Battle of the hedges

The battles of the Hedges is the name given to a phase of the Bataille of Normandy which mainly implied the American army vis-a-vis the Germans, of the June 13rd, a few days after the unloading, until the July 24th 1944 and the beginning of the opening of Avranches. This battle proceeded in the Norman scrap-metal marked by its innumerable hedges from where the name which the historians will give him.

Vis-a-vis the blocking of the situation in the east of the face and impossibility for the Anglo-Canadian troops of taking Caen (see Battle of Caen), the allied troops, mainly American, are seen obliged to progress to south-west in a zone of Bocage, a zone very favorable to the defense and of which more tested German troops can profit.

Of an operational point of life, this succession of meadows and hedges prevent the alignment of the American face of attack and facilitate the catches of side. From a tactical point of view, each hedge presents a new cutting off to be conquered, exposing to the blows of the defenders the infantry and the combined armoured tanks with short range of shooting a such succession of ambushes. However the American staff had not envisaged to dispute intense combat in this zone and underestimated the difficulties of the configuration of the ground making difficult any movement of tanks as well as the progression of the men with little visibility.

They support the German defensive positions and their camouflage. The troops of the Wehrmacht to which the Allies must face are tested than the troops which stationed on the coasts of the unloading. In particular the Fallschirmjäger which can benefit from these small meadows enclosed by slopes and high hedges. They are camouflaged there easily making supremacy air allied less determining and not very effective American artillery. The Germans practice a tactic where each defensive point of pre can support that of pre of at side.

The allied armoured tanks cannot progress on this ground, the roads are narrow and bordered of high hedges or the tanks are exposed to the shootings of German artillery. And when they manage to cross the hedges, the operation discovers the lower part of the tank, not armor-plated, for the shootings of Panzerschreck S (the equivalent of the American bazooka S) embusqués German soldiers. The battle of the hedges is a war of infantry which can be brought closer by certain to her aspects to a war to jungle.

The American projection is very slow and very expensive in human lives. Sometimes one needs several tens of dead combined to take pre or a hedge. 7.000 GI are killed or wounded to release the simple borough of Sainteny, between Carentan and Périers. 10.000 others will undergo the same fate to take $the Hague - of-Well on July 8th then Lessay one week later whereas this city is distant only of 8 km. The moral one of the American troops is reached in this war of attrition where a hedge taken with difficulty resembles the preceding hedge terribly. At the beginning of July, the Americans lose 1 man per meter of progression of the frontline! The losses will be even more terrible to take the town of Saint-Lo, bitterly defended by a regiment German parachutist since the hills in the north of the city. July will undoubtedly be the most difficult month for the Allies on the face of the West. According to their plans, in D+60 (60 days after the unloading) they would have already to release Brittany and to have reached the the Loire whereas they are blocked in the north of a Caen-Saint-Lô line, having progressed only of a few kilometers in addition to 3 weeks. The American staff is anxious. This rate/rhythm, they will have to deliver one month of additional combat to reach Coutances.

In order to allow an armor-plated accompaniment of the troops, US Army sought solutions to easily bore the hedges by the tanks. Some will be equipped with bases of plow welded with before directly turning over the ground under the hedges. The best solutions will be to use guns large gauge to pulverize the hedges to be crossed. Once crossed, the tanks will not advance any more in the meadows and will support the remote infantry while it goes up each with dimensions one to attack the following hedge.

But the Allies will leave this trap only with the launching of the Opération Cobra and the boring of the German lines with a new tactic defined by the general Bradley known as of the " carpet of bombes". July 25th, 1.500 bombers saturate with bombs a narrow corridor of a few kilometers only between the villages of Vault-in-To judge It and Hébécrevon, in the north of the main road uniting Saint-Lo with Coutances, in order to destroy any German defense and to create the breach in which will engulf the American armies, marking the end of the war of the hedges. The German troops, worn they also by 2 months of engagements and manpower lack will not be able to quickly reconstitute a line of defense, allowing the opening of Avranches and a mobile warfare more favorable to the Allies.

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