Operation Cobra
the operation Cobra is the code name of the American offensive carried out at the end of July 1944 in the Cotentin during the Bataille of Normandy in order to open the road of the Brittany, and to insert the German lines of defense. The concentration of forces followed by a sudden projection evokes the image of the abrupt relaxation of a snake cobra. The success of this operation, by the opening of Avranches then the skirting of the German lines, makes of it the major turning of the allied offensive in Normandy.
Context
See also: Battle of the Hedges
Nearly one month and half after the unloading of the June 6th, the Americans trample in the Norman Bocage with important losses for a minimum of profits. Hundreds of thousands of men start to saturate space with the head of bridge. It is impossible in Alliés to launch their tanks through fields barred by high hedges and the sunken lanes which mask German anti-tank guns. The ground is favorable to the defensive actions based on the ambush and the knack, whose Germans can skilfully benefit. They use in a judicious way the hedges, the sunken lanes, the marshy zones: they also have an armament adapted to the close combat; several lines of defense take support on the thick hedges and invariably break the successive attacks of the American forces. Some hedges taken with the enemy constitute a spectacular progression for one day of combat. The losses on the side of the Allies are very heavy. American progression, between $the Hague - of-Well and Lessay, cost them 1 000 died with the km and the only capture of the Mount Castrates, 5 000 men. On the commune of Montgardon, close to $the Hague - of-Wells, three meters conquered cost a man the 79e division of American infantry. The soldiers are exhausted the more so as on this end of July of the continual rains end up using the troops and delay any offensive. To assemble a massive attack to make it possible the US army to make irruption in the south more is essential. In a discovered area, it would prove its greater mobility and its numerical superiority.
American forces
It is in VIIe body, ordered by the general Lawton Collins, which the mission is reserved of boring the German face. Six divisions of which two armor-plated are massed on a face of 8 kilometers. The 9th division of infantry and the 30e division of infantry must pass the breach followed by the 1st division of infantry. Armor-plated divisions must be engulfed for ruer on the backs of the Germans.George Patton arrived with IIIe armed American in the Cotentin (For the anecdote, he knows the area of Avranches because its honeymoon led it to the Mount-Saint-Michel). To be freed from the obstacles formed by the hedges, its tanks from now on are equipped with the device “ Hedgecutter ” which has just developed the sergeant Curtiss G. Culin Jr : the armoured tanks smash and cross the hedges with a ridiculous facility. The tanks thus equipped were sometimes called " Rhinocéros".
German units
They are units used by weeks of combat. The reinforcements arrive at the account-drop. A total of 8000 men and approximately about fifty tanks will have to be opposed to the American opening. The panzer Lher, present on the face, suffered much from the last combat. The 2 {{E}} Panzerdivision S, the 17 {{E}} Panzergrenadier S, the 6th regiment of reduced parachutists them also, preserves a moral top however and still constitutes a serious threat.
The opening
The general Omar Bradley, ordering armed 1e, conceives it as follows: an air raid of saturation on a restricted perimeter must destroy any defense and create the breach in which should engulf its units. Its choice was made on a quadrilateral between the villages of Vault-in-To judge It and Hébécrevon, with a few kilometers in the north of the main road uniting Saint-Lo with Périers.
At the beginning of July 1944, the British launched the Opération Goodwood, the best troops German remain in front of the English Canadians. The face is unbalanced: 600 tanks in front of the English against 110 front American forces.
Decided initially for on July 20th, it is pushed back of a few days due to bad weather. A first attempt, the July 24th, turns to the disaster because the allied planes bombard part of the first American lines, killing or wounding 150 men. From 9:40 and during 1 hour, 1.500 B-17 and B-24 plow their targets, supported of 1000 other average bombers and fighter-bombers: the greatest bombardment out of carpet of the Second world war is in hand, 4000 tons of bombs will be released this day there, 60.000 bombs for 12 km of Bocage including 5000 incendiary bombs with the km ². A ramming of the zone will be followed by 1100 pieces of artillery, transforming the scrap-metal into lunar landscape. The commune of the Vault To judge of it is striped chart.
The Panzer Lehr Division of the lieutenant-general Fritz Bayerlein, is pulverized. tanks Panther of 45 tons are raised by the breath of the deflagrations and are thrown out of gear like toys of child. Infantrymen are buried alive in their shelters. In a few hours, 1500 men are out of combat: killed, wounded or strongly commotionnés and majority of the destroyed tanks. The survivors are stupefied or with insane half. As an operational unit, the Panzer Lehr does not exist any more. The afternoon, 9th and 30e American divisions tackle the zone and run up, despite everything, with small pockets of resistance, groups of engagements, a gun and some infantrymen, constitute the principal focuses of resistance. But as of the following day, the American troops occupy the indicated objectives and the general Collins lance 3 columns of armoured tanks in a narrow neck through the German face: First column towards Coutances, second and third column in a mission of side keeps or protection. Between Marigny and Saint-Gilles, the Americans engulf themselves in the breach and sink towards the south. The July 26th, VIIe US body of the general Collins increases by ten kilometers, removing Saint-Gilles then Canisy after having crossed the road going of Coutances to Saint-Lo. In front of the threat of surrounding which is specified, the Germans take down in the night of the 27 with the July 28th 1944. Twenty thousand men of the 84° body escape surrounding. American armor-plated divisions break irremediably towards the south and the west. Lessay and Périers is removed in the course of the day. Coutances is released the 28 by the 4th US armor-plated division of the general Wood . This striking down advance encircled elements in retirement of the 84e German body around the locality of Roncey. Elements of several various units, in spite of an attempt at opening of the American lines are captured, disarmed and generally left on the spot, for lack of time to lead them towards a camp These units will leave behind it enormous quantities of materials: pieces of artillery, self-propelled guns, trucks, etc Von Choltitz, ordering 84e German body, vainly tries to reconstitute new lines of defense, become null and void before to have even been able to be built. Nothing from now on can stop the Americans any more.
The July 30th, the 6th armor-plated division US of the general Grow crosses Bréhal and exceeds Granville without stopping. The evening even, Wood, always sinking points some, seizes Avranches. As of the following day, it succeeds in taking intact the bridge of Pontaubault, on the Sélune, way of passage of the most strategic interest towards the Brittany. The offensive destroyed the manpower of 8 German divisions: 28.000 men were made prisoners in July 1944 including 20.000 during the first 6 days of the operation Cobra , 12.000 men were killed. However, from 15 to 20.000 men will succeed in folding up in the south east of the His. In less than one week, the troops of Bradley carried out an opening of 60 kilometers.
The battle brutally has just changed face. The rupture is made and the war of attrition then yields the place to a mobile warfare.
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