Normandy campaign

Normandy campaign (see Maps 73 and 74; for the Normandy landings see OVERLORD). In the spring of 1943 the Anglo-American Allies decided to launch a cross-Channel attack and invade German-occupied Europe on 1 May 1944. The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) specified certain assets for the operation, codenamed OVERLORD, and Lt-General Frederick Morgan, appointed chief of staff to the as yet unnamed supreme allied commander (see COSSAC), headed a small Allied staff and drew up an outline plan. The document was ready by August, and the CCS, meeting at the Quebec conference (see QUADRANT), approved it despite Morgan's warning of the need for additional resources and more divisions on a wider front to give the landings a better chance of success.

Because the Americans were eventually to furnish 60 divisions for the campaign in western Europe while the British and Canadians together could provide no more than 20, President Roosevelt in December designated General Dwight D. Eisenhower Supreme Allied Commander of the Expeditionary Forces (see SHAEF). Churchill placed Montgomery at the head of the Twenty-First Army Group, the top British-Canadian ground command for the crossing and subsequent fighting. Eisenhower invited Montgomery to be his commander of the Allied ground forces for an indefinite length of time, and Montgomery agreed. He served under Eisenhower as did Admiral Ramsay and Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory, in charge, respectively, of the Allied naval units and the tactical air forces (those in direct support of the ground forces). Eisenhower's deputy Allied commander, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, loosely co-ordinated the tactical air and the US and RAF strategic air forces, the strategic air forces being directed by Spaatz and Harris.

Allied bombardment preparing for OVERLORD began in January 1944, as planes destroyed bridges, railway yards, and industrial and military targets. In the process, they contributed to a huge deception plan codenamed FORTITUDE. Its purpose was to persuade the Germans to expect Allied landings in the Pas de Calais, across the narrowest part of the Channel, by a fictitious army group under Patton, who, the Germans inferred would lead the invasion. There were fake subordinate headquarters and camps, sham equipment and communications; the British also manipulated captured German agents to disseminate false information and employed ULTRA intelligence to check the extent to which the Germans were swallowing the story (see also XX-committee).

In reality, the Allies were planning to land on the coast of the Baie de la Seine. Eisenhower and Montgomery increased the strength of the initial assault. They expanded the amphibious forces from three to five divisions, two British, one Canadian, and two American, to move across five beaches, UTAH, OMAHA, JUNO, SWORD, and GOLD; used three airborne divisions, two American and one British, to secure the invasion flanks; and employed certain special operations such as the attack on the strongly defended Pointe du Hoc. They enlarged the frontage to approximately 80 km. (50 mi.), from Ouistreham, Caen's port, on the left, to the vicinity of Ste Mère Eglise, where half the Americans, who were on the right, would be closer to Cherbourg and therefore in a better position to capture this major port. But enlarged assault forces required additional facilities, particularly landing craft and ships, and, to be sure of having sufficient equipment on hand, the Allies postponed the invasion for a month, setting 5 June, when tidal and weather conditions would be most suitable, as D-Day.

The objective of Morgan's blueprint, what OVERLORD was supposed to accomplish, was to be achieved in three months. After coming ashore, the Allies were to extend inland and take possession of a lodgement area, that part of western France bounded by the Seine and Loire rivers, together with the Paris–Orléans gap that, is, lower Normandy, all of Brittany, and parts of Maine and Anjou. By conquering that region, the Allies would have enough (1)ports to sustain and nourish their augmenting forces;(2)sites for airfields from which to support the ground operations;(3)room to manœuvre to utilize the superior Allied mechanized forces; and(4)space in which to locate headquarters, installations, depots, and the other formations of modern armies. Once in the lodgement area, the Allies would halt and prepare to attack to the German border, then strike towards the Ruhr, the industrial heart of Germany.

The organizations participating in OVERLORD planned in detail how they were to get ashore. The headquarters of Bradley's First US Army and Dempsey's Second British Army, together with their subordinate units, trained their men and devised their procedures for the landings. All was in readiness early in June, when a storm arose over the Channel. High winds and driving rain made crossings impossible. Assured by meteorological intelligence which came from reports from weather stations in Greenland and elsewhere in the west, of a turn for the better, Eisenhower deferred the invasion for 24 hours and set D-Day for 6 June.

Across the Channel, on the Continent, the Germans awaited an invasion but lacked knowledge of its time and place. Rundstedt, C-in-C in the west, had a mobile theatre reserve force situated in a central location ready to speed to the landing sites and throw the invaders into the sea. Under him, Rommel, in command of Army Group B, believed it would be impossible to turn the Allies back once they had a foothold. Allied planes had gained complete air superiority and were bound to destroy the central reserve travelling to the beaches to repel the landings. Allied naval gunfire was sure to prevent the Germans from regaining the coast. It was therefore necessary, Rommel believed, to defeat the Allies at the water's edge. To that end he had, from November 1943, directed the construction of the Atlantic Wall, fortifications which included artillery pieces, pillboxes, underground troop shelters, beach obstacles such as element C and booby traps.

Rundstedt and Rommel presented their different methods of meeting an invasion to their Führer. Unable to choose which solution he preferred, Hitler tried to implement both with the result that neither commander was satisfied with the means he had received. Rundstedt thought his reserve too small; Rommel's defences were far from finished and, he thought, too weakly manned.

Rommel controlled two armies, the Seventh stationed in Normandy and Brittany, and the Fifteenth in the Pas de Calais, the latter fixed there by the FORTITUDE deception. The Germans were so convinced of an eventual Allied arrival in northern France that, long after the landings in Normandy, they believed them to be a diversion designed to draw German forces away from the main effort, which was still to strike the Pas de Calais.

German reconnaissance planes and boats were unable to penetrate the Allied screens and see what was going on in the UK, so there was no way of judging the imminence of an Allied descent. The storm sweeping across the Channel early in June persuaded the Germans of the impossibility of a crossing on the 6th.

Meticulously synchronized, the complex parts of OVERLORD unfolded as thousands of ships and planes escorted, protected, and carried Allied soldiers across the Channel and caught the Germans completely by surprise. Allied paratroopers, followed by glidermen, about 23,000 in all, dropped into Normandy and, though widely dispersed in many places, quickly secured the invasion flanks. Ships and boats deposited more than 130,000 soldiers on the invasion beaches, and the troops had relatively little difficulty gaining a foothold, except at OMAHA where a German division had recently moved for training exercises: Allied intelligence became aware of its presence too late for the planners to change the assault zones and not until the early evening of D-Day was OMAHA in Allied hands. Overall casualties on that date were under 5,000, far fewer than anticipated.

Their coastal defences penetrated, the Germans set into motion a train of events to turn the tables. They strengthened their positions and prevented the Allies from advancing inland. They committed the central reserve, and also tried to bring additional troops from Brittany and southern France—but not from the Pas de Calais—to the combat area. Their aim was to launch a devastating, decisive counter-attack and drive the Allies into the sea.

Sabotage by French resistance as well as bombings and strafings by Allied aircraft hampered German efforts to reinforce the front. Allied planes caught Rundstedt's central reserve as it was moving and wiped out the headquarters, killing and wounding staff officers and knocking out tanks and vehicles. Damage to railways and bridges delayed German troop movements. Towards the end of June, both Rundstedt and Rommel were privately admitting their inability to mount a concentrated counter-attack or to drive the invaders from the Continent. Summoned to meetings with the Führer on 17 June at Soissons, north-east of Paris, and again on 29 June at Berchtesgaden, the field marshals requested freedom to order local withdrawals instead of holding stubbornly, as Hitler insisted, to defensive positions. Hitler refused permission and shortly afterwards relieved Rundstedt, replacing him with Kluge. He also warned Rommel pointedly about what he called defeatism. On 17 July, three days before the attempt on Hitler's life (see Schwarze Kapelle), an Allied plane strafed Rommel's vehicle and sent it crashing into a ditch. Rommel was badly injured, but he was making a miraculous recovery in September when Hitler discovered that he was implicated in the assassination plot and gave him two alternatives: trial by the People's Court and the inevitable disgrace of his family, or suicide. Rommel chose suicide.

Meanwhile the Allies, in addition to bringing more troops, equipment, and supplies across the Channel, had pushed several kilometres inland. More importantly, they extended laterally along the coast and closed the gaps between their individual beaches, thereby creating a consolidated, stronger, and safer beachhead.

In mid-June, the Americans in the Cotentin drove to the western shore and isolated Cherbourg. Turning north, they fought through the ring of forts protecting the port. By 30 June, they had captured it, as well as the tip of the Cherbourg peninsula. The Germans had thoroughly destroyed the harbour and its machinery, and had scuttled ships to block the marine roadstead, and it took engineers six weeks to clear the rubble and repair the docks. Only then could the Allies begin to unload cargoes there.

At the beginning of July, a situation resembling a stalemate hung over the front. The Allies had advanced generally about 32 km. (20 mi.) into the interior and were bogged down. Incessant rain and low clouds prevented Allied aircraft and spotter planes from finding and blasting German defenders. A storm in the Channel around 20 June had halted supply operations along the invasion beaches for several days, had severely damaged the two artificial harbours towed across the Channel and installed offshore (see MULBERRIES), one so badly that it had to be abandoned, and had driven hundreds of craft ashore where they broke up. Although more than 800,000 soldiers were on the French side, the build-up of forces on the Continent had fallen behind schedule. Even these numbers found it difficult to obtain space, for the beachhead was one-fifth the size projected by pre-invasion plans, too small to accommodate the organizations in Normandy. Far too few airfields existed. To gain more room, the Allies altered their shipping programme and sent more combat troops and fewer logistical units to Normandy to expand the beachhead.

In the Cotentin, the Americans opened an offensive to the south, hoping to gain first Coutances, about 32 km. ahead, then Avranches, about 48 km. (30 mi.) beyond that, but progress was disappointingly slow and frustrating, measured in metres and high casualties. The bocage, low-lying country with high hedgerows, offered insufficient routes of advance and canalized American movements, which the Germans easily countered. Avranches, even Coutances, seemed as distant as Berlin.

Caen, a D-Day objective, still remained in German hands. British and Canadian troops deployed in a large semicircle around the edge of the city were unable to enter. As long as the Germans held Caen, they denied access to the plain stretching southwards for just over 30 km. (18 mi.) to Falaise, excellent ground not only for armoured warfare but also for constructing airfields. When operation EPSOM, which utilized the newly arrived 8th corps to try and envelop the city, failed at the end of June, Montgomery turned to the strategic bombers for help.

The Allies had already used heavy bombers in a directly supporting role in Italy, once in February against the Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino, and again in March against the town of Cassino, but had achieved no success. The importance of Caen led to another attempt. On the evening of 7 July, bombers demolished the city and permitted British and Canadian soldiers to move into the streets. The Germans withdrew from its northern part and, on the other side of the River Orne which flows through the city, re-established defensive positions.

Impressed by this triumph, Bradley thought of applying the technique to help him move ahead at least to Coutances. But first he had to be free of the soggy meadows of the Cotentin and move to higher, drier ground around St Lô so that he could use tanks. He mentioned this notion to Montgomery, who encouraged him. Dempsey then suggested a comparable British effort to reach Falaise. Montgomery at first demurred but later told Dempsey to plan an attack. What Montgomery conceived was a one-two punch, a British blow followed by an American crack. Together they would perhaps pierce the defences, forge ahead, and quickly gain a substantial piece of the lodgement area.

Dempsey's offensive (GOODWOOD) had a less than clear-cut objective. Ostensibly in pursuit of Falaise, it jumped off on 18 July after heavy preparatory bombing, secured the rest of Caen, and gained about 5 km. (3 mi.) down the road to Falaise. The British were about to penetrate the German lines when fierce resistance stopped further progress, and, when a thunderstorm broke on the afternoon of 20 July, Montgomery called off the effort. The British had lost 4,000 men and 500 tanks, more than one-third of the tanks they had in Normandy.

Bradley, who had finally moved his army ahead about 11 km. (7 mi.) after two weeks of heavy fighting, which cost 40,000 casualties, now had the dry ground he needed around St Lô. He was supposed to start his attack (COBRA) on 21 July, but a continuing downpour imposed delay. The weather seemed to clear momentarily on 24 July, and some bombers carried out preliminary strikes. The real bombardment came on the following day, and although it appeared at first to have had little effect, it shattered the German defences. American infantry and armour sped through the opening and headed for Coutances.

Two days later it was apparent that the Americans had demolished the German left flank. Bradley set his immediate sights on Avranches and turned his First US Army headlong to the south. On 30 July, with many German units in the Cotentin falling back in confusion, the Americans seized Avranches, withstood a counter-attack, and went on to capture a still intact bridge at Pontaubault. This was a most valuable acquisition, for it opened the way westwards into Brittany, southwards to the River Loire, and eastwards to the River Seine and the Paris–Orléans gap. Possession of the OVERLORD objective, the entire lodgement area, seemed to be more than likely in the near future.

Crerar's First Canadian Army headquarters had become operational on the Continent on 23 July under Montgomery and assumed control of the left or easternmost part of the Allied front, its first major objective eventually being Falaise. In the American zone, Bradley turned over the First US Army to Courtney Hodges and activated and stepped up to command the Twelfth US Army Group. On 1 August, Patton's Third US Army entered the campaign on the right or westernmost part of the Allied line. Thus Montgomery and Bradley each directed two armies, respectively Dempsey's and Crerar's, and Hodges's and Patton's, but Montgomery remained in command of the Allied ground forces pro tem.

Except for a relatively narrow corridor around Avranches, which the Germans were unable to plug, they held firm all along the line elsewhere, exhibiting neither panic nor desperation. Although all the senior commanders thought it time to start at least thinking of eventual withdrawal from Normandy, even from France, Hitler directed them to prepare a large-scale offensive westwards through Mortain to regain Avranches on the Cotentin west coast. Success would re-establish the German left flank and restore a continuous front line. It would also separate the First and Third US Armies and create opportunities for further offensive activity, even to roll up and destroy the Allied right.

Meanwhile, Patton sent a corps westwards into Brittany. In sunny weather, and against hardly any resistance, American troops advanced rapidly. The entire Third Army was supposed to seize the major ports, particularly St Malo, Brest, and Lorient, which were expected to be the main entrances for American manpower and goods arriving directly from the USA. But no more than a corps was needed, for the Germans had fled from the interior to the ports. However, it would take a reinforced division two weeks of heavy fighting to capture St Malo; three divisions more than a month to reduce and take Brest; and one division to isolate and pen up the Germans in Lorient and St Nazaire for the rest of the war. Brittany became a backwater, for the opportunity to drive southwards from Avranches to the River Loire and to swing eastwards to the River Seine and the Paris–Orléans gap was too tempting to disregard. The Allies cast their sights to the east. Starting the movement, one of Patton's corps proceeded southeastwards from Avranches to the successive objectives of Mayenne and Le Mans and reached the latter, 120 km. (74 mi.) away, in less than a week.

That was when the Germans struck Hodges's First US Army when, in the early morning hours of 7 August, they launched what they called their Avranches counter-attack. Parts of four armoured divisions penetrated American lines, retook Mortain, and gained about 11 km. (7 mi.). When daylight came, the tankers pulled off the roads, camouflaged their tanks, dug foxholes, and awaited the inevitable retaliation. Allied planes were out in force, and RAF rocket-firing Typhoons and Hurricanes were particularly effective. Of 70 German tanks estimated in the operation at the start, only 30 remained operable at the end of the day.

Although the Germans continued their pressure in the Mortain area for four more days, they made no further progress. The US infantry division directly involved held stubbornly, the corps commander quickly marshalled nearby organizations to buttress the defences, and about 700 Americans, who had excellent observation over the region from a hill they stubbornly retained, even though German troops surrounded and continuously stormed the place, called down effective artillery fire. These, plus the air effort, stopped what the Americans called the Mortain counter-attack.

Meanwhile, 5 km. (3 mi.) south of Caen, late on 7 August, Crerar opened a major operation. Montgomery had instructed him to cut off some Germans in front of Dempsey's army and also to disrupt the German withdrawal from Normandy that Montgomery expected. To those ends, Crerar mounted a massive and meticulously planned armoured attack preceded by a heavy bombardment. Despite some collisions and confusion in the darkness, the effort moved well and gained several kilometres down the road to Falaise, then ran out of steam at daylight. A Canadian and a Polish armoured division, both untested in combat, tried to recharge the endeavour. All sorts of difficulties, including simple inexperience, lack of co-ordination, and, more telling, a short bombing by Allied planes in close support took the edge off. Although the fighting continued until 10 August, little more was accomplished.

The German attack to the west, the Canadian attack to the south, and the availability of one of Patton's corps at Le Mans, able to attack to the north, gave Bradley an idea. Eisenhower, who was visiting, thought the notion promising, so on 8 August Bradley telephoned Montgomery and proposed to trap the Germans at Mortain. If the Canadians moved south to Falaise and Patton's soldiers north 49 km. (30 mi.) to Alençon, then beyond Alençon for another 45 km. (28 mi.) to Argentan, there would be only 23 km. (14 mi.) separating the Canadian and American forces. Closing the jaws completely would form a pocket and encircle an estimated 21 German divisions west of Falaise and Argentan. Although Montgomery had his eyes fixed on the Seine, he approved Bradley's proposal. The interior armies, Dempsey's and Hodges's, Montgomery specified, would continue their pressure to destroy German cohesion and to herd them into the trap being set by Crerar and Patton.

Consequently, Patton's corps turned north from Le Mans on 10 August and against virtually no opposition drove through Alençon and reached the outskirts of Argentan by the evening of 12 August, thereby threatening a flank attack on the German forces around Mortain and, in addition, menacing most of the German combat formations in Normandy with encirclement. Preparations were under way to capture Argentan and proceed towards Falaise when, in one of the most controversial decisions of the campaign, Bradley halted further movement to the north. Many explanations of his action have been advanced since then, among them the desire to avoid a head-on clash between the Americans and Canadians and the supposed presence of time bombs dropped by the air forces in the territory between the two armies. But the real reason seems to have been concern over a German intention to launch a huge breakout attack against Patton's men in the Argentan area.

The German need to gather forces for this effort led Hitler to acquiesce in some local withdrawals around Mortain on the evening of 11 August, and that brought the battle there to an end. Although the Germans were never able to execute their breakout attack, they built up their southern shoulder and began to send supply and administrative units eastwards through the Argentan–Falaise gap to safety.

The Canadians attacked again on 14 August, and again bombs dropped short disrupted the effort. Still, by the end of the day, the Canadians had moved ahead more than 6 km. (3.7 mi.) down the road and were about the same distance from Falaise. Two days later, they fought their way into the town.

Meanwhile, Patton, upset over being halted at Argentan, persuaded Bradley on 14 August to let him send the bulk of his Third US Army to the east. On the following day, half the corps at Argentan moved towards Dreux, another corps headed for Chartres, and a third drove towards Orléans. Despite a second stop order by Bradley, which temporarily delayed Patton's virtual road march, these objectives were in hand on 18 August. The lodgement area was as good as won.

The Germans, in the meantime, fighting desperately to hold their defensive positions despite the repeated blows from Dempsey's and Hodges's men, finally received permission from Hitler on 16 August to withdraw. He had been shocked by the Allied French Riviera landings the day before and further upset by the loss of Falaise that day. Most of the combat troops in Normandy, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 men, were penned into an enclosure resembling an elongated horseshoe about 65 km. (40 mi.) long and 20–5 km. (12.4–15.5 mi.) wide, much of it under Allied artillery fire and air bombardment. In a carefully organized and highly disciplined movement, which lasted four nights, the Germans withdrew to the east, and by the night of 18 August had reduced the length of the pocket to an area about 9 by 11 km. (5.6 by 6.8 mi.). They were also getting troops out through the Argentan–Falaise gap. The Allies had, by the same date, constricted that opening to 5–8 km. (3–5 mi.).

Montgomery had asked Bradley to eliminate the gap and to close the pocket by sending Americans to meet Canadians and Poles at the small towns of Trun and Chambois. On the evening of 19 August, when American and Polish soldiers made contact in Chambois, they shut the trap. But the Germans, helped by rain and a heavy mist and covered by an attack launched from outside the pocket, continued to escape eastwards for two more days.

The Germans had suffered a grievous defeat. They lost somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 men who were taken prisoner and another 5,000 to 10,000 killed. The terrain in the Falaise area held the charred and destroyed remains of German weapons, equipment, and vehicles, and the bloated bodies of thousands of dead horses. Those who escaped headed towards the Seine, determined to salvage as many troops and headquarters cadres as they could. They had to deal with additional Allied efforts to cut them off and to block their flight to and across the Seine, but the Germans later characterized these as badly executed and weakly pursued.

On 18 August, Patton had sent the two-division corps at Dreux to Mantes-Gassicourt, 60 km. (37 mi.) downstream from Paris. During the night of 19 August, one division crossed the Seine, the first Allied crossing of the river. This was in conformity with a significant Eisenhower decision. Believing the lodgement area to be as good as taken in about ten days less than the 90 specified by the OVERLORD plan, Eisenhower, contrary to the pre-invasion planning, determined to forgo a halt at the Seine. Because the Germans were so soundly defeated and on the run, so obviously falling back in a large-scale withdrawal, he decided the Allies would instead strike immediately for the German border.

Trying to harass the Germans crossing to the far bank of the Seine, three American divisions pushed down the left or near bank and with great difficulty, because of fierce German resistance to protect their crossing sites, reached Louviers and Elbeuf downstream on 25 August and closed off about 100 km. (60 mi.) of the river to the Germans. The British and Canadian armies also struck hard at the Germans heading for the Seine, attaining its lower reaches at the end of the month. But they too encountered heavy resistance as the Germans fought to guard their crossings. Although the Allies believed all the bridges to be destroyed, between 19 and 31 August the Germans managed, again by marvellous organization and discipline, to get 240,000 men across the Seine, and as these troops streamed across northern and north-eastern France towards Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany, the Allies launched a pursuit. Patton's Third US Army initiated it on 21 August by crossing the Seine at Melun and Fontainebleau and racing to crossings of the River Yonne at Montereau and Sens. The army rolled through Troyes, and on the last day of the month, as fuel supplies dwindled, then vanished, arrived at the River Meuse and captured bridges at Verdun and Commercy intact. The army was then almost 300 km. (186 mi.) beyond the Seine.

Meanwhile, Leclerc's French armoured division, included on the Allied troop list specifically for this purpose, liberated Paris on 25 August to the great joy of the inhabitants, of French nationals everywhere, and of untold numbers of people throughout the world (see also Paris rising).

Elsewhere, Dempsey's British, Crerar's Canadian, and Hodges's US armies instituted pursuit operations in the last week of August and made spectacular progress. As the month came to an end, Crerar's troops were working up the coast, isolating and reducing the Channel ports; Dempsey's men were heading for Belgium and would soon reach Brussels; and Hodges's units were dashing towards eastern Belgium and Luxemburg. The surge of these armies would come to an end during the second week of September.

To the Allies at the end of August, the war seemed about to be over and won. In consonance with that optimism, the CCS meeting again in Quebec (see OCTAGON) switched some resources originally scheduled for Europe to the Pacific theatre. Nobody seemed to be aware of the supply crisis—the inability to move goods, mainly fuel, from the invasion beaches to the combat troops quickly enough (but see Red Ball Express)—which was about to shut down offensive operations. That, together with the approach of winter and the German re-establishment of a cohesive line of defence from the Channel to Switzerland, what the Germans called the ‘Miracle in the West’, would insure continuation of the conflict.

Although Eisenhower's decision on 19 August to cross the Seine at once indicated the end of the OVERLORD operation, a symbolic event closed the Normandy campaign on 1 September. On that day, Eisenhower assumed command of the Allied ground forces, and Montgomery received promotion to field marshal. No one suspected that eight more months of hard fighting lay ahead before the Allies won the war.

For the fighting in north-west Europe from 1 September 1944, see Scheldt Estuary, MARKET-GARDEN, Ardennes campaign, and Germany, battle for. See also French Riviera landings.

Martin Blumenson

Bibliography

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Hamilton, N. , Monty: Master of the Battlefield (London, 1983).