Bombing of Normandy

On 9 July 1944, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery ordered a massive air assault against Caen in the hopes of clearing the way for a ground attack the following morning.

The pilots however negated most of the effect by releasing their bomb loads well back from the front line to avoid hitting their own troops.

In the early stages of the Normandy campaign, this often resulted from insufficient communication between air and land forces.

The French historian Henri Amouroux in La Grande histoire des Français sous l’Occupation, says that 20,000 civilians were killed in Calvados department, 10,000 in Seine-Maritime, 14,800 in the Manche, 4,200 in the Orne, around 3,000 in the Eure.

But the suffering of civilians was for many years masked by the over-riding image, that of the French welcoming the liberators with open arms.