Victory at Mortain

by Reardon, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780700612956
• ISBN10: 0700612955
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• 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 combat-hardened 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 re-creation 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 material superiority or Hitler's strategic meddling.

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	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
The Second Front Opens in Normandy	p. 1
The Third Army Moves into Brittany	p. 25
German Preparations for a Counteroffensive	p. 44
First Army Moves East	p. 65
The Counteroffensive Begins	p. 92
Stopping the German Advance on Avranches	p. 118
The Lost Battalion	p. 144
Opportunity and Counterattack	p. 173
Holding the High Ground	p. 200
Impending Defeat	p. 230
Tightening the Noose	p. 259
Unternehmen Luttich--A Final Assessment	p. 287
Equivalent Ranks	p. 297
Falaise Pocket	p. 299
Notes	p. 301
Bibliography	p. 339
Index	p. 351
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