Verwandte Artikel zu Normandy: The Real Story

Normandy: The Real Story - Softcover

Whitaker, Shelagh; Whitaker, Dennis; Copp, Terry

 
9780345459077: Normandy: The Real Story
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345459075 ISBN 13: 9780345459077
Verlag: Presidio Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

“It was the [allied armies’] valor, their endurance, and their ability to adapt that won the battle of Normandy and launched the liberation of Western Europe.”
—from Normandy: The Real Story

For decades, it’s been the conventional wisdom that “brute force” alone beat the German army at Normandy. Now a definitive new history, coauthored by a highly decorated field commander, proves otherwise. Using archival data, oral histories, and exclusive new interviews, Normandy: The Real Story takes the reader deep into the minds, hearts, and souls of the allied armies to show how—despite the shortcomings of their superiors and the inferiority of their weaponry—they destroyed two well-equipped German armies and won the war.

Here is the crucial summer of 1944 as seen by both sides, from the British spy, code-named “Garbo,” who successfully misled the Nazis about the time and place of the D-day landings, to the poor planning for action after the assault that forced the allies to fight for nine weeks “field to field, hedgerow to hedgerow.” Here too are the questionable command decisions of Montgomery, Eisenhower, and Bradley, the insatiable ego of Patton. Yet, fighting in some of the most miserable conditions of the war, the allied soldiers used ingenuity, resilience, and raw courage to drive the enemy from France in what John Keegan describes as “the biggest disaster to hit the German army in the course of the war.” Normandy is an inspiring tribute to the common fighting men of five nations who won the pivotal campaign that lead to peace and freedom.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Shelagh Whitaker worked as a sports and feature journalist and was published in a wide number of national magazines. She was the coauthor, with her husband, Denis Whitaker, of Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph; Rhineland: The Battle to End the War; and the Dafoe Book Prize–winning Tug of War: The Allied Victory That Opened Antwerp. She died in 2016.

The late Brigadier-General Dennis Whitaker served as a young officer with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry in Dieppe, and subsequently commanded the battalion throughout the fighting in northwest Europe. He is one of Canada's most highly decorated officers, winning the DSO and Bar for Valour in the field. He was honored with the Order of Canada, a doctorate in military science from the Royal Military College, as well as prestigious medals from France and Belgium.

Terry Copp is the coauthor of Normandy: The Real Story. He is a Professor Emeritus and Chair of History at Wilfrid Laurier University and codirector of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies in Canada. He is the editor of the journal Canadian Military History. He lives in Elora, Ontario.

Aus dem Klappentext

It was the [allied armies ] valor, their endurance, and their ability to adapt that won the battle of Normandy and launched the liberation of Western Europe.
from Normandy: The Real Story

For decades, it s been the conventional wisdom that brute force alone beat the German army at Normandy. Now a definitive new history, coauthored by a highly decorated field commander, proves otherwise. Using archival data, oral histories, and exclusive new interviews, Normandy: The Real Story takes the reader deep into the minds, hearts, and souls of the allied armies to show how despite the shortcomings of their superiors and the inferiority of their weaponry they destroyed two well-equipped German armies and won the war.

Here is the crucial summer of 1944 as seen by both sides, from the British spy, code-named Garbo, who successfully misled the Nazis about the time and place of the D-day landings, to the poor planning for action after the assault that forced the allies to fight for nine weeks field to field, hedgerow to hedgerow. Here too are the questionable command decisions of Montgomery, Eisenhower, and Bradley, the insatiable ego of Patton. Yet, fighting in some of the most miserable conditions of the war, the allied soldiers used ingenuity, resilience, and raw courage to drive the enemy from France in what John Keegan describes as the biggest disaster to hit the German army in the course of the war. Normandy is an inspiring tribute to the common fighting men of five nations who won the pivotal campaign that lead to peace and freedom.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1

Operation Fortitude

D + 44: July 20, 1944

"Make peace, you fools! What else can you do?" Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt bellowed to his army chiefs and slammed down the receiver.

This disloyal outburst by Adolf Hitler's commander in chief of many years fanned the paranoia of the Führer. It also unleashed a desperate, if futile, response from a rebellious hard core of senior staff officers of the German Wehrmacht who had lost confidence in Hitler and his Nazi henchmen.

What else could they do? Rundstedt asked. The answer was clear: assassinate the man who was destroying their Fatherland.

At 12:30 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Colonel Count Claus von Staffenberg entered the conference room at the Führer's headquarters, "Wolfschanze," in Rastenburg, East Prussia. The stern military stance of this Wehrmacht aristocrat gave no quarter to his disabilities: the patch on one eye, the sleeve neatly pinned over an amputated arm, the remaining hand with just three fingers.

Von Staffenberg formally greeted the Führer and took a seat nearby, carefully lowering his heavy briefcase to the floor under the solid wooden map table. Abruptly he left, explaining that he had to make a telephone call before presenting his brief. An officer by chance moved the case to the far side of the table from Hitler's seat. Moments later, an explosion rocked the room.

It was a near miss. Wehrmacht General Walter Warlimont described the map room as a "scene of stampede and destruction. There was nothing but wounded men groaning, the acrid smell of burning, and charred fragments of maps and papers fluttering in the wind." Although injured, Hitler survived and was able to address his Nazi supporters by radio within a few hours. He quickly squashed the uprising and executed hundreds of suspected perpetrators.

Hitler later had killed hundreds of people he suspected of plotting against him. The assassination attempt verified his conviction of untrustworthiness of the Wehrmacht. It verified, too, his certainty of his own destiny. Stand fast remained his orders to all divisions.

It would be the death knell for close to a hundred thousand German soldiers in the next four weeks.

Rundstedt's latest audacity gave Hitler the opportunity to fire the veteran army chief. He now took direct control of his western armies, appointing only loyal Nazi officers to all-important commands.

Many of Hitler's senior commanders also disagreed with their leader, but dared not defy him in case they, too, were accused of plotting against him. However, Rundstedt's replacement, sixty-one-year-old Field Marshal Günther Hans von Kluge, frankly warned Hitler that the tide of battle was turning against them.

"Der kluge Hans," or "Clever Hans," as he was, not always with admiration, nicknamed, quoted from the now-doomed Field Marshal Rommel's situation report (sitrep) of July 15: "We have lost 97,000 men, including 2,360 officers. We have received up till now 10,000 men as replacements."

As well, the newly appointed Commander in Chief West reminded Hitler that constant allied air strikes were crippling their rail lines, resulting in a severe loss of arms and equipment, especially radio equipment, artillery, cannon, and machine guns. "The enemy are daily providing new forces and masses of materials for the front; the enemy supply lines are not challenged by the Luftwaffe and enemy pressure is continually increasing. The German reserves are dwindling.

"The moment is fast approaching when this overtaxed front line is bound to break up," Kluge reported.

Hitler insisted that he would not, under any circumstances, consider withdrawal.

Fortunately for the Allies, the Führer continued to be convinced that Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery was planning a massive attack 120 miles east of Caen at the Pas de Calais, with a fresh US army under Lieutenant General George Patton. This illusion of a further attack by the mythical Armée Gruppe Patton at the Pas de Calais continued to immobilize still more German divisions east of the River Seine. Hitler still stubbornly held the entire Fifteenth German Army in the northeast sector of France against such an attack.

But there was a mystery. Where was Patton? Was he still held in disgrace after his clash with his superiors in Sicily, the infamous slapping incident when he accused a soldier of malingering? Or was he, as the Wehrmacht spies insisted, waiting in the wings in Kent?

And when would Armée Gruppe Patton launch that main allied assault on the Pas de Calais?

Adolf Hitler would have been surprised to learn that on D-plus-44 the elusive Lieutenant General George Patton was sitting in a Normandy orchard in the warm July sunshine, munching an apple and venting his frustrations to his headquarters staff. "My destiny in this war," he grumbled, "is to sit here on my ass and watch the cider apples grow." The only response was the energetic tail-wagging of Patton's white English bull terrier, Willie, a canny pooch whose original owner had been shot down over Germany.

Patton had arrived secretly in France on July 6. For two weeks since, the irascible tank commander had been languishing at Nehou, a rural village in the interior of the Cotentin Peninsula. As he had only a paper army, a minuscule, tented Third Army headquarters, and no orders, his frustration grew and festered. It seemed that while everyone else was doing the fighting, taking center stage, George Patton was left waiting in the wings. It was not a role he accepted easily. At fifty-nine years of age, he was afraid a younger man would take over his command. Slightly tongue-in-cheek, Patton had offered the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower (his West Point junior by six years) one thousand dollars for each week by which Ike would hasten his operational command.

In the winter months prior to D-Day, Ike had assigned command of the Third US Army to Patton. But the army could not become operational in Normandy until the First US Army achieved its breakout at Avranches, at the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula. Meanwhile, elements of Third US Army were gradually and surreptitiously being moved into Nehou. Patton had been unable to resist jumping the gun to make his unauthorized appearance there.

His impatience stemmed from the fact that by the third week of July he seemed not much closer to fulfilling his command. For six weeks the Americans and British had been mired in a desperate and costly battle of attrition while struggling to get through the twenty-mile-deep belt of swamp and hedgerow country: the bocage.

For Patton, the breakout of Third Army was tantalizingly close.

Eisenhower had issued a media ban concerning Patton for security purposes, so there was no general knowledge of his appointment as commander of the Third Army in Normandy. Press interviews and quotes were forbidden. This was particularly hard on a man who so relished publicity. The media loved Patton; he was invariably good copy. Eisenhower, who was his boss and close friend, said he had a "genius for explosive statements." In truth, he shot from the mouth with the same flair as he carried his famed ivory-handled pistols: indiscreetly and for effect.

Patton's impulsive "Top Secret" arrival on July 6 was a case in point: a crowd of soldiers cheering "Georgie!" met him, along with an inquisitive press, who had somehow deduced his plans. They pestered him with questions.

The performance was typical of the Patton paradox: he was feared by the troops yet adored by them; admired by his commanders and associates as a skilled tank strategist but in constant hot water with them. He was the most quoted of...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Presidio Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345459075
ISBN 13 
9780345459077
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar