Falaise, 1944

The battle around Falaise in Normandy during August 1944 saw the destruction of the German Seventh army; this title details the chain of events which led to the German retreat and the ensuing liberation of France. The British and American breakout battles had released motorised units to wage a more mobile war against the German static defensive tactics, and at Falaise, the armoured units of US Third Army encircled the German Seventh Army and squeezed them into an ever-smaller cauldron of chaos, crushed against the advancing British Second Army. The results were devastating: those troops able to escape the disaster fled, whilst those who remained were killed or captured and vast quantities of armour and equipment were lost.