BREAKTHROUGH AND THE MORTAIN COUNTER ATTACK

Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery decided that after 6 weeks of static fighting the time had come to make a breakthough from the seaboard areas to the hinterland and Operation Cobra was initiated.

Middleton's US 8th Corps pushed south from the harbour of Cherbourg along the west coast of the Cotentin peninsular taking the towns of Coutances, Granville and Avranches as well as securing the Pontaubault bridges, the gateway to Brittany in the west. Collin's 7th Corps pushed south in the hinterland finally capturing St-Lo, St Denis, Villedieu and then meeting up with Middleton's forces at Averanches.

American forces quickly advanced into Brittany and captured the area south to the Loure River at St Nazaire as well as the strategic city of Rennes.

This greatly alarmed the Germans as the road to Paris and the rest of France was now open. Hitler, the advice of his generals who wanted to stage an orderly retreat to the River Seine, decided to launch a major counter attack against the American forces at Mortain, some thirty miles east of Avranches.




Hitler initiated Operation Luttich by ordering his troops to proceed to the area west of Mortain thereby thinning his forces south of the British army. The Germans launched their attack on the 7th August. Although this action took the Allieds by surprise Bradley had received intelligence that something was afoot.

The Germans attacked Mortain with extreme ferocity with artillery and then by throwing their panzer brigades into the foray. The Allieds called in air support and squadrons of Typhoon fighter bombers wreaked havoc against the Germans. However the defenders of Mortain were under extreme pressure, short of men and ammunition, and it was decided to pull them out of the city. Once they had vacated the city allied artillery and aircraft virtually carpet bombed Mortain totally destroying it and stopped the German offensive it its tracks.

The Germans lost a lot of men and materiel in their failed counter attack and this put them in a far worse position.

The Allieds were about to lauch Operation Totalise, the beginning of the end of the German occupation of Normandy