resolutely refused to divert more than twenty-three Halifaxes to the needs of SOE throughout north-western Europe. The Chiefs of Staff showed little interest in the problem: they regarded General De Gaulle and the Resistance as a potential political liability, rather than an actual military asset. During the February moon period, against 1,500 tons of arms landed in Yugoslavia, France received only 700 tons. In desperation, the Free French and SOE for once made common cause in turning to the Prime Minister.
Churchill did not disappoint them. He had already been influenced by impressive pleas from leading Frenchmen, among them Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie. At a meeting on 27 February attended by Selborne, Sinclair the Air Minister, and representatives of Gubbins and De Gaulle, Churchill over-rode the airmen, and decreed that supply-dropping to France should become the second priority of Bomber Command, whenever aircraft could be spared from the Battle of Berlin. In the last quarter of 1943, the RAF had dropped 139 tons of arms into France. In the first quarter of 1944, this rose to 938 tons. In the second quarter, with American help, it reached 2,689 tons. Just over half of all these weapons went to F Section circuits, the remainder to those liaising with RF.
But the Allied invasion planners at SHAEF were less than delighted by the Prime Minister’s intervention. ‘We cannot hope to equip all the Resistance bodies to the extent we wish to,’ said a SHAEF memorandum of 28 February. For the purposes of the invasion, all Allied Resistance and behind-the-lines commando operations were being coordinated by Special Forces headquarters, a specially created body answerable to Eisenhower, despite protests from Koenig. Throughout the winter of 1943 and the spring of 1944, the representatives of SFHQ debated plans for the participation of Resistance in Overlord. But to their increasing dismay, they found that the planners at SHAEF took little interest in the hopes and ambitions of guerillas and saboteurs. ‘It is unfortunate that Resistance only gets “support by results”,’ wrote SHAEF’s G-3 Operations Department in answer to a protest from SFHQ ‘andnever ahead of results. The fact remains that owing to the nature of its indefinite contribution, Resistance has to prove itself before getting the support necessary . . .’
After the initial Allied landing in Normandy, the decisive problem was to prevent the Germans from building up their counter-attack against the beach-head more rapidly than the Allies could move reinforcements across the Channel to strengthen it. If the Germans could move unimpeded, predicted the Joint Planning Staff, by D+60 they could have a theoretical fifty-six divisions (with a strength equivalent to thirty-seven Allied units) deployed against thirty-six Allied divisions in France. SHAEF Intelligence staffs had created a mass of detailed projections of German troop movements in the first days after the Allied landings:
. . . Assuming seventy trains are required to move a Panzer division; that it will take six hours to collect the trains; four hours to load; that forty-eight trains can move in twenty-four hours, given two main lines, ninety-six trains can move in twenty-four hours . . . one and a half hours’ minimum move-off time . . . Assume two hours to pass a point . . . tracked vehicles are unlikely to move over 100 miles by road, or wheeled vehicles more than 150 . . .
Through Ultra, they were reading almost every German monthly equipment state. They knew, for instance, that ‘2 Sugar Sugar Panzer Div’, as the decrypters incongruously recorded the Das Reich, was short of 257 trucks, had only two of a complement of seventeen tracked artillery tractors, and was 2,001 rifles and 546 machine pistols short of complement. But SHAEF consistently overestimated both the speed at which the German units in the West would be ordered to Normandy, and the pace at which they would move once they had
Churchill did not disappoint them. He had already been influenced by impressive pleas from leading Frenchmen, among them Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie. At a meeting on 27 February attended by Selborne, Sinclair the Air Minister, and representatives of Gubbins and De Gaulle, Churchill over-rode the airmen, and decreed that supply-dropping to France should become the second priority of Bomber Command, whenever aircraft could be spared from the Battle of Berlin. In the last quarter of 1943, the RAF had dropped 139 tons of arms into France. In the first quarter of 1944, this rose to 938 tons. In the second quarter, with American help, it reached 2,689 tons. Just over half of all these weapons went to F Section circuits, the remainder to those liaising with RF.
But the Allied invasion planners at SHAEF were less than delighted by the Prime Minister’s intervention. ‘We cannot hope to equip all the Resistance bodies to the extent we wish to,’ said a SHAEF memorandum of 28 February. For the purposes of the invasion, all Allied Resistance and behind-the-lines commando operations were being coordinated by Special Forces headquarters, a specially created body answerable to Eisenhower, despite protests from Koenig. Throughout the winter of 1943 and the spring of 1944, the representatives of SFHQ debated plans for the participation of Resistance in Overlord. But to their increasing dismay, they found that the planners at SHAEF took little interest in the hopes and ambitions of guerillas and saboteurs. ‘It is unfortunate that Resistance only gets “support by results”,’ wrote SHAEF’s G-3 Operations Department in answer to a protest from SFHQ ‘andnever ahead of results. The fact remains that owing to the nature of its indefinite contribution, Resistance has to prove itself before getting the support necessary . . .’
After the initial Allied landing in Normandy, the decisive problem was to prevent the Germans from building up their counter-attack against the beach-head more rapidly than the Allies could move reinforcements across the Channel to strengthen it. If the Germans could move unimpeded, predicted the Joint Planning Staff, by D+60 they could have a theoretical fifty-six divisions (with a strength equivalent to thirty-seven Allied units) deployed against thirty-six Allied divisions in France. SHAEF Intelligence staffs had created a mass of detailed projections of German troop movements in the first days after the Allied landings:
. . . Assuming seventy trains are required to move a Panzer division; that it will take six hours to collect the trains; four hours to load; that forty-eight trains can move in twenty-four hours, given two main lines, ninety-six trains can move in twenty-four hours . . . one and a half hours’ minimum move-off time . . . Assume two hours to pass a point . . . tracked vehicles are unlikely to move over 100 miles by road, or wheeled vehicles more than 150 . . .
Through Ultra, they were reading almost every German monthly equipment state. They knew, for instance, that ‘2 Sugar Sugar Panzer Div’, as the decrypters incongruously recorded the Das Reich, was short of 257 trucks, had only two of a complement of seventeen tracked artillery tractors, and was 2,001 rifles and 546 machine pistols short of complement. But SHAEF consistently overestimated both the speed at which the German units in the West would be ordered to Normandy, and the pace at which they would move once they had
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