Battle for Brest The Battle for Brest was one of the fiercest battles fought on the Western Front during World War II . Part of the Allied plan for the invasion of mainland Europe called for the capture of port facilities , in order to ensure the timely delivery of the enormous amount of war materiel required to supply the invading Allied forces . It was estimated that the 37 Allied divisions to be on the continent by September 1944 would need 26 , 000 tons of supplies each day . The main port the Allied forces hoped to seize and put into their service was Brest , in northwestern France . The ports issue . Early in the war , after the Fall of France in 1940 , the United States began planning an eventual " Invasion of Western Europe " to be put into effect when and if they joined the war . American and Canadian troops would be moved from US to England ( as long as the United Kingdom was still in the war ) until an Allied invasion could be mounted into the continent . A major issue was of course how to supply the invasion army with the tens of thousands of tons of materiel it would need after it landed . The capture of ports in the European Atlantic coast was a necessity , and the most suitable ones were clear invasion objectives . The capture of these port facilities was deemed crucial , because the lack of supplies would easily strand an invading army . For the initial phase of the battle , large artificial ports ( Mulberry Harbors ) would be erected by the beaches , but they had limited tonnage unloading capabilities , and were considered just as a contingency until real ports could be captured and put into service . Suitable ports could be found along the northern coast of France , across the English Channel which would be crossed by the invading armies , in particular the port of Brest in Brittany , for a long time the main French Fleet harbor in the Atlantic coast and the westernmost port in France . The Allied strategists considered even possible that , after its capture , supplies could arrive directly from the US to Brest , bypassing England and reaching the Allied Armies moving east , towards Germany , much faster . Other ports across the English Channel were Saint Malo , Lorient , and Saint Nazaire in Brittany and Cherbourg and Le Havre in Normandy ( which would eventually be selected as the Invasion area ) . Operation Sledgehammer , the capture of Cherbourg , had been considered by the Allies , but it was cancelled after the disastrous 1942 Dieppe Raid . It was decided that a direct attack to a port from the sea was not an option . The Germans , realizing this , however , began building fortifications around these ports earlier in the war through their Organization Todt , as part of the Atlantic Wall concept . Some of these ports were major U - boat bases as well , and had bomb - proof concrete sub pens built . These fortifications had been surviving Allied air strikes for some time . Prelude . Soon after Normandy was invaded , the Mulberries were towed from England and deployed in the French coast . Unfortunately for the Allies , one of them was destroyed after less than two weeks in a storm . Supplies were then mainly landed directly via the beaches , but this process was not as efficient . Cherbourg , at the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy , was captured by the Americans who landed on Utah Beach , but before surrendering the German garrison destroyed its harbour facilities . Cherbourg was so far the only major port in the Allied invasion area . Soon after , the Germans in the peninsula of Brittany were isolated by a north - south breakthrough accomplished by George S . Patton ' s Third United States Army during Operation Cobra , and US VIII Corps was diverted into Brittany to capture Brest and secure the northern flank of the breakthrough . Wehrmacht troops trapped in Brittany retreated to the fortified ports in the peninsula , as US Third Army troops moved in and surrounded them . The Brest garrison , " Festung Brest " , meaning " Fortress Brest " , as the German propaganda referred to surrounded cities , was put under the command of General der Fallschirmtruppe Hermann - Bernhard Ramcke , a paratroop veteran of the Afrika Korps . His forces consisted of the German 2nd Parachute Division , 266th Infantry Division , 344th Infantry Division and other Wehrmacht elements , in all some 40 , 000 fighting men . The old fortress city of Saint - Malo was captured by 83rd Infantry Division ( " Ohio " ) on 17 August , but its small port facilities were sabotaged by the defenders . A German garrison stationed at nearby Cézembre Island only surrendered after days of heavy shelling by warships and strong air strikes , when their naval guns were already disabled . The aerial bombing of the island marked one of the first uses of napalm bombs . It was clear that the Germans would deny the Allies the use of French ports as long as possible by defending the fortresses built around them and severely damaging their docks . Brest was reached by American troops on 7 August 1944 . The battle . Brest was surrounded and eventually stormed by the U . S . VIII Corps . The fight proved extremely difficult , as the German garrison was well entrenched and partially made up of elite Fallschirmjäger ( paratrooper s ) forces . The German paratroopers lived up to their reputation , as the Allies had experienced previously in battles such as Monte Cassino . Whilst some less capable units surrendered quite easily , the Fallschirmjäger defended their ground under considerable odds , heavy shelling , air strikes and American assaults . The attackers had heavy losses for every small advance they made into the city . As per their military doctrine , the Americans tried to use their superior artillery firepower and air superiority to overcome the defenders , instead of fighting them hand - to - hand . The Germans had stocked a considerable amount of ammunition for the defense of the city and had weapons of all calibers ( from light flak to naval guns ) dug in fortifications and in pillboxes . Elements of the specialised British 79th Armoured division came in to attack the heavily fortified Fort Montbarey . Flame throwing Churchill Crocodile tanks along with US infantry took three days to overcome the fort . The fighting was intense , the troops moving house to house . The fortifications ( both French and German built ) proved very difficult to overcome , and heavy artillery barrages were fired by both sides . Eventually the old city of Brest was razed to the ground during the battle , with only some old medieval stone - built fortifications left standing . General Ramcke surrendered the city on 19 September 1944 to the Americans after rendering the port facilities useless . These would not be repaired in time to help the war effort as it was hoped . By this time , Paris had already been liberated by the Allied Armies , and Operation Market - Garden was already under way in the Netherlands . The costly capture of Brest resulted in the decision to only surround the remaining German - occupied ports in France with the exception of those that could be captured from the march , instead of storming them in a set - piece battle . The exception was Le Havre , which was taken by the British 2nd Army on 12 September 1944 . Some of these Breton ports surrendered only by 9 May 1945 , one day after Victory in Europe Day . Aftermath . The whole Overlord campaign developed somewhat differently than originally planned . Patton ' s US Third Army ' s quick advance allowed the Liberation of Paris earlier than expected , but by September 1944 supplies were beginning to run short . Cherbourg was the only port that was repaired in time to be used . The port ' s capacity was approximately 2 , 000 tons a day in mid - July and 12 , 000 tons by August 1944 . Decision was made to favor the British forces under Sir Bernard Law Montgomery by reducing the supplies to other forces , including Patton ' s . The unsuccessful Operation Market Garden launched by Montgomery soon after , however , did not allow the Allies to resume their rapid advance which was being stalled at Antwerp in Belgium . The Germans were able to reorganize and even counterattack ( the Battle of the Bulge ) . By then , however , the region of Antwerp was secured , its port operating and supplying the Allies . After the war , the West German government paid reparations to civilians in Brest who had been killed , starved , or left homeless . Considerations . If more supplies could have been delivered through intact French ports to British and American forces , the Allies could have potentially invaded the industrialized western part of Germany before the winter of 1944 - 45 , bringing the Third Reich to an earlier collapse . On the other hand , further developments in World War II indicated that the logistics of carrying supplies across France by land was also a great obstacle , due to insufficient numbers of trucks and the destruction of the railroad network ( see Red Ball Express ) . The delay in the invasion of Europe ( postponed from 1943 to 1944 due to the lack of LCTs ) had allowed the Germans time to reinforce their coastal defense system ( known as the " Atlantic Wall " ) . The ports ' fortifications made the reality the soldiers found around them much different in 1944 than the one the planners foresaw back in 1942 , when they believed these ports could be captured relatively intact and used accordingly . " These Are My Credentials " . When U . S . Brigadier General Charles Canham arrived to accept his surrender , General Ramcke asked the lower - ranking man to show his credentials . Canham pointed to his nearby troops and said " These are my credentials " . Canham was at the time the deputy commander of the U . S . 8th Infantry Division , and that phrase has become the division ' s motto . The reason Ramcke asked , was that he was stalling for time , as in one of the bunker rooms he had a radio operator frantically sending out his last report from Fortress Brest ( which included a number of award recommendations ) . In the end he was able to keep the Americans busy long enough that they did not discover the radio room until the dispatch had been sent .