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COSSAC

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to establish a staff to plan operations in north west Europe in 1944. It was envisaged that the Supreme Allied Commander would be British, and the usual practice was for the commander and the chief of staff to be of the same nationality, so it was decided to appoint a British officer for the role of chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (Designate) (COSSAC), with an American deputy. In March 1943 Morgan became COSSAC. Brigadier General Ray Barker became his American deputy. Initially, Morgan's staff consisted of an aide, two batmen and a driver with a car purloined from I Corps headquarters. Morgan established his headquarters in Norfolk House at 31 St James's Square. However, by October 1943, it was clearly too small for COSSAC needs, which called for accommodation for a staff of 320 officers and 600 other ranks. In November and December part of the staff moved to the South Rotunda, a bombproof structure that had originally been fitted up as an anti-invasion base, which was connected to the various ministries by the Whitehall Tunnel. Other staff were accommodated at 80 Pall Mall.

[[Bild:Allied Commanders after Germany Surrendered.jpg|thumb|left|Senior Allied officers at SHAEF headquarters in Rheims shortly after the German surrender. From left to right are Major General Ivan Susloparov, Lt. General Frederick Morgan, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, Captain Kay Summersby (obscured), Captain Harry C. Butcher, General Dwight Eisenhower, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder]]

(Need quote from Brooke: Well, there it is. It cannot be done, but get it done anyway). Besides planning for the invasion, Morgan was also charged with planning two other operations. One was a deception operation to misdirect the German command as to where the landing was to be. The second was a plan to bring forces ashore in Europe immediately in the case of a sudden German collapse. The deception operation was titled Operation Cockade, the emergency landing was titled Operation Rankin, and the invasion plan was titled Operation Overlord.

Morgan and his staff worked on the Overlord plan throughout June and the first half of July 1943. He presented it to the Chiefs of Staff Committee on 15 July. The plan set forth in detail the conditions under which the assault could be made, the area where a landing would be feasible, and the means by which a lodgement on the continent would be developed.

On 28 July, a group of the COSSAC staff, headed by Barker, travelled to Washington D.C. to present the Overlord plan to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to confer with the U.S. War Department about the troop basis for the operation and issues related to its civil affairs and logistics aspects. Missions were also exchanged with Eisenhower's Allied Force Headquarters in Algiers to coordinate the plans of offensive action in the Mediterranean and north western Europe in 1944. In October and November, Morgan went to Washington, to discuss the operation with the Combined Chiefs of Staff, accompanied only by Major General Nevil Brownjohn and an aide. Morgan met with General George Marshall, who instructed him to proceed with planning on the basis that Marshall would be Supreme Allied Commander and Morgan his chief of staff. Morgan met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House. Roosevelt turned down Morgan's request for the services of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. to assist with civil affairs, and also cast doubt on whether Marshall could be spared to become Supreme Allied Commander. While in the United States Morgan visited the Gettysburg Battlefield and the training camps at Camp Carrabelle, Fort Benning, Camp Mackall and Fort Bragg.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff authorised Morgan to issue orders in the name of the Supreme Allied Commander to the Commanders in Chief of the Air, Naval and Land Forces, even though they outranked him. When Montgomery was appointed Commander in Chief Land Forces for the invasion, in December 1943, he declared that Morgan's original plans were unworkable; they had originally been limited by the availability of landing craft, but Montgomery insisted it would require more men attacking over a wider front. Ultimately, more landing craft were obtained and the invasion was scaled up to Montgomery's satisfaction, at the cost of a month's delay and a reduction in the Southern France operation. However, all the key features of Morgan's plan remained; the choice of Normandy as the assault area, the use of Mulberry harbours, the deployment of American forces on the right and British on the left, the use of airborne troops to cover the flanks, and some form of diversionary operation in Southern France.

As the Anglo-American top brass agreed at the January 1943 Casablanca conference, if the Allies contemplated an invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1944, someone needed to plan that risky operation posthaste. Designated on March 12, 1943, with the unwieldy title of “Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander” (COSSAC), Morgan inherited staff studies “several inches thick” on potential cross-Channel operations, guided only, as Morgan remembered, by General Sir Alan Brooke’s discouraging pronouncement: “Well there it is. It won’t work, but you must bloody well make it!” Morgan’s mission, which he later categorized as making “an impossible situation reasonably possible for practical purposes,” was complicated by the maddening detail that he held no command authority and the supreme commander for whom he was supposed to work did not exist. The lack of a “great man” to lead the invasion and a firm date for its execution guaranteed that Overlord would receive scant attention and little support from the Anglo-American high command. Indeed, Morgan later claimed that COSSAC “was not highly regarded by the [British] War Office, save as a high-grade training exploit.”

SHAEF

When Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander the COSSAC team was absorbed into SHAEF. Eisenhower brought his chief of staff for Allied Forces Headquarters, Major General Bedell Smith, and moved the headquarters to Bushey Park. Morgan was offered command of a corps in Italy but declined in favour of becoming one of Smith's three deputies. His responsibilities covered Intelligence and Operations. Morgan coordinated the work of various SHAEF divisions and deputised for Bedell Smith when he was absent.

Morgan was also called upon on occasion to deal with Montgomery, with whom his professional relationship as deputy chief of staff was similar to that before the war when Montgomery was a brigade commander. On one occasion Morgan was summoned to Smith's office to find him white with rage at a telephone receiver. "That's your bloody marshal on the other end of that," Smith explained. "I can't talk to him any more. Now you go on." "As the campaign progressed," Morgan later wrote, "it became more difficult for us British at SHAEF to provide explanation, as we were continually called upon to do, for the attitude and behaviour of the British authorities as exemplified by their chosen representative in the field." Senior British officers at SHAEF, notably Morgan, Kenneth Strong and Jock Whiteley remained loyal to Eisenhower. This cast a pall over their careers after the war, when Montgomery became Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

After the war Smith described Morgan as his British alter ego, "a man I wouldn't willingly have dispensed with". Morgan served in this role until SHAEF was dissolved in June 1945. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in August 1944 "in recognition of distinguished services in connection with the invasion of Normandy". The United States government awarded him the Legion of Merit in April 1945, and the Distinguished Service Medal in 1948 for his services.

Balkoski

• Balkoski, Joseph General Morgan Plans Operation Overlord 6 January 2014 [1]

Morgan and his staff shaped a plan that, with some modifications, would become the western Allies’ chief military operation of World War II.

• Designated on March 12, 1943, with the unwieldy title of “Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander” (COSSAC), Morgan inherited staff studies “several inches thick” on potential cross-Channel operations.
• As Morgan remembered, General Sir Alan Brooke’s discouraging pronouncement: “Well there it is. It won’t work, but you must bloody well make it!”
• He was a chief of staff without a commander to report to.
• he held no command authority and the supreme commander for whom he was supposed to work did not exist.
• COSSAC “was not highly regarded by the [British] War Office, save as a high-grade training exploit.”

Notwithstanding those impediments, on April 17, 1943, Morgan gathered his staff—half British, half American—and gamely announced: “The term ‘planning staff’ has come to have a most sinister meaning; it implies the production of nothing but paper. What we must contrive to do somehow is to produce not only paper, but ACTION… I am to plan nothing less than the reconquest of Europe.”

Morgan’s primary challenge was to determine where the invasion should take place.

• Morgan thereupon drew the momentous conclusion that Normandy must be the target, specifically the Calvados beaches near the ancient town of Bayeux. “[The] Germans consider a landing there unlikely to be successful,” Morgan remarked.

• If two million Allied troops would soon flow into Normandy, they must be supplied by sea if they sought to carry the war to the Rhine and beyond.
• One of Morgan’s subordinates, the Royal Navy’s Capt. John Hughes-Hallett, thereupon devised the ingenious solution soon to be known as Mulberry: “If we can’t capture ports, we must build them,” he declared.

• In a July 15, 1943, cover letter to the final draft of the Overlord plan, he wrote “I have come to the conclusion that, in view of the limitations imposed by my directives, we may be assured of a reasonable chance of success on May 1, 1944, only if we concentrate our efforts on an assault across the Norman beaches about Bayeux,”.

Others would eventually build on his scheme, but the crucial seed had been planted. As a proud Morgan noted of his staff: “Never were so few asked to do so much in so short a time.”

Britanica

In March, 1943, he was appointed chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander of the force that would invade northern Europe (though no such supreme commander had yet been designated).

• In this post was known by its abbreviation (COSSAC)
• Morgan drew up a detailed plan for Operation Overlord, selecting Normandy as the site for the invasion because of its distance from the most obvious site, the Pas-de-Calais region opposite Dover, and because its location was within the combat radius of aircraft based in England.
• His plan was hampered by inadequate resources, and its most acute difficulty, a shortage of landing craft, was not resolved until after U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed supreme Allied commander in December 1943.
• Morgan’s invasion plan subsequently underwent an expansion from three landing beaches to five, the basic foundation for the largest amphibious assault in the history of warfare had been laid by Morgan.

Hull

Warfare History Network

• Born in London, the son of a timber merchant, he attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery.
• Morgan soldiered in India between the world wars, was a staff officer at the War Office and with the 3rd Infantry Division, served briefly with the BEF in France in 1940, and commanded I Corps of the British Home Forces.

In January 1943, Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met in Casablanca to plan the future direction of the war, and the British hesitantly accepted the principle of an invasion in Northwest Europe. They agreed to vague proposals for a “return to the Continent,” though they knew the resources were still sorely lacking. The cross-Channel assault would be planned in London, so, with the agreement of the American war planners, it was decided that the British generals should look for someone to commence drafting an invasion blueprint. Although an overall invasion commander was not named, the chief planner would eventually become his senior administrative assistant—his chief of staff.

• the task was to lay the groundwork for the biggest and most complex seaborne invasion in history.
• chosen for task was Lt. Gen. Frederick Edgworth Morgan, a 49-year-old.
• veteran of the bloody Ypres and Somme campaigns in World War I, twice mentioned in dispatches.
• Mustached, good-humored, commonly known as “Freddie”

He learned of his appointment on March 12, 1943, after stepping into a crowded elevator at New Scotland Yard in London while heading for a meeting at the headquarters of Combined Operations, commanded by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. The handsome, dashing Royal Navy hero of the Battle of Crete jumped into the elevator at the last minute, greeted Morgan warmly, and congratulated him on his appointment as chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander (COSSAC). Thus, Morgan learned for the first time of the awesome assignment that was to tax all of his energies for the next year.

Lessons from the Western Front: Amass and Overwhelm

There were plenty of able senior officers serving behind the front lines in 1943, but the War Office was anxious to avoid depriving the Mediterranean Theater of a rising star, so it had settled on Morgan to plan the Allies’ second front. With solid experience in both invasion planning and operations, he was the ideal choice. He was a self-starter with outstanding executive abilities. The capable but waspish Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who was lukewarm toward the cross-Channel project, told Morgan brusquely, “Well, there it is. It won’t work, but you must bloody well make it.”

Like most senior British Army officers, not the least Montgomery, General Morgan had learned on the Western Front that in battle lives are spared by amassing enough men and resources to overwhelm the enemy. By early 1943, he had found himself planning potential invasions of Sardinia, Spanish Morocco, and Sicily. The first two plans were shelved and, after Morgan had completed preliminary work on the third, it was passed to officers in the field.

It was in mid-March 1943 that Freddie Morgan began planning the Allied assault on Northwest Europe, and it was April 26 before he was given his responsibilities from the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the official designation of COSSAC (taken from the initials of his new title). He was told that the Allies intended to “defeat the German fighting forces in Northwest Europe” and that he was to prepare plans for a full-scale assault on the European mainland at the earliest possible date in 1944, followed by a death blow delivered at the heart of Nazi Germany with a force of 100 Allied divisions.

In addition, Morgan was instructed to prepare an “elaborate camouflage and deception scheme” during the summer of 1943 with the aim of convincing the Germans that the invasion might yet come in that year and thereby pin down enemy forces in the West. Finally, he was to plan for an immediate return to Europe, with the forces then available, should Nazi Germany begin to collapse from within. This latter plan was known as Operation Rankin.

A Tall Order for COSSAC

The acronym, COSSAC, also came to refer to Morgan’s staff—about 50 British, U.S., and Canadian officers—which set up headquarters at the elegant Norfolk House in London’s leafy St. James Square. The deputy COSSAC commander was 54-year-old Maj. Gen. Ray W. Barker of the U.S. Army, a field artillery veteran of World War I.

At first, the British chiefs of staff, preoccupied with operations in the Mediterranean, Burma, and Southeast Asia, did not always regard COSSAC’s work as top priority. But Morgan was unperturbed, and he and his staffers set to work on their massive task with enthusiasm and energy. Though hampered by not having a supreme commander for whom to deputize, General Morgan toiled hard as COSSAC, even to the extent of sleeping on a folding camp bed in his office. Aware of the doubters and skeptics ready to detract from COSSAC’s efforts, Morgan wryly warned his team, “The term planning staff has come to have a sinister meaning. It implies the production of nothing but paper. What we must contrive to do is to produce not only paper, but action.”

The planning of the invasion, which preoccupied him and his team throughout 1943, was a mind-boggling, unprecedented enterprise. Unlike Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, which began with most of the troops and supplies already within striking distance in North Africa, the assault on Northwest Europe had to be started virtually from scratch. It depended on the speculative dates when manpower and materiél would become available in the great quantities needed. But Morgan and his staff were able to draw on the fruits of work already carried out by the planners of Operation Roundup, the initial cross-Channel invasion plan, and Operation Sledgehammer, a contingency blueprint to launch an emergency landing to divert the Germans if the Soviet Army appeared near collapse. Some of these planners were now on the COSSAC staff.

COSSAC was also able to draw on British staff studies of the ill-fated Dieppe raid and on knowledge and experience built up from a series of raids on the enemy-held coasts. Lord Mountbatten’s Combined Operations forces— primarily the Commandos and elite Royal Navy units such as the Special Boat Squadron—had, by mid-1943, amassed considerable skill and experience in small-scale seaborne assaults, had produced appropriate training manuals, had set up specialized training depots, and had developed landing craft that could be used in a major cross-Channel assault.

The Dieppe experience was to prove a vital lesson in the D-Day planning phase. As Sir Bernard E. Fergusson of Burma Chindit Brigade fame said later, “Though there are still some that dispute the value of what was learned on the beaches of Dieppe, they are not to be found among informed persons, or among any who bore high responsibility in the later stages of the war, except for Lord Montgomery.” The official Dieppe history stressed, “Outstanding among the lessons learnt was the importance of overwhelming fire support in the initial stages of a seaborne landing.” Therefore, a new bombardment technique was devised for Operation Overlord whereby weapons from all three services would be brought to bear on the enemy defenders, with Army artillery units firing at shore targets while still afloat.

Somehow, the COSSAC planners would have to produce millions of soldiers along with the millions of tons of offensive hardware, equipment, and supplies needed to keep them living, moving, and fighting. All this—and more— COSSAC had to accomplish under great pressure.

Finding the Right Beachhead

If the continental ports were well defended, the best alternative for Morgan and his team were poorly defended beaches. In response to a British Broadcasting Corporation appeal to the public in 1942, millions of snapshots and postcards of coastal Europe, from Norway to the Pyrenees, had been sent to the War Office. So, the COSSAC team sifted through them to find out the heights of seawalls and which beaches had gentle inclines and might be firm enough to support thousands of troops and vehicles. The pictures led to some early conclusions that were later adopted by Morgan in his draft proposals. These also incorporated volumes of research from British intelligence archives on terrain, subsoils, bridges, moorings, rivers, wharfs, and thousands of other intricate details. The proposals were hastily completed by March 23, 1943.

Morgan and COSSAC discarded old preconceptions in their search for an ideal landing area. They even considered such unlikely regions as the Atlantic coast of Portugal, the Dutch Frisian Islands, Norway, Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula in the North Sea, and even Dunkirk. It was not just beaches they were looking for. Morgan reported later, “The landing beaches were just one X in an algebraic expression that contained half the alphabet. What was wanted was a lodgement area into which we could blast ourselves and from which our main bodies, having suitably concentrated themselves within it, could erupt to develop the campaign eastwards.”

COSSAC’s first problem, therefore, was where to attack. The Nazis held 3,000 miles of coastline in Western Europe, but the area of possible assault was eventually narrowed to the 300-mile stretch between Vissingen, Holland, and Cherbourg. This was the only sector believed to be lightly defended that could be adequately covered by Allied fighter planes based in southern England. Air cover was essential for the invasion.

So, after a full examination of French Resistance reports, aerial reconnaissance photographs, and tidal charts, Morgan and his staff were left with two options: the Pas de Calais and Normandy. While the former had the advantage that the English Channel is at its narrowest there, it was, in German eyes, the most likely landing point. Therefore, the Normandy coastline was tentatively selected. It was sheltered from the unpredictable Channel weather by the Cherbourg Peninsula, it featured wide and firm beaches offering suitable exits for vehicles, and there was open land lying beyond that could provide airfields.

“The Caen sector is weakly held,” COSSAC concluded, “and the beaches are of high capacity and sheltered from the prevailing winds. Inland, the terrain is suitable for airfield development and for the consolidation of the initial bridgeheads. Furthermore, the nearest major port, Cherbourg on the Cotentin Peninsula, could be able to handle large amounts of materiél speedily. Normandy became the strike point.” Morgan realized, however, that the scale of the landings would depend on the amount of amphibious shipping available. From the production forecasts, he calculated that the amphibious lift would provide for an initial landing force of only three divisions. They would go ashore north of Caen, and the next task would be to secure Cherbourg before advancing southward into Brittany and eastward across the River Seine.

The Art of Deception

The COSSAC team was aware of the danger of enemy reconnaissance planes discovering the Allied plan by spotting the increasing buildup of men and materiél in England, and perhaps guessing the target area. So, elaborate deception strategies were put in place. A mythical British Fourth Army was created in Scotland to make the Germans think that Norway was to be invaded, while in southeastern England, the bogus First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG), commanded by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., was set up to hoodwink the enemy into believing that the Pas de Calais was the main objective and that a Normandy landing was merely a diversionary attack. Under the later adopted code name, Operation Fortitude, COSSAC endeavored to disguise the true Allied intentions. Along with the plans for the actual Normandy assault, Morgan’s scheme emphasized Calais as the most logical place to invade. In fact, the Germans were deceived until several days after the Allied forces had landed.

Calais was defended by several panzer divisions, ruling it out as a realistic Allied target. But General Morgan hoped that if the Germans could be persuaded that it was to be attacked, they might keep their strongest units there, well away from Normandy.

Selling the Invasion to Churchill

In May 1943, when Prime Minister Churchill sailed aboard the liner Queen Mary to the Trident Conference in Washington, he was accompanied by Brigadier K.G. McLean and two other COSSAC officers. One morning during the voyage, as Churchill lay in bed in his spacious cabin, the three officers set up a large map and “explained in a tense and cogent tale the plan which had been prepared for the cross-Channel descent upon France,” the Prime Minister reported later. Said Churchill, “General Morgan and his advisers recommended the Normandy coast (over the Pas de Calais)…. There can be no doubt now that this decision was sound. Normandy gave us the greatest hope. The defenses were not so strong as in the Pas de Calais.”

Dedicated, tireless, and easy to work with, Morgan virtually performed miracles in his year of toil and uncertainty. He had gathered a group of talented staff officers expert in all military fields and orchestrated their work with a maestro’s touch. Originality sparked much of the COSSAC planning.

General Morgan was informed in May 1943 that the Combined Chiefs of Staff had selected May 1 the following year as the target date for the Normandy invasion, which had been codenamed Operation Overlord by Churchill. By that date, Morgan would have to have found all necessary resources, especially flat-bottomed landing craft. Early in the planning stages, he was allotted 653 LSTs (landing ship, tank), but on D-Day more than twice that number would be needed.

Morgan was told that fewer than 100,000 troops would be available for the early stages of the assault, including 12,000 British and American paratroopers. Because of his limited resources, the COSSAC plan envisaged three landing beaches compared to the five that would actually be used. Without the authority to demand more resources, General Morgan called repeatedly for the appointment of a supreme invasion commander. What was to become the most ambitious operation in military history was, in 1943, a rudderless ship without a captain.

Because of the lack of port facilities for the invasion, Morgan faced the problem of landing thousands of tons of equipment and supplies to sustain the invading army. This was solved by Royal Navy advisers and construction engineers drawing up plans, originally discussed in 1942, for two prefabricated harbors code-named Mulberries, made up of massive concrete and steel caissons that would be towed across the English Channel and assembled on the Normandy coast, supported by sunken blockships. One harbor would serve the British and Canadian beaches (Gold, Juno, and Sword), and the other the U.S. sector (Omaha and Utah Beaches). Built in a round-the-clock effort at several British shipyards, the harbors constituted one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century.

Limited to a three-division assault by the lack of manpower, equipment, and landing craft, the COSSAC plan satisfied no one. Unfair criticism was leveled at General Morgan and his team for devising a plan that could never be accepted as the final blueprint for Operation Overlord. COSSAC was accused of “wishful thinking.” Yet Morgan was well aware that his plan, no matter how meticulously crafted, was a groundwork that would be subject to significant refinements, which it was.

He submitted the first draft of his invasion plan to the British chiefs of staff in mid-July 1943, and it was accepted a month later by the Combined Chiefs of Staff meeting in Quebec, although the Mulberry harbor proposal was not approved until that September. COSSAC’s draft was a brilliant achievement in just four months, as well as a solid foundation for ultimate success. However, the Allied commitment to the Mediterranean Theater was still depriving Operation Overlord of much-needed equipment, and neither extra landing craft nor a supreme commander were quick to appear.

• Morgan suggested that the supreme commander be an American, because U.S. troops would eventually outnumber the British and Canadians.

• Eisenhower and General Morgan formed a close working relationship.
• Montgomery had overall command of the British, U.S., and Canadian ground forces.
• Eisenhower’s first choice for overall command was General Harold L. Alexander, but Ike had been overruled.

A Shortage of LSTs

Monty flew from Italy to London at the end of December 1943, and lost no time in telling COSSAC that its invasion plan was deficient. According to an observer, the highly professional but prickly Monty “stood up and demolished” the plan as unsound. He pressed for changes, and the seeds of a feud between him and Morgan were sown. Monty and General Eisenhower examined the plan and agreed that the three-division frontage was too narrow. They insisted, therefore, that the initial landings be made by five infantry divisions (two British, two American, and one Canadian), with three airborne divisions (two American and one British) deployed to secure the flanks of the beachhead, and that the 30-mile Normandy front be expanded to 50 miles. The additional amphibious shipping, particularly the LSTs, would have to be found somehow.

Of all the challenges faced by COSSAC during the invasion planning, none caused more anxiety than the specialized landing craft. At first sight, it seemed to be a problem of production. General Morgan had pointed out to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 1943 that the allocation of landing craft was inadequate. But the shortage continued and then became acute. Exasperated, Prime Minister Churchill was driven to exclaim, “The destinies of two great empires seemed to be tied up in some goddamned things called LSTs.”

Production in the United States was stepped up to capacity, while in Britain a quarter of all the steel for new ships went into landing craft production. But it was still not sufficient. In the end, the Allied chiefs were forced to postpone D-Day for a month to allow the shipyards more time to increase the stocks of landing craft. Yet, the postponement of the greatest amphibious invasion in history could have been avoided. The shortage of landing craft was not so much a failure of production as of allocation.

• Wow - did not know this. On May 1, 1944, the originally planned D-Day, Admiral Ernest J. King, U.S. chief of naval operations, had at his disposal an estimated 31,123 landing craft, while only 2,493 were assigned to Operation Overlord. The capable but chronically acerbic King was single-mindedly stockpiling landing craft for the island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific, which had long occupied his energies to the exclusion of the more critical European war. Eventually, General Marshall had to order him to share the wealth.

• “If the enemy obtains as much as 48 hours’ warning of the location of the assault area, the chances of success are small. Any longer warning spells certain defeat.”. Note how it matches Rommel's emphasis on the need to respond quickly and decisively.

• Eisenhower brought in his own chief of staff, Indiana-born Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith.
• Morgan was made deputy to Smith.
• Morgan was one of the unsung heroes of the Normandy invasion, who prevailed beyond all expectation.
• Much credit for this belonged to the modest and widely liked Morgan.

• Eisenhower said General Morgan made D-Day possible.
• Montgomery tried to minimize Morgan’s prodigious planning efforts and accused him of selling out to the Americans.
• Morgan was awarded the KCB (knight commander of the bath) in 1944 for his work on the planning of Overlord.
• Morgan headed the operations of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Germany in 1945-1946.
• Morgan was dismissed after warning that the agency was being used by Soviet agents to foment unrest in the Western occupation zones.
• Morgan retired from the Army in 1946.
• Morgan was colonel-commandant of the Royal Artillery from 1948 to 1958.
• Morgan served as controller of Britain’s atomic energy program in 1951-1954 and as controller of atomic weapons in 1954-1956..
• Morgan died at the age of 73 in 1967.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Zabecki, David T Chief of staff: the principal officers behind history's great commanders, Volume 2 Annapolis, MD : Naval Institute Press, 2009

Steve Salmons

Gunbirddriver/Frederick Morgan

Medal record
Men's Volleyball
Representing the United States
Olympic Games
	1984 Los Angeles	Team Competition
World Championships
	1986 Paris	Team Competition
Goodwill Games
	1986 Moscow	Team Competition
NORCEA Championships
	1983 Indianapolis	Team Competition

Steve Salmons (born July 3, 1958)

Early life

Salmons grew up in Pacific Palisades, California. He attended Palisades High School, where he competed in volleyball. In his senior year he lead Pali to the LA City championship and the California State championship, while earning MVP honors. Salmons and his high school team went on to win the 1976 Junior Olympic Volleyball Championship in Illinois. He graduated in 1976.

Salmons received a scholarship to play volleyball at UCLA under head coach Al Scates.

volleyball team (1977, 1978, 1979 & 1981). Steve in 1979 was named the prestigious “NCAA Player of the Year" by “Volleyball Magazine" when he led them to 31-0 record and a NCAA National Championship, becoming part of the first undefeated team in NCAA Men's Volleyball history.

During the summer of 1979 Salmons joined the Olympic team to play in the 1979 Pan American Games. While there he suffered a back injury, which made it impossible for him to play. The herniated disc resulted in Salmons having nerve problems in his left leg. He was unable to return to play at UCLA, and took a medical redshirt year in 1980.

, at UCLA, he was forced to take an injury/redshirt year at UCLA. In 1981 After a year and a half of rehab, perseverance, and several comeback attempts, Salmons returned to the triumphantly to the Bruin line-up and led UCLA to a thrilling five-game National Championship victory over USC team that included "All Americans" Tim Hovland and Steve Timmons and garnered "All Tournament honors" in the process. Al Scates said at the time he was the best middle-blocker in the country, and one of the best he had ever had. {Scates speech} In addition to his '1979 NCAA Player of the Year selection", Salmons was named All-American in 1978 and 1979 and to the NCAA All-Tournament teams on three occasions (1978, 1979, 1981). .

In 1978 while at UCLA, Salmons was named to the USA Men's National Volleyball Team. He was a instant starter and was one of its youngest member. As key member of Team USA from 1978 thru 1986, he again helped make volleyball history when United States team won the "Triple Crown" of International Volleyball, which included winning the cherish Gold Medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics|1984 Summer Olympics]crushing Brazil, 1985 World Cup, going undefeated and beating USSR, and 1986 World Championships, winning again over USSR]. Salmons was a starter for team USA in over 200 matches during that period and earned All-tournament honors in the 1983 USA Pre-Olympic tournament in Long Beach, California.

Salmons turned pro in 1986, after he represented the USA in the World Championships. He played for "Team Rally Super Marché" in Cannes, France but reoccurrence of back problems caused Salmons to retire from indoor volleyball the following year.

Salmons from 1987 thru 1996 switch to the beach volleyball where he starred on the Bud Light 4-Man Professional Beach tour for five years (1992-1996) and won over 15 tournaments and earned "1st team All League honors" in 1994 over his fellow Olympian greats Craig Buck, Doug Partie, and Tom Duke who were on opposing teams(even though he was working full-time in Commercial Real Estate).

Steve occasionally played 2-Man professional beach volleyball representing the USA in international tournaments. His highlights were 1994 winning Japan Open over a Japanese team and the placing second to Cuba in the FIVB NORCEA Championships in Puerto Rico. Steve finishes also include a 7th and 9th at the World Championship of 2-man beach volleyball, he participated in.

In year 2000 Steve was inducted in hollowed "UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame" and had his jersey number (“29”) retired.

Salmons since 2001 has owned and operated "Commercial Properties Services", a successful San Diego commercial real estate brokerage company and continues to enjoy coaching youth volleyball.

References

Citations

Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Volleyball players at the 1984 Summer Olympics Category:Olympic volleyball players of the United States Category:Olympic gold medalists for the United States Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

Erwin Rommel

• von Luck, Hans Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck. New York, Dell Publishing of Random House (1989) ISBN 0-440-20802-5
• Miller, Russell The Commandos. Alexandria, VA Time-Life Books (1981) ISBN 0-8094-3401-6 pp. 35-41

Bonner Fellers, US Military Attaché in Cairo

• Simmons, Mark The Rebecca Code : Rommel's Spy in North Africa and Operation Kondor Stroud : The History Press, (2011).
• Behrendt, Hans-Otto "Rommel's Intelligence in the Desert Campaign: 1941-1943" London, Kimber 1985

Said Hans-Otto Behrendt, an intelligence officer in Rommel's headquarters: "Of all the code telegrams, which included some from the US military attaché in Moscow, those sent by Colonel Fellers in Cairo were the most important, because they carried vital information on the Middle East battlefields. In view of the great frankness between the Americans and the English, this information was not only strategically but tactically of the utmost usefulness. In fact it was stupefying in its openness."

Notes

On page 11 Butler states "Rommel should be allowed to speak for himself." Butler himself cites Rommel's Infantry Attacks 25 times, and the Rommel Papers 165 times. Thus, of the 332 citations he provides, he sites Rommel or his editors in 190 of them. Thus 57% of his citations go directly to Rommel's writings.

Rewrite: Rommel's reward for success was promotion to the rank of Generalleutnant. With the collapse of the Italian forces in North Africa Hitler become alarmed that Italy would soon lose its colonies and be pressed out of the war He decided to send a German troops as a blocking force. On 6 February 1941, Hitler appointed Rommel as commander of the newly created Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) (), consisting of the 5th Light Division (later redesignated 21st Panzer Division) and of the 15th Panzer Division. His campaigns in North Africa earned Rommel the nickname the "Desert Fox" from British journalists.

Incidentals

• He was an amateur photographer, and took a great many pictures during the war. He was given a good camera by Goebels. He took pictures when scouting and when on the advance. He said he never took pictures when in the retreat.
• He spoke a number of languages besides his native German (French, English), though when speaking with another officer for surrender terms he would always use a translator to be sure both sides were understood correctly.
• He was an experienced rider of horses.
• He was correct in his predictions for how the Normandy campaign would be waged.
  • In fact he found the reality worse than his prediction.
  • He attributed much of the creativity in the Allied attack to the Americans. In fact, most of these innovations were British. Most importantly, was the mobile docks that were brought in, but also the Hobart funnies used to help clear mines and do other details.
• He was a professional soldier, and viewed the conflict apart. He is the only officer to say he would be pleased to command the other sides troops in battle, and the title he wanted to use for his post war book was "War Without Hate".
• He was quite creative, and mechanically inclined.
• He was successful in the desert, even though the opposition knew his disposition and plans. This was an incredible disadvantage. Many of his battles went poorly initially, but went better once the engagement commenced (eg summer battles of 1942). Verses the British, he was better able to adjustments in the battle, and often knew where the critical place was.

Desmond Young

Needed:

• Citation on feeding of prisoners. From the Cauldron: "You are receiving the same ration that we are."

Notes:

• Desert warfare: fluid, with front line rarely established. The epitome of mobile warfare. Territory of little consequence, much as no navy can be in possession of the sea it sails upon. The desert war battles often can be thought of along the lines of naval battles, as Rommel did. Young compared the desert battles to the aerial combat he witnessed in the First World War (Young p. 89), as "dogfights".
• Ground gained in the desert meant little. The desert was better viewed as an ocean of scrabble and sand. p. 75
• The German mission to Africa was to divert a disaster, to keep Italy from losing her colonies in Tripoltania and keep the country in the war. p.
• Dumps missed by Germans in Operation Crusader. Von Ravenstien noticed the Guards unit there in the desert, and when later told was angry at himself for not wondering what purpose they might be serving there. p. 90
• Malta: Rommel all along viewed Malta as the key to the supply efforts to his forces in Africa, and was bewildered that OKH did make an effort to take it. p. 64 Rommel wanted Malta taken quickly to secure lines of supply. He believed it could be done easily in the summer of 1941 and could not understand why the command would not undertake the mission. p 80 Loss of shipping not just a loss of supplies being carried, but the means as well, as Italy had little to no war time production, and ships lost could not be replaced.
• Extra forces to Africa: none were given for El Alamain, but three were transported in three weeks after the Allied landings p. 64
• Conflicts between Rommel and OKH Chief Halder and OKWs Jodl and Keitel. pp. 64-66
• Rommel's strategic insights p. 65, p. 79 Strategic plan to take the Suez submitted July 1941, and though laughed at by OKH, these were the very issues that most concerned General Auchinleck. p. 79
• Rommel handled his tiny force with remarkable boldness and skill. p. 75
• Bayerlein described p. 73
• No notice provided to the Italian command in his offensive due to concerns over leaking. p. 124
• Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party. p. 10
• Das Reich fabrication p. 10
• Kesserling upset over aircraft (Stuka) losses over Bir Hachim
• Kesselring brought in to command the theater, initially just in command of the air forces. Later expanded.

• Butler citations: "Infantry Attack" cited 25 times, and "The Rommel Papers" cited 165 times. Thus, out of 332 citations, 190 of them were from one of Rommel's two books, or 58% of the citations. Said Butler "Rommel should be allowed to speak for himself." p. 11

Perception of Rommel and his Treatment of prisoners vs "Myth"

• The astonishing determination and enthusiasm with which Eihgth Army had gone into Crusader began to be replaced by a cynical skepticism. One aspect which this took was an increasingly ardent admiration for the enemy general.
• Stewart, Adrian The Early Battles of the Eighth Army: Crusader to the Alamein Line, 1941-42 Machanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books (2002)

Lewin: "Rommel's attitude to the war was that the important thing was to win it with as few causalities as possible. A saying which he of which he made frequent use was 'Germany will need men after the war also.' And this concern embraced his enemy." p. 242 The Commando Order was burned in front of his staff.

Young: Rommel took pride in the clean record of his troops, and of ours, for he had strong views on correct conduct and the observance of the soldiers code. pp. 126-127 The Afrika Korps did not beat up prisoners. On the contrary, after the first pounce it treated them with almost old world courtesy. p.128 Comparing notes with others I found that no one had any cause for complaint until after we were handed over to the Italians. p.128 On the occasions when he met our troops, either as prisoners or wounded, he greeted them as one soldier meeting others and treated them very fairly. p. 136

Westphal at Nuremberg: Q: You were on the African front? A: More than a year and a half. Q: How was the war conducted there? A: I can answer in a sentence: it was conducted in a chivalrous and irreproachable manner. Q: Who was you Chief? A: Marshal Rommel. Q: Did he ever order or sanction violation of the rules of war? A: Never. p. 130

Field-Marshal Earl Wavell sent a copy of his lectures on Generalship to Frau Rommel, inscribed "To the memory of a brave, chivalrous and skilful opponent" As such he would have treated Rommel had he fallen into his hands, for that was our experience of Rommel in Libya. p. 138

Liddell Hart:

7th Panzer

Subsequently, the Division moved only to secure the demarcation line into the space around Bordeaux and

Poland (Sep 1939 - May 1940) France (May 1940 - Feb 1941) Germany (Feb 1941 - July 1941)

Eastern front, central sector (July 1941 - May 1942) The division took up positions in a defensive running Juchnoff-Gshatsk-Subsoff. Then on March 15th it was pulled out and engaged in fierce fighting in mobile battles around Rzhev. By 4th April the division was moved to Vyazma. In mid May the division was transported by train to the western France to the region between Nantes and Bordeaux.

Juchnoff Gshatsk Subsoff

Eastern front, southern sector (Feb 1943 - Aug 1944) Baltic states & East Prussia (Aug 1944 - Jan 1945) Poland & Germany (Jan 1945 - Aug 1945)

• Mitcham, Samuel The Panzer Legions: A Guide to the German Army Tank Divisions of World War II and their Commanders Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 2001.
• Stolfi, Russell A bias for action: the German 7th Panzer Division in France & Russia 1940-1941 Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, 1991.

Ternopil

http://books.google.com/books?id=22xXkYIu_vYC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=7th+Panzer+1944&source=bl&ots=oCs_w9wEhj&sig=lFA2bxEiQNuSh3ozsC3PwW0LSoQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=czYyU96dLcr4qAGnyYDwBg&ved=0CHMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=7th%20Panzer%201944&f=false

https://archive.org/details/biasforactionger00stol http://archive.org/stream/biasforactionger00stol/biasforactionger00stol_djvu.txt

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Panzerdivisionen/7PD-R.htm

Winter offensive

North Africa, Rommel in Sd.Kfz. 250/3

On 5 January 1942 the Afrika Korps received 55 tanks and new supplies and Rommel started planning a counterattack. On 21 January the attack was launched, which again caught the allies by surprise. Mauled by the Afrika Korps, the Allies lost over 110 tanks and other heavy equipment. The Axis forces retook Benghazi on 29 January, Timimi on 3 February, with the Allies pulling back to a defensive line just before the Tobruk area south of the coastal town of Gazala. Rommel placed a thin screen of mobile forces before them, and held the main force of the Panzerarmee well back near Antela and Mersa Brega. This concluded the winter fighting. Both sides then settled down to prepare for an offensive in summer.

Battle of Gazala

Afrika Korps soldiers approach a "No Entry" sign, while a cloud of smoke rises from allied shipping sunk in the harbor.

• Though he did not possess a pilot’s license, Rommel could fly his own aircraft. Young p=113
• Rommel was the bravest of the brave. Young p=119
• Rommel understood that to win in the campaign in the desert he needed to win before the material weight of the United States overwhelmed the German effort. Lewin p=148
• Rommel anticipated the British by attacking the Gazala position first. Playfair p=285

Following General Kesselring's successes in creating local air superiority and suppressing the Malta defenders in April 1942, an increased flow of supplies reached the Axis forces in Africa, including replacement tanks, ammunition and fuel. With his forces thus strengthened, Rommel began contemplating a major offensive operation for the summer. He felt the very strong British defensive positions around Gazala could be skirted to the south, coming up behind them and attacking from the east. At the same time the British were planning a summer offensive of their own, and were stock piling supplies and reserves of equipment.

Rommel in North Africa (June 1942)

The British had 900 tanks in the area, 200 of which were new Grant tanks, whereas Rommel's Panzer Army Africa had a force of 320 German tanks, 50 of which were the light Panzer II model, and an additional 240 Italian tanks, which were also undergunned and poorly armoured. In infantry and artillery Rommel found himself badly outnumbered also, with many of his units still awaiting reinforcement following the campaigns of 1941. The Axis did, however, establish more-or-less air parity with the Western Desert Air Force.

On 26 May 1942 Rommel's army attacked, beginning the Battle of Gazala. His Italian infantry assaulted the Gazala fortifications from the west, with some armour attached to give the impressions that this was the main assault. Meanwhile the bulk of his motorized and armoured forces drove around the British left flank to the south, coming up and attacking to the north the following morning. Throughout the day a running armour battle occurred, where both sides took heavy losses. The attempted encirclement of the Gazala position failed and the Germans lost a third of their heavy tanks. Renewing the attack on the morning of 28 May, Rommel concentrated on encircling and destroying separate units of the British armour. Heavy British counterattacks threatened to cut off and destroy the Afrika Korps. Running low on fuel, Rommel assumed a defensive posture, forming "the Cauldron", from which he was able to repel British attempts to crush the German forces. On 30 May Rommel resumed the offensive, attacking eastwards to link with elements of Italian X Corps which had cleared a path through the Allied minefields to establish a line of supply. On 2 June 90th Light Division and the Trieste Division surrounded and reduced the Free French held Allied strongpoint at Bir Hakeim, capturing it on 11 June. With his communications and the southern strongpoint of the British line thus secured, Rommel attacked north again, forcing the British back, relying on the minefields of the Gazala lines to protect his left flank. Threatened with being completely cut off, the British began a retreat eastward toward Egypt on June 14, the so-called "Gazala Gallop".

The Afrika Korps enters Tobruk.

On 15 June Axis forces reached the coast, cutting off the escape for the Commonwealth forces still occupying the Gazala positions. With this task completed, Rommel struck for Tobruk while the enemy was still confused and disorganised. Tobruk's defenders were the 2nd South African Infantry Division, buttressed by a number of remnants of units recovering from the Gazala battle. This time striking swiftly and in strength, with a coordinated combined arms assault, the city fell. The prize included the capture of the 33,000 defenders, the use of the small port due south from Crete, and a great deal of British supplies. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured at one time. Hitler promoted Rommel to Field Marshal for this victory.

By this time, Rommel's gains were causing considerable alarm in the Allied camp. He was poised to deliver a crippling blow to the British by taking Alexandria, gaining control of the Suez canal, and pushing the British out of Egypt. The Allies feared Rommel would then turn northeastward to conquer the valuable oil fields of the Middle East and then link up with the German forces besieging the equally valuable Caucasian oil fields. However, these required substantial reinforcements that Hitler refused to allocate. Ironically, Hitler had been skeptical about sending Rommel to Africa in the first place. He had only done so after constant begging by naval commander Erich Raeder, and even then only to relieve the Italians. Hitler never understood global warfare, despite Raeder and Rommel's attempts to get him to see the strategic value of Egypt.

German Problems from the Lucas book perspective

• Tank design prior to the onset of war was too heavy in development of light tanks. This was a result of the direction the Heer, whose cavalry arm had pushed the idea of that the battlefield role would be primarily reconnasiance. Thus the numbers of light tanks were great, and there were not enough of the medium tank designs available. p. 114

Note: as a counter point, von Thoma states that German tank development had been forbidden by the treaty of Versialles. It was not until Hitler disregarded the treaties provisions that the Germans began to produce tanks, initially with the air-cooled Krupp tank, the Panzer I in 1934 which was intended as a training tank. The Ps III and IV were the main tanks the army was to use, but the following year the Mark II was produced as an interim design. In 1937-38 came the first Pz III and Pz IV tanks which were considerably better. Liddell Hart p. 91

• Tank production problems included the failure to settle on a few good designs. Instead, German production was slowed by short production runs on too many different vehicles, the spare parts for which were a burden to produce. From Hitler's rise to power in 1933 until the end of the war in 1945, Germany had 230 designs of armoured fighting vehicles in service, including 94 tank designs, 10 jadpanzer designs, 42 APCs, 19 reconnaisance desings, 12 anti-aircraft tanks and 10 self-propelled artillery vehicles. p. 114
• Speer took over war production from Goering in 1942. Germany's war production efforts under Goering where catastrophic. Goering had done nothing to overcome problems of production, and on those few occasions when he had sought to intervene the result was chaos. Said Speer on Goering's management: He worked "on the basis of impulsive inspiration" and did not think a problem through. pp. 108-109
• In terms of man hours, two Panthers could be produced in the time it took to build one Tiger. p. 115
• Runstedt quote on Hitler's excessive intrusion on control of forces: "I cannot even have the guard changed outside my room without referring the matter to the Fuhrer." p. 33

• Lucas, James, World War Two through German Eyes New York, Sterling Publishing Company (1987) ISBN 0-85368-831-1

By February the front line was the Gazala Line, a series of defensive boxes starting just west and south of Tobruk and extending down 80 km (50 mi) into the desert. During the spring both sides prepared for another battle. British plans centered around engaging and destroying the German armoured formations, to be followed by the recapture of Cyrenaica. Their plans were preempted when the Germans attacked first.

[Unternehmen Venezia] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (the Battle of Gazala, 26 May – 21 June 1942), began with a faint to the north, followed by a sweep of the [Afrika Korps] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) around the southern flank of the Gazala line, bringing them into the rear of the Allied forces in the Gazala Line boxes. The Allied boxes proved difficult to reduce, particularly Bir Hakeim, with the result being the Axis supply convoys were subject to interception from British reconnaissance units.

With fuel and ammunition running low Rommel pulled the Afrika Korps back into a defensive position abutting the British minefields. and Ritchie ordered a counter-attack, Operation Aberdeen on 5 June. To the north, the 32nd Army Tank Brigade lost 50 of 70 tanks. The 7th Armoured and 5th Indian divisions on the eastern flank attacked at 2:50 a.m. and met with disaster when the British artillery bombardment fell east of the German anti-tank screen. The 22nd Armoured Brigade lost 60 of 156 tanks and turned away, leaving the 9th Indian Brigade stranded. An afternoon counter-attack by the Ariete and 21st Panzer divisions and a 15th Panzer Division attack on the Knightsbridge Box overran the tactical HQs of the two British divisions and the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade. The 10th Indian Infantry Brigade and smaller units were dispersed and command broke down. The 9th Indian Brigade, a reconnaissance regiment and four artillery regiments were lost.

The British withdrew from the Gazala Line on 13 June, with only 70 tanks left.

Lieutenant-General William Gott, the XIII Corps commander, appointed Major-General Hendrik Klopper, the 2nd South African Division commander to conduct the defence of Tobruk. With two South African brigades, were the 201st Guards (Motorised) Brigade, 11th Indian Infantry Brigade, 32nd Army Tank Brigade and the 4th Anti-Aircraft Brigade. Tobruk had been held for nine months in 1941 but this time it fell in a day.

Auchinleck viewed Tobruk as expendable but expected that it could hold out for two months. On 21 June the Tobruck defenses were breached and 35,000 Eighth Army troops surrendered to Lieutenant-General Enea Navarrini, the commander of XXI Corps. Auchinleck relieved Ritchie, took over the Eighth Army and stopped the Axis advance at El Alamein, 110 kilometres (70 mi) from Alexandria; after the First Battle of El Alamein Auchinleck was also sacked.

again for June but in early May, defensive measures on the Egyptian border were given priority, as an Axis attack became imminent.

Western Desert Campaign

• What is still missing is comments on Rommel's desire to withdraw the Africa Korps from Africa, a position he took shortly after 2nd Alamein, the accusations from Hitler that he was a defeatist, when in reality, of course, he was a realist, the last minute efforts by Kesselring, Rommel and Luck to get Hitler to authorize the effort to withdraw, and of course the last minute order by Hitler, too late to allow any hope for success. Rommel regretted that Germany had lost a well trained, well seasoned army in Africa. Also would need the citations to support these events.
• The British had a habit of replacing whole units, bringing inexperienced units into the desert, with adverse consequences. "The British had a habit of reinforcing unit by unit, whereas the Germans tended to reinforce existing units with drafts." Lewin p. 99, "The British habit of moving inexperienced units into the line as complete units was now to be revealed at its worst." Lewin p. 141
• The training of the Afrika Korps Lewin p. 55
• Use of anti-tank guns when on the offensive, armour on the outside of the force, providing some measure of protection. Lewin p. 55; LH The Second World War p.
• 7th Armoured Divisions comments on the success of the training undertaken: 7th Armoured report at the end of 1941: the co-ordination of anti-tank guns, field artillery, infantry and tanks produced a "all arms teams" (or combined arms teams) of great effect. Every movement of vehicles was escorted by a screen of tanks and an inner screen of anti-tank guns. Their columns would undertake long night marches to limit their vulnerability to attack. Hoffman p. 101

• "I took the risk against all orders and instructions because the opportunity seemed favorable" letter to Lu, Lewin p. 36, Hoffman p. 31

Leadership

• The whole operation of Rommel's second offensive was characteristic of the qualities which he so often displayed in 1914-18, in France in 1940, and regularly in Africa - rapid appreciation of a tactical possibility, rapid organization of his troops to exploit it, and personal leadership at the critical point. The pattern is recurrent. Lewin p. 106

• Energy as a commander: Hoffman p.25

von Mellenthin p 46: "Although there was a lull on the front, this did not imply any respite for the staff or the troops. Rommel worked feverishly at improving his positions on the frontier, and a most formidable mind barrier grew up. He also threw himself into preparations for the capture of Tobruk."

After Kasserine Pass, Kesselring asked Rommel to assume overall command in Africa, but Rommel declined. Lewin p. 206

North Africa Campaign

• The Via Balbia crossed the Sirte Desert.
• Prior to its construction there was no roadway between Tripoli and Benghazi, no road past Misurata, 200 km east of Tripoli.
• Dr. Cavelli was the first European to cross the Sirte in 1832.
• A caravan from Tripoli to Bengahzi took more than 30 days.
• Without the Via Balbia there never could have been a desert war in North Africa.
• With the road in place the 1,052 km between Tripoli and Bengahzi took 4 days for a truck convoy, two days by motor car.

• VW Kubelwagon was underpowered. It had to be driven in low gear over open country, and it was difficult to outrun British scout patrols in it. Reisch pp 34-35
• The prized vehicle was a US built "Jeep". The Germans called it a "Flitzer" (translates to "Whizzer") It could whiz around almost anywhere.
• Lipton tea - finding it was like finding treasure.

Personality and military commander

• The whole operation of Rommel's second offensive was characteristic of the qualities which he so often displayed in 1914-18, in France in 1940, and regularly in Africa - rapid appreciation of a tactical possibility, rapid organization of his troops to exploit it, and personal leadership at the critical point. The pattern is recurrent. Lewin p. 106
• Following the second offensive the British were at Gazala. Rommel placed a thin skein of mobile troops in front of then, and held the main force of the Panzerarmee well back in the Jebel (a hill or mountain in an Arab country), and westwards around Antelat and Mersa Brega. Lewin p. 106
• "..as a military commander his techniques were so adaptable that he would have surely been a success in any era on any battlefield. He had fallabilities, occasional hot headedness when the quest for resolution of a problem overcame the need to consider all possibilities or other alternatives, and a regular intolernce towards supporting officers when they could not assimilate his rapid instructons or deliver his demanded performance. Having said that, he was more often docile and undemonstrative, hiding that inner drive and determination, than he was loud and dictatiorial. If you were under the command of Rommel, you knew it. But you were almost certainly grateful for it, especially if you were aware of the other options." Hoffman p. 93
• Rommel had vision and forsight Lewin p. 118
• inventive, adaptive p.245
• "Most master of himself in the din of battle"
• "Rommel earned his reputation by the bravura nature of his fighting." Hoffman p. 119
• Rommel as a flexible commander Hoffman p. 117

Creativity and innovation

• Problems with communication between Rommel and headquarters, or even his own staff, was related to the fact that the process was too slow to suit Rommel. Rommel was not slow. Lewin p. 26
• Fearing further attacks, soon after his arrival in Africa Rommel ordered his workshops to fashion canvas and wood frames to be placed over kubelwagons to appear as tanks, giving the impression of a greater strength than what actually existed, and thus discourage the British from attacking. Lewin p. 32
• Prior to second offensive, Rommel did the opposite, and disguised his tanks with canvas to give them the appearance of trucks. Lewin p.
• Innovative use of the 8,8 Flak gun: Following the initial offensive Rommel prepared dug in positions at Halfaya pass "so that with their barrels horizontal, there was praticially nothing to be seen above ground." He then set up awnings overhead so the position looked like a hill or dune. Use of the 8,8 Flak anti-aircraft gun in the role of an anti-tank gun was one of the most important tactical inventions of the war in Africa. Lewin p. 44
• dragged brush behind kubelwagons to kick up dust and give the appearance of a large formation on the move. Lewin p. ?
• placed old aircraft engines in the back of trucks and used captured British tanks to move together and simulate a large armoured formation on the attack. Lewin p.
• Use of Flak 8,8 at Crusader dug in so their barrels were just above the sand. With a canvas covering overhead they appeared to be sand dunes.(?ref)
• Rommel an expert in the mechanics of all military equipment in use. Hoffman p. 101
• Rommel "saw everything" and paid attention to details, Lewin p. 55
• secret weapons were night and sand storms. Hoffman p. 101
• old aircraft engines mounted on trucks and British tanks used to create dust and appear to be a large armoured formation. von Luck p. 99

• function of DAK at first rough as they did not understand their commanders methods. Trained in the desert. Rommel developed system where anti-tank guns were used on offense, moved forward in center of armoured formation, then set up and engaged enemy armour. Their coordination remarked upon by the 7th Armoured Division Hoffman p. 101
• In the first operations in the desert the German forces did not perform as Rommel intended without his direct and immediate involvement. After the first offensive he conducted extensive training in the desert. By the time of Crusader there was a clear distinction in the manner in which the Germans handled their units in combat, with the forward use of antitank guns, brought up into the area combat at the center of a combined arms team. Lewin
• Malta invasion discussion: Wanted to command the operation Lewin p. 108, chose to go on to Egypt Lewin p. 130

• his general thought on the attack was to gather forces together and hit at the point of attack with everything you have.

Incidentals:

• 2nd Armoured Division destroyed in Rommel's first offensive, never to reform again Lewin p. 34
• Rommel nearly captured when he landed his Storch alongside a column that was British, Lewin p. 75
• 85% of DAK transport were captured British or American built trucks, which held up better in the desert conditions than German built trucks. However, it meant replacement parts were hard to come by. Lewin p. 149
• Quote on British Guards: They showed the best and worst qualities of the British, their tremendous courage, and their rigid lack of mobility. Lewin p. 121

• Once the landings at Torch occured, there was a sudden inpouring of supplies and material shipped to Tunisia, men and supplies which would have made the difference at El Alamien. Lewin p. 192
• Too late troops and equipment were being poured into Tunisia, which Rommel was realisitic enough to see could not be held indefinitlely. It must have maddened him to know that with half the forces earmarked for Tunisia - and ultimatley for capture - he could have taken Cairo and the Canal, and most probably cleared the Middle East up to the Turkish border.

Greece and Crete

• Units moved out of North Africa to oppose the Germans in Greece and Crete:

6th Australian Division

7th Australian Division supplemented by two brigades from 9th Australian, while two of 7th's green brigades were sent over to 9th Australian Division

2nd New Zealand Division

A brigade (two armoured regiments) from 2nd Armoured Division

Meanwhile in Cyrenaica the 7th Armoured was moved back to Egypt, replaced by 2nd Armoured which had sent an armoured brigade to Greece. It's position was held by its Suuport Group, 3rd Armoured Brigade equipped with worn tanks, and a regiment of armour equipped with captured Italian equipment.

Lewin p. 28-29

"These instructions forced General Wavell to search to find a force that he could send to Greece. He sent a brigade from the 2nd Armoured Division, the Polish Brigade, 6th and 7th Australian Divisions and the 2nd New Zealand Division. Because of Rommel's counter-attack in North Africa the Polish Brigade and 7 Australian Division were not sent to Greece."

The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945 McClymont, W. G. Historical Publications Branch, 1959, Wellington, NZ url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Gree-c6-8.html#name-003430-mention

• Naval losses suffered by the Royal Navy:

three cruisers sunk

six destroyers sunk

plus significant damage sustained to an aircraft carrier, three battleships, six cruisers and seven destroyers

Lewin p. 42

• Results

Rommel's offensive cut into the British ability to transfer forces to Greece, and their capability there was thus limited. Churchill Vol 3 p.

British action in Greece was a chain of disasters. Churchill Vol 3 p. 404

My impressions

• Use of Recon, as reported by US Military Intelligence Report titled "German Antiaircraft Artillery" February 8, 1943

"In withdrawals, after skillfully thinning out most of the transport facilities and battle impedimenta, the German commander will usually launch some form of feint action to cover the withdrawal of the remainder of the force. This feint action often takes place in the evening; during the night the whole force withdraws, leaving only reconnaissance elements supported by a few guns to hold up hostile forces."

• what impressed me, and what I had not considered before, was the degree to which Rommel considered the adversarial commander, his observation of how they were handling their forces and what that told him about the mind of the adversarial commander: what they were likely to do, and what they were not likely to do, whether they would attack or not, the conclusions he was drawn to and the actions he would be willing to take on that basis. See Liddell Hart's comments in the intro to "The Rommel Papers" (p. xix)

My City Germany: Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Erwin Rommel http://www.meinestadt.de/blaustein/bilder/detail?id=261880

Rommel was born in 1891 as the second of four children of Erwin Rommel and his wife Helene. Rommel (senior) was a former officer in the military, but had become an upper secondary school teacher and later rector in Heidenheim. From 1908 to 1910 he attended the grammar school in Schwäbisch Gmünd. In 1910 he joined the army Württemberg. In 1912 Rommel had a love affair with Walburga Stemmer in Weingarten, and in December 1913, Stemmer gave birth to their daughter, Gertrude. In November 1916, Rommel married Lucie Maria Mollin, whom he had first met in 1911 during a war school course in Gdansk. Walburga Stemmer had died two months earlier of pneumonia. The daughter Gertrude was raised by her grandmother. Rommel and his wife took care of the girl, who was passed off as his niece. In December 1928, his son Manfred Rommel was born.

Almasy and the Long Range Desert Group Lewin p.113

Rommel and Fritz Bayerlein in command vehicle "Greif" outside Tobruk, June, 1942.

Rommel's preferred defensive tactics reflect an ability to anticipate and adapt to changing situations.

• Jacobson, Hans Adolf Entscheidungsschlachten des Zweiten Weltkrieges (English: Decisive Battles of World War II). Frankfurt, Wehrwesen, Bernard & Graefe (1960)

• "British air superiority threw to the winds all our operational and tactical rules because they no longer applied... there was no answer to the problem of dealing with the enemy air superiority."

Northern France 1944

• "The future battle on the ground will be preceded by battle in the air. This will determine which of the contestants has to suffer operational and tactical disadvantages and be forced throughout the battle into the adoption of compromise solutions."
• "Our friends from the East cannot imagine what they are in for. It is not a matter of fanatical hordes being driven forward in masses against our line... here we are facing an enemy who applies all his native intelligence to the use of his many technical resources." Lewin p. 215
• "Rommel says 'mobile operations with armoured formations are a thing of the past.' This surprising opinion was apparently derived from Rommel's own experiences in North Africa" from Jodl's diary notes April 13th, 1944. Lewin p. 214
• On May 17th he said to Bayerlein "The day of the dashing cut-and-thrust tank attack of the early war years is gone." Lewin p. 214
• "Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success."
• Among the Wehrmacht's difficulties in opposing the Allied landings were their inability to challange the Allied naval forces, and their marked limited presence in the air. In the month of June the Luftwaffe was able to fly only 500 sorties, whereeas the allies flew this number on June 6th alone. The Allied landings at Normandy were successful, and the German effort to bring up armoured units to the fight was limited by interdiction by US airpower, as Rommel had anticipated. Rommel was directly involved in the fighting around Caen. Meetings with von Runstad and Hitler were

• Operation Goodwood is an interesting battle in many ways. In particular, it was an attempt to break through the German lines using massed tanks to minimize infantry casualties, using massed strategic bombers as super-heavy battleground weapons. And for almost half a century the battle was studied by NATO as an example of using defense in depth to defeat an overwhelming powerful offensive. It had practical applications to what the BOAR (British Army at the Rhine) would have to face in the event of a Soviet attack into Western Europe.

• Montgomery plans British armour to defeat German army inland Willmont p. 85
• Montgomery afterwards said it was his plan to just pin the German armour. Willmont p. 102, 103, 104
• Churchill's comments?
• Destruction of the 77th Infantry Division Willmont p. 98
• As to Rommel's injuries, Chris le Roux, Squadron Leader of 602 Squadron, was the Spitfire pilot involved.

Though primarliy known as an aggressive risk taker in offensive maneuver warfare, his running defensive battles fought against the superior forces of the British 8th Army from El Alamien to Tripoli was an example of his broad grasp of military tactical command. A man who could think quickly, was able to improvise, found ways to decieve his opponents, and yet was flexible enough to adapt to the situation. The type of defensive battle he recommended in Northern France was far from traditional, and yet it was the only practical approach given the effect of allied control of the air. Lewin p.

German armor development: mistake from the outset before hostilities began, for the German High Command, on the insistence of the cavalry favored the development of lightweight machines for reconnaissance, and halted development of medium tanks. Thus Germany intered the war prepared to fight infantry with Panzer Is and IIs, with heavy support from Panzer IVs, while the main battle tank was the Panzer III, supplemented by the Czech built Panzerkampfwagen 38(t). James Lucas World War Two through German Eyes p. 114 1987 Arms and Armour Press

Winston Churchill on the desert war

• Tobruk essential to German plans to advance into Egypt. (p. 406, p. 559) (better location exists)
• Churchill subjected to a vote of censure following defeat at Gazala and loss of Tobruk.
• The common Englishman was of the opinion that their army had not yet mastered the ability to fight a modern war, that they could not use airpower in conjunction with armour as well as the Germans, that they did not build tanks that were a match for the German tanks, and that their men were not led by commanders that understood modern warfare.
• Tobruk resupplied by sea at night. Ships run in from Alexandria at night.
• 9th Australian division was east and north of Benghazi at time of first German counterattack, and had to be withdrawn to Tobruk.
• Australians held the opinion that Britain fought her battles with the troops of the commonwealth. The Australian Parliment insisted the 9th be withdrawn from Tobruk, and they were.
• British action in Greece a chain of disasters. p. 404
• Rommel's offensive weakend the British effort in Greece.
• General Auchinleck wanted an armour force that had it's units fully equiped, plus a tank reserve of 50%, with half in workshop and half in pools for immediate replacement of losses. p. 399 This is why in Gazala British units suffered losses, and then would turn up again at renewed strength with tanks from the pool.
• Auch was concerned about invasion from the north, through Syria. "The north might become the decisive front, and not the desert. p. 400
• Importance of Cyrenaica was in her airfields and what those fields meant in terms of controlling the air over the Mediterranean. p. 398
• British fears of a German invasion limited their ability to send tanks to fight in the desert. This remained the case through August and Septemtber of 1941, when the German invasion of Russia resolved these fears, though not relieving them entirely. p. 398, p. 402

• Plans were in place to evacuate Cairo and Alexandria in the event of a German victory. p.

• Churchill's comments on Rommel that have been used to conclude the article. Volume 4

Deutsch

http://www.deutsches-afrikakorps.de/html/tagebuecher/leben_in_wueste_kuhn.html Fragt einen Angehörigen des DAK nach einigen Jahren, welche EIndrücke ihm am lebendigsten geblieben sind würde er antworten: Sandstürme, quälende Fliegenschwärme und trostlose Eintönigkeit. which translates to: Ask a member of the Afrika Korps what impressions remain most alive, he would reply:. Sandstorms, tormenting swarms of flies and dreary monotony

Deutsch: Erwin Rommel http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel

Die Loyalität Rommels gegenüber Adolf Hitler wird in der Literatur wiederholt betont und Rommel als „überzeugter Anhänger“ und „bedingungsloser Gefolgsmann Hitlers“ beschrieben.[26] In einem Brief an seine Frau vom 2. September 1939 schwärmte Rommel: „Es ist doch wunderbar, dass wir diesen Mann haben“.[27]

Wie zutreffend diese Forschungspositionen sind, verdeutlicht folgende Episode: Rommel soll 1943 Hitler zu bedenken gegeben haben, dass es dem Ansehen Deutschlands im Ausland gut täte, wenn auch ein Jude zum Gauleiter ernannt würde. Hitler reagierte mit den Worten: „Mein lieber Rommel, Sie haben nichts von dem verstanden, was ich will.“[34] Translates to: The following episode demonstrates the limitation of Rommel's insight into what Hitler wanted for Germany. In 1943 Rommel told Hitler to consider that Germany's reputation abroad would do well, even if a Jew was appointed Gauleiter (a Nazi Party leader). Hitler responded by saying: "My dear Rommel, you have not understood anything of what I want."[34]

• [34]

• Ralf Georg Reuth: Erwin Rommel. Des Führers General. Piper, München 1987, ISBN 3-492-15222-8

„beträchtliche Zeit verstreichen, bevor von Tripolis aus eine ernst zu nehmende Gegenoffensive gestartet werden kann“.[11]

the British General Staff believed it would be a considerable period of time before a serious counter attack could be launched in Tripoli.

Quotes: (need sourcing)

• "Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same."
• "Sturm, schwung, wucht" "Storm, momentum, force"

General resources

Removed text

• Summer standoff

After the stalemate at El Alamein, Rommel hoped to go on the offensive again before massive amounts of men and material could reach the British Eighth Army. As the central and eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the Axis airfields in Greece and Crete, almost all the allied supplies had to be shipped around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and back up the east coast of Africa to Egypt. Though the route was significantly longer, the British and now Americans provided the Eighth Army with a great deal of supplies. Meanwhile, allied forces based at Malta were recovering from the attacks they had suffered and were beginning to intercept more supplies at sea. Furthermore, with decreased duties flying cover for convoys to Malta the Desert Air Force began interdicting Axis supply vessels in Tobruk, Bardia and Mersa Matruh. Most of the supplies reaching the Axis troops still had to be landed at Benghazi and Tripoli, and the enormous distances supplies had to travel to reach the forward troops meant that a rapid resupply and reorganisation of the Axis army could not be done unless Rommel returned to his base at Tobruk—which he was unwilling to do, because it would give the initiative back to the British. Further, hampering Rommel's plans was the fact that the Italian divisions received priority on supplies, with the Italian authorities shipping material for the Italian formations at a much higher rate than for German formations. The Italian HQ desired their own forces be resupplied first.

Rommel determined to press the attack on Mersa Matruh, despite the heavy losses suffered in the battle at Gazala. He wanted to prevent the British from establishing a new defensive line, and felt the weakness of the British formations could be exploited by a thrust into Egypt. The advance into Egypt meant a significant lengthening of the supply lines. Nevertheless, if Rommel could push past the Eighth Army and take Alexandria, his issues with supplies would be largely resolved and the potential existed to push the British out of their possessions in the Middle East entirely. Advancing on Egypt meant that a difficult proposed attack on Malta would have to wait. Kesselring strongly disagreed with Rommel's plans, and went as far as threatening to withdraw his aircraft support to Sicily. Hitler agreed that if Rommel could win in Egypt, Malta would be of no matter, and the costly effort to take it would not be necessary. The decision was opposed by the Italian HQ. In his notes, made with the thought of writing a second book after the war, Rommel defended his decision, stating that merely holding a defensive line at Sollum would pass the initiative to the British, while the Afrika Korps would be holding a position subject to being outflanked to the south. As to supply problems, the supply lines would still be lengthy unless he secured a large port further east, such as Alexandria.

On 22 June Rommel continued his offensive eastwards. Meanwhile, General Auchinleck (who assumed personal command of the 8th Army after sacking General Ritchie) had already decided to withdraw from the western frontier of Egypt and fall back to defensive positions at El Alamein, but he left two corps to fight a delaying action at Mersa Matruh. Confusion on the part of the command resulted in the X Corps being caught in an encirclement on 26 June, trapping its four infantry divisions. One of the divisions managed to break out during the night. Over the next two days parts of the other three divisions also managed to escape. The fortress fell on 29 June, yielding enormous amounts of supplies and equipment, in addition to 6,000 prisoners.

Following General Kesselring's successes in creating local air superiority and suppressing the Malta defenders in April 1942, an increased flow of supplies reached the Axis forces in Africa, including fuel, ammunition and replacement tanks. With his forces strengthened, Rommel contemplated a major offensive operation for the summer. He knew the British were planning offensive operations as well, and he hoped to pre-empt them. Despite the distance, he believed the strong British positions stretching south from Gazala could be skirted, coming up behind them and attacking from the east.

The British were planning a summer offensive of their own, and were stockpiling supplies and reserves of equipment. The British fully equipped their units, plus had reserves of armour to replace losses once combat began. They had 900 tanks in the area, 200 of which were new Grant tanks. Unlike the British, the Axis forces had no armoured reserve. All operable equipment was put into immediate service. Rommel's Panzer Army Africa had a force of 320 German tanks; 50 of these were the light Panzer II model. In addition, 240 Italian tanks were in service, but these were also under-gunned and poorly armoured. In addition to the armoured units, Rommel was badly outnumbered in infantry and artillery as well, with many of his units still awaiting reinforcement following the campaigns of 1941. This was of less concern to Rommel, who was by now accustomed to fighting from a numerically smaller position. The Axis had, however, temporarily established more-or-less air parity with the Western Desert Air Force.

Rommel placed a thin screen of mobile forces before them, and held the main force of the Panzerarmee well back near Antela and Mersa Brega. This concluded the winter fighting. Both sides then settled down to prepare for an offensive in summer. Between January and June 1942, information about the numbers and condition of British forces was provided to Rommel via the US diplomat in Egypt, Bonner Fellers who had been ordered to use the communications as secure. Rommel could thus plan his operations with reliable knowledge of what the opposing forces were.

Montgomery

Said Sir Winston Churchill: "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat."

Lili Marlene

Lili Marlene" had its origin in a poem written in 1923 by Hans Leip, a World War I veteran who had in mind a number of women he had known during the kaiser's war. Several attempts were made to set the poem to music over the next few years, none of them very successful. Then in 1936 Norbert Schultze, a minor tunesmith, wrote new music. In 1939 the song was recorded by the Swedish-born singer Lala Anderson and it became moderately popular. Shortly after the occupation of Yugoslavia, a German armed forces radio station was established in Belgrade. One of the men assigned to the station had a close friend in the Afrika Korps who had been fond of the tune. So he played Lala Anderson's recording of "Lili Marlene" for his friend, airing it for the first time on the night of August 18, 1941. He soon made the song the signature of his musical program, playing it in full each night at 9:55, shortly before he went off the air. German troops in North Africa picked up the song and were soon followed by their Italian comrades. It was not long before it became popular among British troops as well, since they too listened to Radio Belgrade, which played much better popular music than did BBC influenced British military radio. The British passed on their enthusiasm for the tune to their American cousins during the Tunisian campaign, and it became even more popular after the German but decidedly anti-Nazi Marlene Dietrich recorded it, and even starred in a film based on it. Eventually translated into several different languages (there are English, French, Italian, Spanish, and even Hebrew versions), "Lili Marlene" retained its popularity among veterans, particularly German veterans, after the war. Leip and Schultze were still collecting royalties of about $4,000 a year into the early 1970s

References

Deutsch references

• Der Speigel
• 11 Deutsches Afrikakorps
• 16 Zu Rommels Einsatz in Nordafrika siehe: Fraser (2002), 187–397; Ralf Georg Reuth: Erwin Rommel. Des Führers General. Piper, München 1987, ISBN 3-492-15222-8, S. 35–44, 143–144; Maurice Philip Remy: Mythos Rommel. List, München 2002, ISBN 3-471-78572-8, S. 56–169.

Notes

Citations

Bibliography