D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

as ordered, but he could not get in touch with Bradley to see what he should do next. Patton, apparently controlling his exasperation, told him that ‘throughout history it had always been fatal not to cross a river’. Although he did not take over command officially until noon the next day, he made it very clear that VIII Corps was to cross immediately. Soon afterwards, a message came in to say that the bridge at Pontaubault had been captured. It was damaged but passable. Patton told Middleton to send the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions across as fast as possible.
    South of Pontaubault, the road divided. One route led south and west towards Rennes and Brest. The other headed east towards the Seine and Paris. Patton went to bed at one in the morning of 1 August knowing that, eleven hours later, the Third Army would be fully operational under his command with four army corps, Middleton’s VIII Corps, Haislip’s XV Corps, Walker’s XX Corps and Cook’s XII Corps. The XV Corps immediately issued to its three divisions a warning order which clearly revealed the Patton style: ‘As many troops as possible to be motorized and tanks to lead throughout.’ Also at midday on 1 August, Bradley became commander-in-chief of 12th Army Group, with General Hodges taking over the First Army, which would continue the attack towards the line of the Vire and then on to Mortain.
     
    On 1 August, Kluge was at Seventh Army forward headquarters with Hausser and his new chief of staff, Oberst von Gersdorff, when they heard of the American seizure of Avranches. According to his aide, Oberleutnant Tangermann, he said, ‘Gentlemen, this breakthrough means for us and the German people the beginning of a decisive and bitter end. I see no remaining possibility of halting this ongoing attack.’ Some of his colleagues felt that the effects of his serious car crash in Russia the year before had started to show. He was losing the determination he had shown when he took over from Rundstedt.
    As soon as the news reached the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Hitler issued an order to Kluge: ‘The enemy is not under any circumstances to break out into the open. Army Group B will prepare a counter-attack with all panzer units to thrust as far as Avranches, cut off the units that have broken through and destroy them. All available panzer forces are to be released from their present positions without replacement and employed for this purpose under the command of General der Panzertruppen Eberbach. The future of the campaign in France depends upon this counter-attack.’
    Kluge warned that the withdrawal of panzer divisions would lead to a collapse of the whole front, including the British sector. He proposed instead that German forces should be withdrawn behind the Seine, abandoning western France entirely. The panzer divisions could protect the retreat of the infantry divisions without motor transport. Hitler rejected this furiously and insisted that if his orders were carried out there would be ‘certain victory in the end’. Kluge sensed that this would be a catastrophic decision, but there was nothing he could do. Hitler, obsessed with his maps but with no idea of the reality on the ground, had begun to plan Operation Lüttich, the great counter-attack from Mortain towards Avranches. But the enemy was breaking out into the open. By noon, the American 4th Armored Division was across the Sélune and ‘round the corner into Brittany’.
     
    The Americans found German resistance much tougher on the left, with heavy fighting round Percy and Villedieu, which the 3rd Armored Division had bypassed. The 4th Infantry Division called up four battalions of artillery to deal with German positions. The 155 mm ‘Long Toms’ fired a total of three ‘serenades’, the most intense bombardment on offer, and finally the German guns fell silent. Late in the afternoon, the 4th Division’s reconnaissance squadron entered Villedieu.
    Tessy was also captured that day after heavy and bitter fighting. The Germans in retreat could resort to the brutality of the eastern front. According to Lieutenant Colonel Teague, commanding the 3rd Battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment, ‘One of our trucks (an ambulance) was sent up the road north from the aid station near La Tilandière toward Villebaudon. The Jerries, attacking toward the highway, captured the truck, shot six wounded men in it, and made a road block out of the truck.’
    Front-line troops adopted a very