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After the fall
of Cherbourg, Bradley led his troops back to a line between Carentan and
Portbail, in order to thrust southwards. This new offensive, however,
launched at the beginning of July in torrential rain, soon became bogged
down. The Germans had received considerable reinforcements and had had
plenty of time to establish entrenched positions of formidable
efficiency ‑ like the units defending them. These included General
Meindl’s parachutists and elements of the Das Reich and Götz von
Berlichingen SS Divisions. |
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German
paratroops hiding in the Bocage |
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When
the strategists drew up the plans for Overlord, they failed to pay enough
attention to the particular nature of Normandy’s bocage
landscape. The cumbersome American war machine was ill-suited to this
maze of tiny enclosed fields and sunken lanes, which were far more
favourable to guerrilla warfare. Lying in wait in the undergrowth,
snipers armed with panzerschrecks (the equivalent of the American
bazooka) picked off the tanks as they lumbered over the hedges, exposing
their vulnerable undersides.
The support from tactical artillery and aviation which was normally so
decisive was less useful here, because of the impossibility of
pinpointing enemy positions with any degree of accuracy. The “war of the
hedgerows” was above all an infantry battle in which the defender had
the advantage. Plunged into a living hell, tens, if not hundreds, of GIs
lost their lives in battles to capture a hedge that looked exactly the
same as the last one they had taken and desperately similar to those
they had yet to conquer.
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A
shelter dug into a hedge |
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Seven thousand
GIs were killed or wounded during
fighting to liberate the modest town of Sainteny, between Carentan and Périers.
Ten thousand more were put out of action while fighting to capture first La
Haye-du-Puits (July 8th), then Lessay (take a whole week
later, despite being just eight kilometres away). One man lost for each
metre won! Some companies were reduced to just a few dozen men. The
losses were even more terrible in the slogging battle to take Saint-Lô,
as the town was fiercely defended by a regiment of paratroops who held
the hills to the north. When he entered the “capital of ruins” on July
18th, in the wake of the men of the 29th Division,
one war correspondent described it as “the valley of the shadow of
death”.
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The
battle rages near Lessay |
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We’re
advancing at a snail’s pace,” Bradley
admitted. “The Germans are making us pay an exorbitant price for each paltry
metre we gain.” Another American general added “this goddamn war may well last
ten years!”
July
1944 was undoubtedly the blackest and the most
difficult month for the Allies. According to their forecasts, they
should have liberated Brittany and reached the Loire by D+60, but in the
event they were still held in check along the Saint-Lô-Caen line. In
more than three weeks the front had only advanced by a few kilometres,
and losses had been heavy. At this rate, it would be another month
before the Americans reached Coutances.
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The Americans enter
Saint-Lô, the "Capital of Ruins" |
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