General Robert Gro and his sixth armored division were to drive west, bypass resistance, and seize the fortress port of Breast without delay.

Patton gave no consideration to smaller objectives or fortified towns along the way.

That same day, however, orders arrived from above.

Take Britany, yes, but with as few troops as possible.

Patton responded by shifting his 15th and 20th core away from the peninsula, redirecting them east toward Le.

Only Middleton’s eighth core would remain behind to secure the entire Breton Peninsula.

It was a bold gamble, one that would stretch supply lines and test morale.

In his drive for speed, Patton even overruled Middleton himself.

While the eighth core commander had instructed his divisions to first capture Salo on the channel coast, then pivot south toward Don before turning west for the 125m push to breast.

Patton dismissed the plan entirely.

He wanted breast first and fast.

The rest, he insisted, could wait.

Air support was delayed.

American P47 Thunderbolts didn’t arrive over the battlefield until late afternoon on August 1st.

But once they were in the air, they began carving a path through the countryside.

Using Allied intelligence sourced from Ultra Intercepts, the Sixth Armored Division’s two combat commands advanced 45 mi in just 2 days.

German anti-tank guns disguised in haywagons were rooted out and destroyed.

Three dreaded 88 mm flack guns were taken out before they could wreak havoc.

P47 ranged far ahead of the columns, strafing retreating units and shielding the advancing armor.

To avoid friendly fire, American tank crews marked their vehicles with brightly colored panels fixed to the turrets easily visible from above.

Misidentification was a real risk, especially given the speed of the advance and the patchwork of broken German formations still fighting in pockets along the roads.

On August 3rd, the advanced guard of the sixth armored rolled into the town of [ __ ] A platoon came under small arms and cannon fire at the edge of the town.

Rather than pull back, they held their ground and returned fire while the rest of the company flanked north.

Several German machine gun nests were knocked out and by nightfall the defenders had abandoned the town.

The push westward continued.

The next day, Combat Command A reached Pontivy only to find the town’s keybridge had been destroyed.

The advance could have stalled, but Sergeant Malcolm Helton of the 68th Tank Battalion’s reconnaissance platoon began searching the terrain.

Against orders, he pushed forward on foot and located an alternate crossing over both the river and canal.

His initiative kept the momentum alive and for his actions Helton was awarded the Bronze Star.

The column pressed on covering over 60 mi beyond [ __ ] Lieutenant Robert J.

Burns Jr.

writing the official battalion history would later call it one of the most daring, brilliantly led under pressure armored stabs made thus far in the march.

But the closer the Americans came to the western tip of Britany, the harder the resistance became.

At Helggoat, 75 mi east of Breast, the Sixth Armored mets fiercest opposition yet.

Vemached troops equipped with Panzer Fousts ambushed the lead Shermans.

One American tank was hit and set ablaze.

Inside, the crew kept fighting, manning their machine guns even as flames began to rise.

When the heat became unbearable, they bailed out only to find themselves surrounded.

German infantry demanded their surrender.

The tankers refused.

Firing from the hip at close range, they took down several attackers before machine gun bursts killed two of them instantly.

Technician fourth grade Charles E.

Pittcock kept firing his submachine gun until the burning tank behind him exploded, launching his body into a hedro.

Against all odds, he survived.

For their bravery, all three men were awarded the Silver Star.

It was a stark reminder that even in the midst of a collapsing front, the German soldier could still be deadly and determined.

Task Force Daval redeployed to the town of Pluvian, 10 miles north of Breast.

Its reconnaissance platoon had driven German pickets from the outskirts, and the main force rolled in, expecting a quiet night.

But as the Shermans parked up and the infantry began to bivwack, sudden gunfire echoed through the narrow streets.

In the darkness, chaos erupted.

Unbeknownsted to either side, 1,500 men of the German 265th Infantry Division had marched into Pluvian at the very same time.

The two forces collided in the town square.

Captain Raymond Pulk, commanding AEL Company, immediately gathered a section of Sherman tanks and counterattacked.

But the Germans were wellarmed and wellprepared, blocking the American armor with a storm of small arms fire, mortars, and panzer.

Pulk’s attack stalled.

The standoff threatened to become a bloody street battle.

Relying on intelligence reports, Grow ordered Pulk to regroup and maneuver.

A flanking attack was organized.

Sherman’s wheeled against the German right.

While infantry probed from the opposite side overhead, P47 Thunderbolts dived onto enemy columns moving into position.

Realizing they were being enveloped, the Germans pulled out of the town under fire.

For his leadership in the action, Pulk was awarded the Silver Star.

Yet Breast itself remained in German hands.

Patton, impatient, refused to allow Grow to bog his entire division down in a protracted siege.

His orders were blunt.

leave a screening force to hold the Germans inside the city and send the rest of the sixth armored division south to Laurant and beyond.

Breast would wait.

What mattered was a momentum.

Though the fortress still stood, the German forces in Britain’s interior were shattered, no longer capable of mounting a coordinated counterattack against the Allied rear as the main armies pushed east toward Paris.

While Grow turned south, Patton gave Middleton a new assignment.

His task was to contain the powerful German garrison at San Malo, a port city bristling with fortifications.

At first, Middleton had only a single task force of cavalry scouts and tank destroyers.

Reinforcements soon arrived in the form of Major General Robert Makin’s 83rd Infantry Division.

The Germans at S Malo were commanded by Obus Andreas Fonol, a veteran of the Eastern Front who had fought at Stalingrad.

Now with some 12,000 men of the 79th Infantry Division and Fortress troops, he pledged to hold San Malo to the last stone.

Facing him were 20,000 Americans with armor, artillery, and air power at their disposal.

Battle began on August 4th and dragged on for 2 weeks.

Inside the city, the fighting was savage.

Street by street, house by house, American infantry cleared machine gun nests and strong points.

From the air, US fighters and bombers sank two German warships and reduced harbor bunkers to rubble.

The Germans, knowing the port would inevitably fall, set fire to the city, demolished its infrastructure and withdrew to hardened defensive positions outside the walls.

There the true battle began.

The Germans had prepared deep bunkers and camouflaged pillboxes from which they fought with grim determination.

The Americans brought up heavy artillery, pounding every suspected strong point until one by one the defenses collapsed.

By August 17th, the garrison could fight no longer.

Fonok’s men marched out in surrender.

One American infantryman, Private Frank Reichman of the 331st Regiment, remembered the moment vividly.

A platoon of captured Germans started singing farewell to their commander, he recalled.

Most of them were in tears.

Even in defeat, the German soldiers of Samalo had fought with the same fatal resolve that had carried them across a dozen battlefields.

It would take three full American divisions, 75,000 men, to finally force the surrender of Breast on August 25th.

As in San Malo, the Germans fought bitterly to the end.

And when they could hold no longer, they destroyed what they had sworn to defend.

Demolition teams gutted the deepwater port, tearing apart the docks, scuttling ships, and reducing the city to ruins.

Their work was devastatingly effective.

Eisenhower had once envisioned the ports of Britany as vital supply hubs for the Allied advance.

But in the end, they were too far from the front.

Breast was never used by Allied cargo or troop ships.

Kibbron was never built.

Strategically, the bloodshed in Britany had gained little beyond tying down German divisions that might otherwise have fought elsewhere.

While Grow’s sixth armored division was racing toward Breast, Major General John Wood’s fourth armored division was driving hard toward Ren.

Intelligence reports suggested the Germans intended to burn their supply depots there, and Patton pushed Wood to seize the city before the destruction could take place.

In the chaos, Patton nearly created his own disaster.

Mistaking one of Wood’s armored columns for a German force, he ordered General Whan’s strike aircraft to destroy it.

Only the sharp eyes of the lead pilots, who spotted the panels on the Shermans below, averted catastrophe.

Instead of hitting Americans, they raced ahead of the column and destroyed several German 88 mm batteries.

On August 2nd, Woodsmen reached Ren only to find it heavily defended.

Patton ordered the city bypassed and pushed the advance south toward Laurant.

The Germans torched their dumps the next day and pulled out.

A counterattack by 15 German tanks on August 4th was beaten back largely by American fighter bombers swooping in from above.

Wood’s advance never slowed.

On August 5th, his division captured Van on the Bay of Bisque, cutting the last viable escape route for German forces still trapped in Britany.

That same day, Wood drove on Lauron.

The Yubot base there, manned by a large garrison and ringed by bunkers, stopped him cold.

A similar story played out further south at San Nazair, another fortress anchoring the coast.

Instead of battering uselessly against the defenses, Wood turned his attention east.

He requested permission from Middleton to seize Na, the city on the river Luis.

Permission granted, Colonel Bruce Clark’s combat commander raced 80 miles in a single dash.

With the help of French resistance fighters, who guided his columns through German lines, Clark stormed the city.

Within hours, Na, one of France’s largest cities, and a key port at the mouth of the Lir, was in American hands.

By late August, Middleton’s eighth core had accomplished nearly all of its objectives.

The Germans still held out in Laurant and San Nazair, but they were isolated fortresses now, bottled up until the wars end.

With the situation in Britany stabilized, the fourth and sixth armored divisions were freed to rejoin the main army and push east toward Germany.

The campaign in Britany was effectively over.

While Middleton’s core swept Britney clear, the rest of Patton’s third army was already shifting east.

The target was Le Man 110 mi from Avanches.

The advance began with the veterans of the US first infantry division.

Under Major General Clarence Hubner, they captured the town of Mortaine, 20 mi east of Aanches before pushing onward.

Behind them came Hobb’s 30th Infantry Division, which secured Mortaine itself.

East of Morton rose a rugged height called Monoa.

To the gis it was simply hill 314, named for its elevation in meters.

From its crest one could see for miles across the Normandy countryside.

For the Americans it was the perfect observation post.

Soldiers of the second battalion 120th infantry regiment climbed the hill alongside Lieutenant Robert L.

Weiss, an artillery forward observer from the 230th Field Artillery Battalion.

His radios would soon prove more valuable than any rifle.

At the same time, Adolf Hitler was planning a counter strike that he believed could turn the tide of the campaign.

Furious at the Allied breakout from a ranchers, he ordered four Panza divisions into a desperate thrust designed to cut the American advance in half.

If the attack succeeded, Patton’s third army would be severed from Courtney Hodg’s first army.

The allies would be split in two.

Operation Lutic, as the Germans called it, was to be a blow worthy of 1940.

In the early hours of August 7th, the attack began.

26,000 German infantry supported by nearly 300 tanks and assault guns pushed forward through the fog and darkness toward Morta.

To avoid Allied aircraft, the Panzas rolled at night.

But from the very start, things went wrong.

Orders were confused, traffic snalled, and of the six attacking columns, only three moved on time.

The 116th Panza Division assigned the crucial right flank failed to advance at all.

Even so, when the hammer fell, it fell hard.

The heaviest blow struck the American 30th Infantry Division, defending the crossroads at San Bartholomew, just 2 mi north of Mortin.

There, the battlefield became a furnace.

American Shermans and German Panthers fired at one another across hedgerros.

Their shots smashing through stone walls and barns.

GI bazooka teams waited in foxholes firing into the flanks of Panza grenaders as they advanced behind the armor.

It was a storm of steel.

One US veteran recalled, “You couldn’t raise your head without bullets cutting the air.

” For 6 hours, the Americans clung on.

Nearly 40 German panzas were destroyed in the fighting.

At Abbe Blanch, a tiny platoon of 66 men armed with bazookas and rifles stood their ground against an entire SS regiment.

Against all expectation, they forced the Waffan SS back, inflicting shocking casualties.

Elsewhere, American artillery and tank destroyers claimed another 60 tanks, leaving smoking hulks littering the fields.

When the morning fog finally lifted, Allied P47 Thunderbolts swooped down like hawks.

Bombs and rockets fell among the Panza columns.

For the Germans below, it was slaughter.

Yet these were not green troops.

They were the battleh hardardened veterans of the Eastern Front, men who had fought against the Red Army in far worse conditions.

They did not break.

The second Panza division pushed four miles through the northern sector and the second SS Panza division Das Reich drove directly into Morta itself cutting off American defenders and threatening to roll on toward the ranches.

On Hill 314, the battle had become apocalyptic.

Lieutenant Weiss crouched over his radios, began calling fire missions at dawn.

His view was obscured by fog, smoke, and trees.

He adjusted his barges by sound, map coordinates, and desperate guesswork.

“Fire! Keep firing!” he shouted into the handset.

Explosions rippled down the slopes of the hill, tearing into German ranks that clawed their way upward.

The SS and Panza grenaders came in waves, pressing up the eastern and southern approaches simultaneously.

Mortars crashed among the defenders.

The dreaded 88 mm guns hammered the hilltop with direct fire, shattering rocks and men alike.

The defenders clung on.

Surrounded, outnumbered, and exhausted.

They fought from foxholes, calling artillery so close that shells burst inside their own perimeter.

Weiss later admitted that he adjusted fire onto his own command post to break up an SS assault only yards away.

The hill shook with each impact, the Americans pressing their faces into the dirt as the world turned white with dust and shrapnel.

Scribed the carnage.

We had nothing left.

No food, no water, no sleep, only ammunition, and even that we took from the bodies.

Corpses were dragged into rocky cliffs to form makeshift morgs, while the living scavenged the dead for bullets and grenades.

German voices echoed up the slopes, sometimes shouting in English, trying to trick the defenders into exposing themselves.

The fighting was close, personal, and without mercy.

Still the hill held.

Hill 314 became the anvil on which the German counterattack broke.

The second battalion of the 120th Infantry, less than 700 men, had been encircled by thousands of German troops, including elements of the Waffan SS.

For 5 days they resisted.

5 days without proper supplies, without water, under constant shellfire and attack.

5 days in which their stubborn stand prevented the Germans from cutting off the Avanch’s corridor and ultimately doomed Hitler’s counteroffensive to failure.

When the Germans finally withdrew, the ground was soaked in blood.

Of the 670 Americans who had climbed hill 314, nearly 300 were dead or wounded.

The Waffan SS had also bled heavily, their ranks shredded by artillery and air power.

Both sides had fought with ferocity that stunned even veterans of the Eastern Front.

For the Americans, it was survival.

For the Germans, it was duty.

For all, it was hell.

The German advance ground to a halt beneath a storm of American artillery.

From the crest of Hill 314, Lieutenant Robert Weiss and his forward observers called down fire with cold precision.

For hour after hour, shells arked in from batteries miles away, smashing into columns of panzas and waves of panza grenaders trying to move through the fields and lanes below.

White phosphorous shells burst among the hedge, forcing German infantry into the open.

High explosive rounds followed, tearing them apart in clouds of smoke and dirt.

One survivor remembered the sight.

The whole valley was lit up with flame.

Their men ran screaming out of the hedges.

and then another barrage would land.

We didn’t think anyone could live through it.

By nightfall on August 7th, the German attack had stalled.

Despite outnumbering the Americans several times over, the Waffan SS and Panza divisions could not smash through the 6,000 defenders of the US 30th Infantry Division.

Hill 314 had become the keystone of the American defense, and every German assault seemed to break against it.

The next day, August 8th, the punishment only grew worse.

Allied artillery rad positions without pause.

And when the fog lifted, P47 Thunderbolts descended on the fields around Morta, bombing and strafing columns caught in the open.

We must risk everything.

Field marshal Ga Fonluger told his staff grimly, knowing already that the battle was lost.

But Hitler would not allow retreat.

Orders came down from Berlin.

The attack must be renewed no matter the cost.

Fonluga scraped together a new camp grouper under General Hinrich Ababak of the fifth Panza Army.

The Americans at top hill 314 soon learned what that meant.

In the afternoon, a Vaffan SS officer appeared under a flag of truce, climbing up the rocky slopes to deliver an ultimatum.

Surrender the hill or be annihilated.

Lieutenant Ralph Curley listened to the demand in silence, then spat out a string of profanity and sent the officer back down the slope.

Minutes later, the hill was engulfed in fire.

Mortars, 88 mm guns, and artillery rained down in a storm meant to crush the defenders once and for all.

Conditions for the Americans were nightmarish.

Food and water had run out.

Ammunition was scavenged from the dead.

The fallen were dragged into a makeshift morg among the rocks, hidden from sight, but not from smell.

We stacked the bodies in a gully and covered them with blankets, one G, I recalled.

But the stench carried on the wind.

It stayed with you in your clothes, in your mouth.

We fought surrounded by our dead.

Every attempt to resupply the hill failed.

Artillery shells packed with rations burst on impact, scattering food across the rocks.

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