[flick]

Fresh details of Normandy landing revealed in new book PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
PM - Friday, 5 June , 2009  18:33:00
Reporter: Mark Colvin
MARK COLVIN: President Obama's next stop is France, where he'll join other heads of state and government in marking the 65th anniversary of D-Day on the Normandy beaches tomorrow.

On June the 6th 1944, a huge force of largely British, Canadian and American troops began landing near the town of Caen in the long-planned Operation Overlord, which led to the liberation of Paris by August, and ultimately to the defeat of Germany the following year.

Antony Beevor is the historian whose accounts of the battles for Stalingrad and Berlin chronicled for the first time the almost unbelievable brutality of the war on the Eastern Front.

Now he's turned his attention to the Western Front, with a book called D-Day and he says that although the fighting in Normandy was less drawn-out, it was at least as savage.

ANTONY BEEVOR: To my astonishment it turned out that in Normandy the German divisions were actually loosing 2,300 men per division per month, while the average on the Eastern Front had only been just over 1,000.

So that gives a very clear indication of how savage the fighting in Normandy was.

MARK COLVIN: I think because of the movies, a lot of people think of it as just being about D-Day. And some people think of it just as being about what happened on the beach; the opening sequence of 'Saving Private Ryan' for example.

But your book is about much more.

ANTONY BEEVOR: In a way slightly the paradox is although D-Day has sort of, become the iconic moment and all the rest of it, the real fighting was actually in Normandy.

On D-Day losses were actually much lighter, even with Omaha, much lighter than expected. They reckon that they were going to get up to 10,000 casualties on D-Day. In the end only about 3,000 allied soldiers were killed, and that was the same number as French civilians who dies that day.

I mean, one thing one really needed to do in this book, because military history on the whole had tended to overlook it, was the suffering of the civilians.

And 15,000 French civilians were killed in the preparations for D-Day alone, and another 20,000 during the battle of Normandy. So…

MARK COLVIN: Let's get one question out of the way there, because at one stage you were quoted as saying that what happened to the city of Caen was close to a war crime. But then I heard you more recently rowing back from that.

ANTONY BEEVOR: Well, I rowed back from it. I mean I'm afraid newspapers like to, sort of, create a drama, and it was an unwise statement in the course of a very, very long review.

What I was really trying to say was that it was a sort of criminal blunder, if you like. The bombing of Caen achieved nothing, and in fact it was totally contrary to the military plan.

Montgomery wanted to capture Caen in the first 24 hours, and if you want to capture a city you don't bomb it to rubble because that provides the perfect defensive terrain for the enemy and it also blocks the streets and prevents you getting your armour in.

Of course, what happened was that the Germans had already sent all their troops forward to their positions; their defensive positions.

So hardly any Germans were killed in the bombing of Caen and it was entirely French civilians. So, that was why I felt so strongly on this subject.

MARK COLVIN: So, you don't resile from what you've said about General Montgomery or Monty as he was known?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Well, Montgomery had many great qualities; there's no doubt about it. As a sort of training of armies and preparing them for war and all the rest of it. And also his input into the planning of D-Day was good.

But the trouble was that Monty had major character flaws and he could never admit that he'd done anything wrong.

When he had to change his strategy very rapidly, i.e. within four days after the landing, because by then the German armoured divisions had arrived. And, of course, they were all facing the British and the Canadians being on that sort of particular flank, which was for the Germans the most dangerous flank.

And when they split up these armoured divisions into little battle groups, there was no way that the British and the Canadians were going to be able to break through properly.

And so Monty had to change his plan, but he pretended to the Americans, to everybody, that everything was still going according to his original plan, which was… caused exasperation, to say the least.

MARK COLVIN: Exasperation from General Patton, exasperation from… right the way up to Eisenhower?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Absolutely. Right the way up to Eisenhower. In fact Monty, even in his post war memoirs, made, sort of, remarks about this and basically, sort of, trying to make out how brilliantly he had handled the whole battle.

And, sort of, Eisenhower even exploded later to Cornelius Ryan, and this only came out last year, actually saying "That man's a psychopath".

Well, I mean that's going too far, but Monty did have some strange, shall we say, psychological quirks.

MARK COLVIN: What about the strength the German defence? Was that surprising to the allies?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Yes, quite right. They had completely underestimated it. They really felt - well, you know, we're getting toward the end of the war, surely the Germans will realise and crack up under the, sort of, the intense aerial bombardment and artillery bombardment.

But in fact, I mean, the Germans fought with a desperate cunning and savagery. Many of the tricks learnt on the Eastern Front being used in Normandy, and with… very effectually. I mean their camouflages brilliant.

And so, in the bocage, that countryside of sort of thick hedges and tiny fields, the Americans suffered terrible casualties.

And the interesting thing is that, do you realise in the Cold War years, every single NATO war college was sending its students to Normandy; not to study how the allies had done, but to study how the Germans had conducted such a defence.

MARK COLVIN: Why do you think the Germans fought so hard, because it was a stage of the War at which some of them might have been tempted to think well, it's not that important or perhaps we should surrender?

ANTONY BEEVOR: Well, the Germans managed to indoctrinate their troops, particularly The Waffen-SS, but even many more convincing them that if they didn't defeat the allies in Normandy then Germany would be completely annihilated; their families would be killed and destroyed and everything.

So that provoked a tremendous bitterness in their fighting and also the bombing campaign, the allied strategic bombing campaign against Germany was sort of, again used to, sort of, fire… to fire them up.

But also, one has to remember that they were fighting, the British and the Canadians, were fighting the largest concentration of SS Panther Division since the Battle of Kursk. And those Waffen-SS were completely indoctrinated in their attitudes.

MARK COLVIN: So, it was a victory for Goebbels as much as it was for the military side?

ANTONY BEEVOR: It was, and I think one of the most significant details in a way was that after the war, American and British psychiatrists reflected on the high levels of allied battle shock casualties. I mean, the Americans suffered 30,000 cases alone.

And they were, therefore, interested on why they were so few, comparatively so few, German battle shock cases amongst the prisoners of war who were taken. And they, of course, had suffered far worse bombardment and shelling than the allies.

And they came to the conclusion that it really was the result, not just of indoctrination during the battle, but it was the fact that 10 years of Nazi propaganda had prepared them for that sort of fighting and self-sacrifice in a way which, of course, democratic armies, or armies of democratic countries, simply could not be expected to do.

[Therion]

Very interesting interview . Thanks for posting it .