Word: rommels
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...defend Western Europe. Adolf Hitler correctly divined Normandy as the probable Allied Schwerpunkt, concentrated his armored reserves behind seven infantry divisions in the target area and, closer to Germany, maintained strength in the Pas de Calais area (see map). Hitler's most mobile general, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, well knew that Allied air superiority (5,000 fighters on the channel front to a mere 119 for the battered Luftwaffe) would rule out any battle of maneuver. Rommel strengthened the coast defenses and prepared to fight it out on that line. Said he: "The war will be won or lost...
...British punched out gains of six miles, the Canadians eight. The U.S. 1st and 29th Divisions battled into fortified villages behind Omaha, dug in. In the Utah sector the seaborne forces linked up with the airborne, pressed inland. The battle neared its moment of truth-the expected counterattack of Rommel's blazing Panzers. But that moment never came...
What happened was a breakdown in the German command. Rommel, believing the weather too foul for an invasion, was away in Germany on DDay. The 21st Panzer Division, instead of counterattacking, was fed into a piecemeal defense of Caen. The 12th SS Panzer and the Panzer Lehr Divisions were held in the rear from 0400 to 1600 by command from Hitler himself. Smothered by Allied air attack, they did not get into action until D-plus-one, D-plus-two and D-plus-three...
...first and most successful anti-Israelis. "I'm embarrassed sometimes," says a West German businessman, "when an Arab says 'Heil Hitler!' to me." A less sensitive colleague admits that he prefers his Mideastern salesmen to be men "with good war records" -ideally, former members of Rommel's Afrika Korps...
...Moncada barracks in Santiago. He named his 26th of July movement for the day the attack failed, went into Mexican exile, returned to invade Oriente province with 81 men aboard the yacht Gramma on Dec. 2, 1956. Castro likes to sit about a campfire and talk military science, citing Rommel and Napoleon, and discussing romantic proposals for Cuba, e.g., a school-city for 20,000 children. In 1953 he called for nationalization of U.S.-owned public utilities in Cuba, land reform and industrial profit-sharing; he now calls these "radical ideas not good for Cuba." He goes on the assumption...