By Phil Zimmer
The elite German paratroopers, who were some of the finest fighters in the service of the Third Reich, believed they were exceptionally well prepared to defend the deep water port of Brest on France’s Brittany coast against an impending attack by the Allies. By mid-September 1944, the Germans had had time to dig deep trenches, string thousands of miles of barbed wire, lay deadly mines, and establish interlocking fields of fire to ward off anyone foolish enough to approach by land.
The centerpiece of the German defense was Fort Montbarey, an 18th-century French fort located just two miles west of the city’s walls. The fort’s stout masonry walls were coupled with a massive 40-foot earth embankment and a historic 40-foot-wide, 15-foot-deep moat. Enemy pillboxes and well-placed machinegun positions were located outside the fort, which was further protected by a 10-foot-deep, 13-foot-wide antitank ditch and a 200-foot-wide minefield laced with buried 300-pound naval shells with hair-trigger igniters that could easily obliterate any oncoming tanks.
The U.S. Army Air Forces’ massive effort to use aerial bombing to shake the Germans’ resolve did little more than create a cratered terrain around the fort and further solidify the defenders’ determination to hold the fort at any cost. But the Nazis were not prepared for the determination of Major Tom Dallas, the newly appointed commander of the 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army and British soldiers of the 141st Regiment, Royal Armored Corps, with their 15 flame-throwing Crocodile tanks. The Crocodile was one part of an odd-looking British tank force nicknamed Hobart’s Funnies.
The fighting began at 8 am on September 14, and the going was exceptionally slow as the American infantry moved forward against the well-entrenched Germans. The British and Americans worked well together, with the Americans clearing a mine-free path for the advancing tankers and providing the infantry to protect the tanks from concealed Germans equipped with lethal panzerfaust antitank weapons.
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