|
There were two ports of any importance in the Normandy area. The Americans moving off Utah Beach managed to quickly seal off the Cotentin Peninsula and then move north to Cherbourg. This took priority over the drive into France because of the need to obtain a deep-water port. The German garrison surrendered within only 2 weeks and without a mjor fight (June 27 )and a few days more to secure surrounding German positions. Le Harve proved a much tougher nut to crack. The German garrison as Hitler had ordered held, even after the British crossed the Seine. German resistance did not end until most of France had been liberated (September 12). By this time the Allies were moving toward the borders of the Reich. While the Allies had the ports, they were so thoroughly wrecked by demolition crews that the Allies still had to depend on supplies being landed on the beaches. Here Operation Pluto was a vital asset.
Cherbourg at the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula was a key objective because of its important port. The Americans from Utah Beach cut off the Peninsula. The Germans in Cherbourg held out for a few weeks and did their best to destroy the port. The Germany thought that without a deep-water port that the Allies could not amass a decisive military force in France. The Germans did not anticipate Mulberry. They also expected the German garrison to hold out longer than it did. General Sattler, deputy German commander, surrendered (June 27), bringing the end to German resistance on the Cotentin Peninsula, although some isolated German units around the city continued to hold out for a few days. Hitler ordered the garrison to hold out to the last man. Few of the soldiers involved chose to do so. All organized resistance was ended (July 1). The port was, however, thoroughly wrecked and would take several months to be put back in operation. The first Pluto pipeline was laid from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, about 70 miles. This first line was operational (August 12). Without Pluto, the lack of a port would have severely limited Allied operations.
Le Harve was the second major port located in the Normandy area. It was located just outside the initial Normandy landing sites. The Allies knew that Le Harve would be strongly fortified and bemuse it was located just north of the Seine, did not go for it on the first day. As it worked out, the Le Harve garrison resisted even after the Allies crossed the Seine and the port was surround. Fighting in th city was very heavy, but we have few details at this time. The city was almost totally destroyed by the Germans and fighting. The Germans did not surrender until September 12, by that time the Allies had reached Belgium and had liberated most of France. The German surrender finally ended the D-Day campaign. Le Harve was to play a role after the War. It was embarkation point for thousands of GIs returning home. The first GIs to return home were those wounded in combat and then the POWs liberated from German camps.
L'Orient and St. Nazaire were important port located along the western coast of Brittany. With the fall of France (June 1940), they were suddenly available to the Kriegsmarine. Dönitz immediately moved in to expand U-boat Atlantic operations. The Germans used both L'Orient and St. Nazaire for their U-boat campaign. Unlike World War I, the Germans could no longer be bottled up in the North Sea. Notice how Brittany juts our into the Atlantic. It was a dagger posed at Britain's vital sea lane connection to America and Canada. They were so important that the Germans built asive reinforced concrete bunkers there to protect the U-boats. Given how long it took to build the protected pens, it is unclear to us why RAF-Bomber Command was ordered to bomb them. A factor was surely the inadequate numbers available until the Avro Lancaster arrived (1942) and the fearsome fighter defenses deployed to protect the construction. The bunkers once constructed were impervious to British bombing, protecting the U-boats and U-boat supply operations. These facilities proved to virtually indestructible. After the Operation Cobra breakout from Normandy, the Allies rapidly liberated the west of France. This included: Rennes (August 6), Nantes (August 12), Rezé (August 29). This cut of the German forces in Brittany. And Hitler ordered them to form Festug resistance points. German forces not retreating to the protection of the West Wall, withdrew to the Atlantic coastal ports of Brest, L'Orient, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle, and Royan. L'Orient and Saint-Nazaire were especially important. As the Allied Cobra breakout was shaping up, Hitler was determined to retain these strategic ports and declared them Festungen. He ordered Generals Jodl and Warlimont to 'defend them to the last man'. 【Gautier 】 Hilter was losing his grip on reality, he had hoped the Allied landings would be defeated and he cold turn his focus on the Soviets. And that the ports could eventually be retaken once again renew the U-boat offensive. When his armies in the West filed, he seems have clung on to a belief in the Wunderwaffe, but also important was to deny the Allies as many ports as possible. These fortified ports after D-Day were use by small garrisons to resist the Allies even though they were surrounded and cut off. The massive U-boat bunkers were so solid that they still exist today. It would be hugely expensive to demolish them. .
Brest was one of the most important French ports. Brest in Brittany was located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France. It is the along the western edge of continental Europe. For 4 years the Germans used it to support U-boat operations in the North Atlantic. The Germans defended the northern approaches out of Normandy, but could not defend the south. Supplies were a major problem after the Normandy Mulberries were hit by a fierce Atlantic storm. This and the destruction of the port facilities at Cherbourg made it even more important for the Allies to get their hands on Brest. Brest as the only other port the Allies seemed capable of taking from Normandy. The inability of the Germans to maintain a southern defense resulted in the Allies breaking into the the Brittany peninsula. This was carried out by Patton's Third Army as part of Operation Cobra. The US VIII Corps was diverted into Brittany to take Brest and secure the northern flank of the breakthrough. This was a massive diversion of resources and Bradly has been criticized for the decision. Patton was furious, but restrained himself. The Germans on Brittany retreated into fixed defenses around Breast where supplies had been stockpiled. The resulting Battle for Brest involved some of the fiercest battles and most costly fighting conducted as part of Operation Cobra.
St. Nazaiee was important during World War I. After America entered the War, it was one of the major ports through which the American troops entered France (1917). The World War II story was very different. It was the Germans that used the port. The Saint Nazaire U-boat base is one of five bases that the Germans built the Atlantic coast during World War II. The first U-boat to reach St. Nazaire was U-46 under Oblt. Engelbert Endrass (September 1940). St. Nazaire became the base for two U-boat Flotillas. The 7th Flotilla moved from Kiel (January to June 1941). The 6th Flotilla was moved from Danzig (February 1942). A cursory look at the map reveals what a huge improvement this made in U-boat operations in the Atlantic.
The Germans built a massive 295m wide, 130m long and 18m high bunker containing 14 U-boat pens. It took 16 months (1941-42). They used almost 0.5 million cubic meters of concrete with reinforced steel. The protective roof was 9.6m thick at its strongest point. Here the U-boats were safe even during the heaviest Allied air raid. The massive bunker also held supplies and munitions as well as hundreds of men, their offices and workshops. The massive U-boat bunker was built on the site of the existing transatlantic port. The air raids failed to significantly damage the U-boat bunker, but largely destroyed the town.
Unable to destroy the U-boat bunker by air, the Royal Navy stage surely the most dramatic raid of the War--Operation Chariot. The British rammed HMS Campbeltown with a huge explosive charge into the St. Nazaire dock (March 1942).
The Kriegsmrine was using St. Nazaire not only as a U-boat base, but as a dry dock for ship repairs (Tirpitz was scheduled for repairs there). Destroying the dry dock not only force German ships to make a long, dangerous voyage back to the Reich, but impacted the U-boat campaign. The St. Nazaire dry dock out of commission for the rest of the War. The St. Nazaire U-boat base was fully operational (October 1942). The peak of operation was (July-September 1943). Unfortunately for the Germans, it was just at this time that the Allies began achieving significant U-boat kills (July 1943) and Adm. Dönitz had to withdraw the U-boats from the Atlantic. The U-boats would return, but never in the same numbers and which much reduced effectiveness. Rather than the hunters, the U-boats became the hunted as Allied naval power and technology expanded.
After the D-Day breakout and the liberation of France, the port remained in German hands the German forces withdrew from the Loire-Inférieure (August 1944). It became the Saint Nazaire Pocket. The German defenses were centered on the port and the submarine base as far as Saint-Omer-de-Blain and from La Roche-Bernard in the north to Pornic in the south.
Antwerp during the medieval era became one of the most important ports in Europe. This only increased with the Industrial Revolution. The Rhine River rises in Switzerland and flows through the heart of Western Europe, entering the North Sea at Antwerp. As a result, grew into a major trade hub. It was not important in World War I because of he British North Sea blockade. The same was the case in World War II, after the Germans occupied Belgium (June 1940). This changed dramatically when after D_Day when the Allies swept through France and reached Belgium. The British liberated Antwerp (September 4,. 1944). The port was precisely what the Allies needed to supply the final Allied push into the Reich. For unexplained reason the Germans who so tenaciously held on to ports or thoroughly destroyed port infrastructural. left of all things the port untouched when the Allies arrived. How they could have allowed the Allies to capture the single most important port is is unfathomable. Apparently German authorities in Antwerp believe German propaganda about the military situation. Antwerp was the big kahuna and the Allies had it just they were approaching the borders of the Reich. Tragically, thy could not use it. Tragically, Field Marshall Montgomery had failed to clear the Scheldt Statuary that ships had to pass through to reach the port. After liberating France, Allied offensives began to bog down because of supply shortages. This allowed the Germans to harden their West Wall defenses. German garrisons in the Scheldt blocked supplied from reaching Antwerp. It took the Battle of the Scheldt (October 2 -November 8) for Antwerp to begin to function. Antwerp was important not only because of the port facilities, but because of ts location close to the front where the Allies were going to pierce the German Rhine defenseless. Until he Allies had Antwerp, supplies were still being landed on the Normandy beaches and trucked across France to the Allied armies that were approaching the Rhine. Antwerp finally became the vital supply hub in northwest Europe for he Allies. The Allies had th port functioning efficiently (mid-December 1944). The Germans in desperation used their V-2 missles in a desperate attempt to disrupt port facilities. Fortunately, the V-2 could target cities but did nob have the targeting capability to target specific sites in the cities.
Thus Antwerp suffered heavily in the final months of the War. V-1s and V-2s fell on Antwerp daily (October 1944-March 1945). London had been the primary target for the V-weapons, but as Allied Armies advanced toward the Reich, London became out of range. Antwerp would be Hitler's primary target in the last important German offensive of the War--the Bulge (December 1944). But through the V-weapon assault and the Bulge, Allied supplies continued to be landed, preparing the Allied armies for the final drive into the Reich.
Hitler was particularly committed to the Channel Islands because they were an occupied part of Britain. They had lisle strategic value, but he diverted massive resources for the islands to fortify them. If those resources had been devoted to the Atlantic Wall the history of World War II might have been altered. Even part of the resources used to fortify these islands might have changed the outcome in Normandy.
Gautier, Michel Alexandre (2015), Poche de Saint-Nazaire: Neuf mois d'une guerre oubliée [The Saint-Nazare Pocket. Nine months of a forgotten war] (Geste éditions: 2015), 424p.
Navigate the CIH World War II Section:
[Return to Main D-Day port and logistics page]
[Return to Main D-Day page]
[Return to Main U.S. World War II page]
[Return to Main military style page]
[About Us]
[Biographies]
[Campaigns]
[Children]
[Countries]
[Deciding factors]
[Diplomacy]
[Geo-political crisis]
[Economics]
[Home front]
[Intelligence]
[POWs]
[Resistance]
[Race]
[Refugees]
[Technology]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Return to Main World War II page]
[Return to Main war essay page]
