The Battle of the Falaise Pocket ended the fighting in Normandy with a massive Allied victory, yet it was a victory that should have come sooner and been far more complete. German Army Group B was surrounded and destroyed near Falaise, but the encirclement took eight days longer than necessary, and tens of thousands of Germans slipped through a gap that the Allies failed to seal in time. The question of who was responsible for that failure has fueled debate among historians ever since. Seven weeks after the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the German forces in France were in chaos.
Operation Cobra, launched on July 25, saw American troops push through a gap near Saint-Lô and overwhelm the German defenders. Six days later, the breakout became a full-scale advance when the newly activated U. S. Third Army under General George Patton crossed a bridge at Pontaubault and raced through the Brittany countryside and the Loire Valley.
Driving through open country almost without opposition, Patton’s forces captured Le Mans, the former headquarters of the German Seventh Army, effectively outflanking the entire German position in Normandy. Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, the newly appointed commander of Army Group B, saw little choice but to order an orderly withdrawal to strong defensive positions behind the Seine River. But as he rearranged the divisional flags on his maps at his headquarters in East Prussia, Hitler spotted an opportunity. The Normandy beachhead supplied Patton with every drop of oil and every bullet he used.
Hitler reasoned that a counterattack through Mortain to Avranches, reaching the west coast, would not only reestablish a continuous defensive line but also cut off the logistical tail of Patton’s overextended Third Army. The Wehrmacht could then crush the stranded and immobile American forces to the south at will. Hitler ordered the attack to begin as soon as possible, using eight of the nine Panzer divisions then in Normandy. Pressure from British and Canadian forces around Caen meant that only four Panzer divisions could be relieved from their defensive tasks and moved west to their assembly point near Mortain in time.
Von Kluge argued that his forces were not strong enough for a successful offensive, but Hitler disregarded his objections and insisted on full support for the attack. The problem was that what looked like a powerful force on Hitler’s map bore little resemblance to reality on the ground. After nearly two months of intense combat, the Panzer divisions had been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, and the supporting infantry units were similarly shattered. Almost 300 tanks began what the Allies would call the Mortain Counterattack at midnight on August 7.
There was no preliminary artillery bombardment to alert the American forces. The plan was to strike the U. S. 30th Infantry Division around Mortain and then cut through American defenses to reach the coast.
Although Allied codebreakers at Ultra had intercepted and deciphered the operational plans for the attack, the information arrived at U. S. First Army headquarters too late to alert the troops on the front lines. SS Panzergrenadiers captured Mortain but were unable to penetrate far beyond the town.
The 2nd Panzer Division performed much better in its dawn attack further north, breaking through American lines and reaching within two miles of Avranches before being stopped by the 35th Infantry Division and part of the 3rd Armored Division. Although there was no further prospect of success, the German high command continued the attack for six days, drawing more reserves into the assault despite making no progress beyond the first day’s gains. With the German failure to capture Avranches, Hitler had left his entire left flank vulnerable to attack and encirclement from the south. General Omar Bradley, commander of the U.
S. 12th Army Group, recognized this as an opportunity to capture an estimated 21 German divisions. Bradley proposed that the XV Corps, which had just captured Le Mans, be diverted north toward Alençon instead of continuing east toward the Seine as planned. The corps would proceed northward until it linked up with the opposite flank of a proposed pincer movement, thereby trapping the majority of the German army in Normandy.
Bradley called Montgomery in Eisenhower’s presence to get his approval, and Montgomery accepted. He drew a boundary line just south of Argentan, separating the areas of operation of the British 21st Army Group in the north from Bradley’s American 12th Army Group in the south. As a result, when the XV Corps initiated the pincer movement from the south on August 10, it had twice as much ground to cover as the Second Canadian Corps, which was approaching from the opposite direction. The XV Corps’ advance on Alençon was opposed by elements of the 78th Infantry and 9th Panzer Divisions, but both were depleted and stretched too thin to effectively cover their front.
It took the XV Corps just two days to reach the army group boundary line that Montgomery had drawn. General Haislip, the XV Corps commander, informed Patton that there was no sign of the Canadians and asked for further instructions. Patton instructed him to continue the advance through Argentan onto Falaise in the morning, but to proceed with extreme caution due to intelligence that a powerful enemy force was due to arrive in his sector that night. Montgomery discussed the situation with Bradley and informed him that his Second Canadian Corps had met stiffer than expected opposition, but that within 24 hours he would launch Operation Tractable to smash through German lines and link up with Bradley’s forces.
Montgomery, who valued a tidy battlefield, told him that under no circumstances was the XV Corps to pass the army group boundary line, especially given the latest Ultra intelligence. Bradley was in full agreement with the stop order and informed Patton later that morning that his units must not cross the line. Meanwhile, on the German side, it had become clear that the counterattack had failed. Von Kluge, well aware of the rapidly deteriorating situation, had been pleading with Hitler to allow him to pull his forces back to the relative safety of the Seine.
At his headquarters in East Prussia, Hitler hesitated. After studying his maps and rearranging his flags, he came up with a new plan. He would form a powerful new force called Panzer Group Eberbach to reverse the situation. The new force, comparable in size to a large Panzer corps, had assembled by August 13.
While not as powerful as Hitler anticipated, it was still formidable. Von Kluge was so alarmed by the U. S. XV Corps’ advance into his rear that he redirected this force into their path to prevent his entire army from being surrounded.
It had been Ultra intercepts about the movements of Panzer Group Eberbach that had worried Bradley and Montgomery. By the morning of August 13, when Patton informed Haislip of Bradley’s stop order, patrols from the XV Corps had already bypassed Argentan and were within six miles of Falaise. Seeing a gap that desperately needed to be closed, Patton asked Bradley’s permission to allow Haislip to continue northward. Bradley refused.
When Patton insisted they were wasting a great opportunity, Bradley replied sarcastically that they should not drive the British into the sea for another Dunkirk. After the war, Bradley stated that he much preferred a solid shoulder at Argentan to a broken neck at Falaise. The rationale for why Bradley and Montgomery did not allow Patton to seal the pocket has been debated by historians ever since. With American forces now immobile on the southern arm of the pincer, it fell to the Second Canadian Corps in the north to close the gap and encircle the German army.
On August 14, Montgomery launched Operation Tractable, with the objective of breaking through German lines and advancing through Falaise to link up with the U. S. Third Army. The fanatical 12th SS Panzer Division, whose soldiers were mostly recruited from the Hitler Youth, was the main German unit opposing the operation, supported by the Tiger tanks of the 1st Heavy SS Panzer Battalion.
Montgomery was disappointed with the operation’s slow progress, which failed to capture Falaise on the scheduled date. There were several reasons. The day before the operation was launched, an officer carrying the plans lost his way in the dark and ended up behind enemy lines, giving the Germans access to the plans. Additionally, the fresh 85th Infantry Division had arrived on the front just in time to assist the 12th SS in opposing the Allied attack.
It took until August 17 for the Canadians to finally secure Falaise. By then, von Kluge had been replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model, whose first act was to order the immediate retreat of the German army through the gap between the Canadians at Falaise and the Americans at Argentan. German forces poured eastward through what became known as the Falaise Gap. Montgomery belatedly requested Bradley’s assistance in closing it.
But the U. S. XV Corps could make little progress against stiff opposition, with Panzer Group Eberbach now entrenched to impede its advance, and Bradley had already moved most of his units east to help capture the rest of France rather than leave them idle. The slow progress of the Second Canadian Corps infuriated Montgomery.
On August 17, he gave them a new directive. The 4th Canadian Armored and 1st Polish Armored Divisions would shift their axis of attack, making a broad sweep to the southeast to capture Trun before moving on Chambois to join up with American forces. They made good progress, with Trun falling to the Canadians the next day and the Poles joining up with U. S.
troops at Chambois on August 19. Even though the two armored divisions had now blocked all major roads leading out of the pocket, they did not have enough troops to completely seal it. German troops still inside would have to fight their way out on foot in small groups, abandoning their vehicles and heavy equipment. To keep the escape corridors open for as long as possible, Model ordered the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, which had escaped encirclement, to turn around and attack the Polish positions from outside the pocket.
The escape routes became killing grounds as Allied artillery and fighter-bombers continuously harassed the German columns during their retreat. When the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions advanced to meet the Poles at Chambois on August 21, the Falaise Pocket was finally slammed shut, preventing the remaining German forces from escaping. With its closure, 40,000 Germans were captured, bringing the Battle of Normandy to a close with a crushing German defeat. But because of the lack of urgency in closing the pocket, estimates of the number of Germans who escaped the encirclement range from 50,000 to 100,000.
Since a significant portion of the German army had fled to fight another day, many historians have since criticized Bradley and Montgomery’s handling of the battle, pointing to command failures that allowed a decisive victory to fall short of total annihilation.
