Download Free Falaise Pocket Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Falaise Pocket and write the review.

Originally published: Stroud: Sutton, 2004.
This WWII military history explores the dramatic turning point of the Battle of Normandy—illustrated throughout with archival photos and maps. On June 6th, 1944, the Allied forces embarked on Operation Overlord with the first wave of Normandy landings. But it wasn’t until August of that year that the tide of the battle—and the entire war—began to turn. The decisive moment came at the Battle of the Falaise Pocket. The German Army had managed to hold back the Allies for months, but its resources were running out, and the Allies ruled the skies. As the Allies began to push South and East, Hitler refused to permit Field Marshal von Kluge, the commander of Army Group B, to withdraw. General Montgomery ordered the Allied armies to converge on the Falaise area on August 8th, and by August 21st they had some 50,000 Germans surrounded. While many German soldiers did escape the encirclement, the losses were catastrophic. By the end of the month, Army Group B had retreated across the Seine, ending the battle of Normandy. This illustrated account examines the battle from the failed offensive at Mortain, looking at both German and Allied perspectives, using maps, diagrams and profiles to complete the story.
International award-winning modeler, Robert Doepp, embarks on his most ambitious piece of military miniature art to date with the recreation of a WWII image in 1:9 capturing every minute detail showcased in this comprehensive study of his stunning work.
For seven weeks after D-Day, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were bottled up along the landing beaches. Finally, 3,000 American and British planes bombarded a narrow path into enemy territory, and the Allies surrounded 100,000 die-hard Germans at Falaise. Breuer's stirring reconstruction of the battle as seen from both sides makes this one of the best WWII books of recent years.--JOHN BARKHAM REVIEWS. 34 photos.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The magnificent conclusion to Rick Atkinson's acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II It is the twentieth century's unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now, in The Guns at Last Light, he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and Atkinson's riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Operation Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory. With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson's accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West. One of The Washington Post's Top 10 Books of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
Following the German counter-attack at Mortain on 6 August 1944, Generals Omar Bradley and Bernard Montgomery decided to engage in a wide encircling movement, to trap the enemy divisions which had advanced so far westwards. American XV Corps entered Le Mans on 9 August and then advanced rapidly northwards, capturing Alencon before moving towards Ecouche, then Argentan. Meanwhile, Montgomery had broken the German front south of Caen despite stiff resistance. The Canadians and the Poles of General Maczeck's 1st Armoured Division bore down on Falaise, eventually capturing the town on 16 August. They then accelerated their advance, seeking to meet American forces moving northwards. With over 100,000 Germans in danger of encirclement, Hitler gave the order for a general withdrawal. Under the combined pressure of the Americans and French to the south, the Americans and British to the west and the Canadians and Poles to the north, the net inexorably tightened. American and Polish units linked up at Chambois as Canadian and Polish forces attempted to plug the remaining gaps in a series of ferocious actions. With Allied artillery and air power taking a heavy toll, the Germans' retreat gradu
“Certainly my first recourse from now on when looking at the SS panzer divisions. Give yourself a treat and buy a copy ASAP if tanks are your thing” (Army Rumour Service). The Das Reich Division was the most infamous unit of the Waffen-SS. Originally a paramilitary formation raised to protect the members of the Nazi Party, it was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe. During the invasion of Poland, the unit fought as a mobile infantry regiment. After the Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS, and in 1941, the Verfügungs-Division was renamed Reich, later Das Reich. By the time Das Reich took part in the battle of Moscow, it had lost sixty percent of its combat strength. It was pulled off the front in mid-1942 and sent to refit as a panzer-grenadier division. Returning to the Eastern Front, Das Reich took part in the fighting around Kharkov and Kursk. Late in the year, it was designated a panzer division. In 1944, the unit was stationed in southern France when the Allies landed in Normandy. The following days saw the division commit atrocities, hanging one hundred local men in the town of Tulles in reprisal for German losses, and massacring 642 French civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane, allegedly in retaliation for partisan activity in the area. Later in the Normandy fighting, Das Reich was encircled in the Roncey pocket by US 2nd Armored Division, losing most of their armored equipment. Das Reich surrendered in May 1945. “Another fascinating piece of military history from the opposite point of view . . . this doesn’t purport to be an illustrated history of the Reich, but it damn well is!” —Books Monthly
Mettle and Pasture - the story of the part played during the Second World War in Europe by the 2nd Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment. Entering France in September 1939 as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) they witnessed from the front line the blistering attack on Belgium at Louvain and firsthand the German Blitzkrieg beginning on May 10th 1940. Fighting a fierce rearguard action as part of the British 3rd Infantry Division under command of General Montgomery, the Battalion covered the frenzied withdrawal of the British Army through the carnage of Dunkirk, arriving back to the shores of England with less than 25% of their original force. On 6th June 1944, almost four years to the day after the demoralizing evacuation at Dunkirk, the Battalion landed on the coast of Normandy on D-Day. Told in their own words, eyewitness accounts and memoirs are expertly weaved together with official war diaries to recall the experiences of the infantrymen at the front - from the days in France and Belgium in 1939 to the assault on Normandy, spearheading such a great invasion, to resisting and attacking the enemy at Caen and blunting the formidable Panzer counter attacks in the dangerous Normandy Bocage. From 'out of the frying pan and into the fire', come the bitter battles in Belgium and Holland, the attrition of holding the Maas River during the coldest winter in living memory, and finally on into Germany, fighting the SS around Bremen just hours before hostilities ended on the 8th May 1945. Vivid accounts tell tales of courage and fear, individual sacrifice and how soldiers faced up to the enemy under fire, sharing danger and surviving the savage conditions but also of the pride and honor of belonging to such a famous and historic regiment - The Lincolnshire Regiment. With an abundance of previously unpublished photographs and clear, concise maps of the battlefields, this is the story of the war the way it really was for an infantryman - told by the men who were there.