Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler's Panzer Counteroffensive

by Reardon, Mark J.

• ISBN13: 9780700611584
• ISBN10: 0700611584
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas

Summary

A powerful German counterattack in Normandy in August 1944 might have been one of the Wehrmacht's great shining moments in the Second World War. The odds were certainly in their favor. Determined to drive the Allies back to the English Channel, elements of four combathardened panzer divisions faced off against a single American infantry division near the town of Mortain. Instead, the Americans held their ground, enabling the Allied armies to secure the invasion and ultimately liberate France.

In a vivid recreation of this pivotal battle -- less celebrated than the encounter at the Falaise Pocket but just as decisive -- Mark Reardon tells how the 30th Infantry Division held off the German panzer juggernaut, which was designed to drive a wedge between Allied forces. In recounting this showdown, he offers a new perspective on the German defeat in Normandy and a convincing counterpoint to the conventional view of most military analysts that Germany lost the war as a result of Allied materiel superiority or Hitler's strategic meddling.

Through vigorous prose lac

Author Biography

Mark J. Reardon is a Senior Military Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
The Second Front Opens in Normandy	1	(24)
The Third Army Moves into Brittany	25	(19)
German Preparations for a Counteroffensive	44	(21)
First Army Moves East	65	(27)
The Counteroffensive Begins	92	(26)
Stopping the German Advance on Avranches	118	(26)
The Lost Battalion	144	(29)
Opportunity and Counterattack	173	(27)
Holding the High Ground	200	(30)
Impending Defeat	230	(29)
Tightening the Noose	259	(28)
Unternehmen Luttich - A Final Assessment	287	(10)
Appendix A. Equivalent Ranks	297	(2)
Appendix B. Falaise Pocket	299	(2)
Notes	301	(38)
Bibliography	339	(12)
Index	351