Download or read book Operation Totalize 1944 written by Stephen A. Hart and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Operation Totalize, Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds' II Canadian Corps launched an attack from its positions along the Bourguébus Ridge south of Caen, striking south-southeast astride the main Caen–Falaise road toward the high ground that dominated the town of Falaise and the key west-east lateral road that ran through this town. Using sophisticated operational art the initial break-in achieved rapid success; indeed, more tactical success than any previous Allied break-in attack in Normandy. However, despite this rapid initial success, Totalize did not subsequently secure a decisive operational-level victory. Indeed, Simonds' forces subsequently struggled swiftly to complete the second break-in battle, and to transit into rapid exploitation operations. Had Simond's force been successful the German army may not have been able to extract themselves from the Falaise pocket and would have been surrounded and defeated – possibly bringing about the early end of the war in Europe.
Download or read book No Holding Back written by Brian A. Reid and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2009-06-15 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landmark study of the Canadians' first major operation in Normandy New revelations on the death of German panzer ace Michael Wittmann Handsomely illustrated with maps, photos, and diagrams On August 8, 1944, the Canadian Army launched Operation Totalize, a massive armored and mechanized infantry attack that aimed to break through enemy defenses south of Caen and trap the German Army in Normandy by linking up with Patton's Third Army.
Download or read book Operation Totalize written by Tim Saunders and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By early August 1944 the Germans fighting in Normandy had been worn down by the battles around Caen, while to the west, the American breakout was finally gaining momentum. Now was the time to launch II Canadian Corps south towards Falaise. With much of the German armour having been stripped away for the Mortain Counter-Attack, hopes ran high that the Corps, reinforced with British tanks, the 51st Highland and the Polish Armoured Divisions, would repeat the success of their predecessors in the Battle of Amiens. An innovative change of tactics to a night armoured assault and the conversion of seventy-two self-propelled guns to armoured personnel carriers for the accompanying infantry was very successful, but up against their implacable foes, 12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division, the pause for bombing allowed Kurt ‘Panzer’ Meyer to deploy his division. Consequently, when the 4th Canadian and Polish Armoured Divisions were launched into their first battle they made frustratingly little progress. As the Canadians advanced over the following days, the battle degenerated into a costly fight for ground as the Hitlerjugend struggled to contain the inexperienced Poles and Canadians. Operation Totalize is renowned for the death of SS panzer Ace Michael Wittmann at the hands of Trooper Joe Ekins and the destruction of Worthington Force, the result of a navigational error.
Download or read book Fighting the People s War written by Jonathan Fennell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 967 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.
Download or read book Tank Tactics written by Roman Jarymowycz and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2008-12-17 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the doctrinal, strategic, and tactical ideas behind World War II tank combat Contains detailed maps and diagrams Critiques the performances of commanders like George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and others Focusing on five Allied tank operations from July to September 1944--Operations Goodwood, Cobra, Totalize, and Tractable and Patton's tank battles around Arracourt--armor expert Roman Jarymowycz draws on after-action reports, extensive battlefield reconnaissance, recently discovered battle performance reviews, and war diaries to evaluate the successes and failures of the art of armored warfare as practiced by Allied tank commanders in France in 1944.
Download or read book Bloody Battle for Tilly written by Ken Tout and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fierce battle to capture the French village of Tilly-la-Campagne was an exceptionally bloody episode in the story of the allied breakout from Normandy in the summer of 1944. Small Allied infantry units faced an almost impossible mission, hampered by the proximity of the elite German 1st SS Panzer Division and ‘friendly fire’ from the erratic USAAF bombing raids. If that was not enough, appalling tactical errors by Allied commanders resulted in infantry attacks which were as costly pro rata as the losses suffered on the first day of the Somme. Drawing on vivid eyewitness accounts and the recollections of many who were there in 1944, Ken Tout’s masterly portrayal of the bloody battle is a fitting tribute to the British and Canadian youth, who fought, and the many who died, during the breakout from Normandy in the last summer of the war in Europe. Kent Tout, PhD, served as an NCO with the 1st Northants Yeomanry during the Second World War, fighting in Sherman tanks and saw action at Operation 'Totalize'. He now lives in West Sussex.
Download or read book The Pendulum of Battle written by Christopher Dunphie and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2004-03-19 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the World War II clash between British and German forces, “the largest tank battle involving British armor ever fought” (MQ Magazine). Operation Goodwood, the largest tank battle involving British troops ever to have taken place, has been a perpetual subject of controversy. Was it intended as a breakout from the Normandy Bridgehead, or not? Was it a success or failure? Did it lead to a severe crisis in confidence over Field Marshal Montgomery’s leadership? This book seeks to unearth the true background, reasons, aims and achievement of Goodwood, set in the context of the overall campaign, while bringing the battle to life through personal accounts of some of those involved, both British and German. “This well-informed account provides an excellent balance between the strategy and tactics . . . Even in a year which is seeing an unprecedented number of books on the Second World War, Pendulum of Battle deserves to be read. It is a serious, yet highly readable study of warfare and can be warmly recommended.” —MQ Magazine
Download or read book The Falaise Pocket written by Yves Buffetaut and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This WWII military history explores the dramatic turning point of the Battle of Normandy—illustrated throughout with archival photos and maps. On June 6th, 1944, the Allied forces embarked on Operation Overlord with the first wave of Normandy landings. But it wasn’t until August of that year that the tide of the battle—and the entire war—began to turn. The decisive moment came at the Battle of the Falaise Pocket. The German Army had managed to hold back the Allies for months, but its resources were running out, and the Allies ruled the skies. As the Allies began to push South and East, Hitler refused to permit Field Marshal von Kluge, the commander of Army Group B, to withdraw. General Montgomery ordered the Allied armies to converge on the Falaise area on August 8th, and by August 21st they had some 50,000 Germans surrounded. While many German soldiers did escape the encirclement, the losses were catastrophic. By the end of the month, Army Group B had retreated across the Seine, ending the battle of Normandy. This illustrated account examines the battle from the failed offensive at Mortain, looking at both German and Allied perspectives, using maps, diagrams and profiles to complete the story.
Download or read book Goodwood written by Ian Daglish and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive retelling of the controversial British and Canadian operation near Caen Told from both the British and German perspectives Heavily illustrated with maps and photos, including detailed aerial reconnaissance photos taken during the battle While American infantry slogged its way through the hedgerows of western Normandy in July 1944, the British were waging a largely armored campaign to the east near Caen. Planned to have been seized on D-Day, Caen remained contested on July 18, when Bernard Montgomery launched Operation Goodwood, whose exact purpose is still debated--either to draw Germans away from the American sector or to break out to Falaise. In one of the largest armored battles in their history, the British lost almost one-third of their tank strength in Normandy in exchange for a gain of only seven miles.
Download or read book Waffen SS Armour in Normandy written by Norbert Számvéber and published by Helion. This book was released on 2018-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Waffen-SS Armour in Normandy presents the combat history of SS-Panzer Regiment 12 and SS-Panzerjäger Abteilung 12 in the Battle for France from June to the end of August 1944 based on transcriptions of their original unit war diaries from the Military History Archives in Prague. Both armored units belonged to the 12.SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. SS-Panzer Regiment 12 was fully equipped with Panzer IV and Panther tanks. The main AFV of SS-Panzerjäger Abteilung 12 was the Jagdpanzer IV L/48 tank destroyer. The structure of the volume is partly source publication (documents of SS-Panzer Regiment 12) and partly study (the deployment of SS-Panzerjäger Abteilung 12). The text was written and footnoted by the author based upon original wartime files in Prague that have remained almost unknown. The book starts with the story of the units' establishment and training in 1943/1944, including, for example, the shipments of equipment, orders of battle and tactical numbers of the tanks. After this introduction, a highly detailed daily chronology of the combat actions is provided, from 12.SS-Panzer Division traveling to the Caen sector to Operation Totalize and the withdrawal to the Seine River. Documents from SS-Panzer Regiment 12 presented in the book include the following: combat reports, list of knocked-out enemy tanks, German personnel and tank losses, combat orders, summary of acquired combat experiences and others. This is an impressive look at tactical-level events and command decisions, highlighting the armored combat tactics that were able to stop Montgomery's Army Group from breaking through the German lines near Caen for two months. The study includes a number of detailed maps and excellent photos. In addition, the book has benefited from the contribution of rare information, photographs and documents from the archive of noted Waffen-SS historian Mark C. Yerger.
Download or read book Fields of Fire written by Terry Copp and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Fields of Fire, Terry Copp challenges the conventional view that the Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy was a “failure” – that the allies won only through the use of brute force, and that the Canadian soldiers and commanding officers were essentially incompetent. His detailed and impeccably researched analysis of what actually happened on the battlefield portrays a flexible, innovative army that made a major, and successful, contribution to the defeat of the German forces in just seventy-six days. Challenging both existing interpretations of the campaign and current approaches to military history, Copp examines the Battle of Normandy, tracking the soldiers over the battlefield terrain and providing an account of each operation carried out by the Canadian army. In so doing, he illustrates the valour, skill, and commitment of the Allied citizen-soldier in the face of a well-entrenched and well-equipped enemy army. This new edition of Copp’s best-selling, award-winning history includes a new introduction that examines the strategic background of the Battle of Normandy.
Download or read book The Normandy Campaign 1944 written by John Buckley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-07-29 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With essays from leading names in military history, this new book re-examines the crucial issues and debates of the D-Day campaign. It tackles a range of core topics, placing them in their current historiographical context, to present new and sometimes revisionist interpretations of key issues, such as the image of the Allied armies compared with the Germans, the role of air power, and the lessons learned by the military from their operations. As the Second World War is increasingly becoming a field of revisionism, this book sits squarely within growing debates, shedding new light on topics and bringing current thinking from our leading military and strategic historians to a wider audience. This book will be of great interest to students of the Second World War, and of military and strategic studies in general.
Download or read book Missed Opportunities microform First Canadian Army and the Air Plan for Operation Totalize 7 10 August 1944 written by Jody Perrun and published by National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada. This book was released on 1999 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Corps Commanders written by Douglas E. Delaney and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corps Commanders examines how five strikingly dissimilar British and Canadian generals fought battles and fit into the British Empire armies of the Second World War. The three Canadians controlled British formations and served under British army commanders, and the two Britons worked for and led Canadians as well. Such inter-army adjustments were fairly simple because all Anglo-Canadian commanders and staffs spoke the military language of the Camberley and Quetta staff colleges. Gunners from Montreal understood guardsmen from London – no small advantage when coordinating coalition battles involving thousands of troops. Delaney’s book offers invaluable insight into interoperability and how men animate armies in war.
Download or read book Road to Falaise written by Stephen Hart and published by Sutton Pub Limited. This book was released on 2004 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This key title in the acclaimed Battle Zone Normandy series explores Operations Totalize and Tractable.
Download or read book Operations Totalize and Tractable written by Ludovic Fortin and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July and August 1944, the Allies launched a number of operations intended to break through the German front line. Operations Totalize and Tractable were intended to drive the Germans back to the south of the Normandy town of Falaise, thus creating the famous "Falaise Gap". Ludovic Fortin is has become a real specialist on the British Army and of operations in Normandy in particular. His human approach to events gives a new perspective to the conflicts. He is also the author of the highly successful book, "British Tanks in Normandy" also published by Histoire & Collections. This book contains numerous plans and maps and is richly illustrated with unpublished photographs and color armor profiles.
Download or read book Operation Totalize 1944 written by Stephen A. Hart and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Operation Totalize, Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds' II Canadian Corps launched an attack from its positions along the Bourguébus Ridge south of Caen, striking south-southeast astride the main Caen–Falaise road toward the high ground that dominated the town of Falaise and the key west-east lateral road that ran through this town. Using sophisticated operational art the initial break-in achieved rapid success; indeed, more tactical success than any previous Allied break-in attack in Normandy. However, despite this rapid initial success, Totalize did not subsequently secure a decisive operational-level victory. Indeed, Simonds' forces subsequently struggled swiftly to complete the second break-in battle, and to transit into rapid exploitation operations. Had Simond's force been successful the German army may not have been able to extract themselves from the Falaise pocket and would have been surrounded and defeated – possibly bringing about the early end of the war in Europe.
