Falaise Pocket - Aftermath

Aftermath

By 22 August, all German forces west of the Allied lines were dead or in captivity. Historians differ in their estimates of German losses in the pocket. The majority state that between 80,000 and 100,000 troops were caught in the encirclement of which 10,000–15,000 were killed, 40,000–50,000 taken prisoner, and 20,000–50,000 escaped. In the northern sector alone, German material losses included 344 tanks, self-propelled guns and other light armoured vehicles as well as 2,447 soft-skinned vehicles and 252 guns abandoned or destroyed. In the fighting around Hill 262, German losses totalled 2,000 killed and 5,000 taken prisoner, in addition to 55 tanks, 44 guns and 152 other armoured vehicles. The once-powerful 12th SS Panzer Division had lost 94% of its armour, nearly all of its artillery, and 70% of its vehicles. Mustering close to 20,000 men and 150 tanks before the Normandy campaign, after Falaise it was reduced to 300 men and 10 tanks. Although elements of several German formations had managed to escape to the east, even these had left behind most of their equipment. After the battle, Allied investigators estimated that the Germans lost around 500 tanks and assault guns in the pocket, and very little of the equipment that was extricated survived the general retreat across the Seine.

The area in which the pocket had formed was full of the remains of battle. Whole villages had been destroyed and ruined and abandoned equipment made some roads totally impassable. Corpses littered the area—not only those of soldiers, but civilians and thousands of dead cattle and horses. In the hot August weather, maggots crawled over the bodies and hordes of flies descended on the area. Pilots reported being able to smell the stench of the battlefield hundreds of feet above it. General Eisenhower recorded that:

The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest 'killing fields' of any of the war areas. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.

Fear of infection from the rancid conditions led the Allies to declare the area an "unhealthy zone". Clearing the area was a low priority though and went on until well into November. Many swollen bodies had to be shot to expunge gasses within them before they could be burnt, and bulldozers were used to clear the area of dead animals.

Disappointed that a significant portion of Seventh Army had eluded them, many in the Allied higher echelons—particularly among the Americans—were bitterly critical of what they perceived as Montgomery's lack of urgency in closing the pocket. Writing shortly after the war, Ralph Ingersoll—a prominent peacetime journalist who served as a planner on Eisenhower's staff—expressed the prevailing American view at the time:

The international army boundary arbitrarily divided the British and American battlefields just beyond Argentan, on the Falaise side of it. Patton's troops, who thought they had the mission of closing the gap, took Argentan in their stride and crossed the international boundary without stopping. Montgomery, who was still nominally in charge of all ground forces, now chose to exercise his authority and ordered Patton back to his side of the international boundary line. … For ten days, however, the beaten but still coherently organized German Army retreated through the Falaise gap.

Some historians agree that the gap could have been closed earlier; Wilmot notes that despite having British divisions in reserve Montgomery did not reinforce Simonds, and neither was the Canadian drive on Trun and Chambois as "vigorous and venturesome" as the situation demanded. Hastings writes that Montgomery—having witnessed what he characterises as a poor Canadian performance during Totalize—should have brought up veteran British divisions to take the lead. However, while acknowledging that Montgomery and Crerar might have done more to impart momentum to the British and Canadians, these and others such as D'Este and Blumenson dismiss as "absurd over-simplification" Patton's post-battle claim that the Americans could have prevented the German escape had Bradley not ordered him to stop at Argentan.

Wilmot states that "contrary to contemporary reports, the Americans did not capture Argentan until 20 August, the day after the link up at Chambois". The American unit that closed the gap between Argentan and Chambois, the 90th Division, was according to Hastings one of the least effective of any Allied army in Normandy. He speculates that the real reason Bradley halted Patton was not fears over accidental clashes with the British but an appreciation that with powerful German formations still effective at that stage of the battle, the Americans lacked the means to defend an early blocking position and would have suffered an "embarrassing and gratuitous setback" at the hands of the retreating Fallschirmjäger and 2nd and 12th SS Panzer Divisions.

The battle of the Falaise Pocket marked the closing phase of the Battle of Normandy with a decisive German defeat. Hitler's personal involvement had been damaging from the first, with his insistence on hopelessly optimistic counter-offensives, his micro-management of his generals, and his refusal to countenance a withdrawal when his armies were threatened with annihilation. More than 40 German divisions were destroyed during the Battle of Normandy. No exact figures are available, but historians estimate that the battle had cost the German forces a total of around 450,000 men, of whom 240,000 were killed or wounded. The Allies had achieved this blow at a cost of 209,672 casualties among the ground forces, including 36,976 killed and 19,221 missing. In addition, 16,714 Allied airmen were killed or went missing in direct connection with Operation Overlord. The final battle of Operation Overlord—the Liberation of Paris—followed on 25 August, and Overlord reached its end by 30 August with the retreat of the last German unit across the Seine.