From Beachhead to Brittany

In August 1944, after a brutal hedgerow campaign, the Allies broke out of Normandy and raced east toward Paris and the Seine. But Supreme Headquarters had other plans for the battle-hardened American 29th Infantry Division, which had landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day and fought fiercely for every inch of ground in Normandy. Along with the 2nd and 8th Infantry Divisions, the 29th was now ordered to turn west and seize the vital port of Brest in the far northwest corner of France. American commanders expected the operation to take a week. It would instead take almost four, as historian Joseph Balkoski recounts in this sequel to Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy. The Germans had surrounded Brest with two defensive lines of ancient French forts, concrete pillboxes, underground dugouts, trenches, and mine fields. Manning those entrenched positions was the 2nd Parachute Division, a unit of fanatical paratroopers who preferred death to surrender. In a battle marked by frontal assaults on German strongpoints and hand-to-hand combat with rifles, hand grenades, and even bayonets, the 29th Division began its crawl toward Brest with an attack on August 25 and hammered the Germans day after day at places like Keriolet, La Trinit, Hill 103, and Fort Montbarey. Brest finally fell on September 18, 1944, at a cost to the 29th of more than 3,000 casualties. Heartbreakingly, the Allies had by then captured other ports, thus rendering Brest nearly useless and casting doubt on the decision to take it in the first place. But as Balkoski shows, the battle was more than a pointless sideshow. Even if the Allies could no longer use Brest as a port, the 29th Infantry Division had liberated a long-suffering city and killed or captured thousands of Germanys finest troops--a worthy accomplishment for any unit.