The American sector
The liberation of Quinéville
On the Cotentin Peninsula, the fortifications of Quinéville have been threatening the landing of American equipment on Utah Beach since June 6. Therefore, the capture of the village was entrusted to the 39th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division. On June 14, the assault was preceded at 9:15 a.m. by an intense artillery bombardment on the ridges and the beach. Four hours later, the infantry launched, led by Company K of the 3rd Battalion. At 14:00 p.m., the upper part of Quinéville was taken. But at 15:00 p.m., the GIs were still having difficulty liberating the rest of the village in the face of well-organized German resistance. The first bunkers on the beach were taken around 17:00 p.m.
The German surrender was effective at 21:30 p.m. after serious fighting. 300 German soldiers were taken prisoner. Company K had 5 soldiers killed and 28 others wounded. As Quinéville fell into American hands, the garrison of the Mont Coquerel battery (four 4 mm cannons with a range of 105 km) also surrendered. On the evening of June 12, Quinéville marked the furthest point of the American advance northward.
Heavy losses for the 507th Parachute Regiment on June 14
Faced with strong German resistance preventing the advance towards Cherbourg, cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula had become a priority for Bradley since June 9. The 90th Infantry Division was therefore launched beyond the Merderet towards Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, without convincing results. The 9th Division then took over, supported by elements of the 82nd Airborne. After a 3-day rest, the 507th Parachute Regiment set out on June 14 towards Saint-Sauveur le Vicomte, southeast of La Bonneville. Quickly placed under fire from enemy mortars and artillery, the three battalions of the regiment advanced painfully during the night, barely a kilometer covered by early morning. The paratroopers of the 507th held their positions all day, were even targeted by their own artillery, before being overtaken around 18:00 p.m. by the 505th Regiment. After two days of fighting, the 507th Regiment had just been seriously battered: it lost 192 men in this battle, killed, wounded and missing.
The Anglo-Canadian sector
De Gaulle landed in Normandy on June 14
Around 13:00 p.m., off the coast of Courseulles and Graye-sur-Mer, General de Gaulle left the bridge of the Combattante, a destroyer of the Free French Naval Forces, to set foot on Normandy soil. Four years after his departure for London, the man of June 18th finally returned to France. That day, de Gaulle did not come alone. He was accompanied by 18 people, his main civilian and military collaborators. After long and difficult negotiations with the Allies, the leader of Free France received authorization to travel to the Allied beachhead in Normandy.
Upon his descent, he was greeted by Major Sanderson, who had been sent by Montgomery. De Gaulle was immediately taken to "Monty's" headquarters at the Château de Creullet for a brief interview, while the rest of the group, led by François Coulet and Colonel de Chevigné, headed for Bayeux. The General's men had very little time to inform the locals of the Free French leader's visit.
De Gaulle entered Bayeux around 15:30 p.m., welcomed by François Coulet and the town council. He installed François Coulet as the first Commissioner of the Republic in the sub-prefecture, where the portrait of Marshal Pétain still stands, and appointed Pierre de Chevigné as military delegate for the liberated regions.
De Gaulle had a brief chat with Sub-Prefect Rochat to learn about the situation in the bridgehead, before setting off on foot through the streets of Bayeux. The final act of this visit to Bayeux was the Place du Château, where De Gaulle gave his first speech in liberated territory before a large crowd.
De Gaulle then left Bayeux to go as close as possible to the combat zone, to Isigny-sur-Mer, then to Grandcamp-les-Bains before returning to Courseulles via the coast. He re-embarked aboard the Combattante at nightfall, his duty accomplished: having been able to restore republican legality in Normandy under the noses of the Allies who had until then kept him away from Overlord and the future administration of liberated France.
The liberation of Lingèvres
On the road to the liberation of Tilly-sur-Seulles, Lingèvres posed a real obstacle for the British 50th Infantry Division. In this sector, facing the Panzer Lehr, it was the 9th Durham Light Infantry (151st Brigade) who were tasked on June 14th with capturing the village. At that moment, only ruins remained of Lingèvres, crushed four days earlier by 4mm naval shells from HMS Orion. Despite artillery and fighter-bomber support, the regiment lost 152 men, including 246 officers, killed, wounded, or missing, in the liberation of the village. The Panzer Lehr refused to give up and launched a terrible counterattack that day. The German division lost 20 Panzers in this operation, while Sergeant Harris of the 6/4 Dragoon Guards managed to destroy five Panther tanks in the streets of the village with his single Firefly tank.
The liberation of Escoville
South of the British 6th Airborne Division's drop zone, Escoville remained occupied by the Germans of the 21st Panzer Division on the evening of June 6. The following day, the objective set for the 2nd Airborne Battalion of the Ox and Bucks was to liberate the village. The British paratroopers liberated Hérouvillette and then entered Escoville late in the morning of June 7, before leaving following a German counterattack. For a week, Escoville remained on the front line of the two belligerents. On June 14, the British 51st Infantry Division, having arrived in the sector east of the Orne to reinforce the parachute forces, managed to capture the village of Escoville.
German forces
The 12th SS Panzer loses its leader
Promoted to brigadier general at the age of 35, Fritz Witt commanded the 12th SS Hitler Youth from its arrival in Normandy. Despite the dispersal of his forces and the 12-hour delay in his division's engagement on June 6, he was responsible for halting the Canadian advance toward Carpiquet Airfield on June 7. On June 14, while returning from a daily inspection of his units in the field, Fritz Witt was killed in Caen, in the Venoix district, hit by a piece of shrapnel from a naval shell fired at his command post. General Witt was replaced two days later by his subordinate, Colonel Kurt Meyer, who, at 33, became the youngest division commander in the Third Reich.
German destruction in Le Havre
Starting on June 14, the Allies bombed the port infrastructure of Le Havre and Boulogne. On that day, 350 Royal Air Force bombers managed to wipe out the German naval forces stationed near Le Havre: three torpedo boats were destroyed at the dock, around twenty minesweepers or patrol boats, around twenty other vessels, and eleven torpedo boats were disabled. The German naval situation in the Bay of the Seine had suddenly become catastrophic for Admiral Krancke, commander of the Western Naval Group.
Civilians in war
The end of the Beaucoudray maquis
Established since April 1944 about twenty kilometers south of Saint-Lô, the small maquis of Beaucoudray, whose thirty members led by Ernest Pruvost had managed to cut telephone cables during the night of June 5 to 6, has been waiting since the D-Day landings for the message that will trigger their action to help the Americans march on Saint-Lô. Isolated, without reinforcements or the prospect of armed action, its various members live hidden in a farm in the village of Bois.
On June 14, around 10:30 a.m., the farm was surrounded by German fighters. Of the 19 men present that morning, 11 of them, all members of the Action-PTT group from Saint-Lô, were arrested and gathered in the courtyard before being transferred at nightfall to the village of La Réauté. The next morning, shortly before dawn, they were all shot at a place called "L'oiselière de haut." The bodies of the victims were found at the beginning of August when the area was liberated.
Vimoutiers and Mézidon under the bombs
Until now spared from the fighting, Vimoutiers, which on June 6, 1944, housed the 12th SS Panzer train, was violently bombed on June 14. Thirty-six Marauder B-36 bombers dropped 26 tons of bombs on the city starting at 7:45 a.m. and in less than 20 minutes. Incendiary bombs set fire to the city, which was destroyed by more than 29%. Of the 80 inhabitants, 1 civilians were killed. The same day, Allied aircraft dropped their bombs over Mézidon, north of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, instantly killing nearly 900 civilians. Normandy continues to pay a heavy price for its liberation.
