Obstacles To Invading The French Coast

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 134, 8 June 1944, Page 4

Obstacles To Invading The French Coast

"THE! date of the invasion, Presi--1 dent Roosevelt has revealed, was determined largely by the weather, for it was essential to have what he termed "small-boat" weather in the Channel. So much for the date. But what of the place? How was that determined? The question invo ved not only the Germans fortifications on the coast; it involved, also, and first, the natural obstacles. The cliffs of the invasion coast of France, the gales of the Bay of Biscay and the rocks of Brittany protect the German-occupied Continent more effectively against invasion from the sea than England is protected by the white cliffs of Dover (wrote Paul Wohl in the Christian Science Monitor;. In 1940-11 these cliffs and the Royal Air Force kept Hitler from landing in England. The more difficult conditions on the coast of France rank high among the reasons which hitherto have delayed landing operations in force and the opening of a second front in western Europe. These conditions are no military secret. They are known to every schoolboy in France and to every American sea captain familiar witn the official pilot reports, # which state tersely that "the Atlantic coast of France is one of the worst 1.1 Europe." Ports Heavily Guarded France, once the bridgehead of the armed forces of the west, has been betrayed by her geography. Her few „ oceanic ports are either heavilyguarded naval fortresses like St. Nazaire, Brest, Lorient, Cherbourg and La Rochelle, or well protected in the mouth of rivers like Bordeaux, Bayonne, Rochefort and Nantes, or ' artificial harbours like Le Havre, Dieppe, Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. Every one of these ■ ports is of difficult access, and even i in peaceful pre-war days, with semaphores alight, foghorns tooting and underwater bells chiming, it required the skill of experienced pilots to guide vessels into the harbour through shifting shoals, tor- : tuous sea channels, or innumerable islands where the tide races with extraordinary speed. There are two different coast lines: (1) the Channel coast from Belgium to lie d'Ouessant, the northwesternmost point of Brittany, and (2) the coast of the Bay of Biscay. "The French Channel coast," according to The North Coast of France Pilot, published by the U.S. Hydrographical Office, "is rocky and ; uneven; numerous dangers exist, and there are no natural harbours useful for any but small vessels. It j is everywhere encumbered with ; reefs and perilous shoals extending ; in some places many miles from the 1 shore, and without one easily ' approached roadstead from one end ! to the other; added to which tides : have a far greater range than those ' on the English shore and the tidal streams are stronger and more 1 variable. Winds which are the j smooth water winds on the English j coast are those which produce 'the 1 heaviest sea on the French shores." Belgium to the Somme The Channel coast is most accessible between the Belgian border and Treport, east of the River 1 Somme, where flat beaches bordered 1 by sand hills and occasional ! stretches of steep cliff extend for ' more than a hundred miles, but approaches are obstructed by 1 numerous moving sand banks extend- J ing 15 miles and at some places more 1 than 40 miles from the shore; over ' the outermost of these banks the tide rises only a few feet. From < Treport to the mouth of the Seine « River high white chalk cliffs abut 1 into the sea with only three narrow 1 breaks at Dieppe, St. Valery and J Fecamp. Between the mouth of the ] Seine and Cherbourg the coast is ( barred by granite reefs and escarp- J ments with hardly one srood anchorage. s The few score miles of low and ( sandy shore around Cherbourg are 1 heavily fortified. The Gulf of St. 1 Malo between Normandy and Brit- c tany is dominated by the Channel 1 Islands, the only bit of British terri- 1 tory occupied by the Nazis. Around 1 St. Malo the sea at low tide almost £ disappears from view, only to rise f 4 tifh tide to a depth of from 24ft 1 to 36ft, with tremendous tidal races rushing around the many juttine promontories and rocky islands all < along the northern coast of Brittany-. The northern part of the Bay ?l B i^ cay coast is even worse than j the Channel coast of Brittany. r Although the Allies found the t German defences at Dieppe even c stronger than expected, a second r Siegfried Line along the entire At- t lantic coast of France and Belgium < does not exist. The Germans have, of a course, made their preparations. The r occupied part of France has been a divided into three special zones—the t, occupied territory proper, the <■ coastal zone and the forbidden zone. V Ihe British have repeatedly <• warned the French population to r leave the coastal zone, but this zone „ is so large that a general migration f, would be obviously impossible. This t: cpastal zone is divided into six re- u gions under unified army, naval and o air command, with a special staff— f, attached to the occupation authori- „ ties in Paris under the general direction of Field-Marshal Rommel. ?

The Dutch Coast

The terrain becomes more favourable along the Dutch coast, espeei3lly in the estuaries, where there are Jl arc J ly a , ny dunes, but there are sandbanks before these estuaries and navigation requires the hand of a skilled pilot. The Dutch pilots in Britain, however, who fled across between May 10 and 15 1940, know every inch of the coastline even without the usual buoys and lighthouses.

Up to Hoek van Holland— before war the principal ferry terminal of the transportation lines from Holland and Germany to England—the coast is fortified by dykes and breakwaters North of Hoek van Holland, with its two huge breakwaters which extend 6000 ft to 6600 ft into the sea, there is a stretch of broad dunes, which become lower toward The Hague. The Dutch had begun to build strong fortifications around The Hague, which have been consolidated and extended by the conquerors. Farther north, near the dunes rise to almost ; 400 ft. Then comes a long strip of enormous dykes, followed by a thin layer of dunes all along the coast to Helder, where the mainland recedes behind a chain of islands which extends eastward along the German coast I-lere, and on the Frisian Islands, the Germans have some of their principal fortifications. . "Where there is a will," the saving goes, "there is a way." Allied generals undoubtedly have surprises up their sleeves. For mere than a year Washington and London have made it known that thev were determined to open a second front Air superiority has been achieved ? ~a Iai 'S e fleet of shallow-draught landing barges is available to bring h. story's greatest oversea operation t) a successful conclusion.