The Battle of Saint-Malo was fought between Allied and German forces to control the French coastal town of Saint-Malo during World War II. The battle formed part of the Allied breakout across France and took place between 4 August and 2 September 1944. United States Army units, with the support of Free French and British forces, successfully assaulted the town and defeated its German defenders. The German garrison on a nearby island continued to resist until 2 September.
Saint-Malo was one of the French towns designated as a fortress under the German Atlantic Wall program, and its prewar defenses were expanded considerably before the Allied landings in Normandy during June 1944. As part of their invasion plans, the Allies intended to capture the town so that its port could be used to land supplies. While there was some debate over the necessity of this in August as the Allied forces broke out of Normandy and entered Brittany, it was decided to capture rather than contain Saint-Malo to secure its port and eliminate the German garrison.
After initial attempts to capture the locality failed, the US Army began a siege operation. Infantry units attacked and defeated large numbers of fortified German positions with the support of artillery and aircraft. A fortification on the edge of Saint-Malo was the final German position on the mainland to hold out, and surrendered on 17 August. After extensive air and naval bombardments, the garrison on the nearby island of Cézembre surrendered on 2 September. German demolitions made it impractical to use Saint-Malo as a port. The town was also heavily damaged during the battle and was rebuilt after the war.
Background
Saint-Malo is a historic port town on the northern coast of Brittany, which, due to its strategic location, was extensively fortified over the centuries. It had a population of 13,000 in 1936, of whom 6,000 lived within the city walls. Saint-Malo's harbor facilities could accommodate medium-sized ships and unload one thousand tons of cargo per day. Before World War II, the town was a popular holiday destination for wealthy Parisians and boasted a casino, hotels and spas.
The town is located on the northwest of the Saint-Malo peninsula, on the eastern side of the mouth of the Rance river. Saint-Malo was once an island, but had been joined to the mainland by a causeway and a road by the time of World War II. The suburb of Paramé was to the east of Saint-Malo, and the fishing port of St. Servan-sur-Mer to the south. The town of Dinard is across the Rance from Saint-Malo. The small but heavily fortified island of Cézembre lies at the mouth of the Rance, and is off the coast from Saint-Malo.
During the first months of the war, Saint-Malo was one of the ports used to import supplies for the British Expeditionary Force in France. As the Germans neared victory in the Battle of France, Allied forces were also evacuated to Britain from the town during Operation Aerial in June 1940; 21,474 personnel were embarked from Saint-Malo without the loss of any lives or ships. Brittany was a key center for German forces during the occupation of France and its major ports were used as submarine bases. As the Allies prepared to liberate France, the Germans judged that Brittany was a likely location for an Allied invasion. This led to extensive fortifications being built in the region as part of the Atlantic Wall program. In 1943 the () designated Saint-Malo and other French ports with prewar fortifications as fortresses. Each fortress was assigned a commander who was required to swear an oath to defend it to the death. The German leader Adolf Hitler expected that these fortresses would hold out for at least 90 days if they were attacked.
Saint-Malo formed part of the Occupied Zone of France, which was directly administered by the German military rather than the Vichy French regime. During the occupation, the town's port was used as a base for coastal forces by the (German Navy). It was also a supply base for the large German garrison in the Channel Islands. In August 1942 German military police rounded up local Jews as part of a mass deportation operation. The Atlantic Wall program led to a substantial augmentation of the prewar fortifications at Saint-Malo, this work being undertaken by volunteer and forced laborers controlled by Organization Todt.