A part of the "Images of War" series following the post D-Day efforts of the 1st US Army to capture the Cotentin Peninsular with its important port of Cherbourg, and then the struggle to expand the beachhead southwards, ending with the fall of Saint-Lô and the buildup to Operation Cobra, which finally achieved a decisive break in the German lines. Much of this took place in the notorious bocage areas where the narrow roads and thick, almost impenetrable hedgerows severely restricted the ability of the Americans, and above all their tanks to manoeuvre, and so gave their opponents a considerable advantage. The photographs vividly convey the immense difficulties posed by this terrain and show the typical manner in which the battle was fought, covering a broad range of subjects and units with many different types of vehicles and equipment on display. These include the bulldozer and improvised Rhino tanks; Shermans with teeth welded to the front, both of which were used to great effect to force paths through the hedges.

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Pegasus Archive

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The Armourer, August 2019

Another addition to the Images of War series from author Simon Forty. This one tackles the topic of the Battle of the Hedgerows, which is largely about the fighting of the American forces on the Western side of the Normandy battlefields, and just one small section looking at the British forces and their experience of engagements amidst the Bocage. With a subject such as the Battle of Normandy in 1944 it is a struggle to find more new photos. So, there are a number of pictures that will be familiar to many who have read other works on the period, but still a high percentage of the images featured in the book were new to me.

It does well in the aim of indicating what life was like for the combat soldier in Normandy. The confined countryside led to combat at close quarters, and the French villages that were so often devastated by the fighting. Despite heavy casualties on D-Day in the subsequent weeks of fighting, the US troops did learn to adapt to the conditions they found themselves in. A good example was the field modification of adding the so-called Cullin Hedgerow device, prongs welded to the front of a tank to dig into the banks of the hedges, letting the weight of the tank 'push' through it, rather than riding up over the top and thereby exposing the thinly armoured bottom plate to enemy anti-tank weapons.

Following an Introduction, the photos are split onto 7 chapters, each with some explanatory text, maps and well informed captions for the pictures themselves. The chapters cover The Bocage; The Opposing Forces (which includes the US Order of Battle); Advance from Omaha; The Cotentin; The July Offensive; The Battle of St. Lo; while the final chapter looks at British Actions in the Bocage, which does include the famous action in Villers Bocage that involved Michael Wittman. The photos featured in the book cover a good range of different things, from the basic countryside, the troops in the front line and rear areas as well as the various tanks, artillery, and weaponry used by both sides along with the towns and villages and the extensive damage they suffered. The German army managed to delay the allies for many weeks, and proved very able to use the countryside to their best advantage and to inflict heavy casualties, although ultimately they suffered hugely themselves before they had to fall back.

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Military Model Scene, Robin Buckland

As featured 'ON THE SHELF'

Wargames Illustrated, April 2018