The Battle of the Hedgerows is covered in two official US Army histories. The Blumenson volume Breakout and Pursuit in the Army “Green Book” series provides a comprehensive overview of the campaign. The earlier 1946 study St.-Lo focuses on the XIX Corps operations and so offers more detail on some aspects of the fighting. US Army after-action reports and other official unit records are in Records Group 407 at the National Archives and Records Administration1 (NARA) in College Park, Maryland. Also noteworthy is a separate collection in Records Group 407 called “Combat Interviews” that contain first-hand reports collected by army historians from combat troops immediately after the battles. The Fort Benning Maneuver Center has a collection of the reports prepared immediately after the war at the Infantry School and the Fort Knox Armor School by officers who served in the campaign and they are available on-line. For readers interested in a first-hand account of hedgerow fighting, there is none better than Glover Johns’ The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo. Johns took command of the 1/115th Infantry in the middle of July and led the battalion into St. Lô with Task Force C.
There is no overview of the hedgerow fighting from the German perspective though there are a wealth of sources. A number of internal studies by James Hodgson of the US Army Center of Military History were prepared for the Foreign Military Studies program in their little-known “R” series.” These are essentially chapter-by-chapter background briefings to illuminate the German side of the operations in support of Blumenson’s official US Army history. Based on captured German records, they provide a great deal of detail on German organization and decision making. They are available in Record Group 319 at NARA. Also at NARA, Record Group 242 contains captured German records, on microfilm, with a great deal of material on the campaign such as the 7. Armee Kriegstagebuch (war diary); corps and divisional records in the collection are quite sparse. There are also a few Foreign Military Studies reports on units involved in the campaign, most notably the series on the 352. Infanterie-Division.
US Army Foreign Military Studies
Gersdorff, Rudolf Freiherr von, The Campaign in Northern France 25 Jul 1944–14 Sep 1944, FMS B-722 (1946)
Hodgson, James, The Battle of France: 21 July–25 August 1944 (Chapter VI), FMS R-58 (1955)
Hodgson, James, The Battle of the Hedgerows (Chapter IV), FMS R-54 (1954)
Hodgson, James, The Eve of Defeat: 18 July–End of July (Chapter V), FMS R-57 (1954)
Hodgson, James, The German Defense of Normandy: The Situation at the Beginning of July 1944 (Chapter II), FMS R-24 (1953)
Hodgson, James, The Germans in Normandy, 1 July 1944: Before the Offensive (Chapter III), FMS R-49 (1954)
Hodgson, James, Sequence of Essential Events in the Fall of St. Lo, FMS R-84 (1955)
Mahlmann, Paul, 353.Infanterie-Division, FMS A-983 (1946)
Schimpf, Richard, Operations of the 3 FS Division during the Invasion in France
June–August 1944, FMS B-541 (1947)
Ziegelmann, Fritz, The 352.Infanterie-Division: The Fighting from 23 June to 10 July 1944, FMS B-439 (1947)
Ziegelmann, Fritz, The 352.Infanterie-Division: The Battles from 11 to 18 July 1944, FMS B-455 (1947)
Ziegelmann, Fritz, The 352.Infanterie-Division: The Battle South of St. Lo, FMS B-464 (1947)
US Army Reports
Browning, Maj. Earl, Operations of the 29th Infantry Division in the Attack and Capture of St. Lo, France, 13–18 July 1944 (Ft Benning Infantry School, 1950)
Bruce, Maj. Oliver, The Operations of the 3rd Battalion, 134th Infantry (35th Infantry Division) in the Attack on St. Lo, France, 15–18 July 1944, (Ft Benning Infantry School, 1950)
Campbell, Maj. William, Tanks with Infantry: Methods learned and employed by the 1st Infantry Division and the 745th Tank Battalion (Ft Knox Armor School, 1947)
Folsom, Capt. Charles, Hedgerow Fighting near Carentan: 329th Infantry, 30th Division (Ft Knox Armor School, 1948)
Lee, Maj. Ray, The Operations of the 23rd Infantry (2nd Infantry Division) in the Attack on Hill 192, East of St. Lo, 11–12 July 1944, (Ft Benning Infantry School, 1948)
Richmond, Maj. Budd, The Operation of the 3rd Battalion, 137th Infantry (35th Infantry Division) in the Vicinity of St. Lo, France 11–15 July 1944 (Ft Benning Infantry School, 1950)
Ziegler, Capt. Clarence, The Operations of 2nd Battalion, 329th Infantry (83rd Infantry Division) in the Attack along the Road to Periers, 4 July 1944 (Ft Benning Infantry School, 1950)
Books
Balkoski, Joseph, Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy (Stackpole: 1989)
Bernage, Georges, Objectif La Haye-du-Puits, 3–9 juillet 1944 (Heimdal: 2012)
Bernage, Georges, Objectif Saint-Lô, 7–18 juillet 1944 (Heimdal: 2011)
Blumenson, Martin, Breakout and Pursuit (Center of Military History: 1961)
Colby, John, War from the Ground Up: The 90th Division in WWII (Nortex: 1991)
Doubler, Michael, Busting the Bocage: American Combined Arms Operations in France 6 June–31 July 1944 (Combat Studies Institute: 1988)
Doubler, Michael, Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe 1944–45 (University Press of Kansas: 1994)
Hinsley, F. H., et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol. 3, Part 2 (HMSO: 1988)
Hogan, David, A Command Post at War: First Army Headquarters in Europe 1943–1945 (Center of Military History: 2000)
Isby, David, Fighting the Invasion: The German Army from D-Day to Villers Bocage (Greenhill, 2001)
Johns, Glover, The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo (Stackpole: 1958)
Lodieu, Dider, Dying for St.-Lô: Hedgerow Hell, July 1944 (Histoire & Collections: 2007)
Reardon, Mark (ed.), Defending Fortress Europe: The War Diary of the German 7th Army in Normandy: 6 June to 26 July 1944 (Aberjona: 2012)
Sylvan, William, Smith, Francis, Normandy to Victory: The War Diary of Courtney Hodges & the First US Army (University Press of Kentucky: 2008)
Weidinger, Otto, 2.SS-Panzer-Division Das Reich, Vol. V (Fedorowicz: 2012)
Wind, M., Günther, H. (ed.), Kriegstagebuch 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division “Götz von Berlichingen” (Schild Verlag: 1993)
Wood, James (ed.), Army of the West: The Weekly Reports of German Army Group B from Normandy to the West Wall (Stackpole: 2007)
Yates, Peter, Battlezone Normandy: Battle for St.-Lo (Sutton: 2004)
The Cross of Lorraine: A Combat History of the 79th Infantry Division,
June 1942–December 1945 (US Army: 1946)
First United States Army: Report of Operations, 20 October 1943–1 August 1944. (Vols 1–7), (US Army: 1944)
Die Geschichte der 352.Infanterie-Division (Kameradschaft: n.d.)
St.-Lo (7 July–19 July 1944), (War Department: 1946)