The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-30
THE BREAKOUT

winning of Warld War III.
 XVI
 THE BREAKOUT
 The second phase of the invasion had two objectives: first to capture the port of Cherbourg; and, second, the build-up of sufficient forces and material to enable the forces to break out from the beachhead and strike toward Germany. Now the fighting grew fiercer. After bitter and costly struggle, Cherbourg fell on 27 June to the 4th, 9th, and 18th Divisions of General Collins VII Corps. Damage in the harbor was so extensive and difficult of re- pairs that until the late fall thou sands of tons of material were still pouring over the beaches. Other Allied forces had, by l July, deep ened the beachhead by advances up to 20 miles in the area between Caen and Sa. Lo against increas- ingly stubborn resistance in the aggressively defended hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula.
 'The going is extremely tough, with three main causes responsible. The first of these, as always, is the fighting quality of the Ger man soldier. The second is the nature of the country. Our whole attack has to fight its way out of very narrow bottlenecks flanked by marshes and against an enemy who has a double hedgerow and an intervening ditch almost every 50 yards as ready-made strong points. The third cause is the weather. Our air has been unable to operate at maXium efficiency and on top of this the rain and mud were so bad during my visit that I was reminded of Tunisian wintertime. It was almost inn possible to locate artillery targets although we have plenty of guns available. Even with clear weather it is extraordinarily difficult to point out a target that is an ap- propriate one for either air or artillery"
 In spite of the lack of a major port, the build-up in the beach, head was completed late in July. On August the 12th U. s. Army group, later designated the Cen tral Group of Armies, became op- erational under the command of General Bradley. Its two armies the First, under It. Gen. Court ney H. Hodges, and the Third, under It. Gen. George s. Patton, Jr., totaling 13 infantry and 5 armored divisions, had been as- sembled in the beachhead area. The Canadian First Army under General Crerar and the British Second Army under General Dempsey composed the Fist Army Group, later designated the North ern Group of Armies, commanded by Field Marshal Montgomery.
 Unprecedented Achievements
 These armies were still dependent on beachhead supply for their sustenance. Even with unseason- able bad weather which severely damaged and almost destroyed one of the two artificial port in- stallations and halted unloading operations many times, and average of some 30,OO0 tons of supplies and 30,000 troops were handled every day. These achievements, with out precedent in history, were not by the German de- lenders and, consequently, their plans for the defense of the French coast had not taken them into account.
 General Brady was able, on 25. July, to mount the offensive which broke out of the beach, head at St. Lo and AvrancheS and carried the lines swiftly for ward to the Mouse River. Pre- ceding the ground attack 1,5OO heavy bombers and hundreds of other combat aircraft dropped more than 3,390 tons of bombs on enemy positions on narrow front. The crushing power of the air attack and its paralyzing ef- feet in the enemy,s movement blasted the way for rapid pene, tration of German lines. While