(Includes maps) The campaign in the summer of 1944 related in this volume included some of the most spectacular ground action of the U.S. Army during World War II. It began with the slow and costly hedgerow fighting against determined German efforts to contain the Normandy beachhead; it entered its decisive stage when the breach of German defenses permitted full exploitation of the power and mobility of U.S. Army ground troops; and it reached the peak of brilliance with successive envelopments of principal German forces and the pursuit of their remnants north and east to free, most of France, part of Belgium, and portions of the Netherlands. By late August the war in the west appeared to be almost over, but the tyranny of logistics gave the enemy time to rally at the fortified West Wall and delay surrender for another eight months. In the European Theater subseries the backdrop for this volume is "Cross-Channel Attack", which carries the story to 1 July. "Breakout and Pursuit" follows the U.S. First Army through 10 September (where "The Siegfried Line Campaign" picks up the narrative), and the U.S. Third Army through 31 August (where "The Lorraine Campaign" begins). The logistical factors that played so large a part in governing the pace and extent of combat operations are described in much greater detail in Volume I of "Logistical Support of the Armies." The tremendous scope of this campaign, and its partially improvised character, have left a heritage of controversies to which no final answers can be given. The author has had free access to the records and to many of the leading players in the drama, and his account should have wide appeal to the general reader as well as to the serious military student of grand tactics.

Operations of the First U.S. Army from 1 July through 10 September 1944 and of the Third U.S. Army from 1 August through 31 August 1944, including the "battle of the hedgerows," the Mortain counterattack, the reduction of Brest, and the liberation of Paris.

(Includes maps) The focus of the American and British war effort in 1943 was on the ancient lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea where in May victory came at last in Tunisia and where in July Allied armies began a five-week campaign to conquer Sicily. The invasion of Italy in September sharpened that focus as Allied troops for the first time since 1940 confronted the German Army in a sustained campaign on the mainland of Europe. The fighting that followed over the next eight months was replete with controversial actions and decisions. These included apparent American peril during the early hours in the Salerno beachhead; a British advance from the toe of the peninsula that failed to ease the pressure at Salerno; the fight to cross a flooded Rapido River; the bombing of the Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino; and the stalemated landings at Anzio. The author addresses these subjects objectively and candidly as he sets in perspective the campaign in Italy a'1d its accomplishments. It was a grueling struggle for Allied and German soldier alike, a war of small units and individuals dictated in large measure by inhospitable terrain and wet and cold that soon immersed the battlefield. The methods commanders and men employed to defeat the terrain and a resourceful enemy are instructive now and will continue to be in the future, for the harsh conditions that were prevalent in Italy know no boundary in time. Nor do the problems and accomplishments of Allied command and co-ordination anywhere stand out in greater relief than in the campaign in Italy. The role of United States forces in earlier operations in the Mediterranean has been told in previously published volumes of this series: Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West and Sicily and the Surrender of Italy. A volume in preparation, Cassino to the Alps, will carry the operational story through the last year of the fighting. The strategic setting is described in detail in Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944.