history bookshelf hear writers well known every saturday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. website to watch these program any time. you're watching american history weekend onend, every c-span 3. andest the author professor john mcmanus talks about the aftermaghtd of the d-day invasion. he talks about the difficult town surrounding the beaches. this hour-long event was part of the world war ii museum anniversaryn of the of d-day in june. >> the focus today is post some extent the

hardest work is beginning for the alleys. shore is a monumental effort that requires years of years of compromises and politics and whatever else. follows from june 7 onward just an absolute bloody slog that leads into nazi germany. wru it be -- where it begins. of d-day in the sees thisto six days seized basically situation. five distinctive .anding beaches oma beach, the americans carved

out an enlodgement for that and west of that, the utah beach. is my focuss, that today is the american experience normandy and little bit about what that buzz like. d-day, theath of main objective is to link up the distinctive beaches. you're not going to do much of normandy and utah beaches are linked up as one basenuous entity and a point from which you will advance and take your other in normandy. of geographynt happens to be the spot where it must happen. it is not a big town. 4,000 people in 1944. it is located near very low ground, much of which is flooded it.arshy around at one time in napoleon's day,

almost like an island haduse french engineers manipulated the locks and the nearbynd the sea canals in such a way to isolate it. in 1944 butke that much of the land around it was inundated and many of you know the germany of defenses against the invasion is offlood certain portions normandy to foil operations. is the focus of what 101th airborne division and the landings. the 101st had southward.red around in about the first three to four d-day, their fight is a matter of capturing d-day objectives and for the commanderputting together an ent

maneuver. becomes its primary focus in 1944. it.'s how he will do he will approach from the north. his 327th glider right. and go to the if you can see it on the map. i know this is something of a map. but these are the better maps you're going to get in terms of accuracy. it comes from the west point at last, which is an online website. i highly encourage you to check it out for, not just world war maps but other maps. don't.eally well the regimen along with the regimen will swing around to the right of the city. it. will be east of

the second parachute infantry coming inthe lead in from the north and swinging around and on their heels will famousably the most regimen in the 051st, the band of brothers. one way in from the north. this.rmans know the causeway is mined and there are obstacles to prevent american movement. there is also there is also in one instance a german plane tracing a long column of infantry, which is an .nusual experience

not to mention the obstacles. coverty! on either side of the embankment. this then extremely difficult sometion, but there are distinctive farms just north of the town, and eventually, some paratroopers get in there. most notably, italian -- a battalion led by a 27-year-old west pointer, a soldier's soldier. we often associate -- what shall we put it -- army language with general george patton. he was sort of patent's equal in terms of colorful army language and a colorful personality. le had a manner of speaking

gruffly but affectionately to his soldiers. he was a larger-than-life commander, the kind of person who likes to give his soldiers a hard time. to kind of tested them in that sense, to give them a hard time and see how they would react to his rather unique sense of humor, but he was also a rather inspirational commander in combat in terms of courage and professionalism. he had one of sorted the key moments of this push into the northern outskirts. he is going to loosely organize what is a rare and modern american military history, which is a bayonet charge against the group of germans who control a farm building and surrounding head rooms -- more on those in a basically 60 to with coleroopers

leading the way with a pistol. there's an absurdly humorous moment that happens during this incredible assault. this drainagee gully or drainage ditch and just falls straight into it, and he is flashed up to here with water and has all these guys around him, going past him, following him, whatever, and he looks back and says, "don't follow me," which is sort of the anti-infantry credo. he almost unconsciously goes against that. he does not want everybody falling into the ditch. he works his way out of there. others are working their way straight up to germans. there are instances where they will bayonet germans in the stomach, believe it or not. they get their foot in the door by overrunning this german position in one of the key spot north of the town.

once they get artillery reinforcement, the germans are not able to counterattack and dislodge them, and this kind of opens the doorway into karen tan for the rest of the 101st airborne division, including, most notably the 506. the 506 will swing around from the left, come from the south, and then basically take it street by street. there were concerns you would have an entire german parachute regiment. as it turned out, they left a rearguard of about a company, and this fight is portrayed quite famously in the miniseries "band of brothers," and portrayed very well. the key point is to defend it an approaching attack coming from the south. why did the germans want carentan back? they understand that if it remains under american control,

omaha beach and utah beach linked up, and the americans advanced from there, so the germans are quite cognizant of the objective. this fighting in the german counterattack, which takes place mainly june 11 through june 13, takes place outside of the city limits, not really in the town, but outside in the fields and , androws beyond carentan this is one of the few instances that allied leaders are able to receive intelligence -- what is called ultra intelligence -- the ability to break many german codes, operational codes, and figure out their intentions. general bradley, the u.s. first army commander has this ultra intelligence. he knows what 17 panzer grenadier is going to do, and he has 17 tanks to deal with them. they have landed hastily. they will enter the carentan

site along with paratroopers, who are heavily armed to deal with tanks and paratroopers and whatever else, and they are going to stave off that counterattack successfully by june 12 and 13, allowing the heat of american beachheads to link up. this is important. this is significant. from there, where do the allies go? distinct allied forces now, the americans and their allies from britain and canada, are dealing with different points of resistance, different obstacles. on the british side and canadian side, as you see, closer to there, the most potent adversary you have is the german units converging on you. some of the most powerful units in the german army are warming to deal with the british and canadians there. , 21steans 12th ss panzer panzer -- you have pretty good rolling ground around cannes.

plateaus, farm fields that are right there in the summertime, you know, getting close to harvest. it is good tank country. there are some good roads. the british wanted for the obvious reason -- it's the biggest city in normandy and the perfect pivot point to advance out of normandy. it is also an inlet port to help you logistics, to land supplies and people and whatever else. british general montgomery, 21st army group commander, had hoped the first day on after d-day -- he wouldn't deny this later in life, quite disingenuously. instead, it takes about a month because they are facing some of the toughest units in the entire german army. one example -- the canadian third division will ultimately end up in a blood feud with the affirmation 12th ss panzer division, a hitler youth division. fanatical 16, 17, 18 you'll the

lanai of the hitler youth russiane hardline veterans -- fanatical 16, 17, alumni of the hitler youth. shoot the they prisoners almost out of hand as they head down on the eastern front at times. eventually, they collect them, and one by one execute them. at least 25 of them are killed in the garden of the abbey, and you can go this day and visited and see the memorial marker to the canadians who were killed there. the canadian third division then will take no prisoners, at least they say, and they soon will basically lock horns throughout much of june in 19 -- much of june and much of july and 1940 four and basically destroy each other. the 12 ss into basically destroyed, but the canadian

third division is severely depleted. one thing about the canadian division in world war ii -- this was kind of a hangover from world war i. in world war i, you could get drafted and sent to go fight on the western front, and they had taken massive casualties. in world war ii, you had to be a volunteer to get sent overseas to fight in a combat unit. you could be drafted to serve and defend canada at home, but you could not necessarily be theted to go served in canadian third division fighting in normandy. it was difficult for them to replenish manpower once they were losing people. the british are having some of the same problems, so i have a draft in which you could serve everywhere. for the americans, their main challenge is the terrain itself. not that the german opposition should be taken lightly, but the terrain can do some of the turbans -- some of the defensive work for the germans in normandy. this is honeycombed with hedgerows. you're looking at an aerial view

from 1944. you will notice almost like a area,rboard sense of this this place, these fields. what are the hedgerows? mostly, they are structured thusly? you have about a 48-foot 8-footment -- 4 to embankment. sometimes stones or reinforcing material, but often reinforced with deep and the roots that date back many hundreds if not thousands of years. is extensive, especially in summertime. formidable natural obstacle. the hedgerows have been deliberately cultivated by norman farmers for at least two millennia, dating back to roman times. used to delineate whose field was whose and to have kind of a border area. you can see -- you probably have deeply rooted trees, foliage, .eeply packed earth

the soil is very moist, very much the consistency of clay, very adhesive. is beautiful soil, but obviously, it is very fermentable. for any attacker who is hoping to deal with it. this is kind of a present-day look at how confining this would be. the kind of a claustrophobic effect to this? your visibility is limited. you are in the middle of this green, and you often sense just how thick some of these hedgerows are until you are right upon them. in that kind of circumstance, you can imagine it would be difficult to manipulate and maneuver units to know what is going on even a quarter of a mile away and to have any kind of sense of what the german opposition might be. you can also sense that any opening in the hedgerows is going to be covered by german

weaponry. how are you going to move and take land and maneuver under these circumstances. this is what the u.s. army comes face to face with -- a kind of stunning situation by about the second week of june or so of how to deal with this. the germans have learned very quickly how to fortify the various hedgerows, how to make the americans pay dearly. i also do not want to say there are no hedgerows and the british sector -- there are -- but the heaviest is on the american part of normandy. the u.s. army from an operational and command standpoint, is not really prepared to deal with these hedgerows. most of the training have focused on getting a sure and on maneuver warfare. what the u.s. army is going to do well -- maneuver with vehicles, using a lot of firepower, use air power, all these kinds of things. though there are certainly recognition that the hedgerows thet at high command level, french resistance, of course,

has told them all about this. normandy is not a mystical place. many americans and britons and canadians have visited. george patton is a good example. he had visited during world war i and thereafter. it's not like this is brand-new, but there is this kind of disconnect between understanding there are hedgerows of normandy, but maybe they are sort of like the hedgerows in britain, which , anduch more like hedges maybe they'll have to deal with that. as a commander, at the small unit level, platoon, company, your people probably are not prepared for this. the u.s. army is probably going to have to empathize. initially, the performance for some units is really not good, really problematic. one of the regiments had come ashore on d-day at utah beach. after the fourth division had taken the beach, or later in the day, i should say, and two other regiments are going to be

landed, and they are going to .ight senior leadership was really not up to the task. is going to be a lot of fighting's, a lot of turmoil. to be in thising learning curve throughout the week, and a lot of soldiers lose their lives or get wounded as people figure out how to deal with this. ultimately, the 90th is going to end up as one of the finest units in the u.s. army in europe, but as i mentioned, it is a steep learning curve. there are other units that struggle, too. not quite as much as the 90th, but it is a problem. so how will they deal with them? improvisation -- this is a bottom-up kind of thing. senior commanders are kind of noodling with this idea of how to deal with the hedgerows. it's really the sergeants and junior officers dealing with it on a day-to-day basis. the solution to the whole thing

is combined arms. certainly, the first thing you have to do is create a new opening, right? going to go through their opening and get killed, so how did you create that new opening? what they are thinking about is they have engineers with tnt and just blowing holes that way, but you're not have enough engineers or enough tnt -- you do not have enough engineers or enough tnt. your tanks, what about them? one of the things they are going to start doing is welding prongs onto the front of united states army tanks in order to punch holes through the hedgerows. of this guyclaims who did it first, that guy, whatever -- all of those are debatable because this is going on uniformly across the board. each unit figuring it out on their own kind of thing. it is not as much of a unified kind of approach. i am giving you sort of the

general picture of the fact that people are improvising and figuring out they will punch holes with tanks, but the tanks will be vulnerable on their own. if you send a tank through, punch through the hedgerow, there's a very good possibility there'll be a german waiting on the other side of that hedgerow, crouching in a ditch with an antitank weapon, basically a fire and forget weapon that can basically punch a hole in your armor and destroy the tanks if close enough. you also have antitank weapons dug in, things like that. this is where you need infantry. infantry must be right alongside those tanks as they punch through. the tanks will punch through a hedgerow, like you see, and they will figure there must be germans in the ditches or in the next hedgerow line or maybe the field, if they are dumb, but maybe close by. they will saturate the area with white phosphorus shells. white phosphorus is a nasty weapon, basically designed to burn through all the way to the

bone. when you burn by white phosphorus, you do not put that out with water. that only feeds it with more oxygen and makes it worse. only way to stop it is basically to cut off the oxygen supply, and that basically means packing it with motor or something like that, which can create infection, of course. no german soldier wants to have these little bits of white phosphorus come down on him, catch his uniform on fire, burn through his skin. you can see that would be quite . deterrent saturate them, and in the infantry will act as a bodyguard for the tanks, coming along the side, cleaning up the ditches, to use the army's euphemism, basically that means kill people, she people, take them prisoner, whatever would be. engineers would sometimes be used maybe as demolition specialists or to deal with mines. u.s. army is going to begin to fight this way, hedgerow to

hedgerow throughout normandy, and it is still a slow and rather torturous process, but it works, especially because the germans do not have enough manpower or firepower to really hold off this growing u.s. army. that is kind of the overview of how many of these battles he fought. once you have the link up at the main objective is to move westward. shouldn't they moved eastward toward germany? true, but they want to take the peninsula first. inland from utah beach all the way to the opposite coast. the american planners believe they need the largest harbor and normandy, and just consider from a supply point of view, the more people you put ashore, the more

people you had to sustain. you need thousands of tons of supplies to sustain the allied armies, and will only grow as you get into france. from the american point of view, about 2/3 of this whole effort is going to be manpower. you need that to help feed your armies. the germans understand this, too, and they have fortified it through great extent. the first push across the peninsula through hedgerow country is through that town called barney ville, which you .ee on the western coast the ninth infantry division takes it on june 18, 1944. the ninth division is an interesting unit. it had fought in the mediterranean and was more or less a regular army division, had a reputation for being a very strong unit in combat, nicknamed the old reliable. later on, they will be called

the octave foil. the ninth is going to be a key player for the u.s. army in normandy. , thathey take bonneville means the germans are now sealed .ff, mainly in their perimeter they may try and attack the other side of that redline you see, but from a german point of view, they are mainly .reoccupied bradley lines up three u.s. army divisions up in the peninsula, and sends them toward cherbourg in that second half of june, 1944. you will have the ninth edition on the western coast, as you would expect. in the middle, you'll have the 79th infantry division. that division had fought in

world war i. it is new to combat in world war ii. one of the things interesting about this division is if you have seen many photographs of u.s. army soldiers from the normandy campaign is that during this phase of the normandy campaign, you can instantly recognize the 79th division soldiers. in most cases, u.s. army soldiers have a very tight ,attern netting on their helmet particularly non-airborne soldiers. 79th division had very wide netting on their helmets in june 1940 four, almost to the point where you would wonder why it's even there. when you see this kind of wide netting in any picture, you will know that the 79th division soldier probably in the latter half of june 1944. on the right side or the original landing coast near utah beach is the fourth infantry division or iv division. a regular army unit that

was new to combat on d-day and will soon earn a reputation for significant bravery and also competence as well. three divisions, basically advancing shoulder to shoulder, collectively under the command ,f seven core commander collins who will really in my opinion emerge as one of the most competent of all u.s. army commanders in the european theater. he had once commanded the 25th duringn in guadalcanal that battle in 1942. since that division was known as the tropic lightning division, it earned him the nickname lightning joe. the push is true pretty thick country, so the battle is fought more or less, as i illustrated a moment ago, with these combined arms efforts. you have not necessarily a full armored division like the second armored division as part of it. you have tanks parceled out in foursantry units and fives or by a dozen or

whatever to help that incremental advance, and it is casualty intensive. the navy is helping the eastern coast advance because one of the problems you are running into is very heavy bunkers and fortifications that have been designed to defend the coast that were now tough nuts to crack as you advance north. by about 223, 24, you are .pproaching the outskirts this is a mismatch to group. you have naval people, luftwaffe people, antiaircraft people, supply people, administrative types. a lot of built-in fortifications of then the center point entry outskirts. you have coastal fortifications and all this.

salt, collinsng a is going to do something quite unusual and some would say innovative. u.s. navy is helping sustain the entire beachhead, regardless of whether we are talking about the british or americans -- they are helping sustain it by guarding the beaches or -- where most real supplies are being landed, still. but you've got a lot of powerful ships, cruiser, destroyers, a few battleships that can be useful as close to port for any operation. collins will coordinate with his naval colleagues to have a fleet available that features at least two battleships, and they are going to shell the german position in the harbor, tied down a lot of their gun to provideesigned some level of close support for thetroops as they move into

urban murat -- morath. a you are asked to shell hostile shore in support of american troops, usually amphibious assault troops, most no problem, no's big deal if you fire too long. you don't want to do that. you want to hit the target. if you fire too long, you miss it, but it lands somewhere in the german or japanese rear area, right? this is different. you are now firing in the same direction where your troops are coming from. you don't want to fire along, there's a great deal of precision gunnery, a great deal of precision coordination. if you can imagine, here are the army soldiers advancing toward their own navy's guns. it is what i consider to be few,kable, that there are

if any, friendly fire incidents during this battle. the navy does a remarkable job of rescission fire, not firing thisong, and why is difficult to coordinate? not in the initial part of it, certainly, but once stuff happens -- think about it. you have squads and platoons on this street versus that street. it is an uneven, jagged advance, and it's hard to know who is where at any given time and hard to coordinate that. i view that is somewhat remarkable, that they do not end up with any sort of disasters on their hands. quickly, the germans find just bombarded, outclassed, outfoxed, building the building, bar to bar, sewer to sue her. that are orders from hitler to fight for the last man in last cartridge.

very hitler sort of rhetoric. he nonetheless will surrender with at least 20,000 to 30,000 german troops by the end of june, 1944. and it's taken. wonderful, right? i have bad news. german engineers had demolished the harbor. they had mated basically unusable, at least in the near-term. they had filled in the docs. they had destroyed the cranes. they had put concrete block ships and their -- in there. likehad used a demolitions you would not believe. this is a major job for u.s. army engineers to go in and try to recover the place and rebuild it. it takes the better part of the summer to do this. it's really not going to be running all that much for the allies until about september 1944, and by then, it's far away from the front lines in eastern france, so it's a bit at the

climatic and that sense -- a bit anticlimactic in that sense. for artificial harbors the allies have created through remarkable and ingenious in generic and manufacturing, basically create your own artificial harbors off the landing beaches. basically, you think tetrahedron and also block ships to create those breakwaters. then you have ramps and platforms and you unload stuff that way. those are there within about a week or so of the invasion, but a terrible storm hits normandy, heavily damages the british mulberry harbor and destroys the american mulberry harbor for good. if you go to normandy, you can still see vestiges of both,

particularly the british one, which much of it is preserved. the mulberry's are little bit overrated in terms of allied supply. they will really account for about 10%. most of your supplies of simply being landed on the beaches. especially omaha beach. t's, whichoversized ls the cruise nickname long, slow targets, and it often is. but verytty ship, utilitarian. it can move a lot of ships, a lot afraid, whatever. again, not really what they planned, but that's how the majority of the supplies are going to be landed in this campaign in northern europe for quite some time. you have, of course, a unified allied sector, as the map shows you. the british are going to get on july 7, mainly by destroying it by air. they are fighting for the ruins

in the rubble. montgomery is going to try to pin it from there and advanced in an offensive called operation goodwood, which is disastrous. tanks in4000 men, 700 the space of about two days, goes almost nowhere. the american front is more or less stalemated, like you see there, and not that are from barnardsville. bradley decides to attack on the extreme western flank. is he wantss to do to unhinge that whole western part of the german line, that redline you see there, unhinged that, and that will compromise the entire german position in normandy. well, what is up happening is dead is a slow and bloody slog through very marshy ground, which is bad for tanks and vehicles, so you cannot get much support. bradley gains seven miles of

ground in two weeks and suffers 40,000 american casualties. for seven miles of more or less worthless ground. much. that is what normandy is dissolving two. the weather is not good. wet climate, especially in the summer. yourmakes it tough to use airpower. turning into a campaign of attrition, which is not what really either side wants in a way. bradley's concept on the heels of his failure is to redouble his efforts to take the land you see right in the middle of our map. it, of course, is not a new objective for the americans. they had hoped to have it a lot sooner than this. the reason it is important, and you will notice this by just a glance of the map -- practically every road leads through this

crossroads town. it was a market town dating back to ancient times. at a big ways, but kind of communication and transportation and market center for norman and have been invaded many times because it was valuable, for these reasons. ,t had been invaded by romans kings, napoleonic armies, you name it. obviously, the germans in 1940. in the olde invaders days had wanted what invaders throughout history have domination,nted -- power, women, whatever. come in 1944. they don't want any of those things. they want to liberate the town, as they see it. what is supremely ironic and tragic about the whole thing is

these most than a bullet of invaders do more damage, arguably, than all the others combined -- these most benevolent of invaders. as a crossroads and would be the natural place the germans would use to go and counterattack omaha beach. it creates ruins and kills many french civilians, who are certainly caught in the middle of all of this, and, of course, as the push will mature, it will lead to even more destruction, ultimately leading one u.s. army soldier to say after the battle, sorrow inof awe and his voice, "we liberated the hell out of this place." bradley pushes forward with ,hree u.s. army divisions missouri, kansas, nebraska national guard, new to combat. the second infantry division, the indianhead division, which

lands the day after d-day at omaha beach. many of you have probably seen a very name is image of soldiers ascending omaha beach with supplies, looking up at the camera with this long column. that takes place right in the heart of omaha beach, and it was on june 7, 19 44. the second division was regular army division. the took pride in having largest actual patch in the entire u.s. army, the big indianhead patch, and it still exist. the 29th,division is the bluegray division that had carried out the famous assault on omaha beach on d-day. a month later, if you were at a rifle company in the 29th division and had been there on d-day, you were a real fugitive from the law of averages. the casualties the units took on d-day were, of course, extensive, and the fighting ever since had been extremely costly. the 29th division had been replenished to some extent with

replacements, and it will really have the lead role in the push. this gives you a closer look at it. you can see where primarily americans are coming from. this is really some of the .hickest country the 29th division fights in this area from july 10 through july 18, 1944. it is about a three or four-mile area. one historian estimated it would an hour toly about an hour and a half, maybe two hours to walk it in regular peacetime life. it took eight days to take it for the 29th division and get into saint-lo itself. hedgerow to hedgerow, fighting against german army paratroopers and survivors from the german army's 352nd infantry division,

parts of which had been at omaha beach. this is another battle to extinction. in terrible circumstances, sometimes in rain, with losses like you would not believe that if you are in a rifle company, and you started out, say, with 160 guys on july 10, you are probably down to about 15 or 20 by july 18. not everybody else is dead. the majority are wounded or have skulked away or something like that, but nonetheless, you are taking intense casualties, but the germans are even worse off. the americans get saint-lo and find it is really nothing more than a field of ruins. incredibly tragic, but the roads somewhat intact, but the problem is engineer's had to come in with older users because there is so much rubble, and move the rubble aside, and that makes the destruction even worse from the point of view of the townspeople. the symbol of the american effort is embodied in a guy who,

through the attrition of the battle, had become a battalion commander. in civilian life, he had been an english teacher and a football coach. he was a man of great intellect, great sensitivity, and anybody who met him tended to like him, except his division commander, never the most sensitive individual you could meet. he tended to think that he was too nice, too soft, too sensitive to be a great combat later. he was wrong about that. he turns out to be beloved by his men, and one of the people who really leads the push into saint-lo, and one of the last rides, he is killed right shellfire. his body is carried by other soldiers into saint-lo and is placed under a flag, what they

think is the remains of the church of saint-lo and is put there basically on display as a kind of symbol of what americans have done in saint-lo. he is known today as the major of saint-lo. with his key objective finally in his hand, bradley hopes to kind of pin it -- pivot out of saint-lo and beyond. i mentioned montgomery's good would often sit. originally, he had hoped to coordinate that with a major offensive by bradley pushing , andwest out of saint-lo both want to use the air force is to carpet bomb the forces ahead of them. because of the weather patterns in normandy, the weather was simply too bad in the american sector to launch this offensive. plus, the fighting had been so costly the americans will not be in a position to push until july 24, and that's several days after the goodwood offensive.

this is coming piecemeal and allows the germans to react to either one of them. bradley will, launch what is called operation cobra. he has coordinated with the eighth air force back in england to basically bomb in front of his line, to saturate the german primarily the panzer layer division in front of the u.s. army units. they'll be bombed heavily by the engine bombers and relentlessly, to create such a swath and path of destruction that the germans will not be able to stop an approaching combined arms advance. basically, three divisions with infantry mounted on tanks. the first infantry division will be mounted on tanks from the third armor division. like a mobile task force under general collins to exploit that hopeful breach in the german basically create

a mobile campaign in normandy. does not quite work out that way. the coordination by bradley with the air commanders is not good. miscommunication. the air commanders had said very clearly -- though he will deny this later -- that they could not basically bomb horizontally to the american lines, so if this is the u.s. line here, the bombers would ideally come over the german lines and drop their bombs, but if they do that, they run a gauntlet of antiaircraft german lineng the in normandy. plus, it will take forever. hours and hours and hours to do this. they said they would come over vertically, street of the u.s. lines, and drop their loads once they are passed u.s. lines. they come in from that direction. the drops are short. on the u.s. of life side. the ground commanders had demonstrated great frustration during the run-up to cobra because they had taken some

hard-won ground and from above, they had been told, "you got to give up that ground and withdraw 1000 or 2000 yards because the air force is going to bomb ahead of you. we don't want them to bomb you." even with that, they were still getting bombed by their own air force with dozens of lives lost on july 20 four. bradley has to decide -- this is a tough senior leader decision. "should i unleash the bombing again on july 25 knowing the danger this time?" he decides to go ahead with it. this time, they decide to mark it with orange colored smoke, which says, "do not bomb on the side of the orange colored smoke because that's the u.s. line." the crewmen are briefed to not do that. none of them obviously wants to bomb their own troops. what you think happens on july 25? murphy's law and effect. which way do you think the wind is blowing? toward the u.s. line. orange smoke is coming back toward the american line.

there is confusion by at least one of two groups, and that's all it takes. they will unload their bombs over the u.s. line, and there will be more friendly fire casualties. ultimately, 100 11 americans killed. many come from the 30th infantry division. commanded by a fire regional named hobbes, who i can assure the u.s.ly 25 hates army air force. fairly or unfairly, that's how he feels. the 30th division will be told, "we are sorry this happened to you, but go ahead and attack." if you have ever heard of the great war correspondent ernie pyle, he wrote a wonderful account of what it was like to force.ed by his own air he was right there with the .ourth division when u.s. army troops go forward on july 25, they find that the germans are still in a good position to resist, unfortunately. some of those front-line positions have not been hit that hard. that a bad thing. the good news -- or rear areas have been really nailed.

communications destroyed. people just destroyed. course columns destroyed. all this kind of stuff. once you get past that hard crust of initial resistance, there is room to maneuver, and collins has to make this decision. should i send them forward and really go for the kill? he does so by july 26 and july 27, and it leads to what you see on the map -- a breakthrough through that blue rectangle that beyond, bombed and on and now is where the germans are really in trouble. breakthrough in normandy in july and the kind of mobile campaign the americans have always wanted. safenot mean that it is out there. there are powerful german units moving and retreating, trying to get out to avoid encirclement.

we'll be in a roadblock position and run into a very powerful german armored passport that leaves them confused. night battle with significant loss of life on both sides. there is plenty of very serious fighting going on. from a picture point of view, it is to the americans' advantage now. the germans are really in some trouble. on august 1, they activate the famous third army under general george patton. he has two operational u.s. armies in play now -- the first and third -- and bradley moves up to be an army group commander in control of all the u.s. ground forces, and patent's third army has a reputation for heavy.ery armored he likes mobile, cavalry-type maneuver and mechanized warfare. this is precisely what they'll be doing on the western side of the map. basically/--, move quickly, hit the germans hard -- basically

dash, move quickly, hit the germans hard. this is what patent's army excels at. -- patent -- this is what patton's army excels at. german army will find itself in a very difficult, very mortal position in this stage. from a kind of conceptual viewpoint -- history is not just , and evenrizing military history is not about that, either. there is a larger analysis or purpose to it. what is interesting to me as an american historian is that this u.s. army you now see in late july, august 1944 after what is generally known as the breakout from normandy like you see portrayed on the map, read let a society that has -- reflects a society that has created it and is sustaining it. at the time, the united states

is the most automated society in the world. when you think of world war ii, you think of the germans and their tanks and blitzkrieg and all that. the german army is moving their supplies with horse-drawn wagons . into theirnning vehicles with ersatz fuel. they are not even in the class of the united dates army in this sense. vehicles of every type and description, not just famous tanks, but jeeps and trucks and recovery vehicles and aircraft, forall of it is designed transportation-oriented mechanized maneuver warfare, ground and air. you have is a fast hitting, fast-moving forest now with excellent close air support -- this is the flipside of the air force. beeneavy bombers have asked in operation cobra to do

something that was really not in their skill set -- to bomb a precision target right in front of friendly troops. in this instance, you're talking about fighter-bombers, medium bombers that are more accurate, that can move lower, i can fly ahead of ground formation to act as eyes and ears and can give them close support, and this is exactly what happens. if you are a german moving on the roads of normandy, you are going to be in trouble. ofoughout the early days august 1944, the german position gets worse and worse, as you see on the map. they get kind of bent around, and they are now in danger of encirclement. if you are the german commander, at this point, you might say it is time to get out of there, right? hitler being hitler, he is not going to think that way. he is going to attack. he is giving orders for bidding retreat. he scrapes together their best remaining armored divisions in

attacks on august 7 through 12, 1944. the purpose of this is to get about 10 miles away and andcally cut off patton reversed the whole time. it takes the americans off guard leads to furious fighting for it rid of four days, but the operation is a dismal failure. he loses about 1/3 of his armor, and when it's over, it's clear the germans have to get out of normandy or risk losing everything left. the americans are hoping to do is to encircle the remains of that german army and destroy it. patton has had to siphon off formations in brittany, which he does not want to do. why is that? they are a supply horse, like you see there. that's the original plan. they are going to have garrisons

told to fight to the end, and then they will destroy the port cities when they have the chance. but the rest of patton's army is going to swing around eastwood, and he hopes to swing north and slap at trap shut and join hands group,e 21st army british and canadians coming from the other direction. originally, this is a concept for the allies, when eventually, bradley will tell them to halt, and this is a controversial decision in normandy because it is thought of by some historians that it allowed germans to escape who otherwise might not have. that, you do end up with an encirclement about august 18, 1944. tens of thousands of germans had escaped. some tanks had escaped. some vehicles had escaped. equipment, the like. .ut the two sides to join hands

it is not a linkup of americans and british. it's americans and polish. captain waters from the 90th emission, the company commander, is re-conning ahead of his unit on that day, and they are under heavy artillery fire. he takes cover in a ditch to kind of see what is ahead, if he will have orders to move forward, and he notices a guy in a funny looking uniform walking along the road braving the shellfire. he knows he is not a german but is not sure who he is. he decides to kind of go from cover -- he does not want to -- and find out who he is and talk to him. it turns out it is a polish army commander. you have a polish armored division moving from the other direction, and the polish army commander tells waters this is the first-ever meeting of polish and american soldiers on a battlefield. the to coordinate to snap this trap shut for the germans, and they will do so, but the germans

will continue trying to attack seriously eastward to get out of there. collectively, this part of the butle of normandy is known -- is over by about august 18, 19, 20 -- roughly around there -- 1940 four. german losses have been terrible. 25,000 to 50,000 men captured. over 10,000 dead. it is a concentrated area, so you are talking about enormous destruction by allied artillery, allied air, allied ground forces, killing of horses -- thousands of courses. load running in the norm than -- norman lane -- blood running in .he norman lanes the stench like you would not believe. the allied fighter pilots that are flying above this -- when they open their canopies, they are hit with the stench of burning flesh immediately. isthe ground, the horror unspeakable for the germans. it's humbling for the allies and troubling enough to them.

you can imagine the germans. bettermans have lost the part of two field armies in normandy. hundreds of thousands of troops. well over 1000 tanks. the allied losses are significant. americans lose 106,000 men in normandy. killed, wounded, captured, missing. -- 23,000.adians over 21,000 americans killed in the battle of normandy. 25.s is liberated on august from the larger point of view, how we interpret the battle of ofmandy, it is the beginning the end for germany, the pivot point in europe. it is not a turning point. the turning point had happened earlier. it is the pivot point. after normandy, the germans will not win this war. it is just a matter of time, but it also does not mean it is over

now. there is plenty of hard fighting ahead. from an american point of view, the legacy of the whole thing is this is really the beginning of an american military and economic and political superpower that has now accepted that baton to lead this western allied coalition. in a longer view, it is the beginning of a major american military presence in europe that will remain to this day through .ato it really is a seminal moment through american history. the battle of normandy, i think it is fair to say, is probably the most significant in the of the campaign in northwest europe. thank you. [laughter] -- [applause] >> we have time for two questions. buildingmanus, we were up in normandy and slowly grinding the germans down, but the 15thn the map

army. how long did it take germans to figure out that maybe normandy was the real invasion and not i ?an very -- not secondary >> the allies had hoped to deceive the germans, and that the real invasion, the second invasion would be coming later in the summer. i would say it takes about half that summer for the germans to figure it out. part of the issue is that once they have figured it out, it's easier said than done. simply because of allied air. the germans have difficulty maneuvering, and a subsequent invasion does come, but it's not as well-known. it's the invasion of south france, which happens on august 15. this is one of the things maybe i should have mentioned. the normandy invasion was always envisioned as one part of two complementary and patience. he wanted an immediate follow-up in south france and then to put major pressure on the germans from both sides. as it turns out, it takes two months, mainly because of the

possibly of landing craft another shipping. when the landing happens on august 15, it is at that point in tandem, and hitler finally says, "let's retreat," in the germans are more or less kicked out of france in the two weeks after that. two more specifically answer your question, it takes about half the summer to figure out there is another invasion coming. >> this question concerns german high command and hitler on the strategy of committing the armored divisions. by the second or third day after d-day, when hitler literally this was theaw invasion, he then committed the reserves. they said it was too late. what is your take on that? purely my personal opinion. i think his concept was wrong

and proven wrong. the reason i think that is partially what had happened the germanst when had moved armor near the allied landing beaches that had a naval presence, they had come to regret it. sicily, salerno, anzio -- it had just not worked out that well for them. they probably were not going to foil the invasion at the water line. i tend to see the armor getting through the beaches on d-day as deciding everything as overrated a little bit in that sense. if we also look to the pacific, the japanese are also figuring fortify44, "let's inland and just bleed them." in the way, that's the last best option the axis have in 1944, to bleed them so badly that you will end up with kind of a political change. it is a fun debate.

i totally understand the other point of view because you could say, "well, ok." at the same time, if you let them get ashore, they still have the advantage, too, so that is my feeling. all right? great. thanks. >> you are watching american history tv all weekend every .eekend on c-span3 to join the conversation, like us on facebook. tonight -- >> i thought it would be compelling to tell the story of a white family and a black family with the same name who come from the same place and follow them from slavery through the civil war, reconstruction, jim crow, the civil rights movement, up until today, and compare and contrast.

>> columnist and author chris family's on his slave-owning history and how the legacy of slavery still impacts society. he talked with running back .adaniaian tomlinson that's tonight on c-span two's "after words." uornoy's ourl guest on "q&a." >> part of my responsibility was represented the secretary of defense on the so-called deputies committee, which is sort of the senior-level group working to the issues, developing options for the principle than the president. a lot of crisis management focus. when you are in a think tank, your real utility is not trying to second-guess the policymaker on the issues of the day, but

helping do some work to raise their days, help them look over the horizon to see the issues you will confront a year from now, five years for now, 10 years from now. how will i think more strategically about america's role in the world? >> former under secretary of defense and cofounder of the center for national american flournoy,michele sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." >> 40 years ago, the water gates can the lead to the only resignation of an american president. revisitshistory tv 1974 and the final weeks of the nixon administration. this weekend, the house judiciary committee as it considers impeachment of the president and the charge of abuse of power. >> questions about what the framers had in mind, questions about whether the activities that had been found out i the

committee and by the senate -- the watergate committee, were thirdly,peachable, and can we prove that richard nixon knew about them and even authorized then? american history tv. >> next, the civil war. stephen hood discusses the career, personal life, and legacy of confederate general john bell hood. the author, a distant relative of the general, analyzes his actions at gettysburg, byckamauga, and antietam delving into records released by his descendents. he says many of his controversial act are clarified or redeemed through the examination of the documents. this, from the atlanta cyclorama