Qualla: Battle of La Haye-du-Puits

Battle of La Haye-du-Puits: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. An allied aerial photograph of an eight-square-mile patch of the Cotentin peninsula in 1944 counted four thousand separate fields. Each one was an earth-wall enclosure between three and six feet high, topped with small trees and tangled underbrush, with one narrow gated entrance and a sunken lane along one side. Norman farmers had built them across centuries to hold livestock and protect their crops from the ocean winds. By the summer of 1944, an average linear kilometre in the Cotentin crossed fourteen of them. Soldiers of the US VIII Corps, advancing south from Cherbourg between 3 and 14 July, learned the hedgerows one field at a time, in rain that fell harder than any summer rain since 1900. The terrain was so well suited to defence that it had a name of its own: the bocage. The battle for La Haye-du-Puits would cost ten thousand American casualties to advance seven miles.

Image: Public domain

Battle of La Haye-du-Puits: After Cherbourg

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aroche, CC BY-SA 3.0. Following D-Day on 6 June, the Allied plan called for the British Second Army under Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey to take Caen and secure the eastern flank, while the First US Army under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley pushed south and west to seize Cherbourg by D+15, drive to...

Image: Aroche | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of La Haye-du-Puits: The Bocage

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Czirnich, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The hedgerows turned the campaign into something closer to siege warfare than maneuver. Heavy machine guns were dug into the earthen embankments at each field's corners, with light machine guns and machine pistols sweeping along American lines of advance. Snipers were a key eleme...

Image: Czirnich | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Battle of La Haye-du-Puits: Eleven Days, Four Divisions

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ERNOUF Guillaume, CC BY-SA 3.0. The American attack began before dawn on 3 July with a fifteen-minute artillery bombardment at 05:15. Air support was already cancelled by rain. The 82nd Airborne Division attacked first, achieving partial surprise by going in conditions the LXXXIV Corps staff had thought would f...

Image: ERNOUF Guillaume | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of La Haye-du-Puits: What the Casualties Bought

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thönessen (nn), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The VIII Corps suffered over 10,000 casualties in eleven days. About 90 percent of them were infantrymen; officer losses were particularly heavy. Most wounds were caused by shell fragments. Many of the casualties were soldiers who, in the words of post-battle assessments, failed ...

Image: Thönessen (nn) | CC BY-SA 3.0 de