Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (2 page)

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T
HIS VOLUME concludes my personal narrative of the Second World War. Between the Anglo-American landings in Normandy on June C, 1944, and the surrender of all our enemies fourteen months later, tremendous events struck the civilised world. Nazi Germany was crushed, partitioned, and occupied; Soviet Russia established herself in the heart of Western Europe; Japan was defeated; the first atomic bombs were cast.

In this, as in earlier volumes, I have told the story as I knew and experienced it as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of Great Britain. I have relied, as before, on the documents and speeches composed under the daily ordeal, in the belief that these give a truer picture of what happened at the time than could any afterthoughts. The original text was completed nearly two years ago. Other duties have since confined me to general supervision of the processes of checking the statements of fact contained in these pages and obtaining the necessary consents to the publication of the original documents.

I have called this Volume
Triumph and Tragedy
because the overwhelming victory of the Grand Alliance has failed so far to bring general peace to our anxious world.

WINSTON S.CHURCHILL

CHARTWELL, WESTERHAM, KENT.
September
30, 1953

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Acknowledgments

I
MUST AGAIN ACKNOWLEDGE the assistance of those who helped me with the previous volumes, namely, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall, Commodore G. R. G. Alien, Colonel F. W. Deakin, the late Sir Edward Marsh, Mr. Denis Kelly, and Mr. C. C. Wood. I have also to thank the very large number of others who have kindly read these pages and commented upon them.

I am obliged to Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy Garrod for his help in presenting the Air aspect.

Lord Ismay has continued to give me his aid, as have my other friends.

I record my obligation to Her Majesty’s Government for permission to reproduce the text of certain official documents of which the Crown copyright is legally vested in the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. At the request of Her Majesty’s Government, on security grounds, I have paraphrased some of the telegrams published in this volume. These changes have not altered in any way the sense or substance of the telegrams.

I am indebted to the Roosevelt Trust for the use they have permitted of the President’s telegrams quoted here, and also to others who have allowed their private letters to be published.

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Moral of the Work

In War: Resolution

In Defeat: Defiance

In Victory: Magnanimity

In Peace: Good Will

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Theme of the Volume

How the Great Democracies

Triumphed,

and so

Were able to Resume

the Follies

Which Had so Nearly

Cost Them Their

Life

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1

D-Day

The Normandy Landings — My Report to the
House of Commons, June
6
— Important News
from Stalin — His Telegram of June
11 —
Enemy
Dispositions on the Atlantic Wall — The German
Warning System is Paralysed — Rundstedt’s
Mistake — I Visit the Beaches and Lunch with
Montgomery, June
10 —
Cruise in the H.M.S.

“Kelvin”— General Marshall’s Message —

Congratulations to Mountbatten — My Telegrams
to Stalin and Roosevelt, June
14.

O
UR LONG MONTHS of preparation and planning for the greatest amphibious operation in history ended on D-Day, June 6, 1944. During the preceding night the great armadas of convoys and their escorts sailed, unknown to the enemy, along the swept channels from the Isle of Wight to the Normandy coast. Heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force attacked enemy coast-defence guns in their concrete emplacements, dropping 5200 tons of bombs. When dawn broke, the United States Air Force came on the scene to deal with other shore defences, followed by medium and fighter bombers. In the twenty-four hours of June 6 the Allies flew over 14,600 sorties. So great was our superiority in the air that all the enemy could put up during daylight over the invasion beaches was a mere hundred sorties.

From midnight three airborne divisions were alighting, the British 6th Airborne Division northeast of Caen to seize Triumph and Tragedy

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bridgeheads over the river between the town and the sea, and two American airborne divisions north of Carentan to assist the seaborne assault on the beaches, and to check the movement of enemy reserves into the Cotentin peninsula. Although in places the airborne divisions were more widely scattered than had been intended, the object was in every case achieved.
1

As dawn came and the ships, great and small, began to file into their prearranged positions for the assault the scene might almost have been a review. Immediate opposition was limited to an attack by torpedo-boats, which sank a Norwegian destroyer. Even when the naval bombardment began, the reply from the coastal batteries was desultory and ineffective. There was no doubt that we had achieved a tactical surprise. Landing and support craft, with infantry, with tanks, with self-propelled artillery, and a great variety of weapons and engineer demolition teams to deal with the beach obstacles, all formed up into groups and moved towards the beaches. Among them were the D.D.

(swimming) tanks, which made their first large-scale appearance in battle. It was still very rough from the bad weather of the day before, and a good many of the swimming tanks foundered on the way.

Destroyers and gun and rocket batteries mounted on landing-craft pounded the beach defences, while farther to seaward battleships and cruisers kept down the fire of the defending batteries. Ground opposition was slight until the first landing-craft were a mile from the shore, but then mortar and machine-gun fire grew. Surf and the partly submerged obstacles and mines made the landings hazardous, and many craft were wrecked after setting down their troops, but the advance went on.

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As soon as the foremost infantry got ashore they dashed forward towards their objectives, and in every case except one made good progress. On “Omaha” beach, northwest of Bayeux, the Vth American Corps ran into severe resistance.

By an unlucky chance the enemy defences in this sector had recently been taken over by a complete German division in full strength and on the alert. Our Allies had a very stiff fight all day to make any lodgment at all, and it was not until the 7th that, after losing several thousand men, they were able to force their way inland. Although we did not gain all we sought, and in particular Caen remained firmly in enemy hands, the progress made on the first two days of the assault was judged very satisfactory.

From the Biscay ports a stream of U-boats, facing all risks and moving on the surface at high speed, sought to break up the invasion. We were well prepared. The western approaches to the Channel were guarded by numerous aircraft, forming our first line of defence. Behind them were the naval forces covering the landings. Meeting the full blast of our defence, the U-boats fared badly. In the first crucial four days six were sunk by air and a similar number damaged. They were not able to make any impression on the invasion convoys, which continued to move with impunity and with trifling loss. Thereafter they were more cautious, but no more successful.

At noon on June 6 I asked the House of Commons to “take formal cognisance of the liberation of Rome by the Allied Armies under the command of General Alexander,” the news of which had been released the night before. There was intense excitement about the landings in France, which everyone knew were in progress at the moment.

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Nevertheless I devoted ten minutes to the campaign in Italy and in paying my tribute to the Allied Armies there. After thus keeping them on tenterhooks for a little I said:
I have also to announce to the House that during the
night and the early hours of this morning the first of the
series of landings in force upon the European continent
has taken place. In this case the liberating assault fell
upon the coast of France. An immense armada of
upwards of 4000 ships, together with several thousand
smaller craft, crossed the Channel. Massed airborne
landings have been successfully effected behind the
enemy lines, and landings on the beaches are
proceeding at various points at the present time. The
fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled. The
obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not
proved so difficult as was apprehended. The Anglo-American Allies are sustained by about 11,000 first-line
aircraft, which can be drawn upon as may be needed
for the purposes of the battle. I cannot of course
commit myself to any particular details. Reports are
coming in in rapid succession. So far the commanders
who are engaged report that everything is proceeding
according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation
is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that
has ever taken place. It involves tides, winds, waves,
visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and
the combined employment of land, air, and sea forces
in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with
conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.