|
(Click
this strip to get a detailed description of the operations)
| The
germans are routed : they must flee at all costs |
|
The
arrival of the Americans in Avranches stopped the routed
Germans. The latter only had one solution left to escape
from the allied troops : they had to take refuge in
Brittany but to reach this area, they had to cross the
very dangerous sandy beaches of the bay of the Mount-SaintMichel.
|
(Photo
Mémorial de Caen -All
rights reserved)
The Americans arrived in the area of
Avranches at about 6.00 p.m., on the 30th of July. Their
progress was made difficult because of all the german
convoys that had been destroyed by allied planes. |
Saint-Léonard,
the Vacquerie, 2.00 p.m. on the 31st of July. François
Turgot, a fisherman, was awakened by the barking of his
dog. When he opened his front door, he saw at his surprise
a hundred SS soldiers standing at attention in his yard.
« All of them were completely motionless »,
his son Marcel remembers. « The officer, who
could speak french, politely ordered my father to guide
them through the sandy beaches. My father was frightened
because he was afraid of being killed ».
The troop crossed the Sée : « My father
left them at the end of the ValSaint-Père.
They still had the Sélune to cross ».
The SS officer was hurt in Pontorson and then hospitalised
in Paris. He came back to the Vacquerie in 1974. He was
a pastor and his name was H. Jacob. He told me :
« Your father saved my life. The thing that frightened
me most during the whole war was that day when we had
to cross the Sélune ». |
|
(Photo R.Nolleau -All
ritghs reserved)
The routed Germans had just crossed the
beaches from the Genêts. Exhausted, most of them
collapsed before the Mount-Saint-Michel post-office.
|
On
Chevret street, the Germans got 6 horses, a carriage
and a Peugeot 201 stuck but we managed to clear them
off, except for the carriage... Others progressed
towards the bay from the Chaussée. «
It wasn't that dangerous besause it was neap tide
».
|
|
After
the allied breakthrough, the defeated Germans started
to flee massively. 20.000 men were made prisonners in
only six days. At night, Fernand Le Prieur could see
the routed troops crossing Dragey.
"They were really pitiable, they pushed all
sorts of vehicles, even baby carriages. Some of them
were eating apples."
Dead soldiers and animals starting piling up on the
roads and the smell was awful, «
We're gonna have the plague », worried
mister Trochu said in Marcey-les-Grèves. Henri
Legent buried a few german corpses near Marcey woods.
|
| Original
documents by Michel Coupard and Jack Lecoq |
|
