Cobra - World War Two
World War Two, saving private ryan, Second World War, W.W.II
|
|
|
Breakthrough
Montgomery's' British and Canadian armies had not broken through and neither had the Americans. The taking of Caen, and Operations Epsom, Goodwood/Atlantic, and Spring, had not opened the main roads to Paris.
Operation Cobra would be General Bradley's third attempt to break out of the confines of the Cotentin peninsula. The first attempt on 3 July had been checked, the second on 13 July had only resulted in the communications center of St. Lô being taken.
On 25 July, on the Western side of the Allied front, the Americans launched Operation Cobra. Its goal was to attack and breakthrough the German lines between the rivers Vire and Lozon.
US Infantryman fighting near St. Lo, July 1944.
|
The operation opened with a massive bombing of the German lines by 1,500 Fortresses of the Eight Airforce. At first, after the bombing had ceased, progress was slow, as many of the German infantry had survived the bombing. The Americans were also obstructed by their own crater fields. By the evening, only two miles of ground had been won at the deepest point, and the objectives still lay beyond forward troops.
Though they didn't realize it, the infantry on the first day had largely destroyed the German resistance that survived the bombing. The 2nd SS and 17th SS panzer divisions on the front were fully committed to defence of the line and had no reserves left. Panzer Lehr had been pretty much destroyed by the bombing and the fighting that followed it. While the German infantry divisions - 243rd, 353rd, 91st, and 5th Parachute - were all unable to move and under strength.
On the morning of 26 July, the 1st Armoured Division advancing
behind a pattern of high-explosive bombs dropped by medium bombers
drove southwards all day. General Rose, commander of the forward
combat command of the division, sensed there was little to oppose
him, decided to brave a night advance and ordered his tanks forward
to seize the high ground. When dawn broke on the 27th he had
established positions on the eastern flank of the corridor that
would guard rest of the Cobra force advance.
|
On 27 July the Americans units moved forward with an ever gathering momentum. But the 2nd and 17th SS, panzer divisions by hard fighting prevented the Americans entering Countances that evening. |
|
The next day, the newly arrived 4th and 6th armoured divisions, drove them off the panzers and captured the town. The victorious Shermans and White half-tracks pressed on. By dusk, they had established a new phase line up to fifteen miles south from that which Cobra had started four days earlier.
The Americans had succeeded in breaking through the German defences. Bradley grasped on the 28th that he had won a great victory, and instead of consolidating and mopping up, he decided to maintain the pressure and thrust fresh troops into the gap he had opened.
He then brought General George Smith Patton in to take command of the Third Army, and to turn the break-through into a break-out.
Patton defied every rule of staff college logistics, and got his seven divisions into the new theater of operations in 72 hours. He the proceeded to turn the break-through into a break-out and rapidly captured Rennes in Brittany and key exit point from Normandy, the town of Avaranches.
The Americans had achieved a break-out. They key to their success was that as insoon as Bradley felt that their was an opportunity to do more, he didn't call a pause to consolidate his gains, ( a habit of the British and Canadians) but pushed his advantage to the maximum.
|
Valour and Horror, Second World War, Canadian history, World War II, W.W.II |
