'Festung' St Malo surrenders

17th August 1944: German troops hide out in deep bunkers as the Allies smash open the ancient city

The French port of St Malo suffered from Allied bombing and artillery fire.

As the German situation in both the East and the West grew more serious Hitler was to make increasingly desperate demands upon his forces. He had always been reluctant to allow retreats. Now he was to insist that certain locations were to be turned into "fortresses", defensive citadels where his troops were expected to fight to the last man, holding up the general advance of the Allies for as long as possible. There were still plenty of fanatical Nazis prepared to follow such orders.

American infantrymen move cautiously through the streets of St. Malo where Germans set up sporadic sniping fire from the protection of houses.

Street fighting in St Malo, August 1944.

As U.S. forces swept through Brittany they were to encounter a series of such fortresses established in the ports which might assist the Allies bring men and munitions straight onto the European continent. Cherbourg had not held out nearly as long as Hitler had hoped, although the port infrastructure had been so badly damaged it was of limited use to the Allies. Elsewhere the Germans held out for rather longer and the U.S. Third Army's attempts to winkle them out were to cause extensive damage to these ancient towns. However, not all of the defenders proved to be as fanatical as Hitler hoped.