The battle of the Mons pocket was an engagement fought between Allied and German forces during late August and early September 1944. It formed part of the final stages of the rapid Allied advance across France and Belgium. During the battle United States Army forces, assisted by the Belgian Resistance, encircled a large number of retreating German Army and Waffen-SS troops near the town of Mons in Belgium. The German forces were disorganised and unable to counter the Allied forces. Around 3,500 Germans were killed and 25,000 made prisoners of war. Allied casualties were light.
Background
In late July and August 1944, Allied forces broke out of the Normandy beachhead and rapidly advanced across France, liberating the country from German occupation. The overriding goal of the Allied forces at this time was to advance quickly enough to reach the Rhine river before the Germans could man and reactivate the Siegfried Line defences which ran along the border between France and Germany. On 27 August General Omar Bradley, the commander of the Twelfth Army Group which was the main US Army force in northern France, ordered the armies under his command to "go as far as practicable" until they out-ran their supply lines. The US Army was well-suited to this type of warfare, as its units were highly motorized and trained to conduct large scale mobile operations.
The German forces in France had suffered heavy losses during the fighting in Normandy, and attempted to fall back ahead of the Allied forces. Their ability to do so was limited by the rapid Allied advance, road congestion, destroyed bridges and Allied air attacks. The Germany Army's infantry units were much less mobile than their Allied equivalents, as they lacked motor transport. At the start of the Allied breakout the German dictator Adolf Hitler directed that defensive positions be prepared along the Somme and Marne rivers in northern France. These positions were to be used to fight a delaying action. However, by the time the German forces reached the defensive positions along the Somme and Marne they were in no condition to offer serious resistance; a US Army history of the campaign described the German units at this time as "exhausted, disorganized, and demoralized ". By late August the German forces in northern France and Belgium were retreating in disarray. OB West was attempting to re-establish a coherent line along the Schelde river's estuary, the Albert Canal and the Meuse River.
Prelude
Allied advance
In late August Bradley decided that the First Army should temporarily prioritise cutting off the retreat of German units in northern France and Belgium over reaching the Rhine. The Army's commander, Lieutenant general Courtney Hodges, was directed on 31 August to advance to the north to cut the highway between Lille and Brussels. Hodges' main objective was the town of Tournai in Belgium, which he was ordered to liberate by midnight on 2 September. This task was assigned to XIX Corps which was responsible for the northernmost element of the First Army's area of operations. XIX Corps reached the town at 10 pm on 2 September. During the advance it captured 1,300 Germans. V Corps, which was in the center of the First Army's line, simultaneously advanced toward Landrecies and took it on 2 September; few German units were encountered.
German retreat
The 5th Panzer Army was the main unit facing the Allies in northern France during late August, and was responsible initially for forces in the region from the channel coast to Paris. It was unable to slow the Allied offensive, and command and control soon broke down. The Army's headquarters at Amiens was overrun by British troops on 31 August, though its commander SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich and his staff escaped.
In late August large numbers of German military personnel were moving through the area to the south west of Mons. They were mainly members of LVIII Panzer Corps, LXXIV Army Corps and II SS Panzer Corps. These corps included the badly battered remnants of ten combat divisions, as well as smaller units and many support personnel. All three corps headquarters were out of contact with superior commands.