The Battle of NormandyThe Battle of Normandy was the key to the Allies' success in France. After the landing on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, the Allies were faced with the major challenge of leaving the beaches and penetrating the heart of Normandy and Normandy towards Paris. With D-Day, the Allies had the element of surprise, but once the landings took place, this element was lost. The Germans now knew with certainty where the Allies would make their push inland and it would not be in the Pays de Calais. The deception before D-Day had worked extremely well, but after June 6, German army commanders knew where to concentrate their forces. Normandy was fraught with dangers for the Allies. The Americans moved west along the coast to liberate Brittany while British, Canadian and Polish forces were tasked with moving inland, which required the capture of Caen, a town major of Normandy. If the fighting at Omaha Beach had been tough, it was only a foretaste of what the Allies could expect inland. Victory in Normandy only culminated with the near destruction of a German army at Falaise. However, this only happened after numerous operations had been carried out to liberate Normandy and Brittany from German control – Operations Spring, Tractable, Charnwood, Goodwood, Totalise and Atlantic were attempts to capture Caen and push towards the interior towards Falaise. Operation Cobra led by the Americans was an operation aimed at liberating Brittany. With the exception of Omaha Beach, the Allied landings at Sword, Gold, Utah, and Juno had been relatively loss-free. Precise planning and the use of so-called “Funnies” to quickly leave the beaches contributed greatly to this result. However, further inland, the Allies encountered a major obstacle that would greatly aid the Germans and hinder access to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fuel and equipment. Even though the Mulberry port didn't last long, it served its purpose. With the beaches secure, the port of Cherbourg captured, and effective control of the English Channel, supplying the Allied forces in Normandy was not a major problem. The Germans were not in the same situation. Regardless, the fighting in Normandy was fierce and progress inland was slow. German resistance was always strong. German resistance peaked in mid-August 1944 when the Allies trapped 150,000 German troops in and around the town of Falaise. Thousands of Germans fled via the Falaise Gap (Falaise Pocket) before it was closed. But several thousand people were captured with their equipment. The loss of such a large force was a disaster for the Germans and the German army in France did not recover...