During the first week of August, the

completeness of the enemy collapse on his

western flank was such that my best hopes

were realized and we were presented with the

opportunity of operating toward the rear of his

forces in Normandy to effect an encirclement.

I felt that the chances of delivering a knockout

blow there were so favorable that, despite our

need for the Brittany ports, I was unwilling to

detach for their capture major forces from the

main armies fighting in Normandy. Into the

ranks of the German Seventh Army and

Panzer Group West had been drawn the cream

of the enemy forces in western Europe. Our

tactics must again be adapted to take

advantage of the enemy's reactions. The

encirclement and destruction of these armies

would afford. us complete freedom of action

throughout France. Therefore it was decided

virtually to turn our backs upon Brittany. The

VIII Corps of the Third Army alone would be

left with the task of reducing Brittany ports,

while the remainder of our troops, supported

by the maximum weight of our air effort,

could concentrate on the annihilation of the

main body of the enemy.

XV Corps of the Third Army, striking

south on the left flank of VIII Corps, occupied

the towns of Mayenne and Laval on 6 August,

and our plan was for this corps to advance

thence to the east, supported by XII Corps and

XX Corps as these became operational. From

Le Mans a spearhead was to turn northward,

advancing through Alençon toward Argentan.

At the same time the Canadian First Army

would continue its thrust on Falaise with a

view to an eventual link-up with the

Americans at Argentan, thus drawing a net

around the bulk of the enemy forces to the

west. Meanwhile the British Second Army and

U. S. First Army would close in from the

north and west respectively.

Our greatest difficulty and danger in the

execution of this plan lay in the problem of

supply to the Third Army. General Patton's

lightning armored thrusts, exploiting the

enemy's open flank, had already imposed

upon our Services of Supply an immense

burden. This was successfully shouldered only

by dint of gallant and unceasing efforts by the

personnel of the transport columns, the

capacity of which was heavily strained.

Moreover, because of the enemy's stubborn

resistance in the Brittany ports, these supplies

had to be brought from the beaches and from

Cherbourg all the way down the west side of

the Cotentin and through our still narrow

corridor at Avranches.

It was the precarious nature of this supply

route that now dictated the enemy's strategy, a

strategy which, while initially it appeared

sound, ultimately helped us to accomplish our

object of shattering the two German armies in

Normandy. As had been shown, the arrival in

the Caen sector of infantry reinforcements

from east of the Seine at the end of July

enabled the enemy to move armor toward the

Vire, to prevent an immediate collapse of his

entire front when our breakthrough was

achieved west of St-Lô. This armor was now

massed in the Mortain area and brought under

unified command, with the intention of

driving westward through Avranches to the

coast and thus cutting off the U. S. Third

Army from its supply bases. This was the first

occasion since the commencement of the

campaign two months earlier that the enemy

had been able to assemble his armor into a

strong striking force of the traditional panzer

type; and it was destined to be his last panzer

offensive until von Rundstedt launched his

desperate thrust from the Siegfried Line

against the First Army on 16 December. The

group assembled east of Mortain for the drive

on Avranches consisted of the 1st SS, 2d SS,

2d and 116th Panzer Divisions, with elements

of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, and

supporting infantry: a formidable force. The

importance which the enemy attached to the

operation was shown by the withdrawal of his

long-range bombers from night mine-laying

off the beaches (almost their sole employment

since 6 June} for use in support of the ground

thrust.

The attack was launched on 7 August,

while other elements of. the Seventh Army

counterattacked at Vire to safeguard the flanks

of the armored drive. General Bradley had

correctly estimated the enemy intentions, had

taken his own dispositions in ample time, and

had no concern as to the result. When the

blow fell, the 4th, 9th, and 30th Infantry

Divisions, the 3d Armored Division, and part

of the 2d Armored Division were near

Mortain. In stern defensive battle these units

of VII Corps stemmed the attack. Great

assistance in smashing the enemy's spearhead

was given by the rocket-firing Typhoon planes

THE BATTLE OF

THE FALAISE — ARGENTAN POCKET

42

of the Second Tactical Air Force. They dived

upon the armored columns, and, with their

rocket projectiles, destroyed and damaged

many tanks in addition to quantities of "soft-

skinned" vehicles. The result of the vigorous

reaction by ground and air forces was that the

enemy attack was effectively brought to a halt,

and a threat was turned into a great victory.

For once, the weather was on our side, and

conditions were ideal for our air operations. If

our planes had been grounded, the enemy

might have succeeded in reaching Avranches

in his first rush, and this would then have

forced us to depend for a time on air supply to

our troops south and east of the Avranches

corridor, necessarily restricting their capacity

to maneuver.

Despite this check and the high losses

sustained, the enemy persisted for the time

being in his efforts to break through to

Avranches, and the battle continued during the

following days. The fierce attacks of the

panzer divisions were met with stubborn

resistance by U. S. VII Corps, while our

tactical air forces continued to afford

magnificent support in bombing and strafing

the enemy concentrations. To maintain the

weight of his attack, the enemy brought up

further armored reinforcements, and the

fighting continued heavy and confused around

the hills at Mortain. From there the Germans

could look westward over the level plain

across which they had hoped to drive to

Avranches, and perhaps the fact that they thus

had their objective within view contributed to

the persistence of their efforts.

It was not until 12 August that the first

signs became evident that the enemy had

resigned himself to the impossibility of

attaining his objective and at last was

contemplating a withdrawal. As on former

occasions, the fanatical tenacity of the Nazi

leaders and the ingrained toughness of their

men had led the Germans to cling too long to

a position from which military wisdom would

have dictated an earlier retreat. Already by 10

August it was difficult to see how the enemy's

counter-attacks, admitted that they represented

a desperate effort to stabilize temporarily a

most dangerous general situation, could

achieve decisive results.

By 10 August, following a conference at

General Bradley's Headquarters, it was

decided to seize the opportunity for

encirclement offered by the enemy tactics. XV

Corps of the Third Army already had pushed

eastward to capture Le Mans on 9 August and

had thence turned north according to plan to

threaten the rear of the armored forces battling

at Mortain. At the same time XX Corps drove

beyond Châteaubriant toward the Loire and

captured Angers on 10 August, thus

effectively guarding the southern flank of our

encircling movement. On 11 August XV

Corps was north of the Sécs-Carrouges road,

and on the night of 12 August the U. S. 5th

Armored Division was in the outskirts of

Argentan and the French 2d Armored Division

at Ecouche, with the 79th and 90th Infantry

Divisions in support.

Meanwhile the U. S. First Army pushed

southwest from Vire against stubborn

resistance while the British Second Army

forced the enemy from his dominating

position on Mont Pinçon (south of Aunay-sur-

Odon) and on 13 August occupied Thury-

Harcourt. Six days earlier, the Second Army

had established a bridgehead across the Orne

below Thury-Harcourt at Grimbosq, in the

teeth of furious opposition. This salient was

created in support of the Canadian First Army

thrust down the Caen-Falaise road. Still, as

ever, the Caen sector remained the most

sensitive part of the front in the north, and the

Allied progress was slow and dearly bought

against the strongest defenses yet encountered

in the campaign. The Fifth Panzer Army,

replacing Armored Group West, now defended

this sector. On 7 August, over 1,000 heavy

bombers of the RAF were employed to soften

up enemy concentrations between Caen and

Bretteville, and on the following day nearly

500 heavies of the Eighth Air Force laid a

carpet in front of a Canadian attack which

reached Bretteville itself. The enemy fell back

to the line of the Laison River between

Potigny and Maizières, where he successfully

held the Canadians for several days. Not until

14 August was this line broken, following a

further heavy air onslaught, and on 17 August

Falaise was finally occupied. From our

landings in June until that day, the enemy

resistance in this sector had exacted more

Allied bloodshed for the ground yielded than

in any other part of the campaign. Without the

great sacrifices made here by the Anglo-

Canadian armies in the series of brutal,

slugging battles, first for Caen anti then for

Falaise, the spectacular advances made

elsewhere by the Allied forces could never

have come about.

With the Third Army forces at Argentan

and the Canadians at Falaise, the stage was set

for the "Battle of the Pocket," with the enemy

struggling to keep open the gap between the

two towns through which to extricate his

forces from the west. By 13 August, the

withdrawal from Mortain eastward toward

Argentan was under way. Infantry

reinforcements were being brought hurriedly

43

across the Seine ― five divisions crossed during the

week preceding 12 August ― but it was too late now

for them to be able to save the situation. In the pocket,

the enemy's strategy was to line the southern lip

through Argentan with his armor to defend against the

American forces as he extricated what he could

through the gap, while a strong defensive barrier

against the Canadians was established with the 12th

SS Panzer and 21st Panzer Divisions at Falaise. By

this means, resisting fiercely, he managed to hold open

the jaws of our pincers long enough to enable a

portion of his forces to escape. As usual, he

concentrated on saving his armor and left the bulk of

the infantry to their fate ― a subject of bitter comment

by prisoners from the latter units who fell into our

hands. A considerable part of the 1st SS Panzer, 2d SS

Panzer, 9th SS Panzer, 12th SS Panzer, Panzer Lehr,

2d Panzer, 9th Panzer, and 116th Panzer Divisions

managed thus to get away; but the 326th, 353d, 363d,

271st 276th, 277th, 89th, and part of the 331st Infantry

Divisions, with some of. the 10th SS Panzer and 21st

Panzer Divisions, were trapped. Those armored forces

which escaped did so at the cost of a great proportion

of their equipment.

44

Until 17 August, there was a steady seep

eastward through the gap, but then came a

convulsive surge to get out on the part of all

ranks; and the orderliness with which the

retreat had hitherto been carried out collapsed

suddenly. The 12th SS Panzer Division, aided

by the other elements which had managed to

escape, counterattacked from outside the

pocket to assist the remainder, but as the gap

narrowed they were forced to abandon their

efforts and look to their own safety as the

advance of the Third Army to the Seine

threatened a new trap behind them. All

became chaos and confusion as the remaining

forces in the pocket struggled to get out

through the diminishing corridor by Trun,

which was all that remained of the escape

route. Road discipline among the columns

fleeing toward the Seine became nonexistent,

and vehicles plunged madly across the open

country in an effort to avoid the blocked

roads. Our air forces swept down upon the

choked masses of transport, and there was no

sign of the Luftwaffe to offer any opposition.

With the U. S. Third Army on the Seine, the

German fighter force had been compelled to

retire to airfields in the east of France, too far

away for them to be able now to give any

assistance to the ground troops in Normandy.

Back inside the pocket, the confusion was

still greater, and the destruction assumed

immense proportions as our aircraft and

artillery combined in pounding the trapped

Germans. Allied guns ringed the ever-

shrinking "killing-ground," and, while the SS

elements as usual fought to annihilation, the

ordinary German infantry gave themselves up

in ever-increasing numbers. By 20 August the

gap was finally closed near Chambois, and by

22 August the pocket was eliminated. The

lovely, wooded countryside west of Argentan

had become the graveyard of the army which,

three months earlier, had confidently waited to

smash the Allied invasion on the Normandy

beaches. What was left of the Seventh and

Fifth Panzer Armies was in headlong flight

toward the Seine, and a further stand west of

the river was impossible.

45