World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF FRANCE: The Fox In the Orchard

Enough dust swirled over the tank-churned roads of Normandy to remind ex-Desert Fox Erwin Rommel of Africa. But there the resemblance ended. There was no room among the copses, apple orchards, and hedge-crossed fields of Calvados for the great sweeps of "land battleships" that Rommel had used in the wastes of Libya.

Perhaps Rommel was restrained by the Fabian hand of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Perhaps he was not a great and daring general, after all. In any case, he frittered away a lot of his armor and more of his...