America in WWII - (Page 30) TRAPwith a GAPby Brian John Murphy or even a mile in a day or two of combat qualified as major victories. The slow progress, little better than a stalemate, continued through June and most of July. The Americans expanded their sector of control to the south and west, approaching the road junctions at the small city of Saint–Lô. The British and Canadians struggled to take Caen, aiming beyond it for the ancient medieval city of Falaise, where William the Conqueror was born. In the latter part of July, an event in Germany changed the way the war would be fought on the German side. On July 20, at Hitler’s eastern front headquarters in East Prussia, a bomb exploded during a conference with the Führer and his top staff officers. Some were killed and others gravely wounded, but Hitler emerged with only a burst eardrum and cuts and bruises. He was able to greet visiting Italian dictator Benito Mussolini later that day and put down a coup d’état engineered by dissident officers in Berlin that night. Hitler’s gratitude for surviving gave way to a deep and violent suspicion of the German army’s professional officers. Hitler believed—not unrealistically—that the aristocratic officer corps to a close, the fighting at Saint–Lô turned in favor of the Americans. Even before the city fell, Bradley was planning the next step, an assault to break the German line west and south of the city. Codenamed Cobra, the plan envisioned using heavy bombers— B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators—to carpet-bomb a narrow corridor of the German front line. Medium bombers and fighter-bombers would also hit the area. Promptly after the air strikes, a heavy concentration of US infantry and armor would assault the narrow front. In all, 15 First Army divisions were earmarked for Cobra. Once a gap had been blown in the German line, some divisions would be diverted to hold the corridor’s flanks. Then, following the vanguard of the First Army, the Third Army, under Patton, would stream through the gap and explode into open country to seize Brittany and its ports. Both US armies would then constitute the 12th Army Group, under Bradley’s overall command. The Cobra air strike got off to a shaky start on July 24 as clouds closed in on the target area. Bradley called off the ground despised him. The brutal but effective Gestapo investigation of the July 20 conspiracy revealed that more than 1,000 high-ranking officers were either aware of the plot or were active participants. One of the officers tangentially involved in the coup attempt was the commander of the western front, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. The former commander of an army group in Russia, Kluge was not entirely happy commanding Army Group B in Normandy. He had the advantage of terrain, but attrition was whittling down his forces, and reinforcements were scarce due to the Fortitude deception. Kluge was also partially cut off from supplies by Allied air power, and this tied his hands. For instance, he could authorize the expenditure of 4,500 artillery shells a day, while the British alone fired 80,000 a day. After July 20, Hitler took greater responsibility for the day-today operations of all major German commands. Kluge could neither attack nor retreat without Hitler’s express permission. Hitler’s standing orders were to yield not an inch of ground and to fight to the last man. It was only with great caution that Kluge would seek to deviate from those orders. Breakout THE FALL OF CHERBOURG allowed Bradley to turn his attention back to the other US First Army front, near Saint–Lô. As July came 30 AMERICA IN WWII OCTOBER 2007 attack and ordered the air missions aborted. Some planes simply remained on the ground, but others, already en route, did not receive the abort order. Heading into the target area from north to south over friendly lines, and finding the German lines obscured by clouds, some groups held onto their bombs. Others released their ordnance. Some of the bombs fell on the German lines, but some fell on Americans, killing or wounding 150 of them. Bradley had expected the bombers would fly parallel to the US lines and had left an air planning meeting for Cobra in England believing that. But the air commanders balked at the parallel path, which would expose their planes to more anti-aircraft fire, and settled on flying perpendicular to the US and German lines. This was explained to Bradley after the July 24 debacle, and he finally accepted the plan, along with the fact that some troops would fall to friendly fire. The next day, minus the element of surprise, the Eighth Air Force heavy bombers and the IX Tactical Air Command’s medium bombers and fighter-bombers took flight and plastered the German front lines. Parts of the American front were bombed, too, and some 500 Americans were wounded and 111 killed. Enough bombs fell on the German lines to turn the assault zone into a cratered moonscape. But the ensuing infantry assault by the First Army’s VII and VIII Corps hit unexpectedly stiff resistance.
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