Roads to Falaise: 'Cobra' and 'Goodwood' Reassessed (review)

Perhaps no other book on Normandy is more mistitled than Roads to Falaise. Ken Tout, author of earlier works on the battles around Tilly and Falaise, ostensibly sets out to debunk two myths concerning the Allied soldiers but sadly falls short of his goal. Specifically, he aims to knock down a notch or two the idea of German tactical superiority, and show that acrimony amid the Allies existed only between the senior commanders—the Pattons, Montgomerys, Bradleys, and Eisenhowers. Thus on the one hand, those looking for a reassessment of Allied combat effectiveness should bypass Tout in favor of the more standard works by Blumenson, D'Este, Doubler, and Russell and Stephen Hart. On the other hand, those looking for an entertaining story of the breakout from Normandy will find this book rewarding.

As an engaging combat narrative, Tout has created an admirable work, integrating combat accounts with overarching Allied operations. His first chapter explaining the destruction of a platoon from the 712th Tank Battalion is especially noteworthy. Containing the only usable map in the book, Tout depicts the complexity of combined arms tactics and how easily armor and its supporting infantry could become separated during firefights and become vulnerable to a hidden enemy. His description of U.S. hedgerow tactics is as good as, and perhaps better than, any of the aforementioned experts. Tout, who served in Sherman tanks in Normandy, uses this experience to describe graphically and voyeuristically what happens inside a tank when hit by powerful German guns. Subsequent chapters detail the sacrifices, bravery, and suffering of the Allies and Germans alike. Through Tout, we get a worm's eye view of the brutal nature of modern combat.

The book's weakness arises when the author describes, somewhat superficially, doctrine and operations. He portrays the solution to the bocage stalemate in the American sector with the well-known story of Sergeant Curtis Culin's ingenious idea to weld scrap iron to tanks so they could plow through the Normandy hedgerows. In Tout's version, combat engineers worked around the clock to modify enough tanks in time for the Cobra operation. This might make for a good story but is not the entire truth. American units began devising solutions to the tactical problem as early as mid-June. The cause of this superficiality seems to be that in many instances, like that of Sergeant Culin, Tout makes a contention but uses only one source and then considers it as gospel. He argues that the Americans found overcoming German defenses difficult in the bocage country due to poor combined arms doctrine. Most contemporary scholars agree that it was not poor doctrine but a lack of training with that doctrine that led to the American difficulties in Europe.

Roads to Falaise is not what it promises. Tout's anecdotal history using secondary sources, although interesting, neither establishes the idea of German tactical superiority nor that of Allied equivalence. Further, his account of the rancor between senior commanders has been told better and in more detail by others. On the bright side, the author succeeded in writing an absorbing account of the climatic weeks in the Normandy battle where the Allies smashed the German army west of the Rhine. This book will appeal most to a general audience.