Ruelens, Daniel 1944. Les blindés Américains de la Normandie à Mons

The success of Operation Cobra in the summer of 1944 left an indelible impression of omnipotence in the collective imagination. Images of a glut of tanks that are still associated with an all-powerful US army today. And yet! Four years earlier, in July 1940, the US Army did not have a single tank worth mentioning, not even an armoured division! The aim of this book is to trace the path from the beginnings on the manoeuvre fields of Louisiana to the battlefield of Normandy using the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions. The victorious blitzkrieg of the Wehrmacht in the spring of 1940 shook the decision-makers in Washington! From one day to the next, everything in the field of mechanised warfare was at stake. The creation of an American armoured weapon, the units it would support, the men who would lead it into battle, the material and the doctrines for its deployment - everything had to be created! And all under time pressure! The baptisms of fire, the feedback from the experiences in the Mediterranean and then in Normandy. The landings of the two divisions and their first experiences in the Bocage. The first victory at Carentan and the first defeat at Villiers-Fossard. The preparation for "Cobra". Nothing is obvious or self-evident in the face of the Wehrmacht, a model against which one had to measure oneself in order to surpass it, even if it was already battered. For the two "Heavy Divisions", from the Vire via Mortain to the Seine, the end of the Normandy campaign led to a tenacious enemy who owed them nothing. When they finally reached the Seine, the wild chase began! A race in pursuit of the German armies, who were defeated in Normandy, but not defeated, and surprised by the speed of their strategic retreat towards northern France and Belgium.