WW2 Photo WWII Sherman and Panzer Destroyed Falaise Pocket World War Two / 2414

Description

Destroyed German Pzkpfw. IV and US Sherman
Falaise Pocket, Normandy
August 1944
This is a nice
reproduction of an original WWII photograph showing  a US Army M4 Sherman tank next to a German Panzer IV, both destroyed during fighting in the Falaise pocket, August 1944.  Very interesting photo!
Size of photo is about 5" x 5".
The
Falaise Pocket
or
Battle of the Falaise Pocket
(12–21 August 1944) was the decisive engagement of the
Battle of Normandy
in the
Second World War
. A
pocket
was formed around
Falaise, Calvados
, in which the German
Army Group B
, with the
7th Army
and the
Fifth Panzer Army
(formerly
Panzergruppe West
) were encircled by the
Western Allies
. The battle is also referred to as the Battle of the
Falaise Gap
, after the corridor which the Germans sought to maintain to allow their escape and is sometimes referred to as the Chambois Pocket, the Falaise-Chambois Pocket, the Argentan–Falaise Pocket or the Trun–Chambois Gap. The battle resulted in the destruction of most of Army Group B west of the
Seine
river, which opened the way to Paris and the German border for the Allied armies.
Following
Operation Cobra
, the American breakout from the Normandy
beachhead
, rapid advances were made to the south and south-east by the
Third U.S. Army
under the command of General
George Patton
. Despite lacking the resources to defeat the U.S. breakthrough and simultaneous British and Canadian offensives south of
Caumont
and
Caen
, Field Marshal
Günther von Kluge
, the commander of Army Group B, was not permitted by
Adolf Hitler
to withdraw but was ordered to conduct a counter-offensive at
Mortain
against the U.S. breakthrough. Four depleted
panzer
divisions were not enough to defeat the
First U.S. Army
.
Operation Lüttich
was a disaster, which drove the Germans deeper into the Allied envelopment.
On 8 August, the Allied ground forces commander, General
Bernard Montgomery
, ordered the Allied armies to converge on the Falaise–Chambois area to envelop Army Group B, the First U.S. Army forming the southern arm, the British
Second Army
the base and the
First Canadian Army
the northern arm of the encirclement. The Germans began to withdraw on 17 August and on 19 August, the Allies linked up in Chambois. Gaps were forced in the Allied lines by German counter-attacks, the biggest being a corridor forced past the
1st Polish Armoured Division
on Hill 262, a commanding position at the mouth of the pocket. By the evening of 21 August, the pocket had been sealed, with c. 50,000 Germans trapped inside. Many Germans escaped but losses in men and equipment were huge. Two days later the Allied
Liberation of Paris
was completed and on 30 August, the remnants of Army Group B retreated across the Seine, which ended
Operation Overlord
.
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