Third reich victorious, p.7
Third Reich Victorious, page 7
Even when trapped, the regular divisions of the BEF were a formidable fighting organisation. Short of everything from fuel to ammunition, commanders gathered their men together with TA and French units that had attached themselves during the retreat, and prepared to die game. The evacuation of rear area personnel from Dunkirk had begun on 26 May (the real ‘Operation Dynamo’), on the same day that troops of 2nd Panzer Division reached the port area from the southwest. Late on 28 May Montgomery’s extraordinary 3rd Infantry Division was tasked to clear a path through to the Dunkirk beaches together with the few remaining tanks of the French 2nd Light Mechanised Division, with the rest of II Corps closing in behind it like a protective fantail.
Despite Göring’s predictions, with the shorter range to southern England favouring the RAF, and Fighter Command’s new Supermarine Spitfires coming fully into play, the Luftwaffe took its heaviest daily losses of the campaign. Ordered to stay in France, the Air Component and AASF were shot out of the sky or had their airfields over-run. By next day the BEF had secured five miles of coastline together with about half of Dunkirk port. But it was too late to form a coherent British defensive front, there were just too many holes in the line. That afternoon the German 216th Division from the east met 20th Motorised Division at Bevern, and the BEF was cut in two. Lord Gort died a soldier’s death when his personal headquarters was overrun by infantry of 6th Panzer Division. There were no survivors, and there seems little doubt that his sacrifice was deliberate.
With only partial use of Dunkirk, which was contested between 48th South Midland Division under Major General Andrew Thorne (aided by French 68th Infantry Division) and 2nd Panzer Division, the British escape was always going to be costly, especially as the ships had to come so close inshore. The cruiser HMS Ceres was sunk, together with ten destroyers, among them HMS Kelly commanded by Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten, which blew up with all hands lost.
No division of the BEF escaped intact, and fewer than 68,000 disorganised and demoralised men were transported back to Dover. Others continued to escape almost until the capitulation of France on 22 June. In particular, the 51st Highland Division, serving on attachment with the French on the Saar, had a heroic fight clear across the country, its last stand taking place at the little port of St Valery-en-Caux on 10 June from where the Royal Navy rescued 2,000 men.
Over 150,000 British soldiers became prisoners, including Lieutenant General Brooke, together with Martel and five other divisional commanders. Montgomery himself left through Dunkirk on 1 June. After a night’s sleep, he went to the War Office, demanded to see General Dill, and started lecturing him on what had gone wrong. As famous for his tactlessness as his military skill, Montgomery might have got away with this in different circumstances, Instead, Dill dismissed him from command of his division and ordered him from the building.
Eagle Day
Göring’s real intention was never to help Manstein make Sea Lion a reality, but to demonstrate that air power by itself could defeat Britain. Nevertheless, with Hitler so committed to Sea Lion, the Luftwaffe had to maintain the pretence. The German view on bombing cities (as had been shown at Rotterdam), was that it was no different to long range artillery bombardment prior to a ground assault. On that basis, Göring argued, the Luftwaffe should bomb the port of London and towns in southeast England as a preliminary to Sea Lion. Over the objections of both Kesselring and Manstein, Hitler—still furious over the Freiburg incident—gave his authorisation as part of Führer Directive 13 of 24 May that ‘the Luftwaffe is authorised to attack the English homeland in the fullest manner.’10
For the British, June was a wasted month in which much more could have been done. Following the Dunkirk disaster, the government was briefly convinced the invasion would happen in the three-day period starting 4 June. Fearing a general panic and shaken by the Mason-Macfarlane episode, Halifax on Chamberlain’s advice took government control of the BBC, ending transmissions except in emergency. The result, far from dispelling rumour, led many people to turn to German propaganda radio stations in search of news. Halifax also ordered all weapons to be handed in at police stations, so ending Eden’s plan for a rudimentary force of ‘Local Defence Volunteers’ (otherwise known briefly as the ‘Home Guard’).
Major General Thorne, one of the few senior British officers to make it back safely from Dunkirk, was promoted on 8 June, to take over XII Corps defending southeast England, with his headquarters at Tunbridge Wells. General Ironside became the new Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces. The troops in training almost equalled 15 divisions (plus a Canadian division, and an Australian division arriving), but arms and equipment existed for the equivalent of just five divisions. On 25 May Ironside told the War Cabinet his plans: wherever the Germans landed they would be met by the forces in place; if they broke out then the next defensive position was ‘the GHQ Line’ running through Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells to Basingstoke, manned by three incomplete infantry divisions. This was all very well, but four days later Anthony Eden reported that, ‘there is no antitank regiment nor antitank gun in the whole of the {XII} Corps area.’11 To defend Kent, 1st London Division under Major General C.F. Liardet had only two brigades of infantry, eleven 25-pounder field guns and a few obsolete howitzers, no tanks or armoured cars, and not even any medium machine guns. Coastal defence units were almost ludicrously under-equipped. At Bexhill, Gunner Terence ‘Spike’ Milligan (later famous as a civil rights activist in the USA) recorded that his battery’s 9.2-inch howitzers, of First World War vintage, had no ammunition, and that the crews trained by shouting ‘Bang’ in unison.12
Still Halifax’s greatest concern was that the people should not panic. Churchill’s idea for a Ministry of Aircraft Production was opposed by Kingsley Wood as unwarranted interference. Besides, although in early June Fighter Command had barely 320 Spitfires and Hurricanes, the problem was not aircraft but a shortage of some 360 trained pilots, particularly as Dowding refused to use airmen who had escaped from occupied countries. Meanwhile, bizarre episodes multiplied, the product of stress and fear. There were reports of German parachutists everywhere, and in a variety of improbable disguises. Farmers received visits from security officers wanting to know why they had mown their hay so as to leave patterns when seen from the air. The talented young German-Russian émigré actor and playwright, Peter von Ustinov, serving as a private in the Army, was shot dead at a police checkpoint on suspicion of being a spy.
Britain continued to pursue a negotiated peace, with Italy among the intermediaries until Mussolini’s declaration of war on 10 June. On Monday 17 June the Swedish ambassador in London was told that ‘common sense and not bravado would dictate the British government’s policy’.13 But this was far short of absolute surrender, and Halifax was not politically strong enough to force through an armistice against the opposition of Churchill and Eden. Also, as Halifax well knew, the survival of his beloved British Empire depended largely upon its reputation for strength and stability. Capitulation to Nazi Germany—however disguised or finessed—would be the beginning of the end, especially for British India. On 23 June, the day after the French surrender, Halifax, who was not a brilliant public speaker, told the Lords that future generations might consider that for the British people ‘This, on the whole, seems to have been their finest hour.’14 On the same day Churchill in the Commons gave what was to be the most famous speech of his life. ‘The British people have not yet spoken,’ he proclaimed, ‘so let this be the day that we say no! No to tyranny! No to slavery! No to the end of freedom for mankind!’ On 1 July Chamberlain noted in his private diary, ‘All reports seem to point to invasion this week or next.’15
The Luftwaffe plan to defeat the RAF was codenamed ‘Case Eagle’, formally authorised by Führer Directive 17 of 4 June. With an official start on 16 June, this was a systematic attack on southern England, by day and night, culminating on 10 July in ‘Eagle Day’. Bombing London by day, at the limit of German fighter cover, was unattractive, particularly after 4 July (‘Black Thursday’ to the Luftwaffe), in which a maximum effort of 1,786 sorties cost 75 aircraft (exaggerated to 182 by the RAF). For night bombing, the Luftwaffe had the advantage of its Knickebein blind-bombing system of intersecting radio beams to guide bombers to their target. The British had been alerted to this since March, but believed it to be a hoax until late June, by which time Case Eagle was already underway.
The date for Sea Lion was now set for Monday 15 July, and with every day it was becoming apparent that XXXVIII Army Corps would not be ready. It took time to train the recruits and fit them into the fighting teams, time to identify and prepare the airfields all over Belgium and northern France, time to stockpile supplies and ammunition for the battle, and time to repair the port facilities and canals for the barges. Despite Göring’s boasts, Kesselring’s enthusiasm and Student’s professional commitment, neither 7th Air Division nor the Airlanding Assault Regiment was complete, and only 538 Ju 52s were available to lift or tow them. Although the amphibious tanks and even the high-speed hydrofoils had arrived, 7th Panzer Division was also very incomplete. The two infantry divisions were in better shape, and their mountaineering skills would be needed for the famous White Cliffs of Dover. But the men, recruited from southern Bavaria, had mostly never seen the sea in their lives.
The situation regarding landing craft was no better. On 13 June, OKM advised that ‘Rhine ships would be available within fourteen days to three weeks. Ten motor passenger vessels, 200 motor tugs, 85 powered barges, 12 motor tankers, 2,000 barges.’16 Allowing for supports and losses to the enemy, this was just about enough for Manstein’s plan. The Kriegsmarine had suppressed the information, from its own Merchant Shipping Division, that none of these barges was considered seaworthy or suitable for military use. Each night, in the ‘Battle of the Barges’, Bomber Command attacked the French invasion ports, destroying these vessels and disrupting preparations. Yet another of Churchill’s proposals rejected by Halifax was that the Handley Page Hampdens should also drop mustard gas bombs.
Convinced that Manstein’s ‘Small Solution’ could not work, some senior officers pressed for a postponement of Sea Lion in order to mount the full version. On 22 June (the day of the French surrender), 200 officers of the Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine assembled at Roubaix for a planning wargame based on the September landings. Student, by now deeply committed to Manstein’s plan, sent his deputy Major General Ludwig Putzier. The wargame degenerated into a shambles, with the Kriesgsmarine refusing to accept either the Army’s figures for moving troops across the Channel, or the Luftwaffe’s confident pronouncements that the Royal Navy would be blown out of the water. This farcical episode finally convinced OKW that the revised Case Smith was the only chance of making Sea Lion a reality.
The French capitulation also potentially delivered their Mediterranean Fleet, based at Oran, into German hands. Churchill made a typical suggestion in War Cabinet that the British Mediterranean Fleet should sink the French at anchor, and Halifax understandably rejected it. Instead the planned reinforcement for Gibraltar, designated as ‘Force H’ and due to sail on 27 June, was almost doubled in strength to two battleships, two battlecruisers, one aircraft carrier, four cruisers and 20 destroyers. This left the Home Fleet weaker than for years. But, although the Kriegsmarine had avoided serious losses over Norway and had even captured some Dutch and Belgian ships, it could still put to sea only two battlecruisers, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and ten destroyers. Against these the Royal Navy had four battleships, one battlecruiser, one aircraft carrier, nine cruisers, and 57 destroyers within 24 hours’ steaming time of the Channel; together with over 700 frigates, corvettes, motor torpedo boats, armed trawlers and smaller craft, and 35 modern submarines.
The British intelligence services could not predict the exact day of the German invasion, which meant that the first wave would almost certainly get ashore. But after that, the Royal Navy would dominate the Channel seas completely. The big battleships with their deck armour were believed invulnerable to German bombs, although they might not be risked in the Channel (except HMS Queen Elizabeth, docked at Portsmouth), but the massive superiority in smaller ships spoke for itself. If there was a British numerical weakness it was in their cruisers, which were both small enough to operate in the Channel and still big enough to sink anything the Germans had.
German success therefore depended on the Luftwaffe’s ability to dominate the RAF over southern England. Given the wide range of targets, and the diversion of forces to bombing cities at night, an air campaign of barely four weeks was not long enough to cause any serious British shortages in aircraft or aviation fuel. Everything relied on the rate at which the Germans and British shot each other out of the sky.
The final evacuation of Allied forces from Narvik by 8 June also left Fifth Air Fleet free to conduct long-range bombing raids against the British industrial North and Midlands from Norway. Unable to cover this vulnerable area completely and fight against the main Luftwaffe campaign in the southeast, Dowding pulled back his squadrons from the sector and satellite stations at Manston and Tangmere in Kent. This effectively conceded the planned landing areas for Sea Lion to the Luftwaffe, but allowed Fighter Command to punish severely any German daylight raid that reached London.
As German losses mounted, the Luftwaffe intelligence service, never very efficient, badly over-estimated the corresponding damage to RAF Fighter Command. On Eagle Day itself, Wednesday 10 July, instead of a cataclysmic encounter the assembled German fighters and bombers found that they were flying in virtually clear skies between the Isle of Wight and the Thames Estuary. Göring told Hitler that the RAF had been defeated, preferring to ignore the next day when raids directed towards London lost 39 aircraft to British fighters. ‘Here they come,’ one German pilot commented morosely to his wingman, ‘the last fifty Spitfires.’17
Despite the bombing, King George VI refused to move himself or his family away from London, demanding daily briefings from the Prime Minister and service chiefs. Indeed, on 27 June the King had written to his mother, ‘Personally, I feel happier now that we have no allies to be polite to and to pamper.’18 In the very early hours of Sunday 14 July, a Junkers 88, miles off course due to British jamming of its Knickebein apparatus, was shot down over central London and crashed into Buckingham Palace with its bomb-load still on board. Among the fatally wounded was Queen Elizabeth. According to the Palace spokesman, her last words were ‘I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.’19 Born at the turn of the century, she had not yet reached her fortieth birthday when she died. Prostrate with grief, the King and the two young princesses were spirited away to a safe location in Scotland.
The effect on Halifax, also, was considerable. Already badly shaken by everything that had happened, he determined that at least the German invasion must be prevented. That evening (and following a stormy War Cabinet meeting), the British ambassador in Geneva delivered to his German counterpart a diplomatic note stating that His Majesty’s Government was prepared to open negotiations in return for an agreed cease-fire. With twelve hours to go before the Sea Lion landings, the Germans were in the same position as with the Netherlands exactly two months before. Was this a capitulation or merely an attempt at negotiation? Was it a sincere offer, or a ruse to disrupt Sea Lion? Given that the British themselves could not have answered those questions with any consensus, it is hard to blame the Germans for ignoring the note. However, their apparently contemptuous refusal to negotiate, followed by the subsequent invasion, struck heavily at Halifax.
The Battle of Britain
Just before 06.00 on Monday 15 July formations of Ju 52 transport aircraft climbed to 400 feet in order to drop 2nd Paratroop Regiment just west of Dover. Operation Sea Lion had begun a few hours earlier, with a succession of Luftwaffe attacks and fighter sweeps over the English coast. A few minutes later 3rd Paratroop Regiment dropped north of Hythe and Folkestone, marking the extent of the planned amphibious landing. Despite massive air cover, neither drop went well. British radar had seen the attack coming, and anti-aircraft fire together with Hurricanes and Spitfires flying out from Biggin Hill caused the unarmed German transport aircraft to pull up short or overshoot. At least a quarter of the paratroopers landed in the sea, at the foot of the cliffs, or strewn inland many miles from their objectives. Fieseler Storch light aircraft carrying Brandenburg and Grossdeutchsland commandos, seeking to repeat their achievements in Belgium by capturing critical road junctions, were largely shot down or crashed trying to land amid the Kent hop poles.
Following close on the airborne landings, at 07.00 the first waves of 17th Division from Calais started to land between Hythe and Folkestone, while 6th Mountain Division from Dunkirk landed at Dover. Lacking every kind of specialist equipment and already under attack from British light vessels, most of the German forces missed their intended landing beaches altogether. An unknown number drowned either in mid-Channel or in the last few moments of the landings as their barges swamped and sank. Where the Germans actually made it ashore, their position was frequently far from secure: most of 143rd Mountain Regiment fetched up at the base of Shakespeare’s Cliff west of Dover, while 55th Infantry Regiment came ashore at Hythe directly opposite Shorncliffe Camp, the British Army’s small-arms training school.
