page_title: Operation Cobra
section_title: Preliminary attacks
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Cobra / Allied offensive / Preliminary attacks
caption_attribution_description: Major General J. Lawton Collins (right) explains to Lieutenant General Omar Bradley (left) how Cherbourg was taken
context_page_description: Operation Cobra was the codename for an offensive launched by the United States First Army under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley seven weeks after the D-Day landings, during the Normandy campaign of World War II. The intention was to take advantage of the distraction of the Germans by the British and Canadian attacks around Caen in Operation Goodwood, and thereby break through the German defenses that were penning in their forces while the Germans were unbalanced. Once a corridor had been created, the First Army would then be able to advance into Brittany, rolling up the German flanks once free of the constraints of the bocage country. After a slow start, the offensive gathered momentum and German resistance collapsed as scattered remnants of broken units fought to escape to the Seine. Lacking the resources to cope with the situation, the German response was ineffectual and the entire Normandy front soon collapsed. Operation Cobra, together with concurrent offensives by the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army, was decisive in securing an Allied victory in the Normandy campaign.
context_section_description: To gain good terrain for Operation Cobra, Bradley and Collins conceived a plan to push forward to the Saint-Lô–Periers road, along which VII and VIII Corps were securing jumping-off positions. On 18 July, at a cost of 5,000 casualties, the U.S. 29th and 35th Infantry Divisions managed to gain the vital heights of Saint-Lô, driving back General der Fallschirmtruppen Eugen Meindl's II Parachute Corps. Meindl's paratroopers, together with the 352nd Infantry Division (which had been in action since its D-Day defense of Omaha Beach) were now in ruins, and the stage for the main offensive was set. Due to poor weather conditions that had also been hampering Goodwood and Atlantic, Bradley decided to postpone Cobra for a few days—a decision that worried Montgomery, as the British and Canadian operations had been launched to support a breakout attempt that was failing to materialize. By 24 July the skies had cleared enough for the start order to be given, and 1,600 Allied aircraft took off for Normandy. However, the weather closed in again over the battlefield. Under poor visibility conditions, more than 25 Americans were killed and 130 wounded in the bombing before the air support operation was postponed until the following day. Some enraged soldiers opened fire on their own aircraft, a not uncommon practice in Normandy when suffering from friendly fire.
caption: Bradley and Collins near Cherbourg
exif: {}