Third Army capture of Le Mans

[Duncan_M]

I've read that Le Mans was the HQ of the German Seventh Army. When Patton's Third Army captured it on 7 Aug, was there still a large German presence in the town, or had they already moved? How about supply depots and other remnants of a field army operational hub, was much captured? And if moved before Haislip arrived, where did Seventh Army shift their HQ and supply hub to?

[Carl Schwamberger]

I don't know anything about the 7th Army HQ.

There does not seen to have been a single 'supply hub" for the Seventh Army. That is the depots were dispersed. From memory one of the depots, or cluster of dispersed dumps were in the area of the Falaise road hub. This was in part because of Allied air attacks, part because of dependance on horse draught for linking the railways to the depots and end users. Also the degraded capacity of the railways made a dispersed supply system more useful.

The fortified cities were local supply hubs. After the US 1st Army interdicted the Contention peninsula the remaining isolated field forces drew off the supplies in the Cherbourg fortresses.

Capturing German supplies was unpredictable. Seldom was there much fuel found. Vehicles were mostly destroyed. Some artillery was captured, and large amounts of artillery ammunition across France. Captured 155mm cannon projectiles were used by select tUS artillery battalions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTwxVnnS5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGKDhIXZlHM

Coal was another item taken from the German supply depots. They still had some squirreled away from the previous winter & the forward thinking French were active in salvaging that.

[Richard Anderson]

I've read that Le Mans was the HQ of the German Seventh Army. When Patton's Third Army captured it on 7 Aug, was there still a large German presence in the town, or had they already moved? How about supply depots and other remnants of a field army operational hub, was much captured? And if moved before Haislip arrived, where did Seventh Army shift their HQ and supply hub to?

IIRC, 7. Armee evacuated the town a few days earlier? The only supply depot nearby was for fuel, southeast of town in the Bois de Changé.

[Duncan_M]

I don't know anything about the 7th Army HQ.

There does not seen to have been a single 'supply hub" for the Seventh Army. That is the depots were dispersed. From memory one of the depots, or cluster of dispersed dumps were in the area of the Falaise road hub. This was in part because of Allied air attacks, part because of dependance on horse draught for linking the railways to the depots and end users. Also the degraded capacity of the railways made a dispersed supply system more useful.

The fortified cities were local supply hubs. After the US 1st Army interdicted the Contention peninsula the remaining isolated field forces drew off the supplies in the Cherbourg fortresses.

Capturing German supplies was unpredictable. Seldom was there much fuel found. Vehicles were mostly destroyed. Some artillery was captured, and large amounts of artillery ammunition across France. Captured 155mm cannon projectiles were used by select tUS artillery battalions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTwxVnnS5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGKDhIXZlHM

Coal was another item taken from the German supply depots. They still had some squirreled away from the previous winter & the forward thinking French were active in salvaging that.

I'm reading Martin Blumeson's The Battle of the Generals and trying to get a picture of how the Germans managed to keep their supply lines generally intact and open despite the massive flanking attack from Third Army, which seems like it should have cut off everything that had previously led in a southern direction away from the general West-East positioning of Seventh Army before OP Cobra breakout.

By that point, is there a map that you're aware of that might show how German lines of communication were focused?

Also, Blumeson mentions how Patton considered the Falaise/Argentan/Alencon encirclement too small, wanting to instead go deeper, to reach the Seine and take Orlean, Chartres, and Dreux. Was that to interdict the German supply lines without resistance?

[Carl Schwamberger]

I'm unaware of where to find such a map or records for that. I do recall some remarks by various writers about the German supply system having to adapt as early as January 1944 from the degradation of the French railways. One such narrative refers to Rundsteadt reading a report on the railways in early March 1944. This report described the capacity as having fallen 50% from the previous 1943 autumn. The implied trajectory would have the capacity at 10% of the late 1943 levels by mid 1944 in terms of supplying the armies on the western coasts. I'll leave it experts to all us what the actual supply delivery was in July 1944.

Also, Blumeson mentions how Patton considered the Falaise/Argentan/Alencon encirclement too small, wanting to instead go deeper, to reach the Seine and take Orlean, Chartres, and Dreux. Was that to interdict the German supply lines without resistance?

Paris was the rail hub for Northern France, & had some intact bridges allowing some rail traffic to Normandy. On paper taking it is a no brainer.

Patton was trying for two missions there, with a army capable of one, or maybe one and a half. His original mission was to head SW into Brittany & seize the ports & intact railways there. His corps nearly did it, but some high quality German regiments (Paras) & a capable commander were able to slip into Brest just ahead of the US Corps (Middleton?). Third Army was expected to capture the Bereton ports, there wasn't anyone else to do it that month, and Patton wanted to encircle another German armies worth of men and equipment in the opposite direction by 200+ km. He probably could have done the long encirclement, if the decision had been made a week or two sooner & the Bereton peninsula just screened & any ideas of having the Atlantic ports operating that autumn discarded.

[Richard Anderson]

I'm reading Martin Blumeson's The Battle of the Generals and trying to get a picture of how the Germans managed to keep their supply lines generally intact and open despite the massive flanking attack from Third Army, which seems like it should have cut off everything that had previously led in a southern direction away from the general West-East positioning of Seventh Army before OP Cobra breakout.

Well, they didn't keep them intact, which is one of the reasons they withdrew from France.

Basically, the communications lines to 7. Armee was the rail lines, mostly through Paris, to Le Mans, and then by rail and road to the various corps AO. Le Mans-Alencon-Bagnoles-Vire-St Lo for LXXXIV AK, with a spur from Bagnoles to the depots around Falaise, and Le Mans-Rennes-Brest for XXV AK and LXXIV AK.

1. Armee of Armeegruppe G was supplied Paris-Orleans

By that point, is there a map that you're aware of that might show how German lines of communication were focused?

The only ones I am aware of are in the Anlagen to the 7. Armee KTB. I don't think any have been reproduced in books, although the location of the various 7. Armee depots are available in David G.Passmore, Stephan Harrison, & David Capps Tunwell, "Second World War conflict archaeology in the forests of north-west Europe", Antiquity, 88 (2014), pp. 1275-1290.

Also, Blumeson mentions how Patton considered the Falaise/Argentan/Alencon encirclement too small, wanting to instead go deeper, to reach the Seine and take Orlean, Chartres, and Dreux. Was that to interdict the German supply lines without resistance?

Part of the problem with "closing" the "gap" was that the Allied leadership directly involved, Montgomery, Bradley, and Patton, all thought the bulk of 7. Armee already escaped and so focused on a deeper envelopment. That is why at a critical moment, Patton stripped away most of XV Corps and sent it east, leaving an ad hoc "corps" headquarters under Hugh Gaffey to control the 80th and 90th Inf Div and 2d Armd Div on 16 August until V Corps of First Army took command on 17 August. The various missteps made in firming up and closing the "gap" are partly attributable to the confused command setup.

The breakout was designed to envelope the Germans in the Calvados, while driving east and northeast towards Germany. Interdicting supplies lines was really the purview of the air forces, although of course once the ground forces seized Paris and the Seine bridges, the interdiction was pretty much complete.