These were the challenges that Bradley faced before the landings, but to make it all work would require more than exceptional staff effort. An opposed amphibious landing is one of the most difficult missions for any unit. The disastrous landings at Gallipoli during World War I had shown how not to do it. More recently, the U.S. Marine Corps’s landing on Tarawa, in the Pacific, though successful, had been a bloody affair. Bradley made a point of being present to observe training, to reassure soldiers that he understood how much he was asking of them.
The invasion windows for Normandy were tight thanks to a requirement to land near low tide, preferably with a full moon and as close as possible to dawn. German strength was building, and the lunar calendar made clear that only three days in each lunar cycle were ideal for landing. Although planners hoped to go in May 1944, weather forced delay. In the following month, only June 4–6 worked well. The Germans had built extensive obstacles designed to rip the bottom out of landing craft under the assumption that allied landings would come at or near high tide. Landing in low tide would permit engineers to cut paths through the obstacle belt preparatory to the main landings. A low-tide option had the drawback of creating a deadly killing zone between the place where the landing craft would beach and the relative safety of the seawall, but this, planners believed, was the lesser of two evils.38 Naval and aviation planners had made clear that their support could neutralize but not destroy many of the German defensive positions along the beach. To stop or hinder German reinforcement, Bradley insisted on the use of paratroopers landing behind the beaches to cut the roads and causeways leading to the beaches.39 The paratroopers needed moonlight between midnight and dawn to make consolidation on the drop zones possible.
The Allies had done all in their power to confuse the Germans about the exact location and date of the landings. Until March 1944 Hitler had been convinced that the landings would come at Pas-de-Calais. A deception plan built around a fictitious American First Army Group commanded by Patton had helped sell the idea. At the end of March Hitler changed his mind, believing that the Allies would come ashore in Normandy, in the process accepting the belief of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel that the landings had to be defeated as early and as close to the beach as possible. The overall field commander in the West, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, disagreed with the assessment and argued against moving panzer units close to the beaches.40 In May Hitler changed his mind again, deciding that landings would come at Normandy, but that they would be a diversion designed to bring about the shifting of German panzer units south, away from Calais, where the main Allied attack would fall. As a result, Hitler placed three of six panzer divisions under Rommel, but kept two SS panzer divisions under his own control some fifty miles from the beaches. Another panzer division would be in Belgium when the Allied naval flotilla set sail for Normandy on June 5, 1944.41 The dispersal of German armored divisions, as well as problems in the German chain of command, hindered the German response and bought the Allies time once the invasion began.
Bradley watched the landings on June 6, 1944, from the heavy cruiser USS Augusta. After some early tense moments on Utah Beach, VII Corps’s 4th Infantry Division gained a foothold and began to push inland. On Omaha Beach it was another matter. Throughout the morning of June 6, Bradley waited, by his own admission largely powerless, while the V Corps’s 1st Infantry Division and 29th Infantry Division struggled to move forward from the seawall. To avoid German coastal artillery, the Navy had launched many of the landing craft over ten miles offshore. German guns had ample opportunity to take them under fire well before they reached the beach.42 Most of the amphibious tanks assigned to support the landings foundered in the surf. Men arrived seasick, cold, and wet if they arrived at all. In addition, the Germans had recently positioned the 352nd Infantry Division in the area behind Omaha Beach. The Germans defended their positions well, and little that Allied air or naval gunfire could do proved sufficient to dislodge them. Bradley considered pulling his forces from Omaha, but his soldiers saved him the choice. Increasingly, as company-grade officers and sergeants led frightened men forward, German soldiers began to give ground.43 By the end of the morning, Omaha Beach belonged to the First Army. On Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches, British and Canadian troops had also landed successfully. Allied forces had a lodgment on what Hitler had boasted would be Fortress Europe.
Over the following weeks, Eisenhower saw to it that his Army commanders built up their forces. The limited port facilities hindered the buildup, and after seven weeks at no place was the beachhead more than thirty miles deep.44 The reality was that the Allies were behind schedule. The original plans called for all of Normandy to be in Allied hands by the end of June, but they held only a fifth of the province by month’s end.45 In the American zone, Bradley had three corps (V, VII, and XIX) ashore. He would add VIII Corps as well. With the arrival of the additional strength, Bradley pushed his forces inland against stiff German defenses. As V Corps pressed south toward Caumont, VII Corps, with 9th Infantry Division in the lead, raced to cut the Cotentin Peninsula before turning north toward Cherbourg, and 4th Infantry Division moved north along the opposite coast. Cherbourg fell to Bradley’s soldiers on June 27. The Allies now had their port, but German demolition crews had ensured it would be of little use for months. Over most of July Bradley expanded his beachhead southward.
The problem with the area beyond the American beaches was that it was hedgerow country, usually referred to as the bocage. This series of small fields surrounded by dirt and stone walls five feet tall usually covered in underbrush created difficulties for any attacking force. The Germans had understood this. Fields of fire were constricted, visibility difficult, and camouflage for the defender ample. The hedgerows made it difficult for tanks and infantry to support one another. The terrain limited advances to yards rather than miles; many believed that the situation was quickly re-creating something akin to the battlefields of World War I. The casualty figures certainly suggested as much. Increasingly, Allied leaders, including Bradley, were coming in for criticism. Patton, still in England but slated to command what would be Third Army in France, claimed that if he were commander of First Army, he would break through to open country in three days.46 As casualties mounted, particularly in the infantry, Bradley’s next challenge was to find a way to break through the hedgerows and turn his soldiers toward the Rhine. Operation Cobra, the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, would be Bradley’s signature victory of World War II. Meant as only a limited-objective penetration, it created the conditions that took Allied armies nearly all the way to the German border.
Bradley envisioned the use of heavy, medium, and light bombers to blast an opening in German Seventh Army positions before unleashing first VII Corps and then the rest of First Army into a penetration that he hoped would become an exploitation of a shattered foe. Infantry divisions would punch the initial holes in German defenses, and then two armored divisions and one motorized infantry division would conduct the exploitation. The employment of heavy bombers in support of ground troops was not something that strategic bombing advocates saw as a wise employment of a limited asset. Lieutenant General Carl A. Spaatz, who commanded the United States Strategic Air Forces, adamantly opposed the idea, but Bradley, with support from Marshall and Eisenhower, was able to get Spaatz to dedicate 1,500 of his heavy bombers to the attack.47 Cobra called for saturation bombing of an area one mile by five miles just south of the Saint-Lô–Périers road. The bombing was to take an hour to complete; to maximize the blast effect while minimizing cratering, which might slow the attack, light bombs (one hundred pounds) rather than heavier ordnance were used. Furthermore, Bradley proposed that to negate the possibility of fratricide, the bombers were to approach on a path parallel to the forward line of troops (FLOT).
Bradley personally briefed his plan to Eighth and Ninth Army Air Force planners and met immediate opposition to parts of the plan. Flying parallel to the FLOT would expose planes flying at low altitudes to excessive ant
iaircraft fire. Instead, the air avenue of approach needed to be perpendicular to the FLOT. In addition, air planners argued that they would need ground forces to withdraw 3,000 feet from forward positions.48 Bradley countered that ground forces needed to hit German positions as rapidly as possible after the bombing to take full advantage of the confusion the bombardment would create and argued for an 800-yard withdrawal. The two sides compromised, agreeing to 1,250 yards. An additional 250-yard strip for fighter bombers meant that 1,500 yards of ground should exist between the impact area and Bradley’s soldiers. Bradley believed he had won the argument on the parallel versus perpendicular approach to the target area. He had not, and this proved a costly mistake.49
Army Air Force planners believed that the only workable approach to the bombing was to come in perpendicular to the target largely because of the difficulties weather and terrain might present in computing bomb release points. The Saint-Lô road, it was feared, would not be easily discernible to the heavy bombers at 15,000 feet. The Normandy coast could serve as an initial checkpoint and the Saint-Lô road as the final for confirmation of range to the target. In addition, funneling 1,500 bombers through a one-mile-wide target box in an hour was not possible.50 The Air Force’s concerns were real and prompted changes to the plan; unfortunately and inexplicably, none of these changes was provided to Bradley or his subordinates.
Ninth and Eighth Air Forces were to open Operation Cobra on July 24. Planes departed their airfields in England, but weather over the target forced an inflight cancellation. Unfortunately, not all the planes got the word in time, and 317 planes dropped their loads over what they presumed to be the target. Some of the bombs landed in the 30th Infantry Division area, killing 25 soldiers and wounding 131 others. Bradley demanded to know what had happened, and only then did he discover the changes. Rescheduling the attack was possible, but only if he would accept the fact that a subsequent attempt would also be perpendicular to the FLOT. Bradley reluctantly assented, passing the changes to corps and division commanders.
On July 25 the planes again set out for Normandy. Again, not all went according to plan. Ninth Air Force fighter bombers tore up the ground in front of VII Corps, creating clouds of smoke and dust that drifted southward over the bombing area designated for heavy bombers. Nearly all of the 1,500 heavy bombers assigned to the mission dropped their bombs. Most hit within the target box, but some bombs again fell on the unlucky 30th Division, killing another 61 soldiers and wounding 374 others. Among the dead was Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, commanding general of Army Ground Forces.51 Nonetheless, VII Corps divisions pressed forward, initially experiencing considerable opposition before German units began to give ground. The VII Corps commander, Lawton Collins, sensed that German defenses, under pressure from his infantry, were losing their coherence. With Bradley’s approval, Collins unleashed his armored divisions on the morning of July 26 with devastating effect. By the afternoon, his forces had penetrated German forward defenses to a distance of several miles. The following day, as the extent of German collapse became apparent, Bradley turned his corps due south toward Avranches, in preparation for an attack into the Brittany peninsula in hopes of seizing additional ports.
To keep German reinforcements from Bradley’s front, Montgomery had British Second Army open an offensive in the vicinity of Caen. The attack worked, keeping the bulk of German armor focused on Caen even as German defenses collapsed to the west. By the middle of July Patton had most of his Third Army in Normandy, whereupon Bradley relinquished command of First Army to Courtney H. Hodges and assumed command of newly activated Twelfth Army Group. The roles were now reversed: Patton now worked for Bradley. Third Army would assume the task of seizing Brittany’s ports. The lack of cohesion German Seventh Army was showing allowed Patton to do this with only one corps, and the remainder of his army became available in support of Bradley’s next move, a turning movement designed to destroy German Seventh Army west of the Seine River. The plan was daring and made exceptional use of the American Army’s advantage in mobility. Eisenhower had early on made it clear that his approach to defeating Germany was to destroy its army before it could retreat behind the Rhine. Bradley was intent on doing exactly this. Unbeknown to Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Bradley, Hitler was soon to help the Allied armies in their task.
Hitler’s initial response to the Allied landings in Normandy had been to assume that they were but a diversion. By the end of July it was clear, even to him, that this was not the case. Rather than order Army Group B’s commander, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, to withdraw to better positions along the Seine, Hitler directed a counterattack near Mortain. Twelfth Army Group was vulnerable there: the Mortain-Avranches corridor was all that linked First Army with Third Army. Hitler ordered the commitment of a complete panzer army, but by this stage there was neither time nor resources to cobble one together. Kluge did what he could, and the panzer divisions available pushed the Americans back six miles but could go no farther. The Americans counterattacked and, with overwhelming air support, stabilized the line. The combination of the German penetration and Allied counterattacks had made German Seventh Army vulnerable to an attack on its open southern flank. Montgomery’s armies, along with part of the American First Army, held the northern side of the pocket. Bradley saw an opportunity to send Patton’s Third Army east and then north toward Falaise, into the vulnerable flank.52 Canadian First Army would attack southward to close the pocket. Montgomery established an Army group boundary south of Falaise to permit fire support coordination and to prevent fratricide.
The plan came close to working perfectly. Though Third Army performed superbly, Canadian First, facing heavy resistance, was unable to close to the boundary. Patton begged for permission to cross the boundary, but Bradley, perhaps with memories of the fratricide that had occurred at the beginning of Cobra, refused, halting Third Army at Argentan. He could have requested a boundary change to allow Patton to move forward, but he chose not to do so. As a result, thousands of German soldiers escaped to fight another day. This left little in the way of a coherent defense in front of American forces, however. Both First and Third armies began a monthlong press toward the Rhine against little German resistance.
Bradley assumed responsibility for stopping Patton, but he argued that had Montgomery’s First Canadian Army been more vigorous in its attack toward Falaise, the Allies would have closed the pocket as planned. Nonetheless, Operation Cobra and the pursuit that followed were decidedly the result of Bradley’s vision. The lost opportunity of Falaise aside, the weeks ahead would be heady indeed for Allied forces as they raced toward the Rhine and what they hoped would be an early end to the war. Their optimism would run out in the face of the hard reality of logistics.
Cobra had worked beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, but the resulting exploitation began to stretch the Allies’ supply lines. Logistics, particularly in the area of fuel and ammunition, presented a problem for Allied operations as British and American armies pressed deeper into France. Allied strategy largely followed Eisenhower’s vision. He had early on favored a broad front, and although he wavered in that during the fall of 1944, in August the impending collapse of German armies pulled Twenty-first Army Group (Montgomery) and Twelfth Army Group (Bradley) ever forward in a front that was growing not only in depth but also in width. Logisticians had planned on a measured advance and ample time to bring up supplies. They had assumed that a system of depots would provide the stores necessary to propel the Allied attack and had anticipated a lengthy halt at the Seine to build them. The rapid pursuit by Allied armies, particularly Third Army and First Army, undermined those plans, as did the delay in capturing the ports. In addition to the challenge of getting ammunition and fuel to the European mainland, there was the problem of transporting it to attacking armies. Logisticians calculated they would need 240 truck companies, but only 160 landed in France.53 Allied air attacks had destroyed French railroads, which Allied logisticians had hoped to use. While the railroa
ds were being repaired, a continual express of trucks from ports to armies and then back again attempted to pick up the slack. Traffic jams and problems with maintenance hindered the effort, but truck supply made possible some degree of movement until September, when the well ran dry.54 No degree of leadership could coax forward a tank lacking fuel, and in the operational pause that ensued, the German Army was able to reconstitute itself.
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