Worse, the bombers had come in perpendicular to the line, not parallel. The airmen argued that they couldn't funnel all the bombers through the narrow corridor created by using a single marker. It would take hours for them to pass over the target-all the time exposed to antiaircraft fire from the 88s. By coming in perpendicular, spread out, the bombers would only be taking flak during the seconds it took to cross the line and jdrop the bombs. Bradley still wanted a parallel approach, but the airmen convinced him that it was too late to change the plan.

July 25 was clear. At 0938 some 550 fighter-bombers were guided in by radio messages from air controllers riding in tanks at the head of armoured columns. P-47s fired rockets and machine guns on German positions just south of the road and dropped 500-pound bombs that could be placed within 300 metres of the American lines.

Reporter Ernie Pyle wrote, "The dive bombers hit it just right. We stood in the barnyard of a French farm and watched them barrel nearly straight down out of the sky. They were bombing less than a half-a-mile ahead of where we stood. They came in groups, diving from every direction, perfectly timed, one after another."

After twenty minutes the P-47s gave way to 1,800 B-17s. Their appearance left men groping for words to describe it. Pyle did it this way: "A new sound gradually droned into our ears-a gigantic faraway surge of doomlike sound. It was the heavies. They came on in flights of twelve, three flights to a group and in groups stretched out across the sky. Their march across the sky was slow and studied. I've never known anything that had about it the aura of such a ghastly relentlessness."

They were 12,000 feet high. Captain Belton Cooper was on the ground. "Once they started, it was like some giant prehistoric dragon snake forming a long great continuum across the sky with its tail extended over the horizon." For a full hour their strike saturated the area just south of the road to a depth of 2,500 metres. The results for the Germans were near-catastrophic.

The bombed area looked like the surface of the moon. Entire hedgerows were blasted away. German general Fritz Bayerlein reported that he lost "at least seventy per cent of my troops, out of action-dead, wounded, crazed, or numbed."

During the second half hour of the bombardment the bombline moved north. Dust and debris raised by the first waves were drifting on a south wind. The CO of Company B, 8th Infantry, 4th Division, described what happened: "The dive bombers came in beautifully, dropped their bombs right in front of us just where they belonged. Then the first group of heavies dropped theirs. The next wave came in closer, the next one closer, still closer. Then they came right on top of us. The shock was awful."

There were 111 GIs killed and 490 wounded by the shorts. Among the dead was General Lesley McNair, chief of the army ground forces, who was in the front line to witness the attack.

This bombardment was supplemented by artillery fire-1,000 guns in all. The gunners' initial task was to suppress German antiaircraft fire. When the first wave of bombers appeared, 88s knocked three of them out of the sky. But little Piper Cubs were flying near enough to the German lines to spot the flashes and call in German positions to American artillery.

When the shells started coming down on them, the German artillerymen dove into their bunkers and the antiaircraft fire ceased. Then, in a general hour-long barrage, the GIs fired 50,000 artillery shells. Overhead, as the B-17s departed, 350 P-47s swooped in for another twenty-minute strike against the narrow strip just south of the road, dropping napalm-filled drums. Their departure was the signal for the infantry and tanks to begin the ground attack. As they did so, 396 Marauders hit the rear of the German front line.

Altogether some 16,000 tons of bombs hit the Germans, supplemented by the artillery barrage. It was the greatest expenditure of explosives for a single attack in the army's history. Private Herbert Meier, a radioman, recalled, "So many planes over so little space, and the bombs rained down. I saw the bombs being released, and the way they shone in the sun for a moment, then fell to earth so fast that one could not see them. The explosions sent great geysers of earth into the air. I ran from hole to hole like a rabbit."

Everywhere there was death and destruction. Men not hit by shrapnel were bleeding from the nose, ears, mouth. The world seemed to be coming to an end. For Major Joachim Barth, CO of a German antitank battalion, it almost had. "When the shelling finally stopped," he recalled, "I looked out of my bunker. The world had changed. There were no leaves on the trees. It was much harder to get around. We had wounded. We needed medics, but no ambulances could come forward."

The Americans had suffered, too, and when Bradley got the news of the shorts, he wrote that at his headquarters "dejection settled over us like a wet fog." But he remained determined to take immediate advantage of the shock to the Germans. He sent his energy down the line: Let's go!

The company CO of the 4th Division, who asked for a delay so that he could reorganize his shattered troops, was told, "No. Push off. Jump off immediately."

Lieutenant Sidney Eichen of the 30th Division had a similar experience. "My outfit was decimated," he reported, "our anti-tank guns blown apart. I saw one of our truck drivers, Jesse Ivy, lying split down the middle. Captain Bell was buried in a crater." But Eichen's regimental commander ran from company to company shouting, "You've gotta get going, get going!" So, Eichen said, "halfheartedly, we started to move."

On the German side, Major Joachim Barth remembered that as the shelling stopped, he told his men, "Get ready!" They were "digging people out, digging out the guns and righting them. Get ready! Get ready! Prepare your positions. They'll soon be here. Everyone knew what he had to do."

The first advancing GIs passed disabled German vehicles, shattered corpses, and disoriented survivors-but they also found veterans of Panzer Lehr "doing business at the same old stand with the same old merchandise-dug-in tanks and infantry," Captain Belton Cooper said. Private Gtinter Feldmann of Panzer Lehr later recalled that "the first words I heard from an American were 'Goddamn it all, the bastards are still there!' He meant my division."

German artillery fire on the GIs was also heavy, as some of the dug-in German artillery survived. As darkness came on July 25, little or no gain had resulted from the air strike. Cobra looked to be another Goodwood.

BUT IF THE GIs and their generals were discouraged. General Bayerlein of the 12th SS Panzer Division was in despair. When an officer came from army headquarters conveying Field Marshal von Kluge's order that the St. Lo-Periers line must be held, that not a single man should leave his position, Bayerlein replied, "Out in front every one is holding out. Every one. My grenadiers and my engineers and my tank crews-they're all holding their ground. Not a single man is leaving his post. They are lying silent in their foxholes, for they are dead. The Panzer Lehr Division is annihilated."

July 26 was a day of suspense. The Americans attacked; the Germans held. On July 27 the thin crust of Panzer Lehr disintegrated.

First Army had accomplished the breakthrough, in the process developing an air ground team unmatched in the world. Now, along with Third Army, it was finally going to get into a campaign for which it had been trained and equipped. Now the most mobile army in the world could capitalize on its mobility.