A Promise To Fulfill

The Western Front

Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, France
June 1, 1944

We were stationed somewhere in France. We received information that the Allies were going to make an invasion somewhere in Pas-de-Calais. It did make sense to me since it was the closest distance between Britain and France. The majority of our forces in the west were stationed there. But I felt something was off. As if that place was too predictable for a landing. 

Surely, the Allies cannot be that dumb. I walked up to my General and asked them if Pas-de-Calais was going to be the landing site of the allies. He told me that there was troop movement from the allies, showing signs that Pas-de-Calais would be the landing site.

One of the generals walked up to me and asked me, "What are you trying to tell us?". I looked at him and said, "What if Pas-de-Calais is only a diversion? With the allies showing these movements in broad daylight seems rather suspicious." 

The Generals looked at each other and told me that what I said was only a conspiracy theory. Then, they asked me to leave and to head back to my division. I left the room in a bit of disappointment. But while I was heading back, a general followed me and stood by my side.

"Where do you think the Allies would land?" He asked me. "At one of our flanks, sir. Most likely,  Normandy." I replied to him. He tries to think and process what I told him and tries to understand what I was telling him. "What makes you think Normandy would be the landing spot? It's farther than Calais, plus poses a bigger risk for the Allies. No one would dare such an attempt." He asked me.

"Exactly. It's the place where we would least expect it," I replied to him. He then stopped walking and thought for a moment. I stopped and looked at him with a confused expression and asked him if he was okay. "What you said there... actually makes sense." He told me. "You think so?" I asked him. "Now that you mentioned it, you may be right. I'll inform my colleagues." He told me and headed back to the building.

I just walked back to my division that was parked at the side of the road. I got on my tiger tank and laid down on the back. Nicolaus popped out of the cupola and looked at me. "Are you okay?" He asked me. I just looked at him and covered my face with my visor cap. "I'm just tired," I mumbled to him.

"You think that Calais would be the landing spot?" He then asked me. "I think it would be Normandy, but you never know," I replied. I just fell asleep on the spot and Nicolaus just chuckled and sat back inside the tank.

Caen, France
June 12, 1944

It was almost one week since the allied landings on Normandy. My prediction was correct and no one believed me. And now, we were assigned to defend the city of Caen from the British. My division was in the front of the entire defense and we held them back for 5 days and we the allies kept coming right at us. We could not do anything but defend our position.

My tank was hidden in some buildings to take out any allied tanks without being spotted. We took down down some British cavalry tanks and many armored cars. Their small cannons were not capable of penetrating the thick armor of our Tiger tank. We took down one tank after the other. 

During the chaos of the firefight, we were spotted by British tanks. We remained in our cover and continued to take out any tank that came close to us. Multiple shells bounced off the front of our tank and some just hit the buildings near us. They could not get near us thanks to the support of my comrades. Because of this, we were able to hold them off for the rest of the day. But we lost some ground and only a few tanks because of it.