On the 24th of July 1944, the German forces around St Lo, in Normandy, did not have a clue about the hell that was about to be unleashed upon them. Their dispositions looked like this:

Source; http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/AtlasesTableOfContents.html

To the west of St Lo, you can see the area that the Americans chose to breakout from the close hedgerow fighting that had so favoured the Germans for the months of June and July 1944.

Source; http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/AtlasesTableOfContents.html

The Allies delivered a devastating aerial bombardment on the German front lines in the area on 25 July 1944. The line did not immediately give way. This was due to the American infantry not pushing quickly at first. Who could blame them? They had just spent 2 months fighting in the hedgerows and had learned to be cautious. Additionally, the lingering shock of the bombardment, which also killed and wounded several hundred Americans was still wearing off.
However, the American Commander on the ground, General J. Lawton Collins, saw no need to delay and committed his exploitation forces on the morning of the 26th. This was risky, because if the Germans had managed to slow down the attack further, it would have meant an American traffic jam right on the front lines. Luckily, they couldn't and the Americans pushed right through and found the German line disintegrating like it had not done for the Americans before in Normandy.
Thus began the great race from the beachheads to the German frontier that occurred over the next 2 months, including the liberation of Paris and most of the rest of France.

I rode through the breakout zone recently and below is some video of a wonderfully twisty ride I took from Gavray towards Avranches. This area was liberated around 28-30 July.

Normandy Breakout from TJ on Vimeo.

Ride Recommendation

Check out the Terre Liberte' route of Cobra- La Percee (the Breakout). The video above is from this route and starts in Gavray which is about half way in between Coutances and Avranches. Here's a Google map of the stretch of road on the video.

Book and Map Recommendations

I rode around the Suisse Normande back in March and had all kinds of plans to write up the whole ride, but work and family considerations have left me berating myself for not getting something up. With that in mind, I am putting up some info from the Battle of Mont Pincon. The battle for the area lasted a few days, but the interesting bit to me happened in the evening of 6 August 1944 and overnight.
A quick intro to the battle can be found here.
In short, British tanks from the 13/18 Hussars barrelled up the hill along an uncovered track and occupied the key communications node of a hill before the Germans knew what happened.

The map below shows many of the tracks on the hill and the track running from the southwest side to the west side of the hill was the one taken by the Hussars.

I'm including 2 short videos on Youtube.

The first is riding up the main road to see the 2 modern radio towers / antennae, which give a good idea of why Mont Pincon was so important to the German defense of this area. One could surmise that the loss of these posts led to some of the confusion that caused the Germans to get trapped in Falaise pocket not long after this.

The second video is to show the road (that is not shown on Google Maps), from the north, to the Hussars overnight leaguer area. They actually came up from the southwest, but, alas, I cannot find my video for that part of the ride. There is a battle interpretation board at the end and the monument to the 13/18 Hussars is nearby.

I'm planning on writing a lot more on Mont Pincon, Operations Bluecoat and Cobra and the great riding around the Suisse Normande, but this should hold you for a while. ;o)

Book and Map Recommendations

Here is a selection of photos taken during my ride to Normandy. I covered mainly the British / Canadian area of operations on this trip with the exception of the American Cemetery Omaha beach which has a brand new interpretive center which worth anyone's time.