Saint-Malo was one of the French towns designated as a fortress under the German Atlantic Wall program, and its prewar defenses had been expanded considerably before the Allied landings in Normandy during June 1944.

While there was some debate over the necessity of this in August as the Allied forces broke out of Normandy and entered Brittany, it was decided to capture rather than contain Saint-Malo to secure its port and eliminate the German garrison.

[9] As the Germans neared victory in the Battle of France, Allied forces were also evacuated to Britain from the town during Operation Aerial in June 1940; 21,474 personnel were embarked from Saint-Malo without the loss of any lives or ships.

[14] The Atlantic Wall program led to a substantial augmentation of the prewar fortifications at Saint-Malo, this work being undertaken by volunteer and forced laborers controlled by Organization Todt.

[21] Accordingly, the Overlord plan specified that securing Brittany would be the main objective of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley's Twelfth United States Army Group after it broke out from Normandy.

[24] During early July the Allied leadership considered the feasibility of launching combined amphibious and airborne landings at Saint-Malo, Quiberon Bay and Brest to seize ports.

[25] British bomber aircraft attacked railway yards and fuel storage tanks at Saint-Malo on 17 July; this raid resulted in French civilian casualties.

[5] In late July the American forces in the west of the Normandy region launched the Operation Cobra offensive, which led the German positions to collapse.

[26] The town of Avranches, through which the main roads leading from the west coast of Normandy into Brittany ran, was liberated on 30 July and a German counter-attack was defeated the next day.

[35] The United States Navy also patrolled the Gulf of Saint-Malo, and American destroyers and torpedo boats engaged German coastal craft in the area on several occasions during early August.

[37] There were approximately 35,000 armed resistance fighters in Brittany at the time, and they rapidly seized most of the region outside of the towns including strategically important roads and bridges.

The commander of the cavalry group was killed in the initial clash, and Earnest decided to bypass Dol-de-Bretagne to the south after learning from civilians that it was heavily defended.

[29] Despite Patton's desire to avoid a siege, Middleton concluded that the German force at Saint-Malo was too strong to be safely bypassed, as it could attack the supply lines supporting the Allied advance into Brittany.

Accordingly, Middleton again ordered the entire 83rd Infantry Division to be concentrated in the Saint-Malo area and then make a quick attack on the town in conjunction with Task Force A in the hope that this would crack the German defenses.

[57] As it was clear that further fighting would be prolonged, Middleton directed Task Force A to disengage from the Saint-Malo area during the night of 5/6 August and resume its mission of securing railway bridges.

He further claimed that as his forces included armed boats that were operating near Saint-Malo, it was not possible to declare the town an open city as these vessels were legitimate targets for the Allies.

French civilians believed that these were accidentally started by German troops who were burning codebooks and other documents, and that SS personnel both refused to allow firefighters to put them out and lit further fires.

[62] Aulock ordered all French males aged between 17 and 70 who had remained in Saint-Malo after 5 August to be arrested as hostages following an inaccurate report that civilians had attacked his troops.

[64] Soon after Pleurtuit was captured, German StuG IIIs supported by infantrymen launched an attack that cut the roads to the village and isolated the 3rd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment.

He decided to give priority to capturing Dinard after St. Joseph's Hill was secured to rescue the isolated battalion, eliminate the German artillery in the area and prevent Saint-Malo's garrison from escaping across the Rance.

[80] On 16 August American infantrymen assaulted Fort National and Grand Bey, which were the last remaining German positions on the mainland of the Saint-Malo area other than the Citadel.

[87][88] Shortly before the air strike was scheduled, a white flag appeared over the Citadel and a party of German soldiers emerged from it to inform the Americans that Aulock wished to surrender.

[94] This decision may have resulted from intelligence gained from three Italian deserters who fled to Saint-Malo in late August and, after being taken prisoner, described the heavy damage to the island's defenses and shortages of water and ammunition.

[94] After an attempt to use small craft to evacuate the garrison on the night of 1/2 September was foiled by bad weather, Seuss received permission to surrender from his superior officer in the Channel Islands.

[104] Aulock denied Saint-Malo's port to the Allies and, by detaining the 83rd Division and other VIII Corps units for two weeks, prevented the Americans from being able to take rapid and decisive action against the German positions at Brest and Lorient.

[105][106] The rapid liberation of France and the capture of ports on the English Channel reduced the potential value of the remaining German-held cities in Brittany and the French Atlantic coast to the Allies.

[108] British and Canadian forces also captured Antwerp, Dieppe, Le Havre and Rouen during 1944, and besieged several other fortified ports in northern France until the end of the war.

While the logisticians initially believed that there were good prospects for bringing Saint-Malo's port facilities back into service, the extent of the damage frustrated their efforts.

After a report that was completed in September revealed that the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance, which links the Rance and Rennes, was in a poor condition it was decided that re-opening Saint-Malo was not worth the effort.

[111] As a result, historian David T. Zabecki has written that while the capture of Saint-Malo was a tactical success for the Americans, "on the operational level ... it contributed very little" to the Allied war effort.