World War II Day by Day

Cherbourg, France • June 26, 1944

On June 19–22, 1944, a violent gale featuring 32‑knot winds hit the two huge Mul­berry arti­ficial har­bors that the Allies had built in Eng­land, towed across the Eng­lish Chan­nel under danger of wind, weather, and enemy air attack, and planted off the Nor­mandy invasion beaches, one off Omaha, the other off Gold, on D‑Day+8 (June 14). Measuring two miles long by one mile wide, the pre­fab­ri­cated har­bors with their sheltered waters and their pontoon-supported ramps to the beaches were intended to deliver greater sup­plies of men, armor, vehi­cles, and muni­tions than landing craft could. Indeed, in just five days between June 14 and 18 the Mul­berry harbor off Omaha Beach had moved a daily aver­age of over 8,500 tons of cargo ashore. Allied plan­ners appeared correct in their con­vic­tion that the arti­ficial harbors, each of which could unload seven ships simul­ta­ne­ously, were essential for the success of Operation Overlord.

The June 1944 gale, the worst to hit the Chan­nel in 40 years, inflicted losses greater than the enemy had been able to exact on the Allies: 800 ships were sunk or beached and more than 140,000 tons of supplies destroyed. Gone was the Mul­berry harbor at Omaha Beach—deemed irrep­a­rable. The other one at Arro­manches (center of the Gold Beach landing zone), better protected, was never­the­less damaged. The set­back was colos­sal. GIs were down to two days of ammu­ni­tion. The nearest replace­ment harbor, Cher­bourg, at the tip of the Coten­tin Penin­sula, was 40 miles from the smashed Mulberry harbor at Omaha Beach and firmly in German hands.

On this date, June 26, 1944, U.S. infantry divi­sions, aided by P‑47 Thunder­bolt dive-bombers, cap­tured the heavily defended hill­top bas­tion that domi­nated Cher­bourg and its harbor, Fort du Roule. Below the fort was a battery of 105mm guns in case­mates built into the hill­side. The city’s 21,000‑man garri­son under Maj. Gen. Karl-Wilhelm von Schlie­ben, some of whom were Ost­truppen “volun­teers” (actually Polish and Soviet former POWs in German uni­forms), surren­dered piece­meal due to com­mu­ni­ca­tions break­downs between Wehr­macht (German armed forces) units. Allied mopping-up opera­tions on nearby Cap de la Hague Penin­sula were com­pleted by July 1, which was also the last day the enemy could conceiv­ably have reversed their sagging fortunes in Normandy.

The Allied victory was tem­pered by the dis­covery that the deep-water harbor of Cher­bourg, suddenly so cri­ti­cal to sus­tain and rein­force Allied forces in Nor­mandy, had been system­at­ically wrecked by German engi­neers starting on June 7, the day after D‑Day. Amer­i­can inge­nuity pro­vided a tem­porary solu­tion to finding a way to get food, stores, and ammu­ni­tion off ships anchored out­side Cher­bourg’s harbor and onto on­shore trucks: Omaha’s and Utah’s DUKWs. DUKWs (pro­nounced “ducks”) were six-wheel-drive amphib­ious modi­fi­ca­tions of the 2½‑ton cargo truck used by U.S. and Allied armed ser­vices. DUKWs accepted 5–7 tons cargo lowered by ship’s booms, swam back under con­stant night­time aerial strafing and bombing to impro­vised ramps on Cher­bourg’s fore­shore, and were unloaded near the city’s statue of Napo­leon on horse­back by mobile cranes or other DUKWs fitted with A-frames. The unloading area became known to U.S. service­men as “Nap and the Ducks.” A little more than 21,000 DUWKs were manu­factured before production ended in 1945.

Cher­bourg’s main harbor basins were not cleared until Septem­ber 21, causing a log­jam of mate­riel and vehi­cles and a short­age of fuel that forced the Allied advance east­ward to sputter out near the German fron­tier. Von Schlie­ben’s effi­cient demo­li­tion of Cher­bourg’s har­bor bought the Third Reich just three extra months before Germany’s apocalyptic collapse in April and May 1945.

The Fall of Cherbourg, France, Late June 1944

Left: U.S. soldiers dodge enemy fire on Cher­bourg’s battle-ravaged streets. Hitler, who made his last visit to France on June 16–17, 1944, on the eve of Cher­bourg’s capture, ordered Maj. Gen. von Schlie­ben to leave “Fortress Cher­bourg,” pop­u­la­tion 39,000, a “field of ruins.” It was typi­cal for Hitler to per­sonally appoint each for­tress com­man­dant to his post; each was required to sign and return a sworn affi­da­vit stating that he would hold his for­tress to the last man, no matter how woe­fully inad­e­quate his defense force might be. The pena­lty for falling short was implied in the very nature of the affi­da­vit. Von Schlie­ben’s boss two rungs up, Field Marshal Erwin Rom­mel of Army Group B, com­man­ded the gene­ral “to fight until the last car­tridge in accor­dance with the order from the Fuehrer.” By then, though, Rommel and his boss, Field Marshal Gert von Rund­stedt, had come to recog­nize the hope­less­ness of defending Cher­bourg and the rest of North­west France and went so far as to tell Hitler that. Rommel even had the temerity to advise Hitler to end the war as soon as possible.

Right: Fort du Roule garrisoned Cher­bourg’s south­ern approaches. Excep­tional bra­very by Amer­i­can infan­try­men crumbled the fort’s defenses, and white flags popped up every­where. On June 26, von Schlie­ben was cap­tured at his make­shift under­ground head­quarters after U.S. tank destroyers fired into his bunker.

Left: The city’s German defenders, which had originally held Utah Beach, were mostly over­aged, under­trained, and ver­bunkert (suffering from bunker paraly­sis), as von Schlie­ben com­plained to Rom­mel before sur­ren­dering the city to U.S. Lt. Gen. J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins, com­mander of the U.S. VII Corps. Cher­bourg’s quick capitulation to the Allies, only 20 days after D‑Day, shook Hitler to his core, notwithstanding Rommel’s prediction that it was bound to happen.

Right: For losing Cherbourg, one of the largest ports in France, von Schlie­ben was ridi­culed in Nazi circles as a poor speci­men of what a com­man­der should be. Fif­teen months earlier then-Colonel von Schlie­ben was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for bravery before the enemy and for excel­lent merits in com­manding troops on the East­ern Front. On June 23, 1944, Rom­mel con­ferred the post of Com­man­dant of “For­tress Cher­bourg” on his Seventh Army’s 709th divi­sional com­mander, Maj. Gen. von Schlie­ben. Poor von Schlie­ben’s fate was similar to that of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus­, hap­less defender of Stalin­grad, as Hitler pursued his mani­a­cal search for scape­goats following one Wehr­macht loss after another. Left to right in the photo: Rear Adm. Walter Hen­necke, com­mander of the sea defenses through­out Nor­mandy; von Schlie­ben (middle, facing camera); and Collins during the official capitulation of German forces in Cherbourg.

Contemporary Newsreel Footage of the Allied Drive to Take Cherbourg, June 1944