Closing the Falaise Pocket in the Battle of Normandy

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After the breakout in July, Patton's tanks sped in to Brittany and Eastwards. Operation Luttich was launched to stem the flow. This failed and led to to a giant encirclement - the Falaise Pocket. This video deals with the closing of the pocket.
Bibliography
00:00 Intro
01:30 Falaise
02:18 Polish at Jort
03:30 Cross German convoy
04:35 Champeaux
05:30 Saint Lambert sur Dives
07:24 Hill 117
08:15 Attack on St Lambert
12:03 Moissy Ford
14:30 The Mace Maczuga
17:50 Boisjo aid station
18:20 Bourg Saint Leonard
21:40 Taking Chambois
23:30 Tournai sur Dives surrender
25:25 Artifacts
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Опубликовано:

11 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 88

@brutter602 2 года назад

The rifle embedded in the tree was from a German ammunition truck that took a direct hit and blew up this imbedding the rifle stock first into the tree. Over the decades the tree has grown and taken the rifle upwards with it.

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

I didn’t know how it got there.

@brutter602 2 года назад

@@WalkingDday I was told this by a friend who lives near there. Also the farmers field across the lane opposite the tree is full of shrapnel from the explosion. Every time the field is ploughed, it turns up some of the smaller debris that was driven into the ground by the explosion.

@Zederok 3 года назад

15 years to clear the wrecked vehicles. It is amazing how the details of the war are never mentioned in the history books. Thank you for bringing the total picture to light. Amazing job you do.

@WalkingDday 3 года назад

I had a map, many years ago, representing each vehicle recorded as a dot. It was funnel shaped, with the point towards St Lambert, with a fine trail of the few vehicles that got out before being destroyed or breaking down.

@ToddSauve 2 года назад

All the the ammunition expended there, and all the blood and rotting bodies of humans and horses and other things left the area unable to be used as farm land until the 1950s!

@jamesallen8418 2 года назад

Colin. You are the first to show me that Moissy Ford becomes the Road of Death. I enjoy your work, can't get enough of the battles and history on the Dives River. Let's talk. Jim.

@andysparkes8435 2 года назад

My Grandpa was a Major in the 2nd British Army and fought at the Falasie Gap, he never ever spoke about it.

@tedkrasicki3857 Год назад

1st Pol Armd Div became a Div in 2nd Can Corps on 30JUL44. As some officers spoke some French the Canadians gave support with artillery units from the province of Quebec. Those units spoke French (with an old Normandy dialect) and it was workable.

@pierrealarie2897 Год назад

Your statement is mostly correct. Many in those French Canadian units were Acadians and Franco-Ontarians. Dad had a great respect for the Polish units.

@fumblerooskie 11 месяцев назад

@@pierrealarie2897 As does everyone else. The Poles made everyone proud.

@steeltown1001 3 года назад

Thanks for this good video. I know the area well and visited several times (much to annoying for my daughters who couldn't hear the word Falaise pocket anymore 😁). I appreciate all of your videos, but I have to say I really liked this one. Also because it recalls the family holidays in Normandy.

@leehansford5544 3 года назад

Have worked my way through all of your walking d-day videos Colin. Thoroughly enjoying it, thank you. Keep up the fantastic content bud. 👍

@MURDOCK1500 2 года назад

We visited this museum and monument not long ago. It was amazing. Great video. Thank you

@cotepierre68 Год назад

Last summer (2022) I brought my son thru Falaise. I showed him Lcol Ménard street. He was the CO of 1bn Fusiliers Mont-Royal, the unit that has liberated Falaise. I was (2 years ago) the RSM of that Regiment.

@WalkingDday Год назад

Thanks for sharing that.

@johnstubbe3113 11 месяцев назад

My dad was in the 359th.Told me how he saw MG42 firing across a field . There was a disabled German tank near him so he climbed onto the turret and tried to open the hatch with hope of using it on the MG42 . He couldn't open the hatch and the machine gunner spotted him and opened up on him . he jumped to relative safety of the ground landing on all fours , running a hidden pitch fork threw the palm of his hand.I think he said he was about 2-300 yards away.I often wonder if he tried again if the gunner would have taken better aim .

@WalkingDday 11 месяцев назад

Thanks for that great story on your dad.

@truths86 3 года назад

Love these videos.. i found you while trying to trace my grandads fight in the 6th airborne. Great information and well delivered.

@billkenbridge Год назад

Very nice job, Colin, as usual. Many thanks.

@bikenavbm1229 Год назад

have been around the area previously hope to return next year with this excellent added information it will be all the better thank you for your efforts.

@chriscellier5247 3 года назад

Keep these videos coming Colin really look forward to them thank you

@moroccanish9904 3 года назад

we visited moissy ford a couple of years ago, and found it very interesting we even found a small relic in the river, we intended to go there again last week will try again win the summer we ended up at neufchâtel en Bray which I found very nice, a local was telling me 80% German occupation and was heavily bombed

@John-lu3yq 2 года назад

Thanmyou great joc now I know what happened in the Falaise Gap outstanding info

@JohnDoe-tw8es 11 месяцев назад

Very interesting, thanks . Lt. Curry won a Victoria Cross near that area.

@fumblerooskie 11 месяцев назад

Pretty sure you mean Major David Vivian Currie. He won his VC on 18th August, 1944. His citation is worth reading. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vivian_Currie#/media/File:David_Currie_plaque.jpg

@JohnDoe-tw8es 11 месяцев назад

@@fumblerooskie Thanks that is correct.

@RickJZ1973 3 года назад

Very interesting video! Well presented and informative. I find the battle of the Falaise Gap quite interesting.

@Kevin-mx1vi Год назад

An excellent video that's shown me the area and helped me to understand the relative positions of the allies and the Germans in better detail than anything else I've seen. I have a particular interest in the Falaise Pocket because a school friend's father was actually there and saw first hand the massive destruction and slaughter. As he was a despatch rider and had a motorbike he was sent down into the low ground as a kind of makeshift scout, and arrived so soon after things had quietened down that some of the dead german draft horses (thousands of them) were still steaming from sweat. His quiet and measured recounting of what he saw has always left a great impression on me, the destruction inflicted on the Germans by the allies being so great that it was almost indescribable even to an experienced soldier such as he was.

@WalkingDday Год назад

Thanks for the feedback. Eisenhower went to death corridor just after wards’ and you couldn’t walk with out walking on flesh. He said it was like Dante’s hell.

@Kevin-mx1vi Год назад

@@WalkingDday Indeed. I remember my friend's dad saying that he could have walked a long way by stepping from one dead horse to another. I suspect he hardly mentioned the dead Germans to protect our young ears from the worst of the horror. (I'd have been 13 or 14 at the time) Having only seen war represented in films from the 50's and 60's which gave the impression that the German armies were entirely motorised, it came as a shock to learn that their field artillery and much of their supplies were horse drawn even in 1944, hence the number of dead horses. Some of them had not been killed by allied action but had simply been driven until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

@robertthompson6346 10 месяцев назад

Thanks for this very informative vid - great intimate detail

@paulmoore120 7 месяцев назад

Great video.Thanks.

@XxBloggs 3 года назад

Very enjoyable. Thanks

@2serveand2protect 2 года назад

Excellent! Thank You!

@markmccormack1796 10 месяцев назад

Surprised to see so much still standing after the battle and so many decades.

@maciejwodarczyk5208 2 года назад

good youtube movies are making better job then 12 year's school education. Pity is, youtube didn't start early 80's. Thanx Colin for explanation in the details (possible details) how it was. good job, well done.

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

Thanks for the feed back.

@senseofthecommonman Год назад

Bad enough for the men who understood what was happening, but the terror for all those poor horses and the suffering they experienced. At least we no longer inflict our wars on them.

@tomwilson8940 3 года назад

Hi! I am really enjoying your video series. You mentioned a Polish chaplain killed in the Falaise Gap battle. Do you happen to know his name?

@WalkingDday 3 года назад

Father Hupa of the 9th Infantry battalion.

@modelltwotree6117 9 месяцев назад

My dad was wounded on the 19th of August ,i think at Falaise, he was with the 3rd Monmouthshires, but i cannot locate where exactly! Can you help?

@WalkingDday 9 месяцев назад

I don’t have any precise details on the regiment on that date. There’s a link here that MAY be useful, but it’s a subscription site. www.wartimememoriesproject.com/ww2/allied/regiment.php?pid=5702 Another useful site is WW2Talk ww2talk.com/index.php?search/21548730/&q=Monmouthshire&o=relevance

@jamesallen8418 Месяц назад

Hello Colin. No videos in some time, are you well? Perhaps just taking a break. Come back old friend.

@WalkingDday Месяц назад

This one a month ago ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FyraVFVKpLw.htmlsi=ERkpEHbprBRReWW4 And one 12 days ago.

@johnhorse5551 Год назад

Tracing me grandad,were was Coldstream Guards 6th armoured division 21st army group was they here?

@WalkingDday Год назад

They were involved in Goodwood then Bluecoat. Later in the liberation of Brussels and market garden.

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

IIRC the Falaise Pocket was made an official “Unhealthy Zone” by the allies. Because of the thousands of rotting corpses there

@WalkingDday Год назад

Eisenhower went to visit the « death corridor » just afterwards. He said it was like Dante’s inferno. You couldn’t walk without treading on bodies.

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

@@WalkingDday ….off limits/restricted for years?

@WalkingDday Год назад

@@Idahoguy10157 They couldn’t do that. There were people living there St Lambert, Tournai. I don’t know exactly when the bodies were cleared, but they dug big holes and pushed them in. The places are visible todays as copses. It took 15 years to clear all the vehicles abandoned.

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

@@WalkingDday … between the corpses, the abandoned vehicles, and unexploded ordinance it wasn’t restricted? Imagine the smell!

@WalkingDday Год назад

@@Idahoguy10157 There was a stench across much of Normandy during the battle of Normandy.

@konradadamczyk5755 4 месяца назад

One little note. Only those who fled Poland after the 1939 campaign were called by nazis propaganda Sikorski's tourists because they often imitated tourists, but the 1st Armored Division also included Polish emigrants who came to England from all over the world to fight for their "old" homeland.

@tommietyrrell8143 3 года назад

Hi where is location of the gun barrel sticking out of tree

@WalkingDday 3 года назад

By the chateau d’Aubrey. Going over the bridge at St Lambert towards Aubrey, you come to the chateau in the left. There are trees lining the alley. The tree on the right by the road has the barrel in it, pointing to the alley. It’s about 15 ft up. Probably can’t see it when the tree is in leaf.

@tommietyrrell8143 3 года назад

@@WalkingDday hi thanks for response Love your videos, last one was very good

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

German troops in the pocket had two choices. Try to escape. Go surrender. Surrender being less dangerous. Either way they were being shelled, bomber, and under assault on the ground. While in the Falaise Pocket

@ToddSauve 2 года назад

I have either read or heard that the Germans trying to funnel through the tiny openings in the gap over the rivers there resorted to battling each other with bayonets for a coveted place in the lineup. It has to be a very frightening thing for men of their own army to be down to fighting each other with bayonets in order to escape. They must have been piling up on each other by the hundreds and thousands, unable to even move forward because of their own numbers. 🤷‍♂️

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

I hadn’t heard that. It’s possible. In General the German commanders were quite well disciplined , waiting with their unit in a forest for their turn to run the gauntlet of the crossings.

@ToddSauve 2 года назад

@@WalkingDday Yes, but a commander may display discipline while his soldiers break discipline because of the great stress put on them when they feel like certain death will be their lot if they don't take matters into their own hands. Panic sets in and is contagious. I would not have wanted to be in the German army in the Falaise Gap.

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

@@ToddSauve Well it certainly was a debacle for the Germans.

@ToddSauve 2 года назад

@@WalkingDday I wouldn't make a good soldier. If those leading me aren't smarter than me, I lose interest very quickly because they are just going to get us all killed. Sigh ...

@kerrydennison7947 Год назад

General Bradley should have allowed general Patton to drive on to vale's and close the gap sooner that way we would have faced a lot less German troops later on and destroyed much more German equipment

@kerrydennison7947 Год назад

That Sherman tank on display that's supposed to represent a Polish armor Sherman is the wrong model that is a 76 mm Sherman tank and the Polish armor regiment did not have any fireflies they had the normal Sherman's with the 75 mm gun

@WalkingDday Год назад

I don’t know the story of that particular tank, but the tank at Utah beach and the tank that used to be at Ste Mere eglise, were given by the French army as being surplus. Ste Mere eglise managed to exchange their 76 mm Sherman with a tank from Holland with a 75 mm gun.

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

IIRC in Normandy the Americans had left their own 76mm armed Shermans in England. A decision had been made to have all American Shermans armed with the 75mm. Later on the better armed Shermans were brought to France. I believe there were 76mm armed Tank Destroyers in Normandy

@WalkingDday Год назад

@@Idahoguy10157 I believe they didn’t bring the 76 mm in at the beginning ,as the men had trained on the 75mm, and it would require retraining.

@Idahoguy10157 Год назад

@@WalkingDday …. That and change of logistics & ammo

@zepter00 2 года назад

So sad that Canadians came so late.

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

The Canadians and the Poles were the most active in closing the pocket.

@zepter00 2 года назад

@@WalkingDday you mean Poles and Canadians

@WalkingDday 2 года назад

@@zepter00 😀

@williamhoward9493 Год назад

What this video doesn't address it was Britains Gen. Montgomery who had Patton stooped from closing the gap and over 200,00 German soldiers escape to fight another day!

@lyndoncmp5751 Год назад

Incorrect. It was Bradley who gave that order and admitted it in his book, A Soldiers Story: "In halting Patton at Argentan, however, I did not consult Montgomery. The decision was mine alone. I much preferred a solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a broken neck at Falaise". Montgomery never had any direct jurisdiction over Patton's 3rd Army.

@frankvandergoes298 11 месяцев назад

Only 40,000 soldiers escaped the pocket. Many without weapons.

@Idahoguy10157 11 месяцев назад

⁠@@frankvandergoes298… there’s multiple estimates of both German losses and how many escaped the pocket. That the gap wasn’t closed earlier was contention ever since as to how was more responsible, Monty or Bradley

@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- 2 месяца назад

@@Idahoguy10157 According to Historian Martin Blumenson in 'Breakout and Pursuit': "How many Germans escaped? No one knew. At the end of 20 August Army Group B reported that "approximately from 40 to 50 percent of the encircled units succeeded in breaking out and joining hands with the II SS Panzer Corps." This was an optimistic assessment. By the end of the following day, the strength of six of seven armored divisions that had escaped the pocket totaled, as reported at that time, no more than 2,000 men, 62 tanks, and 26 artillery pieces. Later estimates of the total number of Germans escaping varied between 20,000 and 40,000 men, but combat troops formed by far the smaller proportion of these troops. The average combat strength of divisions was no more than a few hundred men, even though the over-all strength of some divisions came close to 3,000. The explanation lay in the fact that a partial exodus had begun at least two or three days before the breakout attack--when shortages of ammunition, gasoline, and other supplies had already become acute."

@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- 2 месяца назад

@@frankvandergoes298 Meanwhile over *400,000 Germans* were killed and wounded in the overall Normandy campaign, two battered divisions getting away is not big a deal given the above losses to the German army.

@user-hi3xr6rq3y Год назад

Stop calling people by their last names. Call them by their first names.

@tobijug Год назад

Strange speech pattern, whereby his voice rises on the last word of every sentence - as weird as it is irritating

@senseofthecommonman Год назад

But not as irritating as your comment, and how weird it was that you needed to post it. And at least he has something worthwhile to listen to unlike you.

@lyndoncmp5751 Год назад

Not even remotely true. And do your own videos if you don't like these.