xxiii Introduction |
than 20, and as the disparity grew, so too did
U.S. influence over military and political
strategy. Churchill was understandably in-
sistent that Montgomery exercise prudence
and not sacrifice his men needlessly, which
would further reduce British influence.
The Allied ground offensive proceeded
more slowly than expected. Hitler ordered his
armies to fight for every inch of ground rather
than withdraw along phase lines, as his gener-
als wanted. At first this delayed the Allied
timetable; however, it also greatly accelerated
the ultimate defeat and ensured that it would
be costly. Complete Allied air superiority dev-
astated the Germans by day and forced them
to move largely at night. The French Resis-
tance also played an important role, providing
the invading Allied forces with intelligence
information and impeding German resupply
efforts through sabotage and the destruction
of rolling stock and bridges.
The Normandy countryside proved to be
ideal defensive terrain. Over the centuries,
the dividing lines between individual fields
had been allowed to grow up into tangled
hedgerows. This bocage resisted passage and
slowed the Allied advance to a crawl. The
Germans blocked Montgomery’s early efforts
to take the city of Caen. Major General J.
Lawton Collins’s U.S. VII Corps had more
success on the Allied right, gradually pushing
across the base of the Cotentin Peninsula. On
June 18 it turned north to liberate the impor-
tant port of Cherbourg, while the remainder
of Bradley’s army maintained an aggressive
defense. Cherbourg fell on June 30, but its
German defenders destroyed the harbor fa-
cilities, and it would take U.S. engineers un-
der Major General Lucius Clay six weeks to
get the harbor facilities back in operation.
Not until Operation
cobra
on July 25–31
were the Allies able to break out. With the
British effort to secure Caen drawing off the
bulk of the German armor, Bradley’s U.S.
First Army forced the German line west of
Saint-Lô, and Collins’s VII Corps made the
main effort. All of northern France was open
for the highly mechanized Allied units to
maneuver. On August 15, Allied forces also
came ashore on the French Mediterranean
coast in Operation dragoon. The German
defenders were now in full retreat, but it re-
mained to be seen if the Allies could main-
tain their fast-lengthening supply lines and
end the war in the west before the Germans
had a chance to recover.
Spencer C. Tucker
Further Reading
Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day, June 6, 1944:
The Climactic Battle of World War II. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Blair, Clay. Ridgway’s Paratroopers: The
American Airborne in World War II. Garden
City, NY: Dial, 1985.
D’Este, Carlo. Decision in Normandy. New
York: E. P. Dutton, 1983.
Hartcup, Guy. Code Name Mulberry: The
Planning, Building and Operation of the
Normandy Harbours. London: David and
Charles, 1977.
Hastings, Max. Overlord: D-Day, June 6, 1944.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
Hesketh, Roger. Fortitude: The D-Day Decep-
tion Campaign. New York: Overlook, 2000.
Keegan, John. Six Armies in Normandy: From
D-Day to the Liberation of Paris, June 6th–
August 25th, 1944. New York: Viking, 1982.
Lewis, Adrian R. Omaha Beach: A Flawed
Victory. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2001.
Masterman, J. C. The Double-Cross System in
the War of 1939–1945. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1972.
Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr. Rommel’s Last Bat-
tle: The Desert Fox in the Normandy Cam-
paign. New York: Stein and Day, 1983.
Schofield, B. B. Operation Neptune. London:
Ian Allan, 1974.
