D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

pushing handcarts. It reminded us of our own exodus in 1940.’ When the Germans ordered villagers or townspeople to evacuate, the local mayor advised them simply to hide in barns out in the countryside. As the fighting came closer, mothers would check that their younger children had labels tied to their clothes with the address of a relative in case they themselves were killed.

    On the evening of 5 August, Major General Huebner received orders to move the 1st Infantry Division towards Mayenne. At the same time, the 30th Infantry Division in reserve near Tessy-sur-Vire was to move to Mortain immediately in trucks to relieve Huebner’s troops. But it took time to assemble the transport and then the roads were so packed that the 30th Division convoys averaged little more than three miles an hour. Their first troops did not reach Mortain until mid-morning on 6 August. Officers of the 1st Division briefed them on the situation. The sector was quiet, apart from a few artillery shells and some patrol activity on the flank of the Montjoie ridge. They admitted their surprise, however, that the night before the Luftwaffe had attacked Mortain with bombs and incendiaries. It had not been very effective, so nobody considered it significant.
    When Colonel Hammond D. Birks, the commanding officer of the 120th Infantry Regiment, reached Mortain, he found that shops were open and the hotels full. To some of his men ‘it seemed like an excellent place for a little rest and relaxation,’ he noted. But suddenly the mood changed. ‘As we arrived there,’ an aid man with the 120th Infantry Regiment wrote later, ‘the few French people left in the town suddenly started to vanish. The word was passed to us that the French had been warned that the Germans were about to attack and they were taking refuge in some caves near the town. This report seemed completely implausible and we continued to lie lazily on the grass.’
    The 2nd Battalion of the 120th dismounted from their trucks in the main street of Mortain and trudged up the side of the rocky Montjoie ridge to take over the 1st Division’s positions around Hill 314. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hardaway, made the unfortunate decision to set up his command post in the Grand Hôtel down in the town, rather than with his battalion up on Hill 314. Other companies manned roadblocks leading into the town from north and south. A battalion was also sent south-east to secure the small town of Barenton.
     
    Most of the German divisions were already concealed in their assembly positions on the Sourdeval-Mortain sector. The Das Reich and the 116th Panzer-Division had withdrawn under cover of darkness on 3 August. The 1st SS Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler also pulled out of the line south of Caen to join the attack, but it had far to go. The remnants of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen were sent to strengthen the Das Reich , whose task was to cover the southern flank of the offensive and attack Mortain. In the centre, the main force was to consist of the 2nd Panzer-Division, which was to head straight for Juvigny-le-Tertre, just another fifteen miles away. On the northern flank, the 116th Panzer-Division was to attack from near Mont Furgon, west of Sourdeval. The 1st SS Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler , once it arrived, would pass through the other divisions after they had broken the American line and race on to Avranches.
    Jodl warned Kluge that Hitler wanted the attack to be made with the maximum force and told him that he should delay the offensive until 8 August. But Kluge, having just heard that the Americans were advancing from the River Mayenne towards Le Mans, felt he could not wait. Beyond Le Mans lay the Seventh Army’s supply base at Alençon.
    Kluge, Hausser and his chief of staff, Gersdorff, discussed this threat. An American map had been captured showing a thrust from Le Mans on towards Paris, but not north to cut them off. This encouraged them to think that the Allies were not aiming for encirclement. The heavy British attacks ‘were the greatest obstacles in making the decision,’ Gersdorff noted. Hitler showed little concern about the advance of the Third Army. In his view, it simply meant that the counter-attack would cut off even more American troops.
    Kluge saw the Avranches offensive as a means of wrong-footing the Allies before withdrawing to the Loire in the south and the Seine in the east. Hitler, on