request for the transfer of a division from southern France to Normandy. But otherwise, he put everything he had into stabilizing the front, telling Von Kluge to “keep his eyes riveted to the front and on the enemy without ever looking backward.”
²¹

The German reinforcements came too late. Montgomery’s insistence on drawing the Germans to Second Army’s front was about to pay huge dividends.

General Collins, “Lightning Joe” to the newspapers, a veteran of Guadalcanal, led the attack. Bradley had deliberately put him at the point because he thought Collins “nervy and ambitious.” Collins had a secret weapon. In World War I enormous artillery barrages had often created a gap in the enemy’s front lines, but there had been no exploitation of them because of the depth of the line and because infantrymen slogging through the craters were mowed down by machine guns. Eventually tanks made it possible to exploit these gaps. In Normandy the hedgerows substituted for the depth of the World War I trench system. Always before, when Bradley got his tanks loose behind the German lines, the hedgerows had stopped them, for when the Sherman tanks hit the hedgerows the vehicles rose up over the tops of the mounds, exposing their soft underbellies to the enemy while their own guns pointed helplessly toward the sky. One of Bradley’s tank sergeants solved the problem. Taking scrap steel from an enemy roadblock, he welded four steel tusklike prongs to the front of a tank. When the Sherman hit a hedgerow, the tusks bore into the earth, pinned down the belly, and allowed the tank to break through. Thanks to this simple invention, Collins was able to keep up the momentum of his advance.
²²

He held nothing back, committing all his reserves on the second day of the battle. By July 27 he had reached Tessy-sur-Vire and Coutances; by the thirtieth the VIII Corps, to his right, had taken Granville and Avranches and were on the verge of breaking into Brittany.
²³
The Germans, analyzing Collins’ attack later, were impressed:
“Co-operation between reconnaissance aircraft, fighter-bombers, armour, and infantry was excellent,” they admitted.
²⁴

Montgomery did all he could to help. As he saw the situation, the Germans were still so strong in the Caen area that operations there “are definitely unlikely to succeed; if we attempt them we would merely play into the enemy’s hands, and we would not be helping on our operations on the western flank.” He therefore told the Canadians to hold position across the Orne River and initiate only local attacks to keep the Germans off balance. On his own right, however, Montgomery wanted the Second Army to move out. He directed Dempsey to regroup his army and begin a major offensive, involving at least six divisions, toward Caumont. “The main blow of the whole Allied plan has now been struck on the western flank,” he told Dempsey, and “that blow is the foundation of all our operations, and it has been well and truly struck.” In this “critical and important time” he wanted Dempsey to hurl his forces full strength at the enemy.

Montgomery did not, however, realize the full implications of the situation. He pointed out that the summer was already partly gone and that there were not many more months of good campaigning weather left. There was still much to be done. What, then, did he expect to accomplish thanks to COBRA’s success? “We must secure the Brittany ports before the winter is on us,” Montgomery declared.
²⁵

Eisenhower’s view was not so limited. In commenting on Montgomery’s operational orders, the Supreme Commander told Montgomery that “it is easily possible that the most tremendous results will follow.” He reminded Montgomery that the Twenty-first Army Group still had “plenty of strength” in the Caen area to take advantage of any opportunity that might arise there. With a few days of good weather, which “would be a Godsend,” the Allies “would possibly find the enemy Divisions exhausted both of fuel and ammunition and could capture and destroy them in place.” To encourage Montgomery, he added, “This … is what you have been aiming toward for a long time and I must say that you deserve the luck of having a bit of good weather at such a critical time.”
²⁶

Eisenhower’s wishes were sincere. On July 29 he flew to Normandy to see Bradley, who gave a glowing progress report, and Montgomery. The British commander had a complaint. Newspaper stories in the American press had been sharply critical of Montgomery, charging that he sat in front of Caen and did nothing while the Americans took all the risks and casualties. Eisenhower said he would see what he could do about
the situation. When he returned to Portsmouth he wired the chief public relations officer in the War Department, General Surles, telling him that the reporters were ignoring “the fact that I am not only inescapably responsible for strategy and general missions but they seemingly also ignore the fact that it is my responsibility to determine the efficiency of my various subordinates.…” He asked Surles to hold some off-the-record press conferences and in them to emphasize that he, Eisenhower, was the responsible officer. “When criticism is believed to be necessary it should be directed toward me equally at least with any of my principal subordinates.”
²⁷

On the Continent, meanwhile, organization changes that Eisenhower had arranged earlier were about to be put into effect. With American divisions pouring into Normandy, the Supreme Commander wanted two American armies gathered together in one group. Bradley would take command of the whole, to be called Twelfth Army Group, with Courtney Hodges taking over First Army and Patton assuming command of Third Army. Until SHAEF could establish a forward command post on the Continent and Eisenhower could take command of the 12th Army Group, Bradley would continue to receive his operational instructions from Montgomery. Acting on Eisenhower’s orders, Bradley declared that the organizational change would take place on August l.
²⁸
Both Patton and Hodges went to the Continent early to familiarize themselves with their staffs and subordinates, and the positions and objectives of their divisions.

By July 31 organizations and operations were meshing beautifully. The Allied armies in Europe began to swing into the open. On the western flank, VIII Corps had moved beyond Avranches. Collins’ VII Corps had captured Villedieu and Tessy-sur-Vire, and V Corps was advancing southward. Dempsey began his attack on July 30, broke through at Caumont, and the next day was quite close to Le Bény-Bocage. The Canadians were stepping up their local attacks. On August 1 Patton was unleashed and began his race through Brittany and down to the Loire River. The nightmare of a static front similar to that of World War I was over. “This is great news,” Eisenhower exulted. “Bradley has plenty of infantry units to rush into forward areas to consolidate all gains and permit armor to continue thrusting and surrounding enemy.”
²⁹

His optimism growing with each bit of incoming news from the front, Eisenhower was determined not to lose the opportunity at hand. He still felt Montgomery needed occasional prodding, and on August 2 sent a note of encouragement to the Twenty-first Army Group commander. Enemy resistance in the Avranches region had disintegrated and Patton
was in the open. Eisenhower wanted him to push into Brittany as rapidly as possible, and asked Montgomery to make sure all commanders were aware “that in an emergency we can drop them supplies by airplane in considerable quantities.” Whatever happened, Eisenhower insisted, the momentum should not be lost. “I know that you will keep hammering,” the Supreme Commander added, “as long as you have a single shot in the locker.”
³⁰

Just before lunch on August 2nd, Butcher met Eisenhower in the hall at SHAEF Main, Widewing. The Supreme Commander was all smiles. “If the intercepts are right,” he said, “we are to hell and gone in Brittany and slicing ‘em up in Normandy.”
³¹
The situation was the culmination of a soldier’s dreams. Eisenhower had strong forces loose in the enemy rear and they could go in any direction he wanted them to. The options, if not unlimited, were wide. Patton might be sent east, toward Paris, or northeast, toward the German rear at Caen, or south into central France, or west into Brittany. Each option had something to recommend it. The seemingly most advantageous route was east into Brittany, both because this fit into the over-all OVERLORD plan and because SHAEF desperately needed the Brittany ports. Because of Eisenhower’s desire to beef up Bradley’s forces, the Americans already had more divisions in France than had been scheduled, but the port capacity controlled was less than anticipated. Thus supply for the onrushing armies was Eisenhower’s major concern. If he were to keep the essential material flowing forward to the front lines, he had to have more ports, and Brest and Lorient were the best immediately available.

Ruppenthal, the leading student of the logistical support of the armies has concluded, “The importance of Brittany in the OVERLORD plan can hardly be exaggerated.” The very success of OVERLORD seemed to depend on getting Brest and Lorient, for without them the necessary divisions could not be supported on the Continent. This was true even if there was no, or practically no, German opposition at all.
³²

The great urgency of getting Brittany, however, had to be balanced against other possibilities. If Eisenhower sent Patton tearing into the peninsula toward Brest, the Third Army would be moving away from the bulk of the German forces. As Eisenhower explained to Marshall on August 2, he did not want to lose a golden opportunity. The German Army in Normandy had been defeated; it was now possible to destroy it. When the flank opened and the options increased, Eisenhower decided to send only one corps of Patton’s army into Brittany, devoting the “great bulk of the forces to the task of completing the destruction of the German Army, at
least that portion west of the Orne, and exploiting beyond that as far as we possibly can.” Brittany remained important, indeed “the rapid occupation of Brittany is placed as a primary task,” but with the Germans on the run everywhere Eisenhower thought the objective could be obtained at small cost. Once Brittany was secure, Eisenhower told Marshall, the War Department could send over the divisions piling up in the United States. Even divisions that had been scheduled to enter the Continent via ANVIL should be diverted to Brittany. In conclusion Eisenhower said, “I am very hopeful as to immediate results, and believe that within the next two or three days we will so manhandle the western flank of the enemy’s forces that we will secure for ourselves freedom of action through destruction of a considerable portion of the forces facing us.”
³³

On the basis of Eisenhower’s decision, Patton sent one corps into Brittany while his other three corps sped southward from Avranches. Middleton led the drive into Brittany and in four days overran the peninsula. He did not, however, have enough strength to take Brest and Lorient, and he was forced to lay siege to the two ports. In the end Middleton had to be content to contain the German garrisons, and neither port contributed anything to the Allied port capacity. Brest did not fall until mid-September, and Lorient held out to the end of the war. Critics charged that the only reason Eisenhower sent any troops into Brittany was blind obedience to an outdated OVERLORD plan, but it was equally true that had he strengthened Middleton’s attack Brest and Lorient might not have held out, and Twelfth Army Group could have used the ports for support in the drive to the Seine. On the other hand, if another of Patton’s corps had joined Middleton in Brittany, Patton might not have been strong enough in the Falaise area. It is also possible that had Eisenhower ignored Brittany altogether and sent Middleton toward Falaise with Patton, he could have achieved a greater success there.