178 AFTER THE BATTLE.pdf

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NUMBER 178

After the Battle

2017

Editor: Karel Margry

Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey

Published by

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CONTENTS

EISENHOWER VISITS THE

FALAISE POCKET

IT HAPPENED HERE

Hitler’s Diplomatic Tour in the West

FRANCE

The Rehabilitation of the

Channel Ports

UNITED KINGDOM

The Isle of Man Internment Camps

In August 1944, Eisenhower visited the Falaise battleground but the exact route and

places he visited have never been identified before. Our author, Jacques van Dijke,

seen here standing on the side of a Tiger tank in 2011, is the first to accurately recon-

struct the itinerary. A retired colonel of the Royal Netherlands Army, his fascination

with the Falaise Gap battle stems from many years since. As Jacques explains: ‘My

interest was triggered by issue 8 of

After the Battle,

published back in 1975, which

described the fighting in the ‘Corridor of Death’, the narrow passage between Saint-

Lambert-sur-Dive and Chambois through which the last German troops had desper-

ately tried to escape out of the Pocket. It led me to spend five summer holidays camp-

ing with my family in a field next to the Ferme d’Aubry at Bas Aubry

(below),

a hamlet

belonging to the community of Aubry-en-Exmes and located just south of Saint-Lam-

bert. The farm lies close to the Dives river and I spent most of my time searching for

war relics in the fields and on the river banks, particularly between Saint-Lambert and

the Moissy ford, the last two places where the Germans were able to cross. As time

went on, my activity changed from digging in the earth to digging in the archives.’

Front Cover:

General Dwight D. Eisenhower,

the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe,

inspecting the wreck of a German Tiger II tank

on the Trun-Vimoutiers road during his tour of

the Falaise Pocket battleground on August 26,

1944. (USNA)

Back Cover:

Now . . . and Then. The Isle of

Man is the mecca of motorcycle road racing

but sadly in February 2017 it was announced

that the Royal Corps of Signals Motorcycle

Display Team, the White Helmets, which has

thrilled audiences with stunts for the past 90

years, was being disbanded. Here they are

seen performing on the former internment

camp located on the Douglas seafront.

Acknowledgements:

For their help with the Eisen-

hower visits the Falaise Pocket story, the Editor

thanks David Holbrook, archivist at the Dwight D.

Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abi-

lene, Kansas; Bas Slaats and Marcel Zwarts. For their

assistance with the Channel Ports story he extends

his appreciation to the French Marine Nationale and

the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCNS) for

allowing Jean Paul Pallud to visit their installations.

He also thanks Yannick Berton and Hans Houterman.

Photo Credit Abbreviations:

BA — Bundesarchiv;

BPK — Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz;

ECPAD — Médiathèque de la Défense, Fort d’Ivry;

IGN — Institut Géographique National; NIOD —

Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie,

Amsterdam; USNA — US National Archives.

‘My fascination for the now-peaceful countryside never stopped and was one reason

why I decided to settle in Normandy permanently, finding a domicile 15 kilometres

north-west of Chambois. Then one day I was watching a documentary on the Nor-

mandy campaign on French television and, much to my surprise, it included a short

film clip that showed Eisenhower inspecting a part of the Falaise Gap battleground. In

a flash, I recognised one of the localities. Knowing that area of Normandy as the back

of my hand, I was absolutely sure it was at Bas Aubry.’ (In 1989, Jacques contributed

the chapter on Holland for our

Blitzkrieg in the West Then and Now,

and in 2009 he

published a monograph in French on Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge’s

battlefield management of the Normandy bridgehead during July-August 1944.)

JACQUES VAN DIJKE

On August 26, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme

Allied Commander in Europe, departed on a tour across the Nor-

mandy battlefield in order to see for himself the carnage and

destruction left by the fighting in the Falaise Pocket. The horrible

sights of dead German soldiers, dead horses and wrecked Ger-

man transport encountered that day led him to include them in

his memoirs as ‘scenes that could be described only by Dante’.

Continuing his trip eastwards, Eisenhower went on to confer

with General Omar Bradley, the commander of the US 12th Army

Group, at Chartres and the following day he made an impromptu

visit to just-liberated Paris, making this a two-day excursion filled

with indelible impressions.

EISENHOWER VISITS THE FALAISE POCKET

In his war memoirs

Crusade in Europe,

published in 1948, General Dwight D. Eisen-

hower, the Supreme Allied Commander in

Europe, devoted a small paragraph to the

day he went to see the carnage and destruc-

tion meted out to the retreating German

Army in the Falaise Pocket. Eisenhower

wrote: ‘The battlefield at Falaise was unques-

tionably one of the greatest “killing grounds”

of any of the war areas. Roads, highways and

fields were so choked with destroyed equip-

ment and with dead men and animals that

passage through the area was extremely diffi-

cult. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the

gap I was conducted through it on foot, to

encounter scenes that could be described

only by Dante. It was literally possible to

walk for hundreds of yards at a time, step-

ping on nothing but decaying flesh.’

The short paragraph did not give a date of

the visit, nor any clue to exactly where Eisen-

hower had gone to see the carnage. Most

accounts agree that the Falaise Gap had

been closed on August 19, 1944 in two

phases — first by the Poles at Mont-Ormel

around midday and then by the Americans at

Fel and Chambois and the Poles west of

Chambois in the early evening — but it still

took 36 hours before the Germans stopped

their final break-out efforts. So the clue

given by Eisenhower — ’48 hours after’ —

should theoretically put the visit somewhere

between August 21 and 23. However, in

actual fact, it was three days later, on the first

day of a two-day excursion.

AUGUST 26

Eisenhower had started on his journey

from the SHAEF Advance Command Post,

code-named ‘Shellburst’, which was located

in an apple orchard near the village of

Tournières, west of Le Molay, and 12 kilo-

By Jacques van Dijke

metres south-west of Bayeux. (see

After the

Battle

No. 84). He was accompanied by his

British military assistant, Lieutenant-Colonel

The same sloping field at Bas Aubry today, with the trees of the Les Sapins wood on

the horizon on the left.

ATB

TIGER II HERE

STURMGESCHUTZ HERE

VIMOUTIERS

FROM FALAISE

TRUN

AUBRY-EN-EXMES

AVERNES-SOUS-EXMES

GACÉ

21st ARMY GROUP

TACTICAL HEADQUARTERS

TO CHARTRES

Reproduced from Michelin Sheets 55 (14th Edition, 1974) and 60 (12th Edition, 1972)

James Gault, who afterwards wrote a concise

report about the trip. They had left ‘Shell-

burst’ at 0800 hours in Eisenhower’s Cadillac

driven by his private chauffeur, Irish-born

Mechanised Transport Corps driver Kay

Summersby. Following them were at least

two other cars carrying members of the war

correspondents team assigned to SHAEF

Headquarters, among them Merrill Mueller

of NBC, Robert Barr of the BBC, Howard

Cowan of Associated Press and Kenneth S.

Davis and two official Army cameramen,

stills photographer 2nd Lieutenant Leo S.

Moore and his sergeant cine cameraman col-

league, both of the 162nd Signal Photo Com-

From his ‘Shellburst’ command post at Tournières, Eisenhower’s party travelled east,

probably via Bayeux and Falaise, to Trun, where they started a clock-wise circuit of

the Falaise Pocket battlefield, prior to turning back east to Chartres. We have indi-

cated the places along their route that feature in this story.

pany. Driving east from Tournières, the con-

voy soon crossed into the British sector of

the bridgehead.

Gault: ‘The purpose of this trip was

twofold: firstly, to see some of the results of

the fighting in the gap around Trun, and sec-

ondly, to visit General Bradley whose

Advanced Command Post was now situated

near Chartres. We arrived at Falaise and

then did a circular trip starting at Trun, going

north to Vimoutiers. It had been our inten-

tion to take the road south from Vimoutiers

and complete the circle at Chambois and so

back to Trun, but the road leading south

from Vimoutiers was impossible. Instead of

this we took a more easterly road south

through Gacé. During this short tour one saw

a certain amount of destroyed equipment but

it was not anything like what one had been

led to believe.’

Right:

Eisenhower’s first stop was at

l’Hôtellerie Faroult, a hamlet on the Trun to

Vimoutiers road, where he got out of the

car to inspect a disabled Sturmgeschutz III.

Among the party accompanying him was a

Signal Corps cameraman and this still from

the latter’s footage shows Eisenhower

photographing the assault gun with his

miniature camera. In the verge stands one

of the party’s staff cars with Lieutenant-

Colonel James Gault, his British military

aide, leaning on the right-hand door. The

convoy of British lorries is heading south,

towards Trun, probably bringing supplies

to the civilian population there.

Their first stop was on the Trun to

Vimoutiers road, at a locality known as

l’Hôtellerie Faroult. Here Eisenhower got

out of the car to have a look at a disabled

Sturmgeschutz III left by the side of the road.

The Signal Corps cameraman filmed him

taking pictures of it with his private minia-

ture camera.

Their next stop was six kilometres further

on, on the same road just before it starts

descending into Vimoutiers. Here they came

across a Tiger II tank, lying upside down

against the road embankment with its turret

blown off. Again, Eisenhower got out of the

car to inspect the vehicle.

He did not know it but this King Tiger,

stencilled ‘100’ on the turret, was one of

schwere Panzer-Abteiling 503 and had in fact

been positioned here on August 21 as rear-

guard protecting the German withdrawal

over this road through Vimoutiers. Part of

the 1. Kompanie, two of its crewmembers,

Unteroffizier Franz-Wilhelm Lochmann

(radio operator) and Gefreiter Willy Fischer

(loader), had been ordered to remain with

the tank until the last German troops had

passed and then blow it up and attempt to

rejoin their unit. Lochmann and Fischer had

stayed with the vehicle until a first enemy

tank, a Sherman (probing ahead of the Cana-

dian 5th Infantry Brigade), had come round

the bend in the road up ahead. They knocked

it out with their first shot, then lit the fuses

on the three demolition charges and bolted.

Over the next few days, Lochmann and Fis-

cher made their way to the Seine and eventu-

ally caught up with their unit. By the time

Eisenhower inspected their former mount, it

had been shoved off the road by an Allied

bulldozer.

Interesting as it was to inspect a specimen

of the largest of German panzers, the results

of the trip so far must have been disappoint-

ing to Eisenhower, yielding nothing like the

wholesale destruction of German materiel

that had been reported to him.

Continuing down the hill into Vimoutiers,

Eisenhower and Gault intended to take the

first right turn at the entrance to the town for

the direct road south to Chambois and from

Travelling north from Trun on the present-day D916, Karel Margry was excited to

recognise the spot, finding the houses in the background little changed in over seven

decades. The view is north-east, towards Vimoutiers.

there turn back west to Trun. However, at

the turnoff, they were told that this was

impossible as the road up ahead was com-

pletely blocked by wrecked vehicles (the

German escape route for light vehicles from

Trun to Orbec or Le Sap had passed through

Guerquesalles, just south of where they

were), so instead they continued on, through

CRITICAL PAST

The StuG had been abandoned by the side of the road. Scrap

collectors have already removed its right-hand sprocket wheel.

The panzer has gone but the orchard bordering the road is still

there, a rare sight in Normandy today.

ATB

CRITICAL PAST

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