World War II battle
The Battle of Saint-Malo was fought between Allied and German forces for control of the French coastal town of Saint-Malo in Brittany during World War II. The battle was part of the Allied breakout across France and took place between 4 August and 2 September 1944. United States Army units, with the support of Free French and British forces, successfully assaulted the town and defeated its German defenders. The German garrison on a nearby island continued to resist until 2 September.
Saint-Malo was one of the French towns designated as a fortress under the German Atlantic Wall program, and its prewar defenses had been expanded considerably before the Allied landings in Normandy during June 1944. As part of their invasion plans, the Allies intended to capture the town so that its port could be used to land supplies. While there was some debate over the necessity of this in August as the Allied forces broke out of Normandy and entered Brittany, it was decided to capture rather than contain Saint-Malo to secure its port and eliminate the German garrison.
After initial attempts to capture the locality failed, the Allies began a siege operation. Infantry units attacked and secured large numbers of fortified German positions with the support of artillery and aircraft. A fortification on the edge of Saint-Malo was the final German position on the mainland to hold out; it surrendered on 17 August. After air and naval bombardment, the garrison on the nearby island of Cézembre surrendered on 2 September. German demolitions made it impractical to use Saint-Malo as a port, however. The town was heavily damaged during the battle and was rebuilt after the war.
Background.
Saint-Malo is a historic port town on the northern coast of Brittany, which, due to its strategic location, was extensively fortified over the centuries. It had a population of 13,000 in 1936, of whom 6,000 lived within the city walls. Saint-Malo's harbor facilities could accommodate medium-sized ships and unload one thousand tons of cargo per day. Before World War II, the town was a popular holiday destination for wealthy Parisians and boasted a casino, hotels and spas.
The town is located on the northwest of the Saint-Malo peninsula, on the eastern side of the mouth of the Rance river. Saint-Malo was once an island, but had been joined to the mainland by a causeway and a road by the time of World War II. The suburb of Paramé was to the east of Saint-Malo, and the fishing port of St. Servan-sur-Mer to the south. The town of Dinard is across the Rance from Saint-Malo. The small but heavily fortified island of Cézembre lies at the mouth of the Rance, and is off the coast from Saint-Malo.
During the first months of the war, Saint-Malo was one of the ports used to import supplies for the British Expeditionary Force in France. As the Germans neared victory in the Battle of France, Allied forces were also evacuated to Britain from the town during Operation Aerial in June 1940; 21,474 personnel were embarked from Saint-Malo without the loss of any lives or ships. Brittany was a key center for German forces during the occupation of France and its major ports were used as submarine bases. As the Allies prepared to liberate France, the Germans judged that Brittany was a likely location for an Allied invasion. This led to extensive fortifications being built in the region as part of the Atlantic Wall program. In 1943 the (transl. High Command of the Armed Forces) designated Saint-Malo and other French ports with prewar fortifications as fortresses. Each fortress was assigned a commander who was required to swear an oath to defend it to the death. The German leader Adolf Hitler expected that these fortresses would hold out for at least 90 days if they were attacked.
Saint-Malo formed part of the Occupied Zone of France, which was directly administered by the German military rather than the Vichy French regime. During the occupation, the town's port was used as a base for coastal forces by the (German Navy). It was also a supply base for the large German garrison in the Channel Islands. In August 1942 German military police rounded up local Jews as part of a mass deportation operation. The Atlantic Wall program led to a substantial augmentation of the prewar fortifications at Saint-Malo, this work being undertaken by volunteer and forced laborers controlled by Organization Todt.
The French Resistance had large numbers of members in Brittany and was capable of successfully attacking German forces. The resistance in the region was dominated by the communist who, unlike many other resistance units, were in favor of making attacks before the Allies landed in France. This led to a partisan war that intensified from 1943. The German forces that attempted to suppress the resistance included the Gestapo secret police, army military police formations, and security battalions. Many of the last were manned by captured Soviet personnel who agreed to fight for the Germans; these units gained a reputation for committing war crimes. The German units were under orders to kill any partisans taken prisoner, at the same time the Free French did not accept their opponents' surrender. The Allies began to airdrop supplies to the Free French in Brittany from early 1944, and special forces units were inserted from June that year to strengthen them. There were more than 2,500 resistance members in the Saint-Malo region as of August 1944, most of whom lived in the towns of Saint-Malo, Dinard and Dinan.
Prelude.
Allied plans.
As part of the preparations for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, Saint-Malo was identified by the Allied planners as one of several minor ports on the French Atlantic coast that could be used to land supplies for the Allied ground forces in France. It was intended that these ports would provide a useful supplement for the major ports such as Brest, Cherbourg and Quiberon Bay. At this time, the planners envisioned that the initial invasion phase would be followed by a subsequent phase to secure a lodgment area. The lodgement area was to include all of the coastline between the Seine and the Loire rivers and nearby inland areas, including Normandy and Brittany. It was believed that this region could be secured within three months of the invasion. Facilities constructed within the lodgment area and supplies and troops landed there would be used to support the subsequent liberation of France and invasion of Germany. Accordingly, the Overlord plan specified that securing Brittany would be the main objective of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley's Twelfth United States Army Group after it broke out from Normandy. This task was assigned to the Third Army, which formed part of the army group and was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton. The planners believed that it would be possible to open Saint-Malo to Allied shipping on the 27th day after the Normandy landings if Allied advances following the invasion went as scheduled, and that 900 tones of supplies could initially be unloaded there daily via DUKW amphibious trucks. It was hoped that port capacity could subsequently be increased to 3,000 tons of supplies per day at Saint-Malo, and another 6,000 tons per day at the ports in the region around the town such as Cancale. This would allow the Saint-Malo area to be the main port for the Third Army. However, Saint-Malo's port was also assessed as being easily blocked by German forces.
Following the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, the Allies and Germans fought a prolonged campaign in the region. The German forces managed to block the Allies from breaking out of the peninsula into other parts of France for almost two months but suffered heavy casualties in the process. During early July the Allied leadership considered the feasibility of launching combined amphibious and airborne landings at Saint-Malo, Quiberon Bay and Brest to seize ports. It was judged that these operations would be very risky, leading to a decision to only attempt them if the stalemate in Normandy became prolonged. British bomber aircraft attacked railway yards and fuel storage tanks at Saint-Malo on 17 July; this raid resulted in French civilian casualties. In late July the American forces in the west of the Normandy region launched the Operation Cobra offensive, which led the German positions to collapse. The town of Avranches, through which the main roads leading from the west coast of Normandy into Brittany ran, was liberated on 30 July and a German counter-attack was defeated the next day. Large numbers of highly mobile American units passed through the town over the next days, and rapidly penetrated the interior of France.
Patton's initial plans for the liberation of Brittany involved first cutting off the Germans in the peninsula by driving a force from Avranches to Quiberon Bay. His armoured units would then rapidly capture the plateau in the peninsula's center, which would isolate the German garrison in a few port towns. These towns were to be attacked as the final stage of the operation. Bradley initially ordered Patton to capture Saint-Malo as part securing Brittany. Patton did not consider the town's capture to be important in its own right, and none of his forces were assigned it as an objective. Bradley did not object, and Patton gained his agreement to bypass the Saint-Malo area if it proved to be well defended. At this time, the Allied intelligence services believed that there were 3,000 Germans at Saint-Malo and Patton thought that the entire peninsula was held by around 10,000 German troops. These estimates were much lower than the actual size of the garrisons. The collapse of the German Army in France as the Allies broke out of Normandy in early August led the Allied leadership to change their plans regarding Brittany. By 2 August General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, believed that the main effort should be encircling the German forces to the southeast of Normandy rather than securing the peninsula. Bradley's views also changed, and by 3 August he preferred that Patton assign only a "minimum of forces" to Brittany, and advance to the east. The VIII Corps under Major General Troy Middleton was given responsibility for Brittany.
The 6th Armored Division led the advance into western Brittany with the goal of rapidly capturing Brest, while the 4th Armored Division pushed south to liberate Rennes and then Quiberon Bay. On 2 August all of the German Army units in Brittany were ordered to withdraw into the fortified ports, including Saint-Malo, by their parent headquarters XXV Corps. The town was attacked by Allied aircraft again on 1 August. The United States Navy also patrolled the Gulf of Saint-Malo, and American destroyers and torpedo boats engaged German coastal craft in the area on several occasions during early August. The resistance in Brittany was directed on 3 August to launch widespread attacks on German forces but avoid major battles. There were approximately 35,000 armed resistance fighters in Brittany at the time, and they rapidly seized most of the region outside of the towns including strategically important roads and bridges. The resistance's control of these areas and transport infrastructure enabled the VIII Corps' rapid advance. Resistance fighters also guided American forces as they moved through Brittany and undertook some garrison duties.
German defenses.
Prior to the Allied landings in Normandy, the German Army's 77th Infantry Division () was stationed in the Saint-Malo area. This division had been formed in early 1944 near Caen in Normandy, and had been transferred to Saint-Malo during May. The 77th Infantry Division was dispatched to Normandy soon after D-Day, and suffered heavy casualties in the fighting there. The remnants of the division returned to Saint-Malo in late July, where it was reinforced with two anti-partisan units, Eastern Battalion 602 () and Security Battalion 1220 (). It was later sent forward again as part of the ad hoc force that unsuccessfully attempted to stop the American breakout at Avranches.
At the time of the battle, the German force in the Saint-Malo area comprised approximately 12,000 personnel. The garrison included the remnants of the 77th Infantry Division, which had withdrawn into the Saint-Malo area. Other Army units included the 3rd Battalion of the 266th Infantry Division's 897th Grenadier Regiment, Eastern Battalion 602, Eastern Battalion 636 and Security Battalion 1220. (German air force)