Omar Bradley

General Omar Bradley

It was with strong misgivings that General Omar Bradley commander of the U.S. Twelfth Army Group heard that Eisenhower had named General George S Patton to lead the new Third Army, which was scheduled to join the Allied breakout from the benchhead. In Africa and Sicily, the modest and conscientious Bradley had served under Patton and found him to be a superb combat general, but hotheaded, profane, unpredictable. Other American generals of Normandy invasion the air borne Ridgway, Gavin and Taylor for instance would later become well known, but this pair was already famous, and now Patton was serving under Bradley,commander of the newly formed Twelfth Army Group. It was soon apparent that the two made a superb team: Patton's dash and drive in the field was a perfect complement to Bradley's careful planning. Within days after the breakout began on July 25, Patton's armored divisions had swept westward through Brittany: others had swung south and east to partially close the neck of trap around the German Seventh Army of Field Marshal von Kluge.Artillery and aircraft pounded the almost encircled men ceaselessly in what became a bloody slaughter, but Montgomery, coming down from the north to meet Patton and finish closing the neck of the trap, moved too slowly. Much of German army escaped through the gap remaining at the town of Falaise. By late August, the Germans were in retreat across the whole of France, for on the fifteenth, Allied forces had landed on the Riviera coast and were advancing rapidly northward.

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