Like many others, it had fallen victim to the plan for Allied aviation to destroy towns in Lower Normandy. Shortly after midnight, the whole of Saint-Lô was razed to the ground by a second bombardment, even more terrible than the first, which earned it the unenviable title of “Capital of Ruins”.

   Contrary to a widely-held belief, the numbers of dead did not run into thousands, though Saint-Lô still had the heaviest death toll of all the communes in the Manche department, as no fewer than 350 civilians were killed on June 6^th and 7^th.