After weeks of preparation, finally on September 4 General Croquer gave the order to attack. With the code word oranges , the bombardment of Le Havre began, which should pave the way for the ground troops that would come later. The fall of the French port in Allied hands was imminent.
The horror begins
In Britain, 1,900 tons of bombs were carried aboard 313 Lancaster bombers. Nobody remembered that Croquer had requested small bombs. It was a mixture of bombs between 250 and 500 kilos, a usual cargo for these bombers that took off in fairly good weather.
In the front line were Pathfinder planes, small planes that launched light indicators to indicate the area that had to be destroyed, the urban center of Le Havre. The city was covered in clouds, so the Pathfinders missed and dropped the markers a little short of the target. A new marking of the target became necessary.
After the second pass of the Pathfinders the objective was well marked. At that moment the master of ceremonies, the officer in charge of directing the strategic bombardment, gave the order to attack. Croquer gave eleven targets to bomb based on reconnaissance and information available to him. Specifically, they were the headquarters and some administrative offices, but none corresponded to Wildermuth's military headquarters.
Between 6 and 7 p.m. the British bombers arrived at Le Havre. They were flying very low. There was no German air defense. The first bombs exploded. The pilots were not looking to hit the targets provided by Croquer. The bombardment command interpreted their requests and reduced them to a perimeter that corresponded to the urban center of Le Havre. They massively bombed an area to be sure to destroy the target.
Due to some inaccuracy of shooting, the bombs rarely hit the target. Hence the need to release such a large amount. Among the bombs used was a small proportion of incendiary bombs, used to ignite the rubble and thus cause more damage.
The flames spread through the center of the city in a gigantic bonfire. A hundred members of the resistance were burned alive in the basement of the municipal theater where they were hiding. At 9:00 p.m., the old town of Le Havre was totally destroyed.
Death from the sky does not stop
In addition to the destruction caused by the bombs, 781 civilians were killed and 289 were declared missing. No German soldier was killed. No fortification was hit. General Croquer asked the Germans to surrender. The refusal provoked a new air attack on September 6.
Wildermuth refused a second ultimatum, so Croquer activated Operation Astonia 2. Bomber squadrons returned to the skies over Le Havre to drop the deadly cargo.
This time 271 aircraft dropped around 1,500 tons of bombs, including a small proportion of incendiary bombs.
Bad weather prevented further bombing. Croquer wrote to his wife: “My dear, it's a dreadful day. It rains buckets and the wind blows. I hope the bombing will change the Germans mind and they will surrender. If it doesn't work, serious action will have to be taken. The end is clear, but my priority is to do everything possible to avoid losses among my troops.»
The toilets took advantage of the truce to work hard. The religious authorities of the city begged Wildermuth to authorize a truce and the evacuation of the inhabitants. He refused and put the responsibility for the drama on the English. Although more bombardments took place, some of them on the outskirts of Le Havre, General Croquer had to admit failure.
The inevitable ground invasion arrives
Wildermuth was still not giving up. Croquer was forced to launch the ground operation he feared so much. He again called in air support from the bombers, but this time the target would be the German fortifications surrounding the city.
On September 10 came the great bombardment. Almost all available bombing command aircraft were ready to drop nearly 5,000 tons of bombs on the city. They were the first useful and effective bombardments. Immediately afterwards the British command launched the stormtroopers.
The attack was launched with extreme speed. Gadgets were used to get through the minefields, as well as flamethrower weapons. Croquer said:everything has happened with the precision of a clock. He was not without reason, since in 48 hours the ground operations ended.
The British knew how to take advantage of the confusion caused by the massive bombardments on the 10th to catch the Germans off guard. For September 12 the die was cast. However Wildermuth, who was wounded in the thigh by a shell, refused to surrender.
Wildermuth, true to his oath, did not declare the garrison's surrender. Wounded and surrounded by British troops, he surrendered individually. The British then invited him to declare the garrison's surrender, but he refused to do so. He said: I am now a prisoner of war, my command is over. I am no longer commander of the garrison, they can no longer ask me to do anything.
The surrender of Le Havre
As a result, fanatical German soldiers continued to fire on the British for hours. After a few hours, around four in the afternoon, the fighting finally ceased. The Germans surrendered.
On the afternoon of September 12, 1944, the victorious Allies entered a city in ruins. Casualty balance on both sides was low.
The ground assault went pretty well. Around 500 casualties are calculated, between dead, wounded and missing on the British side and also with very few on the German side. The Germans provided 11,000 prisoners to the Allies.
But among the civilians the balance was terrible. Around 2,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed by the bombings from 5 to 12 September. There were dead everywhere. They were hastily buried to avoid plagues such as typhus.
Much of the city had been leveled by bombs. The perimeter of the ruins could not be entered. There were no more streets, no boulevards. There was nothing left. It was also dangerous, because the remaining bridges and walls could collapse at any moment.
On September 12, 1944, the headlines of the newspaper Le Havre Matin They prayed:We were waiting for you with joy. We welcome you with mourning.