Anticipating Overlord ANTICIPATING OVERLORD INTELLIGENCE AND DECEPTION: GERMAN ESTIMATES OF ALLIED INTENTIONS TO LAND INVASION FORCES IN NORTHWEST EUROPE BY CAPTAIN THOMAS LEON CUBBAGE II MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BRANCH, U.S. ARMY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GENERAL INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, D.C. 06 JUNE 1969 (Re-Typed and Edited: 15 March 2016) Anticipating Overlord Table of Contents CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCTION …………………………………………….………….…….. 1 II GERMAN PLANS 1939-40 ……………………………….…….…….….….. 7 III ENGLISH INVASION PLANS 1940-41 ……………………….……….….. 11 IV GERMAN PLANS & ESTIMATES 1941 …………………………………... 14 V ALLIED INVASION PLANNING 1942 …………….……………………..… 17 VI GERMAN PLANS & ESTIMATES 1942 ……………………………….….. 20 VII ALLIED PLANS & DECEPTION OPS 1943 ..…………………….…….… 28 VIII GERMAN PLANS & ESTIMATES 1943 ……………….…………….….... 37 IX “FORTITUDE” – THE ALLIED DECEPTION PLAN ……….…...……,.…. 52 X ALLIED PLANNING: JANUARY THRU APRIL 1944………….…….….... 62 XI GERMAN PLANS & ESTIMATES: JANUARY THRU APRIL ……...….... 73 XII ALLIED INVASION PLANNING MAY 1944 ……………………...……….. 95 XIII GERMAN PLANS & ESTIMATES MAY 1944 ………………….…….…. 103 XIV THE FIRST FOUR DAYS OF JUNE 1944 ………………………….…… 122 XV THE LAST DAY BEFORE THE INVASION …………………………..…. 140 XVI D-DAY, TUESDAY, THE 6TH OF JUNE 1944 (0000 to 0530 Hours) …. 156 XVII D-DAY, TUESDAY, THE 6TH OF JUNE 1944 (0530 to 2400 Hours) …. 173 XVIII AFTERMATH — 7 JUNE THRU 25 JULY 1944 …………………….….. 190 XIX REVIEW OF GERMAN COLLECTION, ANALYSIS AND ESTIMATES CAPABILITY………………………...…………………... 217 XX ROOTS OF THE GERMAN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE RE UNDERSTANDING D-DAY ….…………………………………… 225 XXI IMPLICATIONS OF THE GERMAN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE …..…. 236 i Anticipating Overlord BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………….………………... 239 Appendixes …………………………………………………………………...…….. 251 A. Table of Equivalent Ranks ……………………………………….………… 251 B. Glossary of German Individuals Appearing in this Paper ………..……... 252 C. Glossary of Code Names and Short Titles …………………………….… 255 D. Glossary of German Terms and Words ………………………………….. 260 E. German Command in the West Hierarchy ……………………………..… 266 F. Maps ………………………………………………………………………….. 267 A. German Operation SEELÖWE (SEA LION) ………………………... 268 B. The Channel Invasion Coast …………………………………………. 269 C. Six Surveyed Assault Areas ……………………………………….…. 270 D. German Concept of Invasion Strategy ……………………….….….. 271 E. German Concept of Post Invasion Strategy ………………..….…… 272 F. German Order of Battle, OB West, 6 June 1944 …………….…..….273 G. Comparison of German OB for April and June 1944 ……………….274 H. Concentration and Marshalling Areas in England …………..………275 I. Allied Pre-Invasion Bombing ……………………………….………… 276 J. Transport and Glider Routes for Allied Airborne Assault ………..… 277 K. Invasion Fleet Channel-Crossing Routes …………………………… 278 L. D-Day, British Second Army Sector ……………………………….… 279 M. D-Day, First United States Army Sector …………………………….. 280 N. .D-Day Deployment at Normandy ………………………………...….. 281 O. D-Day to 13 June Deployment ………………………………….….… 282 P. Allied Deployment as of 24 July 1954 ……………………..……...… 283 ii Anticipating Overlord I. INTRODUCTION Twas in a summer day – the sixth of June – I like to be particular in dates, Not only of the age, and year, but moon; They are the sort of posthouse where the Fates Change horses, making History change its tune, Then spur away o’er Empires and o’er States| Byron – Don Juan D-Day, Tuesday, June 6, 1944 The Normandy Coast of France Operation Overlord, the Allied Invasion of Europe, began at precisely fifteen minutes after midnight on June 6, 1944—the first hour of a day that be forever known as D Day. At that moment a few specially chosen men of the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions stepped out of their planes into the moonlit night over Normandy. Five minutes later and fifty miles away a small group of men from the British 6th Airborne Division plunged out of their planes. These were the pathfinders, the men who were to light the dropping zones for the paratroopers and glider-borne infantry that were soon to follow. The Allied airborne armies clearly marked the extreme limits of the Normandy battlefield. Between them, and along the French coastline lay five invasion beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Through the predawn hours as paratroopers fought in the dark hedgerows of Normandy, the greatest armada the world had ever known began to assemble off those beaches—almost five thousand ships carrying more than two hundred thousand soldiers, sailors and coastguardsmen. Beginning at 6:30 A.M., and preceded by a massive naval and air bombardment, a few thousands of these men waded ashore in the first wave of the invasion. Cornelius Ryan – The Longest Day What follows is not a complete history of the Normandy invasion, but it is an examination of the intelligence aspects of the Allied plans to mount and the German plans to destroy the invasion. The invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, came as a tactical surprise to the Germans. In the months that followed the 1 Anticipating Overlord initial assault, the German attempted without success, to destroy the forces on the beachhead. Some historians have labeled the German failure at Normandy as one of history’s most extraordinary military blunders, but that is too strong a charge. This study will show that there was nothing “extraordinary” about the German unreadiness for the main Allied assault, the Schwerpunkt as they called it. Rather, the German blunders—and there were many—resulted from an extremely complicated series of very ordinary mistakes. Tactical surprise resulted from the failure of a reasonably well informed military establishment, in the midst of wartime crisis, to anticipate correctly the next move of the Allied planners. If the entire Government of Nazi Germany, with its numerous military and Nazi Party establishment, is considered as a whole, then it is not true that they were caught totally unprepared for D-Day. Rarely has a nation at war been more expectant. The details of the expectations were simply wrong. Their failure cannot be wholly attributed to a failure of the German intelligence collection machinery. The German strategic and tactical analysis machinery must share the blame. The Germans prepared for what they reasoned was the “obvious” enemy move and neglected to adequately hedge against the “possible” moves that the Allied planners elected to make. The Allied planner’s choice of the Normandy sector for the Schwerpunkt was, in the German analysis, a strategic “improbable.” But in the minds of the British and American planners the Normandy sector was not at all “improbable.” Having decided to invade the hostile shores of northern France. The Allied decision to force their way ashore at a place less well defended than the closer but heavily defended shores of the Pas-de-Calais region cannot be said to have been a reckless choice. Some popular historians have labeled the failure of German "intelligence" regarding the Normandy landings as one of modern history's most extraordinary military blunders. In point of fact, there was nothing "extraordinary" about the Wehrmacht's apparent unreadiness for the main Allied assault, the Schwerpunkt 2 Anticipating Overlord as the Germans called it. Rarely has a nation at war been more expectant of invasion. By late April 1944, Radio Berlin had broadcast to the German people that an enemy invasion in France would come at "any minute, anywhere."1 On 18 May Radio Berlin announced that "the ports [of England] are bristling—crammed to the bursting point—with … invasion equipment."2 The Germans certainly were anticipating the Grosslandung; and yet, the critical details of their expectations about the Second Front invasion simply were wrong. The Germans were expecting diversionary attacks to be made in Normandy, but they were absolutely convinced that the Allied Schwerpunkt would come in the Pas-de-Calais sector. Everything was set to await the arrival of the Allied forces on the shores of France north of the River Seine—where, in due time, Adolf Hitler and the Wehrmacht expected to destroy them. But, in their effort to build and man the Atlantikwall, the Germans made one critical mistake— one the French had made earlier. They too forgot that a concrete and steel barrier with an exploitable weakness is no shield at all. The also forgot a basic maim of war: namely, if an enemy can discover the weakest sector in a defensive line, then it is surly there that the focus of the main assault will come. Because of their failure to anticipate properly the Allied invasion strategy, the Germans were subject to the embarrassment of tactical surprise. Thomas C. Schelling, in the "Forward" to Roberta Wholstetter's Pearl Harbor-–Warning and Decision, said the following about surprise: Surprise, when it happens to a government, is likely to be a complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of responsibility, but also responsibility so poorly defined or ambiguously delegated but action gets lost. It includes gaps in intelligence, but also the intelligence that, like a string of pearls too precious to wear, is too sensitive to give to those who 1 "World Battlefields," Time, 1 May 1944, 23. 2 Army Times Editors, The Tangled Web, (Washington: Robert B. Luce, Inc., 1963), 144. 3 Anticipating Overlord need it. It includes the alarm that fails to work, but also the alarm that has gone off so often that it has been disconnected. It includes the unalert, but also the one that knows he'll be chewed out by his