Field Marshal Rommel called it ‘the Key to Normandy’ - to be held at any cost.

Three weeks after D-Day, it is the target for a massive British breakthrough of the German frontline and then following a highly controversial withdrawal, the graveyard for the British soldiers that try to re-take it. Their offensive is marred with debateable decisions, the refusal of British units to support each other and the sacrifice of two untested battalions. The killing fields around Hill 112 become a brutal war of attrition that the Nazis cannot afford to fight.

Hill 112 is a strategic ridgeline overlooking a river valley that controls the route around Caen and into France, blocked by the largest grouping of SS Panzer Divisions since the world’s biggest tank battle at Kursk (in 1943.)

The fighting in Normandy is far worse than anyone predicted - or planned for. The Germans exploit the natural terrain brilliantly - particularly the thick ‘bocage’ hedgerows - and make the Allies bleed for every metre. It is a battlefield where the frontline shifts backwards and forwards around very different types of combat, as first British tanks and then infantry (plus artillery,) suck in more and more of the SS Panzer units that Hitler dreamt of combining to repel the whole Normandy invasion.

The desperate fight for Hill 112 reveals all aspects of the vicious combat in Normandy, whose intensity is often overlooked after D-Day - and where the scale of fighting, and unit casualty toll, regularly surpassed anything on the Eastern Front. The British War Minister praised the troops fighting for Hill 112 as: “…forming the anvil upon which the German forces were held and pounded to destruction.”

#ww2 #westernfront #documentary #rommel


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Further videos on hazards and catastrophes :
┕ Battle of Midway: The Decision of the Pacific War | Frontlines Ep. 01 | Documentary
▸https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJU3ahhR-E
┕ Submarines: Total War at Sea! | Documentary | Ep. 02
▸https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hudMqB-HqiQ
┕ Siege of Monte Cassino: Battle for Rome | Frontlines Ep. 02 | Documentary
▸https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG5eoGAyzcQ
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Interesting links and sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erwin-Rommel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jupiter_(1944)
https://www.battleofnormandytours.com/the-capture-of-caen-hill-112.html
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/erwin-rommel
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