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Hedge Rows

Discussion in 'Western Europe 1943 - 1945' started by denny, Feb 19, 2015.

  1. denny

    denny Member

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    I always read/hear that the Ally Soldiers were.....shocked, confounded, stunned to find all the 15 foot high hedge rows, narrow roads, and Germans with heavy guns embedded all throughput that area.....well concealed and waiting to cause mayhem.
    That, in general, the ally's were not well prepared for that situation.

    If there had been better and previous knowledge of that Box Country...could the ally's had done much different.?
    They still would have had the same weapons, and still have had to go through that area.
    How much more could they have done.?
    With advance knowledge, could they have done anything different/better to attack a well entrenched and concealed enemy.?
    Thank You
     
  2. Sandwichery

    Sandwichery Active Member

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    The Allied planners depended on aerial photographs for much of their intelligence concerning the terrain. From the air the hedges don't look that intimidating. It would have been difficult to judge the height and density of what turned out to be a major headache for the ground forces. When the planners walked around their billets in Britain they might have looked at the box hedges there and assumed that the hedges in Normandy would resemble those.
    A far as what they could have done differently with prior knowledge of the situation, they might have developed equipment to assist the troops in their fight in the hedgerows, but the most critical thing would have been training those same troops to operate in that kind of environment effectively.
    They had much the same problem with the flooded areas behind Utah Beach when it came to depending on aerial reconnaissance. From the air they looked like open fields, whereas the paratroopers found that that illusion was based on the natural grasses that had grown tall enough to hide the several feet of water that was actually there.
     
  3. PzJgr

    PzJgr Drill Instructor

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    I would have thought that the French Resistance would have provide information on what aerial photos were leaving out. Then again, don't think that Allied planners valued what the French Resistance provided.
     
  4. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    One problem with the bocage is that not many people knew that the core of the hedgerows was essentially a stone wall. They probably expected to just push them over with their tanks and Sgt. Culin would not have been so famous.
     
  5. KJ Jr

    KJ Jr Well-Known Member

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    I have to echo that, but I refuse to believe that there was no in depth reconnaissance of the French countryside planning the breakout from the beaches. It was more that the Germans utilized those hedgerows successfully for defensive purposes. That dictated the Allies countermeasures.
     
  6. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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  7. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    The Allies did value Resistance reconnaissance...at least, what recce they KNEW to ask for ;)

    Johnny Frost's assault party for the Orne bridges trained on a "sand table" model of the bridges and defences that was kept constantly updated in the last fortnight before D-Day fro Resistance input, for example...

    I have to echo the issues mentioned previously about aerial recce...having just read William Foot's first few chapters yesterday in "The Battlefields That Nearly Were". Whether vertical views...or "oblique" views....both can seriously foreshorten the height of obstacles - and of course hedges and woods hide their OWN detail as well as what's intentionally hidden below them!

    I'd venture that the OVERLORD planners were probably more interested in anything hidden below/between the hedgerows of the Bocage, rather than the hedges themselves, until it was far too late...
     
  8. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    I suspect that many of the planners did know the nature of the hedgerows, particularly among the British who had similar terrain in the south. Yet, if you look at the timetable it didn't really figure into their plans. They'd take Caen immediately and drive on to Falais, effectively bypassing the nasty terrain to the south before the Germans could reinforce it. Any German forces would be forced to block the north and northeast routes to the Seine, allowing the Americans to drive east and eventually wheel north to become the right flank of the drive.

    It's only when those initial goals failed to be achieved that the bocage became an obstacle. It's another case of "no plan survives first contact with the enemy." The plan envisaged reaching the Seine within 90 days and bocage or not, that proved to be extremely conservative. The allies were well beyond the Seine in 90 days, knocking on the German border.
     
  9. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    In, I believe "Omaha to St. Lo", from the Center for Military History, the following story: (paraphrased)

    A young 2nd Lt. arrives at his new unit in the bocage. He meets his CO beside a hedgerow and gets a cup of coffee. He asks "How close are the Germans?" A guttural voice from the other side of the hedge says "Ze lieutenant is new here, ja?"
     
  10. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    I think the bocage country was probably well known to the British who are notoriously adept traveler and have a keen interest in geography . It is just not that far away. The Resistance , no doubt, had first hand knowledge and surely sent some information along. KD , IMHO, hit it right on. The Allies had their eye on the bigger picture. Overlord was a huge operation and everything could not be planned for....except the beaches. I think it was not seen as a huge obstacle until it became one. Caen was an obstacle and planned for, it was supposed to be taken quickly. . In war everything does not go as expected..
     
  11. denny

    denny Member

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    Yeah...I understand the reasons why The Ally's did not/might have not known about the size of the hedges.....but that is not really my question.
    It is always presented as a surprise, and I am sure it was

    "We were not trained for this"

    "We had no idea how big they were"

    "Single file down the narrow lanes"
    stuff like that

    I am just wondering what they could have done differently anyway.....what training would they have gotten, or what different weapons/strategy would have been used.

    They were a well concealed and entrenched enemy. I am kind of thinking there was not much else that could have been done better (no doubt there was "something") ...it was probably, always, going to be a matter of slogging through a defenders wet dream.
    Advantage Deutschland ..... I guess.
    And having to span all those little meadows...tons of them.....surrounded by those damn hedges.!
    It must have been unnerving.
    Thanks Again
     
  12. Dave55

    Dave55 Member

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    I think you are exactly right.

    If they knew what they were going to be up against, they might have had Culin Hedgerow Cutters ready ahead of time, as OpanaPointer said.

    Culin didn't think of it until July though.

    Are there any hedgerows today that still have holes in them from the Culin devices? I haven't been able to find any pictures.
     
  13. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    I was there in September. I did not see the hedgerows as they existed back then anywhere. Most of what I saw you could easily walk through, for the most part.
     
  14. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    There's not actually that much of any of the Bocage left, the last time I was there...courtesy of the EU Common Agricultural Policy funding of the ripping out of hedgerows and merging postage stamp-sized fields into praries. I was actually very disappointed; it looks more like the Ukraine now than rural France!
     
  15. Owen

    Owen O

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    Here's some hedge related pics taken in the Sourdeval - Mortain area of Normandy take back in May 2011 so you can get an idea of what they are like today.
    Still quite a few small fields with high banked hedges there.
     

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  16. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    Quite a few small ones, yes - but in the three "panorama" views you can see where the trend has hit there :( There are plenty of much larger ones, and you can in several places see where hedges were ripped out, leaving two or three patterns of crop usage in the one larger field. Particularly noticeable in the first of them.

    As tractors and harvesters get larger and larger, it can only continue :(
     
  17. denny

    denny Member

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    Wow.....that looks exactly like the movies you see from WWII.!
    It sure is beautiful...today.
    Almost like fighting in a small jungle. A person could be (with some camo) Two Feet from you, and you would never see them.
    I had No Idea most of that was gone from France now.
    I can see how corporate farming would much rather have big acres. It sure was beautiful the "old way" though.
    Thanks for the pictures.
     
  18. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake Member

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    The allies did know about this country. It is one reason why the US 1st Army did not land very many armoured formations early after D day. They knew that the Cotentin peninsular and Western Normandy was not great tank country.

    The bocage is sn't that different from the hedgerow country across the channel in the SW and SW of England. Much of the US Army was based in similar countryside. It was not very much like the training areas and ranges. Most of the military training areas were on poor agricultural land with open spaces to fire weapons on ranges.
     
  19. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    You know that....and I know that - but try telling someone that in an interminable Sealion debate! :) Suddenly the stone ditches, hedges and sunken lanes of rural 1940 Kent becomes as flat and open as desert hardpack...

    I thought they meant the vast flooded areas, the dry stone walls etc...
     
  20. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    Owen, those are great examples of what use to be. was through there in 1980 and saw a good bit of bocage country, sad that it is gone but small fields are hard to till efficiently with machinery. I have driven through a few parts of Cornwall where sunken roads have that look from the road side.

    Gaines
     

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