Blitzkrieg Rolling Thunder - The Invasion - Prunier Bridge near Angers

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1944 started off badly for General Patton.
He had been transferred and exchanged gun smoke, soot and fire for the flowery smell of English hotel beds. His morning read was no longer the position reports from his commanders at the front, but instead the London morning papers. What had happened?
The phenomenal success of Operation “Husky” had been bought with extremely high amounts of soldiers killed in action. Many soldiers thought that Patton was more interested in his personal fame than in carrying out his duty and he was no longer a popular general in late 1943.
When Patton paid a visit to an American military hospital and called a man a malingerer, who had suffered a nervous breakdown after coming under artillery fire and then proceeded to box his ears and throw him out of the hospital, the liberal east coast press got the scandal it had long been waiting for.
A large percentage of the American public deemed this incident to be extremely significant and demanded that Eisenhower penalize Patton.
General Eisenhower however had not lost faith in Patton. Under the existing circumstances he had, however, no other choice than to remove the “Hero of Palermo” from the public eye and Patton had to hand over the command of the 7th Army.
While Montgomery, Eisenhower and Bradley were planning the allied invasion in France under the code name “Overlord”, Patton was given trial command over a “ghost army” in Dover, East England. His task was to bluff German reconnaissance, while the real invasion force in South England and Cornwall was preparing for the planned invasion of Normandy. Tents, tank mock-ups and active radio communications gave the impression that the allied troops were planning to be deployed from East England to Pas de Calais – and no matter how dissatisfying this was for Patton, the bluff succeeded. Even weeks after the launch of the Invasion on June 6, 1944 the German generals still thought that the landing in Normandy was a diversion and were waiting for Patton’s “ghost army” to land in Pas de Calais.
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On July 28, 1944 American troops conquered the heavily defended village of Coutances. Patton made use of a hole in the enemy front and advanced to Avranches which was only weakly defended.
The gateway to Brittany was now open. Within three days Patton succeeded in moving three divisions over the bridge of Avranches.
Shielded by fighter planes and fighter bombers, Patton's tanks and half-track vehicles rolled southwards towards Rennes and Angers. The German Wehrmacht was simply unable to erect new defenses and the peninsula of Brittany was occupied by American troops in just a few days. The long awaited break out from the bridgehead in the Normandy had finally taken place.
After taking the capital of Brittany, Rennes, Patton’s next targets were Le Mans in the east and Angers in the south.
On August 7, 1944, soldiers of Patton’s 5th Infantry Division were already camping in Saint-Jean-de-Lignières at the gates of Angers. Take immediate command over these troops. Your most important mission objective is to seize the tactically important railway bridge of Prunier. Louis Bordier, a young man from the area of Angers, has joined the American troops and will provide you with important information regarding the local area and the enemy positions.
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