Pg 11 - 13

It is unlikely that anyone had a better panoramic view of the first Stage of the German invasion of England than Feldwebel Rudolf Pabst. As a crew member of a Dornier 17P reconnaissance aircraft, he had taken off before first light on the day of the invasion to photograph British route centres and airfields in the sector cast and South of London. The Dornier had crossed the coast near Ramsgate in daylight at a height of 12,000 feet, hoping to make use of scattered cloud cover if British fighters made an interception - as bitter experience over the past few weeks led its crew to expect. The Hurricanes and Spitfires had made life perilous for the reconnaissance machines and losses had been serious. True there had been a considerable improvement in the situation since the major air offensive had begun a fortnight ago, but there was always the danger of an early morning enemy flight making an unwelcome appearance. Over Canterbury the cameras were started whenever gaps appeared in the clouds below, and Pabst felt increasingly confident that the greater part of the mission would be fulfilled without difficulty. They took pictures of Maidstone and set a course which would take them over West Malling and the airfields of Kenley and Biggin Hill. The three members of the crew noticed that the scene below looked different from a couple of days ago, chiefly because there seemed to be rather a lot of smoke hanging about at the lower altitudes. Over Biggin Hill the rear gunner called urgently that hostile aircraft were closing from above - three Spitfires probably and, yes, they seemed to be shaping to attack.

Immediately, (he pilot dived for the clouds, with the Hurricanes (as they proved to be) hurtling down to cut him off. Just out of machine- gun range they reached safety, weaving aside and swinging south to put off the fighters, finally emerging at about 4,000 feet above East Grinstead. Wrote Pabst:

'Our pilot decided to do what he had done before, that is fly home at tree-top level, crossing the coast somewhere to the west of Folkestone. I sat in the nose and therefore had my usual uninterrupted view of the ground as it flashed by. We careered over farms, woods and villages, skirting the larger towns as we endeavoured to avoid British anti-aircraft fire and airfields. I noticed that even the smaller country lanes had much traffic - columns of cars, lorries and carts with people either gazing up or jumping into the ditches. These, for the most part, seemed to be civilians with hardly a sign of military vehicles, so I suppose they were refugees such as we had seen in France and Belgium before. Nearing the coast the signs of war became more evident. A number of places had fires burning and we were shot at on a couple of occasions. Also the rear gunner shouted more frequent warnings about enemy aircraft, although I think a number of those were our own. But it certainly came as a surprise when we overtook a kette of Ju52 transports lumbering out to sea near Hythe and it was only then, in fact, that I realized we had flown into the heart of the invasion. For to our left there pillared the dust and smoke of battle, cloaking the foreshore and the cliffs, and ahead were ships and boats, convoys of them stretching back across the Channel towards France.

At once the grandeur of this historic moment was impressed upon us. By rights our pilot should have made straight for home to deliver the results of our mission, but impetuously he swung left and followed the coastline, giving us a thrilling view of the armada at about the moment, I assume, when the first troops were going ashore to join the airborne boys. As we raced above the waves some of our men looked up, but elsewhere the others were too heavily engaged. Most boats were moving, but some were obviously in trouble, heeling over or in flames. Close to Dover we noticed gunfire above the cliffs, and farther out to sea, as we turned towards Dunkirk, we could we larger warships firing and beyond them, on the cliffs near Calais, the flash of heavy artillery in action. Just off Dover it looked as if there were a naval battle in progress. A heavy smoke screen had been laid and here the ships and boats looked as if they were in disarray, all formation abandoned. At this moment we felt both safer and yet more in peril - safer because there were a lot of our own fighters and bombers about, more at risk because a lot of trigger-happy men on the warships began firing at us and gave us a hot time most of the way across.'

Looking back on what he had seen, Pabst summed up his feelings about 'this memorable and historic occasion', as he called it. 'Excited as I was. I failed to pay sufficient attention to the suffering of those in battle below and only gradually was it brought home to me, as to other Germans, what our men had gone through. The news that a cousin of mine had been killed in the paratroop assault and that my brother, Werner, had been severely wounded in that appalling massacre at the foot of the cliffs, had a deeply personal effect. Those were the fortunes of war, but it somehow seemed especially sad that Werner should suffer so much in action out of his element, on the sea, which he had never seen before this summer. Yet, despite all that has since transpired, I cannot dismiss from my mind the splendours of our achievements on that day of destiny.'

The Germ of an Idea

The momentous decision which brought about the invasion of Britain was taken by Adolf Hitler, the Reichs Chancellor and Supreme Head of the Armed Form (the Wehrmacht), on 21 May 1940. It was a day rich in euphoria when new horizons opened up in his vision of a German hegemony over the rest of Europe. German arms had just won one of the most complete victories of all time. Only days before the Wehrmacht had rolled forward in its invasion of the West. Within four days Holland had been forced to surrender and now his triumphant army overlooked the English Channel, a signal from the leading tanks of General der Panzertruppe Heinz Guderian's XIX Corps having announced the previous evening that they had arrived at Abbeville after a 300-mile dash across France from the Ardennes. It was then a question of deciding which way Guderian should go - southwards, into the heart of France, or northwards in the direction of Dunkirk in an endeavour to encircle the out-flanked French and British forces which were only just awakening to the fact that they were in imminent danger of being cut off, not only from the rest of France, but also from an escape route via the sea to England.

The orders went out to turn north to complete the envelopment. The invasion of France, stripped already of her best troops, could follow at leisure. The mainland of Europe lay at Germany's feet and Britain must surely sue for peace as soon as the defeat of France had been completed. And with that thought in mind, the attention of the German High Command turned to fresh military realities in the event of political dreams coming to nought - the question of how to tackle Britain if she refused to behave sensibly.

The rout inflicted upon the Dutch, Belgian, French and British forces had been caused by Blitzkrieg, the battle technique which had brought about the 30-day conquest of Poland in September

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pg 65 - 66

the hope that they would make a stand if the enemy arrived. At the best, however, only rifles and a few machine-guns comprised the defence of the airfields, even of those closest to the coast.18

The people at war

Fully occupied in dealing with a mammoth task, the fighting Services had little time to consider the nation's plight. Factory workers, too, engaged in a twelve hour, seven day week, enjoyed few moments for contemplation, while an army of helpers in other kinds of work came home at the end of the day to go on patrol with the LDV, stand watch with the ARP, the AFS (Auxilliary Fire Service) or the Police Reserve, drive ambulances and attend for duty with the WVS (Women's Voluntary Service) or the First Aid workers, or serve in any one of a hundred different occupations. With the Home Office at the centre but with tentacles out to the other Ministries such as Transport, Health, Food, Works, Labour and Pensions, the civil defence of the nation rested upon the traditional committee system functioning through massed voluntary service controlled by a relatively small core of paid, full-time officials. But an ARP Controller, upon whom the welfare of a large district might depend, was often a town clerk, whose training in emergency work was minimal and whose psychological attitude and that of his staff was far removed from the demands of quick, militaristic decision making. A Chief Constable might sometimes control the ARP, but he was not necessarily in tune with local government departments whose methods tended to differ from his more authoritarian approach. An ARP Post might be manned by a full-time Head Warden whose job it would be to recruit, train and direct the volunteer wardens and messengers within his boundaries. Before the collapse of France, it had been difficult to recruit sufficient manpower; afterwards, and as Kesselring's bombers droned overhead, volunteers flocked in and could only be given rudimentary training within the few days available. Every one felt the need to become involved and a great many of the most patriotic appointed themselves as personal guardians of the nation's security, with the result that tire slightest suspicious act, such as flashing a light in the blackout or speaking with a mildly foreign accent, could lead to rumours and reports of the presence of the dreaded Fifth Column. On 31 May, when the signposts were being removed in order to hamper parachutists in finding their way about, Vice-Admiral Ramsay, deeply involved as he was with the evacuation from Dunkirk, find received a sufficient number of alarmist reports as to cause him to inform the Admiralty of numerous acts of sabotage in the Dover area such as communication leakages, fixed defence sabotage, and second-hand cars purchased at high prices and left parked at convenient places - none of which could be substantiated.

No one could be sure how the undisciplined civilians would behave when confronted with the terror of bombing and by the appearance of a hostile army on English soil for the first time in many centuries. Because refugees had blocked the roads and delayed the movement of troops in France, strict orders were issued for the British not to leave their homes but to 'stay put'. Yet already the early minor air raids of June had caused ripples of movement among distraught people. Since it was so difficult to know how well the untested professional RAF defences would work, no one could be sure what would happen with a ramshackle voluntary one. It was by no means certain if communications or the distribution of food could be maintained. Starvation or a breakdown in the health services might rapidly cripple the closely packed cities. As it was, industrial production was being affected already by the nightly air raids, and the deficiencies of some local councils under stress and strain were being exposed. But when, on 19 June, the Chiefs of Staff recommended a large transfer of civil control to the eleven Regional Commissioners (who had been appointed at the outbreak of war to ensure the smoother running of the administrative machine during abnormal conditions) the Cabinet declined to approve. Hesitating to alarm the population and anxious not to upset the elected hierarchy, the Cabinet took the risk of a breakdown by permitting the existing, complex local government arrangements to continue.

The first test would come when Kesselring's exploratory operations would give way, on the 19th, to large formations arriving in daylight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pg 120 - 123

reduced to Formation Pigpile because of the difficulties of leaving port at night, as already mentioned. But at least this amphibious vanguard of the Wehrmacht could heave a sigh of relief that the Royal Navy was nowhere in evidence.

Glider landing

The crews of the nine DFS 230 gliders destined to arrive first on English soil and storm the Langdon Battery, had carefully studied their objective from maps and photographs, knowing full well that if this pair of modern 6in gum were not eliminated immediately, the approaching landing craft would be in dire peril. The methods adopted were like those used to subdue Fort Eban Emael on 10 May. Releasing from their tugs at 3,000 feet, below the radar cover, when 5 miles cast of Dover, each glider pilot, meticulously trained to land in darkness, guided by spot lights to within 20 metres of his objective, closed the coast in loose formation.

'I could see the white walls of the South Foreland cliffs, and fires in the town.' wrote Leutnant Karl Hollstein of the leading glider. 'Beyond was the clear outline of the harbour breakwater and silhouetted to the right the four tall radio masts we had been told to look for. To one side another glider loomed up and slid away. Shells from our long range artillery had been falling near the objective, but nobody fired at us as we lined up for the final approach and braced ourselves for the impact. Skimming the cliff-top, our pilot went straight at the square turrets which now became visible. Then we were down, bumping crazily and lurching sideways into what I soon discovered was a heap of barbed wire. Without a moment's hesitation the men jumped clear and flung themselves to the ground as two more gliders rumbled to a halt almost within touching distance. At least we were not alone! I waited while the men collected their weapons, in the meantime verifying that we were, indeed, on top of our target. Somewhere not far off I heard the distinctive rattle from one of our submachine-guns. 'Advance,' I shouted, and we stood up to find ourselves, after a few steps, with the guns in front of us. It had been a miracle of navigation.'

Eight out of nine gliders lay alongside the battery, the ninth having veered right and come down among a group of 3.7in antiaircraft guns whose crews recovered swiftly from their surprise and killed all the Germans within ten minutes. But the pre-occupation of the gunners with this private battle gave the Germans at the Langdon Battery a free hand. Penned within their steel and concrete emplacements, the coastal gunners below ground were only vaguely suspicious of something wrong outside, while those in the open were shot down or rounded up. Within five minutes the area was cordoned off by glider infantry while the engineers, dragging with them 21/2 tons of explosives, including cavity charges which, when detonated against the casemates, could penetrate and kill or incapacitate those inside, and set fire to inflammable material. Hollstein's glider had touched down at 0300 hours as the grey of dawn showed in the east. At 0320 hours, the cavity charges and the explosives draped round the 6in guns' barrels began to go off.

With their primary task completed it was time now for the glider men to escape as best they could, skirting round Dover in the hope of joining the main German forces. Yet even now they continued to influence the main blow before it had been delivered, for it was the aggressive presence of these intrepid and victorious soldiers carrying battle deep into the British defences, which sowed seeds of uncertainty among the local defenders while the main German forces made their run in. Half their number became casualties, but their timely neutralisation of anti-aircraft guns, which might otherwise have made deadly practice on the paratroops' Ju 52s, was crucial, and they also helped confuse local British commanders who were temporarily bemused by the roar of many scores of aircraft and a plethora of reports of hundreds of paratroops descending in a huge triangle bounded by Dover, Canterbury and Ramsgate. The latter, of course, were the dummy parachutes dropped by the glider tugs as they completed their mission. It would be several hours before the effects of this deception had entirely worn off.

Unable to disentangle fact from fantasy, and chronically sceptical, as a result of recent experience with wild reports about parachute landings, neither Thorne nor Liardet were willing to commit their mobile reserves until the position had been clarified. As they waited the Germans arrived in strength. And as the 7th Air Division began to jump, the countryside rang once more to the peel of church bells as one local leader after another at last saw real paratroops, and this time spread the news with terrifying intonation to a population keyed up by anticipation.

When Hollstein was landing at Langdon, the remainder of the glider force, plus the special Storch parties, were also touching down. Not everywhere did the gliders land with spot-on accuracy. Of the ten meant to land alongside the Citadel Battery, with its big 9.2in guns, one overshot and crashed near the Castle and two others came down on the steep slope by the King Lear public house, where the Irish Guards fought back with every weapon to hand. In consequence, the 9.2in gunners were left unmolested, except for those who joined in the local fire fight as gliders landed nearby. But, as on the other side of the town, vital AA guns were diverted from their main task, leaving only the four guns at Farthingloe Farm and the two at Buckland to engage the myriad legitimate targets which were about to present themselves.

Sergeant R. J. Turnhouse of the Royal West Kent Regiment, one of the few survivors from the battle of the cliff-tops, recalls the arrival of the gliders at Aycliff and Lydden Spout.

Large Map (88K)

'My platoon was spread out between the Abbot's Cliff and Shakespeare Cliff railway tunnels and I was about to call them to stand-to when a sort of black shadow seemed to pass close overhead. I thought it was my imagination playing tricks, for we had been shelled all night and had got little sleep. So I called my officer and told him what I had seen. There was by now a commotion coming from the direction of the Citadel and a lot of engine noise, and we were hoping for daylight so that we could properly see what was going on. People were moving about on the open downs behind us and there was rifle and machine-gun fire up by the Citadel, and beyond, in the direction of the Castle. Then there was firing over by Lydden Spout and we began to wonder if the invasion really had begun after all the false alarms with the church bells the previous evening. My officer told me to take a Section and go to Lydden Spout to see what was going on, and so I started out along the cliff path. We had not gone far, and it was getting lighter, when some men jumped out of a patch of scrub and the next thing I knew there was firing and two of my blokes cried out. I ran and went full tilt into a big bloke who lashed out at me. I still had my rifle and I struck him back and he fell. I could see now he was a German, so I shot him as he lay on the ground. They were all around and I could see, too, a number of aircraft which must have been gliders because they landed so silently. At that moment some LDV chaps dashed by shouting there were Germans everywhere and there was nothing to be done. I was on my own and decided they were probably right. So I joined them running towards Dover where I hoped I might be of some use.'

At trivial cost to themselves the German glider troops had, indeed, seized the cliff tops from Aycliff to Abbot's Cliff and in so doing had won command of the beaches below where 6th Mountain Division was soon due to land. The British troops who had occupied the emplacements on this sector had been overwhelmed

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pg 187 - 192

But this local air success for the British in no way affected the ultimate issue on the ground. Converging crossings of the river near the locks at Allington and East Farleigh were made feasible by the élan of the German infantry of the 34th and 111th Regiments, and by the deadly shooting of 88mm and 37mm anti-tank guns, which had occupied positions in the front line at night, and now fired over open sights at enemy positions on the opposite bank. The intricacies of the struggle which seethed to and fro amid the houses and orchards can be found in the divisional histories, the personal reminiscences of survivors, and the archives of Maidstone Museum. Sometimes called the Verdun of Britain, this is an appropriate title only to the extent that it was the most costly single episode in human lives throughout the campaign. It was not, however, a deliberate act of attrition on the German part and, unlike Verdun, it led to a quick solution - although it is true that the Germans were quite prepared to allow the British to exhaust themselves here if they chose. The British, in fact, had no alternative, knowing that if they were ejected from any sector of the GHQ Line, there was no telling where next they could stand. if at all.

Despite momentary doubts on Busch's part that his ammunition reserves might not satisfy a prolonged duel, furious fighting persisted with heavy casualties mounting on both sides. It was mid-afternoon before troops from the two bridgeheads linked hands near Banning Station, and it would be another 12 hours before the last of the New Zealanders had been cleared out of the loop of the river to allow bridging for tanks to commence. In the meantime, attempts westward were hampered by deadly, though weakening, artillery fire, and a very determined counter-attack by Australian troops at dawn on the 22nd which penetrated to the walls of Barming Menial Hospital before being repulsed. For two hours Busch and von Vietinghoff watched anxiously the development of the battle, the latter going in person to the bridging sites to urge on the Pioneers constructing the bridges. They both offered thanks when the first tanks began to cross at 1400 hours and it was, indeed, the appearance of a few Pz Kpfw IIIs and IVs at Barming which turned the scales against the Australians, who had proved themselves as good in personal combat as the German infantry.

The last tank attack

Throughout the morning, Thorne had deliberated about committing tanks from 3rd Armoured Brigade to throw the Germans back, contenting himself, for the time being, with sending the only available troop of Matildas to help the Australians. The fate of these tanks convinced him of the folly of further involvement within the river bend, where the enemy could bring down converging fire from the opposite banks with devastating effect. 88s claimed two of the Matildas no sooner had they come within sight of East Farleigh. Thorne had no alternative but to pull out from the sack where his men were being destroyed by fire from three sides. A withdrawal to the high ground beyond West Malling commenced that night, as the British centre of resistance shifted to the steep slopes of Wrotham Hill. Thankfully, the Germans followed, boring remorselessly into the outer works of the GHO Line on a widening frontage, levering aside pockets of resistance which yielded when their means to destroy tanks had been eliminated. Overall, of course, it was the incessant bombing and strafing by an unchallenged Luftwaffe which unsettled the British defenders. Their reinforcements were spotted and ravaged on the way, and their supply became difficult. Scenes of carnage on the roads and in the towns and villages had a detrimental effect on morale. When Ironside passed on Churchill's orders to 2nd Armoured Division (Major-General J. C. Tilly), telling him to move south early on the 22nd and come under command of XIII Corps prior to counter- attacking near Maidstone on 23rd July, Thorne told his C in C that it would be suicide. 'Was not the destruction of 1st Armoured Division enough?' Thorne asked, 'What chance have light tanks with less than ten millimetres of armour got when those with 80 have failed?' But the Prime Minister, replied Ironside. was determined and the hour desperate.

The Germans, moreover, were amply forewarned, and had plenty of time in which to establish a stop-line. Anti-tank guns were installed between Birling and West Malling, outposts established at Offham and Addington, and an armoured reserve placed closely in rear to make security doubly sure. Moreover, 2nd Armoured Division was constantly strafed on its approach march from East Anglia, an onslaught which disrupted its convoys and bewildered a totally inexperienced formation whose induction to battle this was.

Nagging losses had been incurred before the tanks reached their forming-up places. Reconnaissance of the terrain on which they were to fight was sketchy. As it had been with 1st Armoured Division, infantry and artillery support were at a premium and communications deficient. They were urged on by the sheer desperation of the moment and for fear that, if an advance were not immediately forthcoming, Tilly's units would be dislocated before they reached the start line. As Tilly fed his brigades along an axis from Reigate, round Sevenoaks, until they met the enemy, the division tended to drift into action and became embroiled in a series of uncoordinated, individual actions in which small, isolated groups of tanks, manned by dedicated crews, tried gallantly to reach objectives which were not only beyond their reach, but also none too clearly defined. Tanks fell victim to professionally directed anti-tank fire which reduced vulnerable machines to scrap. Before the day was over 2nd Armoured Division was spent and the Germans were coolly measuring up to Wrotham Hill in readiness for assault - seemingly unaware of the deadly blow they had struck.

This was but one disaster in a cataclysmic day. Reports from the west patchily told Ironside of an unhalted German advance. Petersfield was in enemy hands and a strong hostile force was said to be landing along the lengthening enemy held stretch of coast. Most sinister of all was the telephoned information from the Postmaster of Billingshurst, who had managed to keep a line open after the enemy had occupied the town. He spoke of a stream of motor-cycles, armoured cars, tanks, lorries and guns pouring through in the direction of Haslemere. The name of the formation, he said, seemed to be 7th Panzer Division. Within a few hours, Ironside now realized, the enemy fingers which had been feeling their way dexterously along the GHQ Line towards Guildford and Basingstoke, would be clenched into a fist. It was only a mild consolation that the 43rd Infantry Division (TA) (Major-General R. V. Pollock) and the 3rd Infantry Division (Major-General B. L. Montgomery) which, respectively, held the Hogsback and either side of Basingstoke, were among the best-equipped formations under his command, and that the 3rd was regular and battle-experienced. But neither had tanks; the 3rd had but 60 percent of its entitled artillery; while the frontages each division held were too extended for comfort. By moving 52nd Infantry Division (Major-General J. S. Drew) out of reserve in East Anglia and 2nd Infantry Division (Major-General N. M. S. Irwin) from Lincolnshire, Ironside hoped to provide reasonable depth to a position based on the River Thames. But he was perfectly well aware that these formations, good and relatively strong in firepower though they were, could not do more than delay the enemy. And by taking some formations from the northern and eastern sectors, he left that entire length of coastline unguarded except by divisions as poorly equipped and as immobile as the now almost defunct 1st (London) and 45th Infantry Divisions.

Force H intervenes

On the 20th, Force H, suffering from the loss of a destroyer, and minor damage to a few units, had dropped anchor at Plymouth where, as it refuelled, it had undergone a continuation of the bombing it had endured ever since it had come within range of Sperrle's aircraft in France. Somerville, its commander, was dubious about the role he was asked to play with the force at his disposal. To begin with he decided to detach the aircraft carrier Ark Royal from the fleet he would lead up-Channel, since neither the large ship nor its obsolete aircraft could make an impression against the Luftwaffe in narrow waters. So, with the battlecruiser Hood, the battleships Resolution and Valiant (which also presented problems of size), two cruisers and twenty destroyers, he advanced up-Channel on the afternoon of the 21st, just as the Germans were coming to grips with the GHQ Line at Maidstone.

The defences facing Somerville in the Straits were far more formidable than those which had frustrated James and Ernle-Erle-Drax on the 15th, and a diversionary operation by Forbes in the North Sea would in no way distract the Germans from protecting the vital waters between Dove and Calais. For the Germans no longer depended on warships; with denser minefields, guns on both shores and unopposed dive-bombers in plenty, they reckoned they could more than hold their own. In any case, although Churchill, through Pound, had told Forbes and Somerville to 'dominate the Straits and finally put an end to their use by the German fleet and transports', there sounded, for the first time in Churchill's military directives a note of political prudence, 'It is vital to pursue your aim with the maximum resolution, but you should be aware that you hold in your hands not only the fate of the nation, but the last strong card which will enable the Empire to prevail in the struggle to come.' These words, to the Admirals, who were apprised of the political constraints upon the use and bargaining value of the Fleet, had a constrictive effect on their plans. Between the lines they could read that a fight to a finish with annihilation as the final price would no longer be welcomed by Churchill, who was beginning to look around for fresh solutions to Britain's dilemmas.

So both Somerville and Forbes contented themselves with making the maximum impression at the least risk - and that meant keeping strictly within the few swept lanes which remained, venturing into exposed waters only when it was dark or on the rare occasions when fighter cover could be provided.

Published by Greenhill Books. © Greenhill Books. All rights reserved. Reproduced on MagWeb with permission of the publisher.

Magazine articles and contents are copyrighted property of the respective publication. All copyrights, trademarks, and other rights are held by the respective magazines, companies, and/or licensors, with all rights reserved. MagWeb, its contents, and HTML coding are © Copyright 1998 by Coalition Web, Inc.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com