The denouement of the battle of Normandy, the fighting around Falaise
and Chambois in August 1944 and the pursuit of the retreating German
armies to the Seine provided the Allies with an immense victory. After
ten weeks of hard attritional fighting, the Allies had broken loose from
the bocage and the Germans' deep defenses around Caen: by the end of
September they would be close to the German border.
As US First Army and British Second Army squeezed the western and
northern edges of the German salient, so Third Army rushed headlong
eastwards and then north to create the lower of two pincers--the other
formed as the Canadian First Army and the Polish 1st Armored Division
pushed south of Caen. As could be expected, the Germans did not simply
give up: they fought furiously to keep the pincers from closing. When
they did, attacks from inside the pocket to break out and outside the
pocket to break in led to fierce fighting between Chambois and Argentan.
When the dust settled, between 80,000 and 100,000 troops had been
trapped by the Allied encirclement. Estimates vary considerably, but it
seems safe to say that at least 10,000 of the German forces were killed
and around 50,000 became PoWs. The rest, however, escaped, but without
most of their equipment, destroyed in the battle or abandoned in the
retreat over the Seine. Those that did escape were subsequently to
reform, rearm and conduct an effective defense into late 1944.
The Past & Present Series reconstructs historical battles by using
photography, juxtaposing modern views with those of the past together
with concise explanatory text. It shows how much infrastructure has
remained and how much such as outfits, uniforms, and ephemera has
changed, providing a coherent link between now and then.
