D-Day: the final weekend
Outside Ike’s office tent, 4 June. Kay sits next to Churchill. Ike stands behind them; the strain on his face is evident.
to leave Southampton. The sea was choppy and the troops knew that an order delaying the operation again was still possible. None came. On the morning of the 5th Eisenhower, accompanied by his assistant Kay Summersby, watched as British troops boarded landing-craft at Portsmouth. ‘There are times,’ he told her, ‘when you have to put everything you are on the line. This is one of them.’ After lunch he spoke to the press, who were forbidden to repeat anything until the soldiers had landed. In Germany, while Ike was revealing the topsecret plan to send thousands of troops to
Normandy within 24 hours, Rommel was relaxing at home with his wife and son. He was still awaiting an appointment with Hitler, having left his HQ in the hands of his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Speidel. That night Speidel was throwing a party. His commitment to Hitler had evaporated, and he enjoyed the company of friends whose views were similar to his own. Seen together, the guests would have been regarded with some suspicion by the Gestapo, and maybe even by Rommel himself. Unknown to all of them, as they sat down to dinner the BBC’s latest coded messages were calling the French Resistance into action. It was announced that ‘The dice are on the carpet’ and ‘It is hot in Suez’. Listening in Caen, André Heintz knew these words were secret orders for railway lines and telegraph wires to be cut. At Southwick House, Eisenhower had been told that General de Gaulle was now refusing to make his essential D-Day radio broadcast. Frustrated with the demands of politicians, Ike left his command post at 6 p.m. to meet the paratroopers of the US 101st Airborne Division. At RAF Broadwell the men of the British 9th Parachute Battalion had climbed into their bulky combat suits, laden with equipment. While mechanics warmed the engines of the Dakota transport aircraft and WAAFs collected the latest weather information, the skies began to darken and an infectious tension spread among the troops. This time, there’d be no delay. D-Day was finally about to begin. 99