For the Allies, capturing the French port of Cherbourg in the northwestern corner of Normandy was a top priority.
The invasion force needed a deep-water harbor from which to readily unload troops, equipment, and supplies for its push onto the continent. Early control of Cherbourg was critical to Operation Overlord’s success.
Hitler believed any Allied invasion would fail without Cherbourg and ordered the city to be made invincible.
Over the centuries the city and port, surrounded by cliffs, had been fortified many times. The Nazis bolstered the historical battlements with a nine-mile perimeter of forts and pillboxes, mortar and machine-gun emplacements, tunnels, minefields, anti-tank ditches, and barbed wire.
Twenty artillery batteries were installed. Twenty-one thousand defenders were dug in.
Twelve days after D-Day the Allies launched their attack on Cherbourg. Meanwhile, the Germans began to demolish the port’s facilities and mine the harbor.
Allied progress through the barriers was slow and the fighting furious. In support of the ground troops, United States Navy ships bombarded the city. Finally, at the end of June, Cherbourg was captured, but at a high cost. Twenty-eight hundred Americans gave their lives to take the port. Over thirteen thousand more were wounded. Thousands of German troops surrendered.
Most of the mines were swept from the harbor by mid-July. Six weeks after D-Day and two weeks after the capture of Cherbourg, transport ships from England began to arrive.
My dad was aboard one of them. He was barely eighteen.
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