6 June: D-Day Landings. Allied forces land on the northern coast of Normandy.
22–27 June:Battle for Cherbourg. The port is eventually captured but is so badly damaged as to be useless for some considerable time.
3 July: US First Army begins to attack southwards towards St. Lô. The dense nature of the bocage country results in very slow progress and heavy casualties.
8–11 July:British and Canadians launch Operation Charnwood. They break into Caen but fail to clear the entire city.
17 July: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group B, is severely wounded when his car is attacked by RAF ground-attack aircraft. Von Kluge takes over direct command of Army Group B.
18 July: Operation Goodwood begins. Caen is cleared but gains are limited. Goodwood does succeed in concentrating German attention on the British sector however.
18 July: St Lô is finally taken by the Americans.
20 July: Hitler survives an attempted assassination at the “Wolf’s Lair”, his forward command post in East Prussia. This intensifies Hitler’s suspicion of the German officer corps.
24 July: Carpet-bombing attack scheduled to begin at 13.00hrs is cancelled. Some of the aircraft do not get the message and carry out the attack. US 30th Division suffers more than 150 casualties from bombs that drop short.
25 July
09.36hrs: P-47 fighter-bombers begin strafing runs and ground-attack missions along the northern edge of the bomb zone. They are followed by more than 1,800 heavy bombers which carpet bomb an area 7,000 yards long by 2,500 yards deep. The effect on Panzer Lehr Division is devastating. US troops suffer approximately 600 casualties from bombs dropping short, including LtGen Lesley McNair, head of US Army Ground Forces.
11.00hrs: VII Corps begins ground assault but advance is held up by areas of continued resistance. US forces only penetrate about a mile.
24.00hrs: Town of Hébécrevon is finally taken.
26 July: MajGen Collins of VII Corps orders his armored units to spearhead his advance. German defenses begin to collapse as CCB/3rd Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division capture Marigny and 2nd Armored Division advances seven miles.
28/29 July: German forces in the Roncey pocket are largely destroyed while trying to break out.
30 July: MajGen John Wood’s 4th Armored Division seizes Avranches.
31 July: Key bridge at Pontaubault captured without resistance by task force from 4th Armored Division.
1 August: First US army becomes 12th Army Group and Gen George Patton’s Third Army is activated. 4th Armored Division halted by determined resistance at Rennes airport.
2 August: Luftwaffe attempts to destroy bridge at Pontaubault in night attacks using guided missiles. The attacks fail.
3 August: During the night the garrison of Rennes abandons the city.
5 August: CCA/4th Armored Division reaches Vannes on Quiberon Bay.
7 August: CCB/4th Armored Division reaches outskirts of Lorient.
5 August: Initial attack by 83rd Division on St Malo.
Night of 6/7 August: Operation Lüttich, the German counterattack at Mortain, begins. 2nd Bn., 120th US Infantry, surrounded on Hill 317, continue to call in artillery on the German forces.
7 August: Attacks begin in earnest on St Malo. Task Force A joins with 6th Armored Division on the outskirts of Brest. Garrison of Brest does not surrender until 19 September.
8 August: Patton’s troops liberate Le Mans. First Canadian Army launches Operation Totalize aimed at Falaise.
12 August: In a daring night attack Leclerc’s French 2nd Armored Division seize the bridges over the River Sarthe.
13 August: Bradley orders Patton to direct his corps east rather than north into the Argentan-Falaise gap.
14 August: St Malo is finally taken after intense house-to-house fighting.
15 August: US Seventh Army lands on the southern coast of France near Marseilles.
16 August: The Canadians finally take Falaise, leaving a gap of only 15 miles between the Allied spearheads. Hitler finally agrees to the withdrawal of German units in the Falaise pocket. Patton’s Third Army is on the outskirts of Chartres and Orléans.
17 August: Von Kluge is replaced by Generallfeldmarschall Walter Model. Von Kluge commits suicide the next day. Citadel of St. Malo finally surrenders after direct fire from 8-in. guns from a range of only 1,500 yards.
21 August: Falaise pocket is finally sealed. 10,000 German troops have been killed and 50,000 captured in the pocket, whilst 313 tanks have also been lost.
23 August: Hitler informs the commander of the Paris garrison, Dietrich von Cholchitz, that the city “must not fall into the hands of the enemy except as a field of ruins.”
25 August: French and US troops including Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division liberate Paris.