From the German perspective, the June fighting in Normandy had constricted the Wehrmacht’s operational possibilities. In mid-June, Hitler had transferred another Panzer corps from the Russian Front to Normandy with the aim of staging a Panzer counter-offensive toward Bayeux to push the Allies into the sea. The relentless British pressure around Caen had forced the piecemeal commitment of Panzergruppe West and raised serious questions of whether there was any hope of eliminating the Allied beach-head. The field commanders, including Rommel and Rundstedt, made a sober appreciation of the situation and concluded that the Allied beach-head could no longer be eliminated but that at best it could be contained. Hitler continued to hold out hopes that a concentrated blow by the Panzer forces could have a decisive impact on the Normandy fighting, and he continued to dream up further schemes for such offensives.
The Wehrmacht was constrained in deploying further reinforcements to the Normandy front due to the limited forces available elsewhere in France and the Low Countries, the expectation of further Allied amphibious operations, and the consequences of the Soviet summer offensive. Hitler had already authorized the transfer of numerous divisions from Brittany and southern France to Normandy through the month of June 1944. He had refrained from a heavy drain of units out of the 15. Armee on the Channel coast due to the lingering belief that Patton’s phantom “1st Army Group” was waiting in Britain to stage a second D-Day on the Pas-de-Calais. Berlin estimated that in July 1944 the Allies had a further 42 divisions stationed in Britain that could be landed somewhere in France. For German planners, Allied deception efforts combined with Allied naval supremacy in the Channel remained an alarming threat. Likewise, any excessive draw-downs of strength in Brittany or southern France would simply make these potential landing sites more attractive for an Allied amphibious landing.
The Red Army had launched Operation Bagration on June 23, 1944. Instead of striking northern Ukraine as expected by Berlin, the attack hit Heeresgruppe Mitte in Belarus. In five weeks of fighting, Heeresgruppe Mitte was largely destroyed, pushing the Red Army out of the Soviet Union and onto the flat plains of Poland in the direction of Warsaw and the Vistula River. In view of the massive losses during this fighting, it was no longer conceivable to reinforce the Normandy front from the Russian Front.
The constrained army resources left Hitler clutching at panaceas. At a June 17 meeting between Hitler, Wehrmacht chief-of-staff Jodl and the senior commanders in France, Hitler acknowledged that the balance of ground power on the Normandy front was shifting to the Allies. Until this could be rectified, Hitler insisted that the Kreigsmarine implement a vigorous mining campaign using new types of mines to interdict Allied shipping from Britain to Normandy. He also ordered the re-direction of the V-weapons against Allied debarkation ports, though this plan was abandoned shortly after the meeting. Hitler argued that a greater effort was needed by the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe until the army could mass enough forces for a major counter-offensive. By late June 1944, it was evident that these half-baked schemes were having no effect at all.
Through mid-June, Berlin had anticipated that Panzergruppe West would stage a major attack from Caumont toward Bayeux, splitting the American and British forces. In the face of Allied actions around Cherbourg and Caen, this plan was gradually abandoned. On June 24, Hitler changed his focus, promoting a scheme to strike against Carentan to split the American front and to relieve Cherbourg. Before any serious planning could be done, Cherbourg was encircled and British forces unleashed Operation Martlet near Caen, further delaying any hopes of a Panzer counter-offensive. The Allies maintained the operational initiative in Normandy.
Rommel and Rundstedt responded to Hitler’s Carentan counter-attack scheme on 27 June, stating that German forces west of the Vire River were barely capable of holding current positions and in no state to stage a major counter-attack. The Panzer reserve that was in motion for a potential strike towards Bayeux, consisting of 1. SS, 9. SS, and 10. SS-Panzer Divisions, did not have the operational mobility to reach the base of the Cotentin peninsula due to the threat of Allied airpower. Hitler continued to press for an attack on Carentan, and Rundstedt responded on June 28 that such an attack could not begin at the earliest until July 10, and that he would prefer that the resources be directed against the greater British threat around Caen.
In view of the continuing British pressure, II SS-Panzer Korps began a counter-attack in the Caen sector at 1430hrs on June 29. The attack had a negligible impact. The following day, the commander of Panzergruppe West, Gen. Geyr von Schweppenberg, sent a caustic assessment of the situation demanding an end to the confusion at the senior command levels and a clear plan for future operations, not the current “tactical patchwork.” Hitler did not take kindly to this veiled rebuke.
Amid these developments, Hitler held a major staff conference at Berchtesgarden on June 29, including Rundstedt and Rommel, as well as the navy and air force chiefs, Adm. Dönitz and GFM Göring. Although Hitler was determined to shift to the offensive in Normandy as soon as possible, he acknowledged the near term need to restrain the Allies in the Normandy bridgehead. The 7. Armee was to keep the Americans from advancing out of the constrictive bocage country while Panzergruppe West was to block any British advance beyond Caen toward Paris. Hitler argued that the situation could not be improved until Allied logistics were weakened by a combined Kriegsmarine mining campaign supported by Luftwaffe mine and torpedo attacks on Allied shipping in the Channel. By June 30, it became apparent that the II SS-Panzer Korps attack had utterly failed and that eventually Caen would have to be abandoned.
Hitler’s decisions at the end of June 1944 tacitly accepted that the Wehrmacht had lost the operational and tactical initiative on the Normandy front. Germany’s inability to stage a decisive counter-attack would force it to engage in an attritional struggle against the Allies. This was not a contest that favored Germany. The massive hemorrhage of Wehrmacht casualties on both the Normandy and Russian fronts in June 1944 left the Wehrmacht increasingly vulnerable to a catastrophic failure by mid-summer 1944.
In June 1944, the combat actions in Bradley’s First US Army sector had been dominated by two principal operations. In the wake of the D-Day landings, the initial operation in the second week of June was the forging of a connection between the Omaha and Utah beach-heads by means of securing Carentan and the Vire River estuary located between them. This area was heavily fortified as Stutzpunkt Gruppe Vire (Strongpoint Group Vire) with substantial artillery support. Once this strongpoint was overcome, the focus shifted to the right flank, with the drive by Collins’ VII Corps to cut off the Cotentin peninsula and then secure Cherbourg. This port city was of vital interest to Allied planners since it was badly needed to provide a logistics hub for Allied operations in Normandy. The capture of Cherbourg between June 26 and 30 set the stage for the next phase of First US Army operations.
On June 31, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, gave Bradley his mission for the month of July. The assignment was obvious and directed that First US Army would push through the bocage country south of the Cotentin peninsula and Omaha Beach to reach the line of Coutances–St Lô–Caumont. This would allow the First US Army to exit the most restricted areas of bocage into terrain more suitable for mobile operations. Once this objective had been met, the US contingent in Normandy would be expanded by the addition of Patton’s Third US Army on the right flank near Coutances. Patton’s forces would turn westward into Brittany to secure the ports at Quiberon Bay and Brest, while the First US Army would secure the right flank of the British/Canadian drive to the Seine River.
Bradley planned to start the offensive toward the south at the end of June, but it was delayed until early July due to the time needed to move Collins’ VII Corps back from Cherbourg to the Carentan area. The First US Army deployment at the time was very uneven, with the left flank, east of the Vire River, much further south. The right wing, especially the units to the west of the Prairies Marécageuses de Gorges marshlands, were much further north of the objectives. At the same time, the right flank seemed to offer greater possibilities for a brisk advance since the German units facing the VII and VIII Corps there were mostly units that had been battered in the June fighting for Cherbourg and the Cotentin peninsula. The main opponent in front of VIII Corps, Kampfgruppe König, appeared to be little more than a grab-bag of left-overs from beaten units. Bradley decided to conduct the July offensive as a sequential operation starting with the corps in the west and moving east. He had hopes that a rapid advance could be made down along the coast, hopefully as far as Coutances, in the space of a few days. Bradley seriously underestimated the difficulties of conducting a campaign in the bocage country. The “Battle for the Hedgerows” was scheduled to start on Monday July 3, 1944.