The German Retreat in the Face of the 2nd US Armd Div., August 13–22, 1944

Publication scheduled for mid-November 2026

We present a detailed account of the German retreat from August 13 to 22, 1944, following the withdrawal of the LXXXI. Armee-Korps, tasked with reorganizing German troops in full disarray. These include not only units escaping the Falaise Pocket but also those leaving the Sarthe and Orne departments. A Waffen-SS battle group then appears, sent specifically to southern Eure (the Gacé–L’Aigle sector) with full authority to restore order. It requisitions every tank retreating through the area, much to the displeasure of their commanders.

Its mission is to prepare defensive lines for three German divisions arriving from the Somme. But the route to the front is fraught with obstacles: attacks on the railways, relentless Allied fighter-bomber strikes that decimate entire columns on the roads, and conflicting orders and counterorders…

The danger comes not only from the Americans but from Hitler himself. The reader witnesses both the disarray of the German soldiers and the constant difficulties confronting the staffs of the LXXXI. Armee-Korps, the 5. Panzerarmee, the 15. Armee, and Army Group B. Drawing on more than 3,500 pages of previously unpublished reports and all the telephone conversations recovered by the author, the book offers an exceptionally precise account of this Rückmarsch (“retreat”). But the arrival of the 2nd US Armd Div soon upends every German plan. A race against time begins: one side must cross the Seine at all costs; the other, “Hell on Wheels,” has a single objective—to reach the river before the enemy and block its escape route for good.

An unparalleled historical investigation that takes the reader into the most dramatic hours of the German retreat and the liberation of Eure.

This 198-page book is illustrated with approximately 170 photographs and 10 maps by Guillaume Payan.