Pallud, Jean Paul The Battle for Brittany

The Taking of Brest, 1944. Then and Now

At the end of July, Operation Cobra broke through the German defences and the American leaders stormed Coutances and Avranches and captured the bridge at Pontaubault on 31 August. On 1 August, the VIII Corps had three crossings over the river Sée and four over the Sélune, and the roads to Brittany were clear. That day, as the 4th Armoured Division advanced from Pontaubault towards Rennes, Lieutenant George S. Patton's Third US Army became operational. To secure Brittany, Patton planned to unleash armoured columns on the peninsula, with the 4th Armoured Division advancing to Quiberon via Rennes and the 6th moving directly towards Brest. A third column, Task Force A, was to secure the vital railway line along the north coast. The 4th Armoured Division reached Nantes on 6 August, where it found the port facilities in ruins. On the north coast of the peninsula, Task Force A encountered fierce resistance at Saint-Malo. While the task force continued to advance westwards, the 83rd Division took over the siege, and it took four weeks of repeated attacks, the use of heavy artillery and several heavy air raids before the German fortress surrendered. The Americans faced a similarly tenacious defence in Brest, and it was six weeks before Lieutenant General Hermann Ramcke surrendered on 19 September. The Americans lost 10,000 dead and wounded in the battle, but Brest and its harbour facilities were destroyed. On 13 September, after examining the extent of the reconstruction and the work needed to restore the port, it was decided to stop all repair work. The serious Allied problem of harbour capacity remained until November, when the Antwerp facilities became available. It was later criticised that the deployment of three divisions and valuable transport and supplies to defeat the German garrison at Brest had hampered the pursuit operations beyond the Seine, but the resources deployed there, which were quite small compared to the overall effort, could hardly have changed the course of the rapid advance eastwards.