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Celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Battle Of Normandy
The Battle of Normandy
The Battle of Normandy was one of the major confrontations of the Second World War. In terms of the number of German soldiers it mobilized, and the losses it inflicted on the Wehrmacht, which emerged from fierce fighting that sometimes ended in hand-to-hand combat, this battle played a fundamental role in the liberation of France and Western Europe. From the assault on the landing beaches to the German retreat into “death row” in mid-August and the liberation of Lisieux on August 23, 1944, the Battle of Normandy lasted some 80 days. From the hell of the hedgerows to the outskirts of Caen, it was almost three months of bitter, often indecisive, always violent fighting. For soldiers and civilians alike. A total of 20,000 Normans were killed (14,000 in Lower Normandy alone), most of them victims of Allied aerial bombardment, with some towns completely devastated by a veritable carpet of bombs. The Allies lost just over 200,000 men, including 37,000 killed. For the Germans, the human toll was difficult to establish, ranging from 300,000 to 450,000 casualties, including 55,000 to 60,000 killed. The Wehrmacht lost no less than half of the troops it had committed to Normandy.
The strategy imposed by Hitler himself was to hold out at all costs to contain the Allied invasion, while awaiting the hypothetical arrival of secret weapons that were supposed to change the course of the war. The ensuing war of attrition tipped the balance in favor of the Allies, who, thanks to a formidable logistical effort, managed to bring more munitions, more weapons, more oil and more men to Normandy.
By the evening of June 6, the 156,000 Allied troops on the ground in Normandy were facing 80,000 German soldiers. From then on, it was of the utmost importance to consolidate the bridgehead and the numerical advantage by hindering the arrival of German reinforcements as much as possible. For this reason, a dozen towns in the Lower Normandy region, all of them road junctions, were razed to the ground by Allied bombing raids, from Pont l'Evêque to Coutances, via Vire, Condé-sur-Noireau, Lisieux and Saint-Lô, the “capital of ruins”. Railway infrastructures and bridges were also particularly targeted. Under these conditions, German reinforcements were hard to come by. Most of them came from Brittany, southwest France and even Scandinavia. If German troops did not flock en masse to the Normandy front, it was also due to the success of the intoxication operation carried out by the German High Command, which remained convinced until mid-July that the Normandy landings were merely a diversion before the real landings, which would take place in the Pas-de-Calais. The Germans thus deprived themselves of von Salmuth's XVth Army, whose arrival in Normandy in the days immediately following the landings would undoubtedly have further complicated the Allies' task.
Two weeks after D-Day, some 640,000 of them were on the Normandy front, compared with 250,000 Germans. By August 1, 1,600,000 American, British and Canadian soldiers were engaged in Normandy, compared with 510,000 Germans, i.e. three times as many. The German army found it extremely difficult to replace its losses, and the imbalance became more pronounced as time went on. In the East, the launch of Operation Bagration by the Red Army on June 22, 1944, kept almost two-thirds of the Wehrmacht's forces on the Eastern Front. And yet, apart from a few quick successes, such as the capture on June 26 of Cherbourg and its deep-water port, vital for ensuring supplies, the Allies had the greatest difficulty in advancing, falling well behind the timetable set by the high command. For example, Caen, which was to have been taken on D+1, was not fully liberated until July 19, after six weeks of fierce fighting and heavy losses on both sides. And if the British and Canadians had long been stymied by the Panzerdivisionen's armored lock on Caen, what could be said of the Americans trapped in the “hedgerow hell” of the Bocage?
Firmly entrenched in their positions, German soldiers held out against the Allies, forcing them into a war of attrition.The inferiority of their numbers is partly offset by the fact that the ratio of combat troops to logisticians is much higher than it is in the Allied ranks, where the latter account for around half the men.Above all, the German fighters were far more battle-hardened than their opponents, and some of them belonged to elite units that had earned their spurs on other battlefields, such as a number of SS armored divisions.Conversely, many Anglo-American soldiers landed in Normandy for their baptism of fire: this was the case for 70% of them.Finally, the terrain was largely unfavorable to the attackers.The Normandy bocage, with its fields enclosed by dense, impenetrable hedgerows, provided the Germans with formidable defensive positions from which they took full advantage, inflicting heavy losses on the Allies throughout July 1944.
A major advantage for the Allies: total control of the skies.For their airmen, the danger came not from Luftwaffe aircraft, but from the guns of the FLAK (anti-aircraft artillery), in particular its 88mm guns, also used as formidable anti-tank weapons, effective up to an altitude of 8,000 meters. On land, Germany's undeniable material inferiority in quantitative terms is partially offset by its qualitative superiority.Such is the case with the formidable German MG42 machine gun, whose rate of fire of 1,500 rounds per minute is three times greater than that of American - Browning - and British - Bren - machine guns.During the Battle of Normandy, the Allies engaged a total of 8,700 tanks and tank destroyers, compared with 2,300 tanks, assault guns and tank destroyers on the German side.But the quality of the German Tiger and Panther tanks outshone that of the Churchill, Cromwell and Sherman tanks. Armored divisions were the Wehrmacht's strong point in Normandy. On the other hand, the Allies' artillery was insufficiently motorized, leading to massive use of horse-drawn carriages.Between 2,600 and 3,600 Allied tanks were destroyed in Normandy, compared with 1,000 to 1,500 on the German side. But the Allied replacement tanks arrived so quickly that their numbers eventually outnumbered their losses, which was far from being the case for the German army, which directed most of its production to the Eastern Front. Although some 2,000 kilometers away, the Eastern Front played a decisive role in the outcome of the Battle of Normandy.
Code-named Overlord
The great Allied offensive was launched on June 6, 1944 to create a new front and liberate Europe.Its primary objective: the landing of troops and equipment on the Normandy coast at dawn on June 6. The very next day, the Battle of Normandy began, with the aim of regaining control of ports, airfields and supply depots.On June 7, British troops landed on Gold Beach (Arromanches), liberating Bayeux. The town suffered no damage and became a rear base in the liberated territory, essential for supplying the armies and receiving the wounded.
THE ADVANCE OF ALLIED TROOPS ON JUNE 7
The day after the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, Allied troops began advancing inland from Normandy. Some Normandy towns, such as Bayeux, were quickly liberated, while others proved more difficult to recapture, at the cost of many casualties.
On June 7, 1944, British units entered Bayeux without a fight and liberated the town. The same could not be said of the Caen sector, where the attackers came up against a fierce defense. Two attempts to bypass the city of Caen, which controls the routes to the Seine and Paris, were unsuccessful.
For their part, the American troops set their sights on taking Cherbourg, in order to gain access to a deep-water port. On June 17, 1944, the Americans reached Barneville-Carteret. As a result, the Germans retreated to the north of the Cotentin peninsula. Cherbourg was not taken until June 26, 1944, but the port was completely destroyed.
OPERATION COBRA, A DECISIVE TURNING POINT
At the other end of the front in the Cotentin region, the Americans captured Saint-Lô on July 18, 1944, after a difficult and deadly hedge war south of Carentan. A week later, thanks to the arrival of reinforcements and improved weather conditions, the Americans were able to intervene on a massive scale.
General Patton launched Operation Cobra on July 25, 1944, breaking through enemy lines. On August 6, 1944, the Germans launched a counter-attack in the Mortain region towards Avranches to cut off the American advance. But a carpet of Allied bombs led to the failure of this enemy operation. Soon encircled in the Falaise pocket, the German armies withdrew towards Paris. The Battle of Normandy ended at the end of August 1944. From then on, the Allies advanced rapidly eastwards, through Brittany and into the Pays de Loire region...
LE GÉNIE MILITAIRE OU LA LOGISTIQUE DE LA VICTOIRE
During the operations of the Battle of Normandy, military engineering units played a vital role in the victory. The museum pays tribute to them. An emblematic Caterpillar D7 bulldozer is on display in one of the rooms of the Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie. This type of machine played an essential role in clearing the ruins of bombed-out towns, and was used by British engineers to build the Bayeux By-Pass.
2024
In 2024, Normandy will honor the memory of these events and the men and women who came from all over the world to liberate us.A regional mobilization will take place to celebrate this tenth major anniversary.This will be an ideal opportunity for visitors to discover or rediscover the main sites of remembrance, cemeteries, key places and museums that bear witness to this tragic era.Today, these important places are imbued with fundamental and universal values such as Reconciliation, Peace and Freedom. We hope your visit will be a privileged moment to share with your loved ones.
Link to all informations regarding the Battle of Normandy
https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/discover/history/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy/