Liberation of Paris 1944: Patton's race for the Seine

100 Pages·20.544 MB·English

by  Steven J. Zaloga

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CAMPAIGN • 194 Accounts of history’s greatest conflicts, detailing the command
strategies, tactics and battle experiences of the opposing
LIBERATION
forces throughout the crucial stages of each campaign
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OF PARIS 1944 Patton’s race for the Seine
Patton’s race for the Seine
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way in and joined up with them to liberate it on August 24.
Full color battlescenes Illustrations 3-dimensional ‘bird’s-eye-views’ Maps
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ISBN 978-1-84603-246-2 T
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OSPREY 5 1 9 9 5 VE
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PUBLISHING J
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WWW.OSPREYPUBLISHING.COM SP STEVEN J ZALOGA ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD GERRARD
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© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
STEVEN J ZALOGA was born in 1952, received his BA in history from Union
College, and his MA from Columbia University. He has published numerous
books and articles dealing with modern military technology, especially
armored vehicle development. His main area of interest is the US Army
of World War II, as well as Russia and the former Soviet Union.
HOWARD GERRARD studied at the Wallasey School of Art and has been
a freelance designer and illustrator for over 20 years. He has worked for a
number of publishers and is an associate member of the Guild of Aviation
Artists. He has won both the Society of British Aerospace Companies Award
and the Wilkinson Sword Trophy and has illustrated a number of books for
Osprey. Howard lives and works in Kent.
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LIBERATION
OF PARIS 1944
Patton’s race for the Seine
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CAMPAIGN • 194
LIBERATION
OF PARIS 1944
Patton’s race for the Seine
STEVEN J ZALOGA ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD GERRARD
Series editorsMarcus Cowper and Nikolai Bogdanovic
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Osprey Publishing, AUTHOR’S NOTE
Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 0PH, UK
The author would like to thank Paul Cardin, Xavier Lena and Yvan Garnier
443 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, USA
for helping to track down the precise locations of several of the historical
E-mail: [email protected]
photos used in this book.
© 2008 Osprey Publishing Ltd GLOSSARY
AOK 1 Armee Oberkommando 1, the headquarters of the German
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private First Army
study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, COMAC Comité d’Action Militaire, Military Action Committee, the
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be military command of the CNR
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form CNR Conseil National de la Résistance, Committee of National
or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, Resistance, the governing body of the French resistance
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission FFI Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, French Forces of the Interior,
of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers. the French resistance army in France
FK Feldkommandantur, field commands of the German occupation
forces usually made up of military police and security units
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
FTP Francs-Tireurs et Partisans: the French Communist armed
resistance group
Print ISBN: 978 1 84603 246 2 GT Groupements tactiques, the French equivalent of US Army
combat commands in armored divisions
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GTL The groupement tactiqueof the 2e DB under Colonel Langlade
Editorial by Ilios Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK (www.iliospublishing.com) GTV The groupement tactiqueof the 2e DB under Colonel Bilotte
Page layout by The Black Spot OB West Oberbefehlshaber West, the German Army’s Western Front
Index by Auriol Griffith-Jones high command
Typeset in Sabon and Myriad Pro OSS Office of Special Services, the US equivalent of the British SOE
Maps by The Map Studio Ltd and precursor of the CIA.
3D bird’s-eye views by The Black Spot PCF Parti Communiste Français, French Communist Party
Originated by PPS Grasmere Ltd., Leeds
RBFM Régiment Blindé de Fusiliers Marins, Armored Regiment of
Printed in China through Worldprint Naval Riflemen, the tank destroyer battalion of the 2e DB
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ARTIST’S NOTE
Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 7
The strategic situation
OPPOSING COMMANDERS 11
Wehrmacht Free French forces (cid:129) US Army
OPPOSING PLANS 18
German plans US plans (cid:129) French plans
OPPOSING FORCES 25
German Army US Army French Army French resistance
THE CAMPAIGN 35
Race for the Seine A simmering Paris summer The revolt begins
A change of plans To the barricades! The advance of the 2e Division Blindée
Liberating Paris Consecration The German reaction
AFTERMATH 88
THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY 91
FURTHER READING 93
INDEX 95
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INTRODUCTION
“History has shown that the loss of Paris always means the fall of the whole
of France.” Adolf Hitler’s remark provides a trenchant forecast of the fate of
the Wehrmacht in France in the last two weeks of August 1944. Paris itself
was neither a major Allied objective nor a major German strongpoint. The US
Army planned to skirt around the city, isolating it without the need for a
frontal assault to await its eventual surrender. The Wehrmacht, frantic for
troops after its heavy summer losses, defended the city with a skeleton force.
Instead, the liberation of Paris was initiated by the citizens of Paris; not
an entirely spontaneous effort, but one that had little formal military
preparation. The uprising in Paris in August 1944 might have ended in
tragedy as befell Warsaw that same month. The fate of Paris rested heavily
on the decisions of the German commander of Paris, General der Infanterie
Dietrich von Choltitz, who had been ordered by Hitler to raze the city to the
ground. Prompt Allied action and Choltitz’ unwillingness to destroy one of
Europe’s great cities avoided a major battle for Paris. Rather than causing
the end of the German occupation in France, the liberation of Paris was a
symbolic conclusion to the collapse of the Wehrmacht in France in the last
two weeks of August 1944.
THE STRATEGIC SITUATION
By the middle of August 1944, the situation of the Wehrmacht in France
was dire. Although the German Army had managed to hold back the British
attacks around Caen and the US attacks toward St. Lô in lower Normandy
for nearly two months, the attrition of the June and July fighting took a
severe toll on the German Seventh Army. On July 20, 1944, German officers
attempted to kill Hitler at his headquarters in East Prussia. Although the
bomb plot failed, it left Hitler physically weakened for several weeks, and
OPPOSITE
deeply suspicious of the loyalty of the senior army leadership. Under these Paris was spared from combat
circumstances, he seized control over most key battlefield decisions, which until 1944, except for Allied
only hastened the impending doom of the German Seventh Army. bombing raids on factories and
rail yards in the city's periphery.
When the US Army launched Operation Cobra on July 24, 1944, the
These B-17 heavy bombers
brittle German defenses were shattered. The US Army had secretly added a
of the US Army Air Force's
second contingent to its forces in France, Patton’s Third Army, which was 95th Bomb Group, 3rd Bomb
specifically intended to accelerate the breakthrough. Patton’s objective was to Division, are seen as they
retire from a strike against
advance rapidly westward into Brittany to seize additional ports such as Brest.
the Renault-Caudron factory
In one of the fastest armored advances of the war, US tank columns charged
on the outskirts of the city
toward the Breton ports at Quiberon Bay and Brest against minimal German in 1943. (NARA)
7
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RIGHT
In a scene typical of the fighting
in the last two weeks of August,
an M4A1 (76mm) tank races
past a derelict German
motorized column. The
weakness of the Wehrmacht
in the Paris–Orléans gap and
the mobility of the US Army
overwhelmed the defenses
in front of Paris. (NARA)
BELOW RIGHT
US troops of the 80th Infantry
Division enter Argentan on
August 20, 1944. Bradley’s
decision to halt the US
advance into the Falaise
corridor at Argentan has
remained the source of
controversy. (NARA)
resistance. Hitler saw Patton’s extended lines as a sign of weakness and as
a potential opportunity for a reversal of German fortunes in Normandy. He
ordered the Seventh Army to muster its dwindling Panzer force and direct
it in a violent counterattack, Operation Lüttich, to cut off Patton’s forces by
pushing to the sea near Avranches. The plan was hopeless from the outset as
the Panzer forces did not have the mobility to concentrate in the Avranches
sector rapidly enough and, as a result, were obliged to conduct the attack
starting on August 7 in a premature and disjointed fashion. US infantry
stopped the attack almost immediately around Mortain. While German losses
were not especially high, the diversion of the Panzer forces from the Caen
sector enabled Montgomery’s 21st Army Group to begin to roll up German
defenses and to threaten a major envelopment of the Seventh Army around
8
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