Resumen de A witness in the landscape: the bombing of the Forêt domaniale des Andaines and the Normandy Campaign, NW France, 1944
David Capps Tunwell, David G. Passmore, Stephan Harrison
An archaeological survey of well-preserved Second World War German supply depots and bomb craters from Allied air raids in the Forêt domaniale des Andaines, Normandy, has prompted an evaluation of the effectiveness of Allied intelligence gathering and tactical bombing of the German logistics network in advance of, and during the Normandy Campaign of June–August 1944. In conjunction with analysis of primary German and Allied archive sources, published historical accounts and aerial photographs, we demonstrate that Allied intelligence knew of the importance of the forest as a major fuel depot and attacked it with at least 46 missions over the period 13 June–4 August. However, landscape evidence demonstrates that only one of three fuel depot sites in the forest was successfully identified and partially destroyed by bombing. Allied intelligence efforts also failed to gather sufficient evidence to target one of the largest Seventh Army munitions depots in Normandy. Supply depots in the forest thus remained operational until late in the campaign and will have supported the German Mortain counter-offensive of 7–14 August. The limited success of Allied bombing in the Forêt domaniale des Andaines testifies to the difficulties in striking well-dispersed and camouflaged woodland facilities and supports the argument that the success of air power against German logistics efforts lay primarily in the degradation of the regional communications infrastructure and the Wehrmacht’s vehicle fleet rather than the destruction of supply dumps
