Bevin Alexander - How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

The next day, August 16, German panzers hit 90th Infantry Division, now guarding the Argentan shoulder, a severe blow, but the division— which had performed poorly so far—held. On the same day the Canadian army finally captured Falaise, despite heavy aerial bombardment by Allied planes that inflicted 500 casualties on the Canadians and Poles.

But there was still a thirteen-mile gap between Falaise and Argentan, and it was swarming with Germans trying to get out. Montgomery suggested a new place to close the gap: Chambois, eight miles northeast of Argentan, and thirteen miles southeast of Falaise. Montgomery ordered Crerar to turn the Canadians through Trun to Chambois. The only forces Bradley had were in a provisional corps he set up to guard Argentan—90th Division, Leclerc’s French armored division, and the untried 80th Infantry Division. Bradley called Leonard T. Gerow, from 1st Army, to command it.

The Falaise pocket now stretched east-west about forty miles, and was from eleven to fifteen miles wide. About fourteen divisions, at least 100,000 men, were inside. Roads were clogged, Allied aircraft struck at anything that moved, Allied artillery could reach any objective observers could point out. There was a desperate shortage of fuel, units were mixed up, communications erratic.

On the morning of August 15, Field Marshal von Kluge traveled toward the front. Four hours later he vanished. Search parties could not find him. No messages came in. Hitler was suspicious. Kluge had associated with some of the conspirators of the July 20 putsch, and the timing was incriminating. Just that day Americans and French (6th Army Group under Jacob L. Devers) had invaded the French Riviera on the Mediterranean (Operation Dragoon), and were moving quickly north against minuscule opposition. Hitler suspected Kluge was trying to surrender German forces in Normandy, or might be trying to negotiate a deal.

Around 10 P.M., Kluge turned up at the headquarters of Josef (Sepp) Dietrich of the 5th Panzer Army. Where had he been? He had spent the day in a ditch. An Allied plane had struck his auto and knocked out his radio. So many aircraft were about he had to remain where he was. This explanation, though truthful, did not allay Hitler’s suspicions.

At 2 A.M., August 16, Kluge sent a message to Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s operations chief, recommending evacuation at once. Only at 4:40 P.M. did Hitler authorize full withdrawal.

His decision stemmed from the invasion of southern France. Only skeleton German elements were now in this region, and were too weak even to smash French Resistance forces. Hitler decided to abandon southern France and Normandy. He hoped to mass forces in the Vosges Mountains west of the Rhine, and form a new line. The decision meant that 100,000 Germans around the Bay of Biscay in southwestern France had to start moving, mostly on foot, through the French interior toward Dijon. Harassed by Resistance groups and by Allied aircraft, many of these soldiers finally crossed the Loire and surrendered to the Americans.

Kluge sent out instructions for partial withdrawal. Starting that night, westernmost units pulled back to the Orne River (about ten miles west of Falaise). On the following night they were to cross to the eastern bank. Since the Germans had to move through the three-mile space between Le Bourg-St.-Léonard and Chambois, Kluge ordered the Americans driven off the ridge at Le Bourg, which gave observation over the route. After a back-and-forth struggle with 90th Division, the Germans seized the ridge on the morning of August 17.

Meanwhile Bradley met with Hodges and Patton to plan future movements. Bradley removed Patton’s halt order and directed the two American armies to establish a line from Argentan, through Chambois and Dreux to the Seine.

Hodges’s army was to seize Chambois and Trun and make contact with the British and Canadians. As divisions disengaged on the west with the retreat of the Germans, they were to swing around to the east between Argentan and Dreux. Meanwhile Patton’s army was to seize Mantes, thirty miles downstream from Paris, and prevent the Germans from escaping.

Patton wanted to implement his old idea of blocking the German retreat: a broad sweep by three corps down the Seine to the sea. Patton’s plan was by far the best proposed, and it would have eliminated the most capable and experienced German force in the west. Units still in the Pas de Calais, the Low Countries, and the south of France were less powerful altogether than the two German armies in Normandy. With these gone, the Allies could have rolled into Germany against feeble opposition.

But it was not to be. Martin Blumenson wrote: “Although the battle of Normandy remained unfinished, the two leading Allied commanders, Montgomery and Bradley, were already ignoring the main chance of ending the war. Prematurely, they looked ahead to a triumphal march to Germany.”

Since Gerow decided he couldn’t move on Chambois till August 18, Montgomery told Crerar it was essential to take Trun and go on four miles to Chambois. Both of Crerar’s armored divisions, Canadian and Polish, jumped off on the afternoon of August 17, but met bitter resistance. By day’s end they were still two miles from Trun.

Field Marshal Walther Model, who had achieved much success in Russia, arrived in Normandy early on August 17 to replace Kluge. That night the Germans in the pocket withdrew across the Orne. The operation went smoothly. During the early morning of August 18, forty-five cargo aircraft delivered gasoline to the forces in the pocket. The Germans planned to move the night of August 18 from the Orne across the Argentan-Falaise highway.

When Gerow’s advance on Chambois commenced, he asked little of the French 2nd Armored Division, only using its artillery to help 80th Division seize the town of Argentan. Leclerc had already loudly signified to anyone who would listen that he wanted to liberate Paris, little else. The 80th, in its first fight, made no progress. The 90th Division and the Canadians both got within a couple miles of Chambois against desperate German resistance to keep the exit open.

That night the Germans renewed their withdrawal. Allied artillery fire rained down, but most got away to high ground just east of the Argentan-Falaise highway. The German pocket now occupied an area six by seven miles. A bolt hole about three or four miles wide remained open.

At midnight August 18 Model took command of the theater. Kluge, returning to Germany by automobile and, afraid he had been implicated in the July 20 murder plot, swallowed poison and died. Meanwhile the Germans in the pocket strained all their efforts to get out.

At last at 7:20 P.M., August 19, a company of the 90th Division met a Polish detachment in the midst of the burning village of Chambois. The gap had finally been closed. But the barrier was porous, and the Germans continued to flow through for two more days. Most got out.

On August 20, 5th Armored Division from Haislip’s 15th Corps commenced a slow push through fog and rain from Mantes down the left or near bank of the Seine, assisted on the west by two divisions of 19th Corps. This was not Patton’s sweep to the sea, but a laborious process aimed at clearing the river of the enemy. The Americans hit solid resistance and made little progress.

The next day, Montgomery and RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, in charge of Allied air support of the invasion, came to an astonishing conclusion: the Seine bridges had all been destroyed, the Germans were unable to cross, so the Allies didn’t need to make any more aerial attacks on the river—despite the fact that the Germans had been moving back and forth across the Seine throughout the Normandy campaign. Thus, as the Germans streamed toward the Seine crossings, they were not harassed by Allied aircraft. Virtually all the Germans got across the river—it was not impassable after all. Using back roads and traveling at night, most of the Germans reached the frontier and began preparing a new defensive line.