US VII Corps

▣ Unit · 1944 – 1944

VII Corps landed on Utah Beach on 6 June 1944 under Major General J. Lawton Collins and was charged with the American drive across the Cotentin peninsula. It captured Cherbourg at the end of June, then turned south, and in July it was chosen to make the main effort in Operation Cobra, the breakout west of Saint-Lô. After a massive preliminary bombardment the corps broke through the German line and drove south and west towards Avranches, opening the way into Brittany. Its success transformed the campaign from a war of position in the hedgerows into a war of movement. The position shown here is a schematic headquarters-area location tracing the corps' movement from Utah Beach to the Cotentin, Cherbourg and the breakout at Avranches. Its breakout at Avranches is often cited as one of the most decisive operations of the entire western campaign in 1944. The corps went on to lead the drive into Brittany and towards the Seine.

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

• Normandy landings

Reuse this data: open dataset (GeoJSON / CSV, CC BY 4.0)