Smashing the Atlantic Wall : The Destruction of Hitler's Coastal Fortresses

by Delaforce, Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780304361632
• ISBN10: 0304361631
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Cassell

Summary

After Hitler reluctantly halted his proposed invasion of Britain in the autumn of 1940, he immediately ordered, by secret edict, the building of an Atlantic Wall. It was a monumental task--made up of 1,500 steel and concrete defensive strongpoints, stretching over four coastlines--and completely designed by the Führer himself. Using material from British, American, and Canadian archives, one of today's top military historians pieces together a unique, barely known story from the war--and memorializes the Allied soldiers caught behind it in appalling conditions.

Table of Contents

The maps	7	(2)
Introduction: The Cinderella War	9	(6)
Adolf Hitler's Fortress-Ports and the Secret Edicts	15	(29)
Churchill and the Second Front	44	(8)
Operation Neptune: Naval Operation Orders	52	(8)
The Capture of Cherbourg: `A field of devastation'	60	(19)
Von Aulock's Gallant Defence of St Malo	79	(11)
The Taking of Brest: `A symbolic Value'	90	(18)
The Mousetrap War: Containing the Atlantic Fortress-Ports	108	(6)
Rouen and the Return to Dieppe	114	(6)
The Capture of Antwerp: `A stunning surprise'	120	(7)
Dunkirk: 'An unknown, undramatic, dirty little war'	127	(7)
Ostend and Zeebrugge Cleared	134	(3)
The Capture of Le Havre: Operation Astonia	137	(7)
The Capture of Boulogne: Operation Wellhit	144	(8)
The Capture of Calais and Cap Gris-Nez: Operation Undergo	152	(9)
Scheldt Operation: `It lacked glamour'	161	(8)
Operation Angus: Clearing South Beveland Isthmus	169	(6)
Hitler's Scheldt Fortress South: Operation Switchback	175	(8)
Operation Vitality I: `Felt increasingly forgotten'	183	(5)
Operation Vitality m: Lowland Division in Action	188	(2)
Operation Infatuate I: `It was very nasty'	190	(4)
Operation Infatuate II: `All hell was let loose'	194	(13)
Operation Calender: `Delight in getting mines'	207	(5)
A Kind of Odd-Job Formation	212	(3)
The Logistical War of Supply and Demand	215	(7)
The Verdronken Land: The Drowned Land	222	(3)
Bibliography	225	(1)
Glossary	226	(4)
Canadian Forces	230	(1)
Index	231