{"title":"Mini Guides","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"normandy-first-victories-book-alexandre-thers-9782915239379","title":"Normandy - First Victories","description":"Each mini-guide allows the reader to get to know more about a region's history, linking historical events with places of interest and sites of note, as well as providing an unprecedented visual feast of contemporary photographs, uniforms, badges and equipment - all in full color. Practical information is included in each mini-guide and itineraries are suggested for those wishing to visit battlefields, monuments, memorials and museums. By the dawn of 7 June some 152,000 Anglo-American troops had set foot on the Normandy coast, testimony that the D-Day landings had been a success. But the battle was far from over; beachheads had to be reinforced and troops prepared to face the inevitable German counterattack. The weather, too, added to the uncertainty as it had the power to interrupt supplies and reinforcements. The American objective was to seal off the Cotentin peninsula, thereby forcing the surrender of the massive port of Cherbourg. For the British, Caen, capital of Lower Normandy and gateway to Paris, became the target. They prepared to launch a quick and formidable blow to seize the place but were frustrated a handful of miles from the town by German panzers. 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Practical information is included in each mini-guide and itineraries are suggested for those wishing to visit battlefields, monuments, memorials and museums.   Traditionally a maritime power, Great Britain had not given equal priority to the development of its land forces. The concentration on increasing air power added to this disparity in capabilities between the services. Manpower shortages in the infantry forced the high command to commit units in a rather measured fashion.  On the ground, this resulted in a lack of subtlety and initiative. Those divisions which did have previous combat experience, mostly in the Mediterranean sector were somewhat confounded by the very different terrain they encountered in Normandy. What’s more, somewhat worn down by earlier campaigns in North Africa and Italy, they appeared overly cautious.  The remaining divisions, despite many years of preparation, were not as well trained and prepared as their American counterparts. 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Practical information is included in each mini-guide and itineraries are suggested for those wishing to visit battlefields, monuments, memorials and museums.   By July 1944, despite the launch of Operation Epsom, the British and Canadians were still pinned down before Caen on the eastern section of the front. German troops were, however, tied down here and had to abandon any hope of throwing the invaders back into the sea. German High Command was, meanwhile, overhauled with von Kluge replacing von Runstedt.  To the west the Americans, having seized Cherbourg, were eager to secure the Cotentin peninsula and launch the next phase of the battle for Normandy. This would be a breakout between Saint-Lo and Coutances and would allow the Americans, heading south and then swinging westwards into Brittany, to leave the Norman hedgerows behind. But any such move would have to be quick and decisive or the Germans would succeed in keeping them bottled up.  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