Saint-Lô

A town of northwest France west of Caen. Its capture on July 18, 1944, played a pivotal role in the Allied invasion of Europe during World War II. Population: 19,900.

Saint-Lô a town in France of about ten thousand people that marked the opening of the American invasion of German-held Normandy during World War II. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's First U.S. Army initiated the battle in the Cotentin peninsula on 4 July 1944, and closed it, after taking forty thousand casualties, on 18 July, with the capture of Saint-Lô. One week later, Bradley launched Operation Cobra with the support of heavy bombers and broke the German defenses in Normandy. Allied forces spilled through the opening and by September had pushed the German forces to the Siegfried Line.

Bibliography

Aron, Robert. France Reborn: The History of the Liberation, June 1944–May 1945. New York: Scribner, 1964.

Blumenson, Martin. The Duel for France, 1944: The Men and Battles That Changed the Fate of Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.