Although Allied formations had no answer to napalm attacks other than to redouble their vigilance against low-flying aircraft, such attacks tended to lessen in frequency and intensity as the Russians found that the damage being caused, particularly against Allied tanks, did not warrant the high cost in aircraft. Although sporadic attacks continued throughout the following days the use of napalm was not regarded by the Allies as offering a major hazard.
No nuclear weapons, by the end of the first day, had as yet been used on either side. The Soviet declaration notwithstanding, SACEUR had felt obliged by the uncertainty of the situation to withhold some of his strike aircraft — chiefly F-111s, Buccaneers and Tornados — from the battle for possible nuclear action. Their absence resulted in a slight but significant increase in Soviet numerical superiority in the air.
Whether in the air or on the ground, it was chiefly forces of the Soviet Union which had been so far engaged. Three Polish divisions with some East German specialists were known to have moved into Denmark. One tank and two motor-rifle divisions of the East German Army had been in action against NORTHAG. No troops from any country other than Poland and East Germany in the Warsaw Pact had yet been identified in action.
Without any doubt the most important development of that first morning of open hostilities in Europe was the declaration by the French government of its intention to carry out to the full its obligations under the Atlantic Treaty. France was now, therefore, in a state of war against the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact.
II French Corps in Germany, some 50,000 strong, when assigned to Allied Command Europe and placed by SACEUR under command to the Commander-in-Chief, Central Region (CINCENT), was in the first instance put into regional reserve, with a warning to be in readiness for a move forward in Bavaria. Three further French divisions, of the smaller size which had resulted from a reorganization at the end of the seventies (8,200 men in armoured divisions, 6,500 in infantry), were under orders to move in from France forthwith. The mobilization operation, which would in due course produce fourteen divisions more, was already under way. Particularly welcome was the addition of the eighteen fighter-bomber squadrons of the French Tactical Air Force, even if only to be used — on the first day at any rate — in support of French formations. More important than anything else for the immediate future, however, was the availability of French ports and airfields and the massive and quite invaluable increase to the theatre’s depth, particularly in the matter of airspace.
The French nuclear capability was retained firmly and exclusively in French hands.
Though the intervention of the French gave a degree of encouragement to the Allies whose importance it would be hard to overestimate, the situation on the ground in the Central Region at nightfall on the first day was far from promising (see Situation Map). The covering forces along the entire forward edge of the battle area, with the exception of those to the east of Frankfurt between Alsfeld and Bamberg, had been driven back. In the north, sheer weight of numbers had enabled the enemy to push regiment-sized groups of all arms, very strong in tanks and armoured infantry, almost invariably moving mounted, with powerful tactical air support, round centres of NATO opposition that had been effectively pinned down south of Hamburg. These groups were now driving on to link up with the air-transported Soviet units which were deploying out of the Bremen airhead. Soviet airborne infantry units with light support were in their turn feeling forward to seize crossing points over the River Weser, against determined but not always well co-ordinated opposition from units of I Netherlands and II British Corps.
In the North German plain armoured units from I German and I British Corps, extricated with some difficulty from encirclement, were now regrouping north of Hannover to face the main threat pressing down upon them from the north and east. The North German plain was no longer the wide open tank-run it had still been held to be (perhaps even then no longer correctly) a decade or so before. Villages had become townships, offering opportunities for anti-tank delaying action which the Germans and the British had been quick to seize, developing tactical practices already referred to which had much in common. Operating in small and inconspicuous detachments, with Milan ATGW and the recently introduced (and long overdue) replacement for the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, the British had shown a special aptitude for what they called ‘sponge’ tactics. It was remarkable how regularly distributed the villages and small townships of Niedersachsen were, with groups of habitations separated from each other by some 3,000 metres. The British practice, which was very like that of the German Jagd Kommandos, was to install a platoon of infantry, organized to man two Milan ATGW and otherwise armed only to protect itself, in the last houses of the village, with another village similarly garrisoned, very little further away than the effective range of a Milan missile, which was about 2,000 metres. The leading tanks of a Soviet column would be allowed through unmolested. The third, or fifth, or seventh would be attacked and destroyed with the first shot. If BMP were far up with the leading tanks, several of these would be sent up in flames as well. Before an effective clearance operation could be mounted against it the NATO platoon would then be withdrawn, perhaps by a previously reconnoitred route, for similar action in the next village. It was here that the German Jagd Kommandos were particularly effective, for most of the men in them were locally resident reservists.
Both in the urban development of the North German plain and, with appropriate adjustment, in the hill country of the Harz, these tactics began to show promise, even on the first day, of a significant capacity for the absorption of armoured impetus. The depth of the enemy’s penetration by nightfall on the 4th had certainly not been as great in the NORTHAG sector as he must have hoped. It was still great enough, nonetheless, to put the army group’s ability to retain its balance in some doubt.
In the NORTHAG sector, as elsewhere in the Central Region, another serious problem was emerging. An immense, sprawling swarm of civilian refugees from the towns and villages of Niedersachsen was already beginning to cause the difficulties that had long been foreseen — and feared. It was greatly to the Soviet advantage to increase disorder wherever possible, while trying to keep clear the main axes of their advance. Ground-attack aircraft maintained a ceaseless rain of machine-gun fire along these axes, with small anti-personnel fragmentation bombs, the Soviet intention clearly being not so much to cause casualties (though they minded little about these) as to drive refugee traffic off any roads they intended to use. Armoured engineer equipment moving with leading tanks swept derelict civilian vehicles to one side without noticeable loss of momentum to the advancing columns. The tanks themselves were driven without hesitation through groups of people vainly struggling to get clear, charging on at high speeds over human wreckage already pulped by vehicles ahead of them. Some side roads soon became jammed, and Allied troops were being seriously impeded by a chaotic mass of pedestrians and vehicles which it was nearly impossible, in spite of heroic and efficient work by German police and Home Defence units, to control.
In the CENTAG sector, with III German Corps on the left under pressure and pinned down, it had become clear by early afternoon on the 4th that a major thrust directed towards Hersfeld was developing on the left of V US Corps, with a secondary effort through Fulda towards Hanau, along the Kinzig river valley and the ridges running south-west to the Rhine-Main plain. The covering force of reinforced US armoured cavalry had used its anti-tank weapons and artillery admirably from first light onwards, making good use of favourable terrain to slow the enemy’s advance. It had even been found possible to turn the great numbers of the enemy’s vehicles to his disadvantage by blocking defiles which it then took time to clear. In this the F-15 aircraft of the US Air Force, having already established a clear superiority in air-to-air action, were particularly effective, operating in a secondary ground-attack role.