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    The Falaise Gap Battles: Normandy 1944
    The Falaise Gap Battles: Normandy 1944
    The Falaise Gap Battles: Normandy 1944
    Ebook158 pages35 minutes

    The Falaise Gap Battles: Normandy 1944

    By Simon Forty and Leo Marriott

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    About this ebook

    “A great book” on the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the series that brings World War II battles to life (Army Rumour Service).

    The denouement of the battle of Normandy, the fighting around Falaise and Chambois in August 1944, and the pursuit of the retreating German armies to the Seine provided the Allies with an immense victory—all made possible by Operation Cobra . . .

    As US First Army and British Second Army squeezed the western and northern edges of the German salient, so Third Army rushed headlong eastwards and then north to create the lower of two pincers—the other formed as the Canadian First Army and the Polish 1st Armored Division pushed south of Caen. As could be expected, the Germans did not simply give up: they fought furiously to keep the pincers from closing. When they did, attacks from inside the pocket to break out and outside the pocket to break in led to fierce fighting between Chambois and Argentan. When the dust settled, between 80,000 and 100,000 troops had been trapped by the Allied encirclement. Estimates vary considerably, but it seems safe to say that at least 10,000 of the German forces were killed and around 50,000 became PoWs.

    The Past & Present Series reconstructs historical battles by using photography, juxtaposing modern views with those of the past together with concise explanatory text. It shows how much infrastructure has remained and how much such as outfits, uniforms, and ephemera has changed, providing a coherent link between now and then.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCasemate Publishers
    Release dateAug 19, 2017
    ISBN9781612005393
    The Falaise Gap Battles: Normandy 1944
    Author

    Simon Forty

    Simon Forty was educated in Dorset and the north of England before reading history at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has been involved in publishing since the mid-1970s, first as editor and latterly as author. Son of author and RAC Tank Museum curator George Forty, he has continued in the family tradition writing mainly on historical and military subjects including books on the Napoleonic Wars and the two world wars. Recently he has produced a range of highly illustrated books on the Normandy battlefields, the Atlantic Wall and the liberation of the Low Countries with co-author Leo Marriott.

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      Book preview

      The Falaise Gap Battles - Simon Forty

      Introduction

      The ill-conceived thrust towards Mortain, Operation Lüttich, produced a salient that allowed the Allies to encircle the German forces. Part of the reason for this was the speed with which Third Army was able to exploit the hole created by Operation Cobra. Against little opposition, Patton’s armored spearheads reached Le Mans by August 9.

      B

      Y THE LAST WEEK OF JULY 1944

      , the Allies had been cooped up in Normandy for seven weeks.They had invaded successfully, broken through the Atlantic Wall, and had taken Cherbourg and the north end of the Cotentin Peninsula. But then they hit trouble: in the west, the bocage countryside; in the east, in-depth antitank defenses and massed armor. The weather had been awful and the Press was growing impatient. Why was nothing happening? Omar Bradley’s biography catches the mood, quoting a correspondent blaming the Allied gound forces’ commander, Bernard Montgomery, for playing it safe and the US forces for following a policy that costs the least number of lives.

      The Allies did have a plan but they weren’t telling the Press. From the start, as Bradley says, Monty’s primary task was to attract German troops to the British front that we might ... get into position for the breakout. And the breakout—Operation Cobra by Bradley’s First Army—was just about to start.

      In the east, to keep the Panzers away the British mounted a series of operations: Greenline, Pomegranate, Atlantic, Goodwood, and Spring all kept the Germans busy.

      Cobra started badly with a weather delay on July 24 but the carpet-bombing on the 25th had its desired effect and created an opening that American armored spearheads quickly expanded. There was still heavy fighting, but by August 1, when Patton’s Third Army became operational, the breach had widened and his men surged through. Against little effective opposition Patton’s army advanced quickly, enhancing his reputation and giving the Press its field day.

      Hitler then made a catastrophic decision: a counterattack to cut off Third Army and divide the US armies. Operation Lüttich started on August 6 and may have worked had his Panzertruppen been up to strength, but they had been blunted by the British and could muster nowhere near enough men and tanks to cause a significant problem. All the counterattack did achieve was to extend the German neck into a noose, which the Allies now proceeded to pull tight. Four Allied armies—Canadian First, British Second, and US First and Third—trapped what remained of the German defenders in a pocket and destroyed them.

      The Germans fought like tigers to escape and were able to extricate more men than perhaps they should have done—a controversy that lingers to this day—but they did so without their heavy weapons, leaving behind at least 10,000 dead and around 50,000 prisoners. The battle for Normandy had ended in complete victory for the Allies who had outthought and out-fought the German army. It was a brilliant example of Allied cooperation and should be remembered as such.

      ALLIED GROUND FORCES IN NORMANDY (early August)

      Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower Deputy Supreme Commander: Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder Commander Land Forces: Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery

      21st Army Group (Gen. Bernard

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