Atlantic pockets

Luxembourg The Netherlands Belgium France Britain 1941–1943 1944–1945 Germany Strategic campaigns In World War II, the Atlantic pockets were locations along the coasts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France chosen as strongholds by the occupying German forces, to be defended as long as possible against land attack by the Allies.

On 19 January 1944 Adolf Hitler declared eleven places along the Atlantic Wall to be fortresses (Festungen), to be held until the last man or the last round, calling them Atlantikfestungen (lit.

[1] The ports were: IJmuiden, the Hoek van Holland, Dunkirk, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Le Havre, Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire and the Gironde estuary.

[citation needed] As well as concentrating men and matériel to control the surrounding area, the fortresses' purpose was to deny the use of port facilities to the Allies and to secure their continued use by German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic.

In France, six pockets were captured by the Allies between the initial invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and October 1944, and others brought under siege.