Battle for Brest
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This article is about the Second World War battle for Brest. For other conflicts named the battle of Brest see the disambiguation page.
| Battle for Brest | |||||||
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| Part of World War II, Battle of Normandy | |||||||
 A US Tank Destroyer in the streets of Brest in September 1944 |
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Allied Powers |  Germany |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Troy H. Middleton US VII Corps Commander | Bernhard-Hermann Ramcke Fortress Brest Commander | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| N/A | N/A | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| N/A | N/A | ||||||
| Battle of Normandy |
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| Sword – Juno – Gold – Omaha – Utah – Pointe du Hoc – Brécourt Manor – Chicago – Villers-Bocage – Cherbourg – Epsom – Goodwood – Atlantic – Spring – Cobra – Bluecoat – Lüttich – Totalise – Tractable – Falaise – Brest – Paris |
The Battle for Brest was one of the fiercest battles fought during Operation Cobra, the Allied breakout of Normandy which began on 27 July 1944, during the Battle of Normandy during World War II.
Part of the Allied plan for the invasion of mainland Europe called for the capture of port facilities, in order to ensure the timely delivery of the enormous amount of war material required to supply the invading Allied forces (ten of thousands of tons a day of food, ammunition, equipment etc). The main port the Allied forces hoped to seize and put into their service was Brest, in nortwestern France.
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[edit] The ports issue
Early in the war, after the Fall of France in 1940, the Americans began planning an eventual "Invasion of Western Europe" to be put into effect when and if they joined the war. Troops would be moved from US to England (as long as the United Kingdom was still in the war) until an invasion could be mounted into the continent. A major issue was of course how to supply the invasion army with the tens of thousands of tons of materièl it would need after it landed. The capture of ports in the European Atlantic coast was a necessity, and the most suitable ones were clear invasion objectives. The capture of these port facilities was deemed crucial, because the lack of supplies could be foreseen by the Allies. For the initial phase of the battle, large artificial ports (Mulberry Harbours) would be erected by the beaches, but they had limited tonnage unloading capabilities, and were considered just as a contingency until real ports could be captured and put into service.
Good ports could be found along the northern part of France, in particular the port of Brest in Brittany, traditionally the main French Fleet harbour in the north and the westernmost port in France. The Allied strategists considered possible that, after its capture, supplies could arrive directly from the US to Brest, bypassing England and reaching the Allied Armies moving east, towards Germany, much faster.
Other ports in the Britanny area included Saint Malo, Lorient, and Saint Nazaire. In Normandy, Cherbourg and Le Havre were the major ports. Operation Sledgehammer, the capture of Cherbourg, had been considered by the Allies, but it was cancelled after the disastrous 1942 Dieppe Raid.
The Germans, realizing this, however, began building fortifications around these ports earlier in the war through their TODT Organization, as part of the Atlantic Wall concept. Some of these ports were major U-Boat bases as well, and had bomb-proof concrete sub pens built. These fortifications could not be destroyed easily by air power or naval guns.
[edit] Prelude
Soon after Normandy was invaded, the Mulberries were towed from England and deployed in the French coast. Unfortunately for the Allies, one of them was destroyed after less than two weeks in a storm. Supplies were then mainly landed directly via the beaches, but this process is not as efficient.
Cherbourg, at the tip of the Contentin Peninsula in Normandy, was captured by the Americans which landed in Utah Beach, but before surrendering the German garrison destroyed its ports facilities. It was so far the only major port in the Allied invasion area.
Soon after, the Britanny peninsula was isolated by a north-south breakthrough accomplished by George S. Patton's US Third Army during Operation Cobra, and an army corps was diverted into Britanny to capture Brest and secure the northern flank of the breakthrough.
Wehrmacht troops trapped in Brittany quickly retreated to the fortified ports in the peninsula as US Third Army troops moved in and surrounded them. The old fortress city of Saint Malo was taken by U.S. 83rd Infantry Division ("Ohio"), but its small port facilities were sabotaged by the defenders. It was clear that the Germans would deny the Allies the use of French ports as long as possible, by defending the fortresses built around them and damaging the docks as much as possible.
[edit] The Battle
Brest was surrounded and eventually stormed by the U.S. VIII Corps. The fight proved extremely difficult, as the German garrison was well entrenched and partially made up of elite Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) forces.
The German paratroopers lived up to their reputation, as the Allies had experienced previously in battles such as Monte Cassino. Whilst some less capable units surrended quite easily, the Fallschirmjäger defended their ground under considerable odds, heavy shelling, air strikes and American assaults. The Americans had heavy losses for every small advance they made into the city.
As per their military doctrine, the Americans tried to use their superior artillery firepower and air superiority to overcome the defenders, instead of fighting them hand-to-hand. The result was that Brest was razed to the ground during the battle. Only some old medieval stone-built fortifications were left standing.
Luftwaffe General Ramcke, a paratroop veteran of Afrika Korps, surrendered the city in September 1944 to the Americans after rendering useless the port facilities. These would not be repaired in time to help the war effort as it was hoped.
The costly capture of Brest resulted in the decision to only surround the remaining German-occupied ports in France with the exception of those that could be captured from the march, instead of storming them in a set-piece battle, except Le Havre, which was taken by the British 2nd Army in August 1944. Some of these small ports surrendered only by May 9th, 1945.
[edit] Aftermath
The whole Overlord campaign developed somewhat differently than originally planned. Patton's US Third Army quick advance allowed the Liberation of Paris earlier than expected, but by September 1944 the supplies were already faltering. Decision was made to favour the British forces under Sir Bernard Law Montgomery by reducing the supplies to other forces, including Patton's. The disastrous Operation Market-Garden launched by Montgomery soon after resulted in the Allies rapid advance to stall and allowed the Germans to reorganize and even to counterattack (Operation Wacht am Rhein). By then, however, the port of Antwerp in Belgium was supplying the Allies.
[edit] Considerations
If supplies enough could have been delivered through intact French ports to both British and Americans, the Allies could have invaded the industrialized Western part of Germany before the winter of 1944-45, bringing the Third Reich to a collapse. On the other hand, further developments in WWII indicated that the logistics of carrying supplies across France by land was also a great obstacle, due to lack of enough trucks and the destruction of the railroad network. The considerable delay in the invasion of Europe (postponed from 1943 to 1944 due to the lack of LCT's) allowed the Germans extra time to have their coastal defenses, the Atlantic Wall, reinforced. The ports fortifications made the reality the soldiers found around them much different in 1944 than the one the planners foresaw back in 1942, when they believed these ports could be captured relatively intact and used to their purposes.
[edit] Trivia
Some accounts have it that General Ramcke asked the American brigadier general which arrived to accept his surrender to show his credentials. The American general, Charles Draper William Canham, then pointed to his nearby troops and said "These are my credentials".
[edit] Further reading
- Dobler, Michael 'Closing with the enemy', which contains a study of combat in Brest
- Kuby, E. 'Nur noch rauchende Trümmer' (German - the author was an enlisted soldier in Brest)
- Buchheim, L.G. 'Die Festung' (literary treatment of the author's experiences as a German war reporter during the battle for France)
