Normandy - the Breakout (Mini-Guides) - Softcover

Each mini-guide allows the reader to get to know more about a region's history, linking historical events with places of interest and sites of note, as well as providing an unprecedented visual feast of contemporary photographs, uniforms, badges and equipment - all in full color. Practical information is included in each mini-guide and itineraries are suggested for those wishing to visit battlefields, monuments, memorials and museums. By July 1944, despite the launch of Operation Epsom, the British and Canadians were still pinned down before Caen on the eastern section of the front. German troops were, however, tied down here and had to abandon any hope of throwing the invaders back into the sea. German High Command was, meanwhile, overhauled with von Kluge replacing von Runstedt. To the west the Americans, having seized Cherbourg, were eager to secure the Cotentin peninsula and launch the next phase of the battle for Normandy. This would be a breakout between Saint-Lo and Coutances and would allow the Americans, heading south and then swinging westwards into Brittany, to leave the Norman hedgerows behind. But any such move would have to be quick and decisive or the Germans would succeed in keeping them bottled up. July would decide the fate of the struggle for Normandy.

Discover our recent history with these new 36-page full colour military field guides; each dedicated to a different battlefield, campaign or operation. Whether you are visiting a battlefield or learning in the comfort of home, these Mini-Guides offer a fresh, new and completely unprecedented visual feast of historical information, photographs, graphics, maps, uniforms and equipment - all in full colour. Each Mini-Guide offers practical itineraries for touring battlefields, monuments, museums and related sites that you can visit. The first four titles in the series are concerned with D-Day ops: