and went to work in his classic style.
He ordered everyone to redouble his efforts and arranged for four layers of obstacles to be erected to stop the enemy boats from even reaching the Normandy shores. Being the intelligent general and strategist that he is, General Rommel is certain the invaders have to be thrown back into the sea before they reach the beach heads and that the invasion has to be defeated on the beaches. He is firmly convinced that the sea shore is where our best defenses have to lie in order to keep the attackers floundering in the water where they would be sitting ducks for our guns built into the overlooking bluffs. He had some guns in the batteries laid out to shoot right down on the beaches, some laid out to shoot enfilading fields of fire and some positioned to knock out any approaching ships with huge shells and mortars. But General Rommel still saw that we hadn’t a hope in the world of pushing any invaders back from the beaches if these were the only defenses we had in place.
He knew from his experience in Afrika, where the British laid a million mines in two months, what a deterrent those could be and he envisioned mining the coastline of Normandy with more than 10 million mines. Within the five months from when he took over defending these approaches, over a half million obstacles had been laid and more than four million mines had been buried along the entire French coast. Our men had been content to lay about 40,000 mines a month for the time period before General Rommel arrived. True to form, however, he showed the men how to lay mines more efficiently and most effectively and now they are laying up to about 1 million mines per month.
Mining the terrain and building entrenchments were just two aspects of the defenses General Rommel planned. Once his plans were approved, he began fortifying the French beaches and so brilliantly did he pursue this task, that he found that the types of obstacles and impediments we needed weren’t even available so he invented and designed his own. As I’ve said, General Rommel wanted four belts of defenses against the coming invasion. Two were almost completed but they would be virtually useless if the enemy came by boat at low tide. So he strengthened a third belt of defenses and as a result, we would now be able to hold the key positions forever, I believe. He cleverly planned for obstacles to be placed at varying locations so no matter what the tide level was, the enemies’ approach would be thwarted. I thought there had to be at least a million of these obstacles in place, so arduously did he drive his men, but he said it was more like only a half million. Still...those posts and gates and sharpened sticks all topped off with exploding devices along with the barbed wire, the mines and gun emplacements all provided us with deadly protection.
With all of those defenses covering our front, General Rommel also considered our back. Behind the beaches of Normandy lay marshes and fields. True to form, Herr Rommel planned for an attack coming in by air and landing in these fields. He therefore had the dams and locks opened so that these areas behind and beyond our gun batteries would flood. Under the water, he had stakes planted so that any airplane attempting to land would have its belly ripped open. More mines and barbed wire were laid by the mile. No planes could land behind us and if the enemy were so reckless as to send in parachutists, they would drown or explode upon landing if they weren’t shot out of the sky before that. With everything in place, it seemed to me that the enemy would never make it past the sea or air and onto dry land.
When General Rommel was commanding troops in France in 1940, he had taken the Fountainbleau Chateau as his headquarters. But as of March, 1944 when he was sent by der Führer to Normandy, General Rommel took La Roche Guyon, the chateau of a family of French nobility as his headquarters. It is a strong stone castle and
He ordered everyone to redouble his efforts and arranged for four layers of obstacles to be erected to stop the enemy boats from even reaching the Normandy shores. Being the intelligent general and strategist that he is, General Rommel is certain the invaders have to be thrown back into the sea before they reach the beach heads and that the invasion has to be defeated on the beaches. He is firmly convinced that the sea shore is where our best defenses have to lie in order to keep the attackers floundering in the water where they would be sitting ducks for our guns built into the overlooking bluffs. He had some guns in the batteries laid out to shoot right down on the beaches, some laid out to shoot enfilading fields of fire and some positioned to knock out any approaching ships with huge shells and mortars. But General Rommel still saw that we hadn’t a hope in the world of pushing any invaders back from the beaches if these were the only defenses we had in place.
He knew from his experience in Afrika, where the British laid a million mines in two months, what a deterrent those could be and he envisioned mining the coastline of Normandy with more than 10 million mines. Within the five months from when he took over defending these approaches, over a half million obstacles had been laid and more than four million mines had been buried along the entire French coast. Our men had been content to lay about 40,000 mines a month for the time period before General Rommel arrived. True to form, however, he showed the men how to lay mines more efficiently and most effectively and now they are laying up to about 1 million mines per month.
Mining the terrain and building entrenchments were just two aspects of the defenses General Rommel planned. Once his plans were approved, he began fortifying the French beaches and so brilliantly did he pursue this task, that he found that the types of obstacles and impediments we needed weren’t even available so he invented and designed his own. As I’ve said, General Rommel wanted four belts of defenses against the coming invasion. Two were almost completed but they would be virtually useless if the enemy came by boat at low tide. So he strengthened a third belt of defenses and as a result, we would now be able to hold the key positions forever, I believe. He cleverly planned for obstacles to be placed at varying locations so no matter what the tide level was, the enemies’ approach would be thwarted. I thought there had to be at least a million of these obstacles in place, so arduously did he drive his men, but he said it was more like only a half million. Still...those posts and gates and sharpened sticks all topped off with exploding devices along with the barbed wire, the mines and gun emplacements all provided us with deadly protection.
With all of those defenses covering our front, General Rommel also considered our back. Behind the beaches of Normandy lay marshes and fields. True to form, Herr Rommel planned for an attack coming in by air and landing in these fields. He therefore had the dams and locks opened so that these areas behind and beyond our gun batteries would flood. Under the water, he had stakes planted so that any airplane attempting to land would have its belly ripped open. More mines and barbed wire were laid by the mile. No planes could land behind us and if the enemy were so reckless as to send in parachutists, they would drown or explode upon landing if they weren’t shot out of the sky before that. With everything in place, it seemed to me that the enemy would never make it past the sea or air and onto dry land.
When General Rommel was commanding troops in France in 1940, he had taken the Fountainbleau Chateau as his headquarters. But as of March, 1944 when he was sent by der Führer to Normandy, General Rommel took La Roche Guyon, the chateau of a family of French nobility as his headquarters. It is a strong stone castle and
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