The Falaise Gap

Steel Inferno by Michael Reynolds gives a blow by blow account of the delays in closing the pocket. There's a lot of finger pointing, but in the end if was just poor tactical use of armor by the Canadian/British/Polish forces advancing from the north side.

Kurt Meyer ("Panzermeyer") wrote: "Tanks line up in parade ground formation... intending to break a way though our defense zone. It is a mystery why the Canadians chose such an inflexible battle formation instead of a loose formation affording the opportunity to use the effects of their guns and maneuverability to smash the positions and make a swift and deep advance into the battlefield. ...Precious time is lost as they cross the Laison area since they cannot negotiate the swampy ground in their clumsy battle formations."

The Germans had grabbed all the good defensive positions on high ground, and because many of the allied commanders were using WWI tactics the Germans were able to shoot them to pieces. There were inexplicable delays, sometimes lasting days, in carrying out "immediate" orders from Montgomery. One unit got lost and took the wrong hill and didn't know it for two days. Attempts to relieve and supply them were directed at the correct hill miles away.

On the American side, units were halted at Argentan to avoid "friendly fire." There is finger pointing at both Bradley and Montgomery for that order, but in the end Montgomery had overall control so has to take the blame. I think this is just a case where Monty thought the breakthrough would happen at any moment, and stuck to his original plan.

It was still a great victory, just not as complete as it might have been.

 

"Retreat to the Reich" has the 9th SS Panzer Division as getting out with 3,500 men, 5 tanks/assault guns + a few APCs, and the 10th SS Panzer Division escaping with 6,000 men, 20 Panthers and 40 APCs.

 

According to Russel Weigley, Eberbach's Panzer Group West had just 75 Panzers left when Patton's XV Corps was knocking on the gates of Argentan with US 5th Armored and 90th Infantry and French 2d Armored Divisions.

 

Zetterling gives different figures for both and considerably higher on men. 9th SS started the battle with 16,800 men (excluding the replacement battalion and the Pzjgrs). Not all were in the pocket and his view is they could not have suffered more than 4-5000 losses leaving well over 10,000 alive. Vehicle and equipment losses had been horrendous but states they had 20-25 tanks on the 21/8/44.

10th SS was slightly weaker at about 15,800 including the replacement battalion which did follow it into Normandy. Again Zetterling states that it's casualities were no more than 5,000 leaving again 10,000 men. I believe these figures quoted in "Retreat to the Reich" are taken from the Kampfstarke reports which show the fighting men in the Divisions including tank, SP crews and artillery. The 10th SS report for 14/8/44 showed the combat element alone had 4,136 men.

Neither Division was entirely trapped and 9th SS was involved in counter attacking into the pocket to assist the breakout. The losses in all units are generally in the combat arms and the two Divisions had next to no fighting power but they were far from wiped out.

 

Here's another account of the aftermath, from the Canadian Memory Project (http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories/297:william-hallett-bill-heron/):

Well, being an infantryman, it was terrible. We saw things that you can’t even imagine how bad they were. For example, in one instance [in the Falaise Pocket], because of the thousands of dead bodies, there were 10,000 German dead in the area plus thousands of farm animals ̶ the place was rife with rats. But the news didn’t even mention this because they were afraid of a plague, of course. It was a very hot summer; everything was covered with maggots. You can’t even imagine what kind of a scene it was; it was beyond compare. What they did, it was such a jumbled mess, they sent in bulldozers to clean the roads, shoved all the animals and humans in a heap and then set fire to them, which they had to do to get rid of the rats. It was terrible.

 

Thought it may be of interest here to put in a couple of pics of the actual 'Gap' as it looked three weeks ago today.....



And without the obstruction....

 

Thank you Martin, That is exactly my memory from somewhat more years ago. It is hard to imagine what happened there. So tranquil and beautiful today.

Gaines

 

For German casualties, an old source but an accurate one is David Mason's "Breakout- Drive to the Seine", (Purnells 1968)

Page 143

"In the battle for the Argentan-Falaise pocket, 50,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner, another 10,000 were killed on the battlefield. But large numbers of others escaped. The exact numbers are still obscure and impossible accurately to compute. Estimates have set the figure between 20,000 and 40,000 men, and it is unlikely that any more a precise estimate can ever be made. But the numbers themselves do not tell the whole story. Many of those who escaped were supply and service troops, not elite fighting men. more significantly, they escaped with hardly any of their equipment. Tanks and artillery pieces fired until their ammunition ran out, then were abandoned owing to lack of fuel, while the men who operated them made off on foot. Smaller equipment such as radios, machine guns and supplies were also lost in large quantities."

Obviously the figures for dead are probably slightly higher, due to the sanitary measures described by other posts here. These men would simply have been listed as MIA. Also, with the nature of the fluid fighting situation, both sides would have had no time for administrative pauses to ascertain losses down to the last figure, hence the rounded loss figures are most likely best estimates available at the time,

One thing is certain. The scale of German losses could have been much greater. American commanders, including Patton, raged at the injustice of what they saw as British, and particularly Montgomery's "foot dragging". Omar Bradley wrote ,

"....words to the effect that 'the shocked Third Army looked on helplessly as it's quarry fled' and that Patton 'raged at Montgomery's blunder'. Patton even told Bradley: "Let me go on to Falaise and we'll drive the British back into the sea for another Dunkirk!"

It took a long time for the American commanders to get over Falaise. They were still touchy about it long after the war ended.

 

I am afraid that this was symptomatic of the way that some US Commander to see the British as their competitors or enemy rather than the Germans. There is also a tendency to assume that the British were not pulling their weight, because they were not capturing as much ground as the Americans.

The 3rd army were not "standing helplessly by. They were extendingt the arm fo a wider encircling movement via Chartes that by[passed Paris. I am not convionved that the XIX Corpsd hasd a clear route to the sea on the South bank of the seine. .


This ignores the fact that the Germans had a say. They chose to put their main effort opposing the British and Canadians. They could not risk a breakthrough on the direct route to Paris.

 

The BBC documentary series, "The World At War" featured both sides of the Falaise 'disaggreement'. For the British view, it was said that they were attempting to advance over ground that had been fought over for virtually the entire duration of 'Overlord'. German positions were much more static and hardened, zeroed in with artillery and protected by the fanatics of the 12th SS "Hitler Jugend" Division. To my way of thinking, they definately had the rougher end of the task.

For the Americans, the interviewee, an American commander whose name escapes me, stated quite clearly that British infantry were reluctant to incur casualties, and moved at a much more sedate pace than American units. The experiences of the British Army in the previous war at Passeandeale and the Somme were squarely used as reasons why the British Army was less reluctant to accept casualties in the interest of taking territory. Again, my own view is that American units were advancing over areas that were devoid of prepared positions, with no time for the Germans to 'thicken' their defensive preparations. The lack of fuel in the German supply chain must have affected their mobility as well, rendering many a potential mobile unit into a semi-static role, and eventually forcing abandonment of these assets. In addition, the general situation of the Allied tactical airpower must have interfeared with a mobile German response to a great degree, rendering daylight movements as all but impossible, and forcing night marches with all their attendent confusion and dispersal.

The main point is that the Americans felt strongly that the British could have done far more in the way of "extracting the digit" to use a British Army phrase. The tempers of the Americans must have been at an all time high, after months of attrition in the Bocage, and finally the exultation of "Cobra", culminating in a possible dream encirclement that every Allied commander had no doubt fantasized about for years previous. and then at the very moment it comes to fruition, fully half of the enemy escape out of the loose end of the "Bag"!

No wonder Patton was "angry enough to crack open coconuts with his arse cheeks."

 

Author Carlo De Este, in his biography of Patton, puts the blame squarely on Omar Bradley, citing Bradley's intense dislike of the British General, and tracing the disagreement all the way back to Monty crossing II Corps boundaries in Sicily. Carlo states quite clearly that, had Patton been in charge of 12th Army Group, as he should have been before he wrecked his career over the 'slapping' incidents in Sicily, Patton would have gladly co-operated with Montgomery "to ensure that the remnants of the German Army did not escape."

In short, in Carlo's view, Patton was more angry with Omar Bradley than Monty, for his conception of the campaign was exactly the same as Monty, and the odd man out was, unfortunately, Patton's superior officer. Patton's hands were tied, and Bradley disliked Monty fully enough to "make no effort to find accomodation over the Falaise Gap."

(extracts from Carlo De Este's book "A Genius For War: The Life of General George S. Patton")

 

Just remember, it was BRADLEY's menoirs quoting Patton as having the problem with Monty. This was a wonderful case of wishful thinking on Gen. Bradley's behalf, using Patton's well known temper and dislike of the British way of conducting operations to cover his own disagreements and predjudices against Gen. Montgomery.

Omar Bradley is definately not one of my personal favourites as a leader of men. despite his reputation as a soldiers soldier, every time you look under the surface, Bradley has more in common with Mark Clark than any other U.S. General. Omar's saving grace was his mild personality, something he hid behind to cover his mistakes, or used to contrast and shift the blame to people like Patton who were much better at their chosen craft than he ever was, but just could not shut their mouths and control themselves personaly, as Omar Bradley could.

 

The allegations of "foot dragging" is an undeserved slur on British and Canadian Normandy Veterans and their commanders.

The British and Canadians in 21 AG lost 16138 KIA 58,594 wounded and 9,093 missing for a total of 83,825 casualties out of 829,640 men in Normandy the casualties ratios were 1.95% KIA 7.06% Wounded 1.10% Missing i.e. 10.10% became casualties.

US Forces lost 20,838 KIA 94,881 wounded and 10,128 missing for a total of 125,847 casualties out of 1,222,659 men in Normandy the casualties ratios were 1.70% KIA 7.76% Wounded 0.83% Missing i.e. 10.22% became casualties.

There were more American casualties, because there were more Americans on the ground, but risk of being a casualty was remarkably similar in either army. 10.10% v 10.22% A British or Canadian serviceman had a 10% higher chance of being killed than an American (1.95% v 1.70%), but a 10% lower chance of being wounded (7.06% v 7.76%)

The German figures show what happens to a beaten army. They lost 23,000 KIA 67,000 wounded and 198,616 missing for a total of 335,519 casualties out of 640,000 men in Normandy the casualties ratios were 3.59% KIA 10.47% Wounded 31.03% Missing i.e. 52.42% became casualties.

It is true that the British were more reluctant to take infantry casualties. There were a lot less Brits and Canucks than Yanks. They had already lost a lot of soldiers in five years of war. Montgomery's appointment was a turning point in addressing a criss which was emerging in British morale. There were few infantry reserves. After Normandy formations would be broken up. As in gambling, it is easier to take risks if you have deep pockets.

By British standards, US Commanders were far to willing to risk soldiers lives in risky attacks. The US military command ethos was shaped by the US Civil War where the Union heavy casualties were seen as a necessary part of the learning curve. Ike, Bradley and Patton might have been familiar with the Battle Cry of Freedom with its overtones of defiance after a rebuff, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6G-nVDwuOw

British commanders had lived through the First World War. They knew all too well what happened when soldiers were launched into attacks with insufficient recce or preparation. Brooke, Montgomery, Crerar and Dempsy would have known this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOvXfW9Sl-s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THhLphFJb74


The debate was not as simple as whether or not to surround the Germans (mainly 7th Army) in the Falaise Pocket. There was a wider opportunity to try to encircle the troops in the pocket AND those trying to help them escape (5th Panzer Army by going for a Seine Pocket - which is what they did. About 2/3 of German AFV losses were in the Falaise pocket,. the other third were on the approaches to the Seine. There was a further Mons Pocket which captured C 13,000 Germans in Belgium in the 1st week of September.

During the last half of August the Allies had a lot more to think about than whether they should have captured more men at Falaise, a tactical detail. Operation Overlord had been a stunning success and the Germans far more comprehensively beaten than the planners had expected. For all of the backbiting, the concept of operations had worked and Montgomery, as the appointed land commander for this period was entitled to claim credit for this. After a successful lodgement the Allies had envisaged a pause to build up the allies expeditionary forces to the 100 divisions thought necessary to defeat the Germans in Europe. They had expected the Germans to fall back to the lines of the Loire and Seine. Instead the Germans were on the run back to their border.

This was the context for the broad /narrow front debate, and whether the 35 division advance guard of 12 & 21 AG could with the war in '44. The excellent German book Rueckzug makes the point that in the Allies obsession with territorial objectives meant they missed two other opportunities to eliminate whole armies. Had Patton aimed for the Swiss Borther rather than the Rhine, the German 19th Army might have been encircled and eliminated. Had Dempsey headed North from Antwerp they might have been able to trap and eliminate the 15th Army which was withdrawing along the coast. The Germans could not have manned the Siegfried line without these troops.