D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

that their cannon accounted for a large proportion of the 3,468 German vehicles and guns. The Typhoons of 123 Wing also suffered a nasty shock over the Seine, losing four aircraft when ‘bounced’ by Messerschmitt 109s, which hardly ever managed to penetrate the protective screen of Mustang and Spitfire squadrons patrolling inland.
     
    The Germans still on the west bank of the lower Seine crossed by night, using boats and even a pontoon bridge, which was disassembled at dawn to avoid air attacks. ‘Ferry points for the Seine crossing were prepared and allotted to divisions,’ wrote General Bayerlein. ‘This allocation was not observed, and everyone crossed the river wherever he felt like it. Most of the ferries were confiscated by the SS, who generally did not allow members of other units to use them.’ Artillery units had held on to their horses and some of them swam their animals across. On 23 August, when bad weather kept away the Allied fighter-bombers, the 21st Panzer Pioneer Battalion began to build a bridge at Rouen to get their tanks across. But the next day was sunny and the bridge was destroyed two hours after it was finished. The steep wooded sides of the twisting valley at least allowed the Germans to hide during daylight.
    Model’s headquarters at La Roche-Guyon had been abandoned on the approach of American forces. Fifth Panzer Army moved its command post first to Rouen and then to Amiens, where Eberbach and his chief of staff, Gersdorff, were later captured by the Guards Armoured Division, though Gersdorff managed to escape a few hours later.
    South of Paris, the remains of the pioneer group from the 276th Infanterie-Division reached Melun on 22 August in their Citroën just before Patton’s spearhead arrived. Gefreiter Spiekerkötter and his comrades thought that they had reached safety and could carry on to Metz. But as soon as they were identified as pioneers by the Feldgendarmerie they were ordered into Paris to prepare bridges over the Seine for demolition. Reunited with other members of their battalion, they received new Opel-Blitz trucks, but when they drove into the Place de la Concorde, they became increasingly aware of the empty streets and the threatening silence. Barricades manned by the FFI could be seen in side streets.
    They were led to a fort used in 1871 during the Siege of Paris which was a naval depot for torpedo warheads. Kriegsmarine sailors helped them load the explosive into the trucks. Later, driving down the Champs-Elysées, they heard a shot. In a panic, all the pioneers opened fire in all directions. They discovered, shamefacedly, that one of their tyres had exploded. Fortunately nobody was killed.
     
    On 22 August, the FFI ended the truce and went on to a general offensive with the order ‘ Tous aux barricades! ’ On the same day, General von Choltitz received the clearest order from Hitler that Paris was to be destroyed. It was also the day on which Ralph Nordling, the brother of the Swedish consul-general in Paris, managed to reach Patton’s headquarters at Dreux to ask him to save Paris. (He had been preceded by Commandant Roger Gallois, Colonel Rol-Tanguy’s representative, with a similar plea.) Major General Gilbert Cook, the commander of XII Corps, was present and recorded the conversation.
    ‘Paris should be declared an open city and spared,’ Nordling said, having described conditions in the city in a perhaps over-apocalyptic manner.
    ‘I can open it wide and fold it back in 24 hours,’ Patton replied.
    ‘The Germans there are in too great a force.’
    ‘I am better informed’, said Patton, presumably as a result of what Gallois had told him in the early hours of that morning.
    He agreed to send Nordling and his companions on to Bradley’s headquarters near Laval to plead their case there.
    Both Nordling and Gallois, who had also been sent on to 12th Army Group, were assisted by urgent signals to Eisenhower from de Gaulle and General Koenig, who had learned of their arrival. Bradley, who was with Eisenhower at Granville, heard about their arguments from his chief of staff, Brigadier General Edwin L. Sibert. They had told him that ‘between 4,000 and 5,000 children and old people were dying each day from starvation’ and that the Metro and the sewage system had been mined.
    Eisenhower had already been weakening in his resolve to bypass Paris. ‘Well, what the hell, Brad,’ he said, ‘I guess we’ll have to go in.’ Bradley agreed that they