La Roche Guyon:
General Edgar Feuchtinger, the commander of the 21st Panzer Division, the most powerful striking force in Normandy, was missing on D-Day morning; his aides believe he was with his French mistress.
He was not the only senior German commander caught out. Rommel did not get back from his wife's birthday party until the afternoon. His chief of staff, General Hans Speidel, was having drinks yesterday evening with his fellow anti-Hitler plotters in the chateau on the Seine at La Roche Guyon, the HQ of Army Group B. General Friedrich Dollman, the Seventh Army commander, relaxed the standing alert for his men on the beach defences and went off with his senior officers for a map exercise in Rennes. In Paris, Gerd von Rundstedt, C-in-C West, was not interested when he was told that German radar stations between Cherbourg and Le Havre were being jammed and the BBC was transmitting many coded messages to the French Resistance. Von Rundstedt as sure that the Allies would strike at the Pas de Calais - and neither the airborne drops nor the beach landings changed his mind.
It was 9am before Hitler was awakened by the suddenly alarmed generals. At 4.55pm the Führer issued an order to von Rundstedt: "The enemy beach-head must be cleaned up by not later than tonight." Yet already there was not one Allied beach-head but five.