D-DAY INVASION (part 3)  Advances into France                                                          

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Despite the German resistance, Allied casualties overall were relatively light. There were 2,500 Americans killed, Britain lost about 1,000 men, and Canada lost 355. Before the day was over, 155,000 Allied troops were now in Normandy. However, the United States managed to get only half of the 14,000 vehicles and a quarter of the 14,500 tons of supplies they intended to be on the shores.

The Germans who were already in Normandy were dug in well enough to survive strafing, rocket, and bombing attacks on their lines. They could move enough men, vehicles, and materiel at night to keep on fighting. Once in Normandy, their mobility was somewhat restored, because they could move along the leaf-covered sunken lanes. The frequently foul weather gave them further respite. Low clouds, drizzle, fog which for the Germans was ideal weather to move reinforcements to the front or to reposition units. And there were more of those days than there were clear days.

There was no terrain in the world that was better suited for the German defensive action than those areas in the immediate areas  of Normandy, France. The hedgerows dated back to Roman times. They were mounds of earth to keep cattle in and to mark boundaries. Typically there was only one entry into the small fields enclosed by the hedgerows, which were irregular in length as well as height and set at odd angles. On the sunken roads the brush often was overhead, giving the GIs a feeling of being trapped in a leafy tunnel. Wherever they looked, the view was blocked by walls of vegetation.

Undertaking an offensive in the hedgerows was risky, costly, time-consuming, fraught with frustration. It was like fighting in a maze. Platoons found themselves completely lost a few minutes after launching an attack. Squads got separated. Just as often, two platoons from the same company could occupy adjacent fields for hours before discovering each other's presence. The small fields limited deployment possibilities; seldom during the first week of battle did a unit as large as a company go into an attack intact.

Where the Americans got lost, the Germans were at home. The 352^nd   Division had been in Normandy for months, training for this battle. Further, the Germans were geniuses at utilizing the fortification possibilities of the hedgerows. In the early days of the battle, many GIs were killed or wounded because they dashed through the opening into a field, just the kind of aggressive tactics they had been taught, only to be cut down by pre-sited machine-gun fire or mortars that caused three quarters of American casualties in that part of Normandy.

Once in Normandy, their mobility was somewhat restored, because they could move along the leaf-covered sunken lanes. The frequently foul weather gave them further respite. Low clouds, drizzle, fog for the Germans, ideal weather to move reinforcements to the front or to reposition units, Allied Airpower could not be decisive alone. The Germans already in Normandy were dug in well enough to survive strafing, rocket, and bombing attacks on their lines. They could move enough men, vehicles, and materiel at night to keep on fighting.

American Army tactical manuals stressed the need for tank-infantry cooperation. But in Normandy, the tankers didn't want to be bog  down on the sunken roads, because of insufficient room to traverse the turret and insufficient visibility to use the long-range firepower of the cannon and machine guns. But staying on the main roads proved impossible because the Germans held the high ground inland and had their 88mm cannon sited to provide long fields of fire along the highways. Nevertheless, the tanks moved along  the lanes, They wanted to get out into the fields. But they couldn't do it When they appeared at the gap leading into a field, German mortar fire, plus antitank weapons disabled them. Often, in fact, it caused them to either explode or start burning. The men in the tankers were discovering that their tanks had a distressing propensity for catching fire.

The tankers tried going over or through the embankments, but the hedgerows were proving to be almost impassable obstacles to the American M4 Sherman tank. Countless attempts were made to break through or climb over, but the Sherman wasn't powerful enough to break through the cement-like base, and when it climbed up the embankment, at the apex it exposed its unarmored belly to German firepower. Further, coordination between tankers and infantry was almost impossible under battle conditions, as they had no easy or reliable way to communicate with one another.

The U.S. First Army had not produced anything approaching a doctrine for offensive action in the hedgerows. It had expended enormous energy to get tanks by the score into Normandy, but it had no doctrine for the role of tanks in the hedgerows. In peacetime, the Army would have dealt with the problem by setting up commissions and boards, experimenting in maneuvers, testing ideas, before establishing a doctrine. But in Normandy at that  time, it was a luxury the Army didn't have. So as the infantry lurched forward in the Cotentin, following frontal assaults straight into the enemy's kill zones, the tankers began experimenting with ways to utilize their tanks beyond  the hedgerows.  The U.S. First Army had not produced anything approaching a doctrine for offensive action in the hedgerows. It had expended enormous energy to get tanks score into Normandy, but it had no doctrine for the role of tanks in the hedgerows. In peacetime, the Army would have dealt with the problem by setting up commissions and boards, experimenting in maneuvers, testing ideas, before establishing a doctrine. But in Normandy time was a luxury the Army didn't have. So as the infantry lurched forward in the Cotentin, following frontal assaults straight into the enemy's kill zones, the tankers began experimenting with ways to utilize their tanks in the hedgerows. They somehow got free of the hedgerows.

The  bulk of the German forces were originally concentrated just to the north of Caen, around Calais. Once these were eventually deployed to counter the Normandy bridge heads Caen became a focus of their attention adding to their already considerable forces defending the area.

British and Canadian armies were to contain the bulk of the German forces concentrated around Calais whilst the US armies captured Cherbourg to provide a functioning deep water port. It took the American almost a month to accomplish their mission allowing the German garrison enough time to destroy the port infrastructure. During this period all the supplies and reinforcements for all the allied armies could only be delivered through the British/Canadian Mullberry harbour because the US Mullberry had not been assembled correctly and had been lost in a storm.

Despite all the problems facing the Allies after the invasion on the Normandy beaches, they persevered and moved through France and other nations in Europe and finally, with the help of the Soviet  military forces fighting in the eastern part  of Germany, the war in Europe came to an end.

The cost in the lives of the Allied soldiers, seamen and flyers was  was a  high price e to pay but it was the consequence of destroying the Nazi regime that plagued Europe for six years.