Operation Lüttich
Operation part of World War II / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Operation Lüttich (7–13 August 1944) was the codename of the Nazi German counter-attack during the Battle of Normandy, which occurred near U.S. positions near Mortain, in northwestern France. Lüttich is the German name for the city of Liège, Belgium. In British and American histories of the Second World War, the German Operation Lüttich is known as the Mortain counter-attack, which Hitler ordered to regain territory gained by the First United States Army during Operation Cobra by reaching the coast of the Avranches region, which is at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, in order to isolate the units of the Third United States Army that had advanced into Brittany.
Operation Lüttich | |||||||
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Part of the Battle of Normandy | |||||||
German armour destroyed during Operation Lüttich, August 1944 | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States United Kingdom | Germany | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Omar Bradley George Patton | Günther von Kluge | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
5 Infantry Divisions 3 Armored combat commands USAAF Ninth Air Force RAF Second Tactical Air Force |
3 Panzer Divisions 2 Infantry Divisions 5 Panzer or Infantry battlegroups 150 tanks and assault guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
~10,000 casualties 2,000–3,000 killed |
unknown number of infantry 120 tanks and assault guns destroyed or damaged |
The Germans' main force was the XLVII Panzer Corps, with two Heer and one-and-a-half Waffen-SS Panzer Divisions. Despite initial success against the defending U.S. VII Corps, the Germans were soon halted, and the Allies inflicted severe losses on the attacking troops, eventually destroying most of the German tanks involved in the attack.[1] Although fighting continued around Mortain for six days, the American forces had regained the initiative within a day of the opening of the German attack.
As the German commanders on the spot had warned Hitler in vain, there was little chance of the attack succeeding, and the concentration of their armoured reserves at the western end of the front in Normandy soon led to disaster, as they were outflanked to their south and the front to their east collapsed, resulting in many of the German troops in Normandy being trapped in the Falaise Pocket.