Combat Studies Institute

Busting the Bocage: American Combined Operations in France, 6 June -31 July 1944 Combat Studies Institute

First published in 1988. Over sixty years have passed since Allied armies landed in Normandy with the purpose of liberating western Europe and destroying Hitler's Third Reich. Despite this passage of time and extensive writings on the landings in France, officers and historians are still intensely interested in D-Day and the Normandy campaign. Indeed, a great deal remains to be learned about the U. S. Armys's participation in the Normandy campaign, and a detailed examination of the fighting yields a fruitful case study for America's professional officer corps concerning how American soldiers performed in combat, how squads and platoons closed with and destroyed the enemy, and how the Army adapted methods to overcome a whole host of problems that it encountered in combat. This study attempts to identify the problems that hampered the operations of the U. S. First Army during the weeks immediately following the D-Day landings. in Normandy, inexperienced American combat units struggled with veteran German defenders on terrain specially suited for the defense. The U. S. Army was faced with the problem of conducting offensive operations in the Normandy hedgerow country- known as the Bocage. Shortcomings in preinvasion training and preparation resulted initially in uncoordinated efforts whenever American infantry, tanks, and artillery tried to combine forces during attacks.