The Pittsburgh Press (July 26, 1944)
U.S. offensive gains four miles to end Normandy stalemate
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Ending the stalemate in Normandy, U.S. forces have driven four miles into the German lines west of Saint-Lô. On the eastern end of the front, the British were driven back slightly by Nazi counterattacks into the northern edges of Tilly-la-Campagne and May-sur-Orne (1). The Yanks in the Saint-Lô sector smashed ahead on a four-mile front and Saint-Giles and Marigny (2). Other U.S. forces reduced a German bulge north of Périers in preparation to storming that town (3).
SHAEF, London, England –
Two U.S. armored columns leading a front-wide offensive by Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s 1st Army smashed through the German lines in Normandy today and captured the highway towns of Marigny and Saint-Giles, southwest of Saint-Lô, as they drove ahead up to four miles.
Marigny, seven miles from Saint-Lô and the biggest town on the Coutances highways, and Saint-Giles, midway between Marigny and Saint-Lô, were the first big prizes in the breakthrough offensive which overran some half-dozen towns and villages in the first few hours of the drive.
Front dispatches reported that Bradley’s armor, in scoring the second big breakthrough of the Normandy campaign and the first by massed U.S. tanks on which sharp-looking doughboys rode, had blasted a four-mile-wide gap in the German defenses.
Gen. Bradley’s armor swarmed out of its camouflage nests in a thundering herd to crash the German lines. One column raced to Marigny for a four-mile gain and the other knifed in against Saint-Giles. Both towns fell a few hours after the big push got underway in the wake of preliminary thrusts yesterday.
At the same time, other U.S. forces went over the top all along the line, attacking across the Sèves River toward Périers on the western wing and slashing far beyond Saint-Lô at the eastern end of the U.S. section of the Normandy front.
The western section of the offensive was launched at dawn today in conjunction with the breakthrough attack a few miles west of Saint-Lô. It extended all the way to the Atlantic coast in the Lessay area, and began with a smashing artillery barrage.
Forcing the Ay River east of Lessay, the Americans established a bridgehead on the lower side.
Gen. Bradley caught the Nazis flatfooted when he threw his tanks into the push west of Saint-Lô. The initial impact of the massed armor carried through the German main line, the reserve line beyond, and at latest reports the forward elements were shooting up artillery positions far in the enemy rear.
Tonight, the Americans were credited with knocking out 36 medium and light tanks, five Mark IV and Mark V heavies, 14 of French make, six self-propelled guns and 33 halftracks. The conservative figure included only knockout vehicles which the Germans had not been able to salvage.
The greatest tank charge in the history of American warfare had the thunderous support of 155mm Long Toms and swarms of dive bombers which paralyzed the German defenses and wiped out entire Nazi units.
On their other wing, the Americans pushed down to Montrabot, 9½ miles east of Saint-Lô, to find it deserted.
Front dispatches said the entire American line moved forward an average of two miles, meeting only sporadic resistance at many points.
Sherman tanks clustered with Doughboys riding Russian fashion, self-propelled Long Toms, and every kind of battle vehicle charged the German fortifications to score the breakthrough hailed by front correspondents as perhaps the most significant single development on the French front since D-Day.
United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported:
This was the second breach in the wall of Fortress Europe since the invasion.
I saw the tanks go forward into the assault behind an artillery barrage and dive-bombing by Thunderbolts and Spitfires. At the same time, rocket-carrying planes patrolled the battle area, searching for the German Panther and Tiger tanks reported in the path of our armor.
Spaced 50 yards apart, the tanks churned forward in a symmetrical phalanx. Doughboys astride them did their fighting from their bucking mounts, under orders to dismount only when necessary.
Directly behind the advance guard came the self-propelled artillery, then more infantry mounted on halftracks, then more tanks and finally another layer of mobile infantry.
Giant bulldozers accompanied the cavalcade, gouging out passageways in the Normandy hedgerows and topping fortifications in the path of the massed armor.
Troops atop the frontline Shermans sprayed every hedgerow with fire. It had been raining earlier, but the battlefield dried out quickly and the armor churned up a choking pall of dust.
The Nazi defenders of the Saint-Giles area were stunned by the record weight of explosives dropped on them yesterday by U.S. bombers, and were thrown off balance in a frantic shift of strength aimed at, but failing, to anticipate the focal point of the onslaught.
While the American offensive picked up momentum, a front report said the impetus of the British attack below Caen faded out today. The Germans were making sharp counterthrusts, and stepping them up to the scale of major activity, while the Nazi air attack in the Caen area last night was one of the heaviest since the invasion.
United Press writer Ronald Clark reported:
It must be stated that the Allies holding the curving belt of country roughly three miles deep below Caen are not in an enviable position.
The German Transocean News Agency reported that British troops and material were being unloaded continuously at the Orne estuary above Caen under cover of smokescreens.
The agency said:
It is not impossible that the present attacks are merely the curtain raisers to a large-scale breakthrough attack planned by Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery west of the Orne.
While still refusing to pinpoint the focal points of the new American offensive, Supreme Headquarters acknowledged that Gen. Bradley’s forces had made several new crossings of the Saint-Lô–Périers highway in an apparent thrust toward the communications hub of Coutances and were assaulting an enemy bulge five miles northeast of Périers.
Nazi bulge squeezed
The Americans squeezed the mouth of the German bulge to two miles and reduced its depth to one-and-a-quarter miles preparatory to a frontal attack on Périers, nine miles north of Coutances.
The American attack got off to a slow start shortly before noon yesterday after 3,000 bombers had blasted a path five miles wide and two miles deep with nearly 6,000 tons of bombs in an unprecedented bombardment.
Germans who survived the rain of steel and explosives laid down heavy artillery and mortar crossfire on the main roads of advance, forcing the Americans to fight cautiously along fields and hedgerows.
Nazis in pocket killed
Other Germans moved into positions abandoned by the Americans just before the aerial bombardment and further slowed up the advance. Several hundred Germans led by a fanatic lieutenant colonel held out in a bypassed pocket until all were killed.
Once the troublesome enemy pockets had been cleared out, the Americans advanced into the no-man’s-land of huge craters, burned-out vehicles and corpse-filled foxholes churned up by the massive aerial bombardment and began to pick up momentum.
Mr. McMillan, with the British 2nd Army, said the battle for May-sur-Orne and Tilly-la-Campagne, on either side of the Caen–Falaise highway, had developed into an artillery and infantry-slogging match.
Occupy ends of villages
Germans and British or Canadian troops occupy opposite ends of May and Tilly, as well as several other embattled villages on an arc five to six miles southeast of Caen, Mr. McMillan said.
Mr. McMillan said:
Using their customary tactics, the Germans have barricaded themselves in houses which have been converted into strongpoints, while anti-tank guns have been posted on streets.
Reports reaching Allied headquarters indicated the German command was gambling everything on containing the Allied beachhead in the Normandy Peninsula after discarding a proposal by Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, former commander in the west, to withdraw behind the Seine and Loire Rivers to take advantage of shorter communications.
