32. The Last-Minute Birthday Surprise That Helped The Allies on D-Day
Eisenhower’s was not the only momentous last-minute decision surrounding the Normandy landings: the same tricky weather that had troubled Ike, ended up handing the Allies an unexpected gift. By 1944, the German commander best known to the Western Allies, and the one most respected by them, was Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox who had given them so much trouble in North Africa. Hitler put him in charge of defending northern France, and the Allies expected – and feared – that he would cause them significant trouble on D-Day. Fortunately for the good guys, Rommel was far away from Normandy on D-Day. The rough weather that had made the launch decision touch and go for Eisenhower, left the Desert Fox convinced that there was no way the Allies would invade in such conditions.
So on a whim, Rommel decided to take a quick break from command, and head back to Germany to surprise his wife on her birthday. That was where he was on June 6th, 1944, and one can imagine his surprise when his frantic subordinates got a hold of him over the phone to tell him what was happening in his absence. Between the chaos of the invasion, and complete Allied aerial supremacy with their planes swatting everything German out of the skies and strafing anything that moved on the ground, Rommel did not get back to Normandy until June 7th. By then, the invasion had already succeeded in its key goal and the Allies had secured a beachhead, helped in no small part by the fortuitous absence of their enemy’s formidable commander.