´óÏó´«Ã½

(Kennedy McConnell was an R.A.F. electrical engineer working on the Turing designed "Bombe" decoding machines. In 2003 he produced a professionally filmed lecture series, which has been copied on to videotape and DVD. The full series, comprising approximately seven hours of detailed historical analysis, can be viewed at Dundee Central Library. There are additional copies of the film at the Bletchley Park Trust, the Scottish National Museum, the Imperial War Museum and the National War Museums of America, Australia, and Canada. An abstract of Part 4 follows).

ATLANTIC WALL
Hitler realised that an invasion of France by the Western Allies was inevitable sooner or later. Consequently, he ordered the construction of a coastal defensive system stretching from Denmark to the Spanish border. Rommel was transferred from Italy in November 1942 to improve this ‘ATLANTIC WALL’.

HELP FROM ULTRA
Code name for the allied invasion was ‘OPERATION OVERLORD’. Supreme Commander was General Eisenhower. His deputy was Air Chief Marshall Tedder. Other commanders were Montgomery (land), Ramsey (sea) and Leigh-Mallory (air). Eisenhower’s headquarters near London were linked directly to Bletchley Park in January 1944. Consequently, German anti-invasion plans could be monitored. Ultra identified all enemy infantry and panzer divisions stationed in Western Europe prior to the invasion.

OPERATION FORTITUDE
Allied planners devised an elaborate scheme to convince Hitler that invasion would be launched in Pas-de-Calais area. Main decoy feature was the First US Army Group (FUSAG) which was supposed to be stationed in South East England. Deception was reinforced by radio messages from a double agent code named ‘GARBO’. Ultra confirmed that Germans had been deluded.

NORMANDY INVASION
Eisenhower was forced to delay D-Day for 24 hours because of an unseasonable storm in the English Channel. German defenders were taken by surprise because they believed that severe weather conditions would postpone Allied assault. Rommel was on leave in Germany for his wife’s birthday. Invasion began early on 6th June 1944 with airborne landing by American and British paratroops. Main force, consisting of five divisions, landed at dawn along a sixty miles stretch of Normandy coast line. The five beaches were code named UTAH, OMAHA (AMERICAN), GOLD, SWORD (BRITISH) and JUNO (CANADIAN).

CONFUSED RESPONSE
Ultra revealed that Runstedt was refused permission to deploy panzer divisions at the invasion beaches, because Hitler was asleep at Berchtesgaden. When he was wakened at noon, Hitler was still convinced that the main assault would come a few days later in the Pas-de-Calais sector. Consequently, he refused to move reinforcements into Normandy. This top level confusion during the first few hours of invasion helped the Allies to establish their beachheads.

INITIAL SUCCESS
Although Allied forces achieved initial success, they could not reach their planned objectives. Most serious was failure to capture city of Caen. Montgomery launched three frontal attacks during June, but all were repulsed with heavy losses. Invasion armies had to rely on MULBERRY prefabricated harbours for essential supplies. Consequently, the capture of deep water port of Cherbourg was top priority. Ultra kept Bradley informed of Rommel’s counter attacks and American forces captured Cherbourg on 26th June, but the port had been sabotaged.

STALLED CAMPAIGN
Hitler met Runstedt and Rommel at Soissons in France on 17th June. They urged him to accept the best military option, which was to make an orderly retreat back to Germany. He rejected their advice and insisted that Normandy must be defended to prevent an Allied breakout to East and South. By the end of June, Eisenhower realised that the Allied campaign had stalled despite having numerical superiority in troops and tanks plus complete control of the air.
Kennedy McConnell via Dundee Central Library

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.