Basic HTML Version
The High Ground
In April, 1944, newly assigned to the defense of the Atlantic
Coast, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel looked at the map with his
second-in-command and chief of staff – Major-General Hans Speidel
– and came to this spot we are standing on in a deserted field of grass
and weeds under a water tower, reached via an opening in a barbed
wire fence.
“I met Hans Speidel,” Warman says. “He came on our
Normandy battlefield tour. He was then a four-star general; my tutor
– Robin Hastings – was a colonel and knew him quite well. In our
syndicate at the Staff College (each “syndicate” has eight members)
three were Germans who had fought at Omaha in Hitler’s army as
lieutenants. They were now captains in the new German army. So
[what I am about to tell you] we got from the horse’s mouth.
“Rommel stood there,” Warman continues, “and said ‘
This
is
the key to the battlefield. This will be the Allies’ left flank.’ One can
see the whole of the battlefield from this vantage point [high ground
overlooking the beaches and fields of Normandy]. ‘This is where
Rommel and I stood,’” Warman recalls Speidel saying, “‘and we both
said this is where we have to hold if we are to keep the enemy at bay.’”
From this strategic point one can see to the Channel, Sword
Beach, the Canadian beach around Corse, Gold Beach (the fisherman
statue at Arromanches glistens in the distance), the American zone,
and Omaha Beach. Further on, one can see Caen, and in the distance
a pale blue length of hillside (hill # 119) “where General Bradley got
stuck for five weeks after getting off Omaha Beach, which took three
days.”
The Allies, however, sent a British parachute division on the
night of June 5th with 16,000 men to secure this high ground,
successfully. “It’s a fact of life,” Warman surmises, “if the enemy
knows something, you probably know it as well. We all think the
same. The Germans were a bit late in setting up defenses,” Warman
concludes.
Before leaving the high ground, the Colonel says he’d “like to kill
one statement: people believe the Allies succeeded because Rommel
The house the Buckleys rented through parisapartmentrental.biz representative Jose
Arturo Ibarra featured a two-story living room, an acre-sized property, two baths, a
TV-viewing loft and three comfortable bedrooms. Price varied with the season, but the
spacious accommodation compared favorably with the cost of a medium-priced hotel.
44
winter
|
spr ing