Microsoft Close Combat manual Patton Unleashed, It was one terrible blood- letting

86Close Combat

“I did not feel we owed an apology to anyone for our gains. At the end of one week ashore we had linked beachheads. During the second we cut the Cotentin. In the third we captured Cherbourg. During the fourth we attacked out of the neck. And when the fifth rolled around, we had put together our Cobra plan and were already edging toward a breakout.”

—Gen. Omar Bradley, in

A Soldier’s Story

“It was one terrible blood- letting.”

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s terse summary of the Normandy Campaign

Goodwood, pushing the Germans east of Caen. Although the British suffer severe tank losses, the attack draws even more German troops into the vicinity of Caen and away from the Americans.

Bradley characterizes the hedgerow battle as “. . . a slugger’s match, too slow a process.” To end the stalemate once and for all, he launches Operation Cobra. Bad weather delays the breakout for a week until July 25, when German positions five miles west of Saint-Lô are hit with a massive aerial bombardment by 2,500 Allied aircraft. The countryside quickly becomes a moonscape as this carpet bombing blasts several gaps in the German lines and decimates Panzer Lehr, but some of the bombs fall short, causing hundreds of American casualties. Next, the Americans launch a concentrated attack from the ground they have recently captured east of Saint-Lô. This attack initially meets with little success as the advancing troops are slowed by the vast number of bomb craters, and by the evacuation of casualties. Veterans of the hedgerow fighting also have trouble overcoming the caution learned in two months in the bocage, but “rhino tanks” play a significant role in the ongoing attack by speeding the process of penetrating the hedgerows.

German opposition is no longer organized in depth, and forms only a very tough but discontinuous crust against the onslaught. Those German soldiers who have survived the bombing repeatedly find themselves outflanked or bypassed. Since a significant portion of the German forces are still engaged against the British and Canadians to the east, there are no reserve troops or Panzers to fill in any holes in the front line near Saint-Lô. The Americans soon begin to make rapid progress, pushing 56 kilometers east toward Brittany, and capturing the coastal town of Avranches on July 31.

By the beginning of August, Cobra has clearly proved to be a success. The Avranches breakout frees the Americans from the bocage, and propels them into the battle of maneuver they have longed for.

Patton Unleashed

Following the success of Cobra, U.S. General George S. Patton’s Third Army becomes operational on August 1, and takes its position on the Allies’ right flank. Patton’s troops quickly overrun much of Brittany, then head south toward the Loire valley. On August 4, Montgomery makes the first major change in the Overlord plan, ordering the Third Army to drive east toward Le Mans, while the First Army is to swing eastward to encircle the Germans. Montgomery also organizes a drive by British and Canadian forces south from Caen.