British Second Army
▶ Explore on the mapThe British Second Army, under Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, commanded the British and Canadian formations in the eastern part of the Normandy bridgehead. It landed on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches on 6 June 1944 and spent the following weeks fighting to take Caen and to hold the German armour east of the front, so that the Americans could break out in the west. The battles around Caen — Epsom, Charnwood and Goodwood — were among the costliest of the campaign and pinned the bulk of the German panzer divisions. In August the army pressed east and helped close the Falaise pocket. The position shown here is a schematic headquarters-area location following the army's front from the landing beaches towards Caen and the Seine. Its holding of the eastern flank was essential to the success of the American breakout in the west. Its formations later fought their way through the Low Countries and into northern Germany in 1945.
Sources
- Wikimedia Commons — Charnwood (SVG, by EyeSerene)
- Wikimedia Commons — Operations Greenwood and Pomegranate, Normandy, July 1944 (EN.svg)
- Wikimedia Commons — Operation Tractable (SVG, by EyeSerene)
- Wikipedia — 352nd Infantry Division (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikipedia — Falaise pocket (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikipedia — Normandy landings (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Wikipedia — Operation Overlord (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Related
Reuse this data: open dataset (GeoJSON / CSV, CC BY 4.0)