Word: caen
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Slugging Match. Key to the battle was Caen itself, a historic Norman town of primitive Gothic churches (see ART) and thick-walled stone buildings. The first British drive had carried to the town's outskirts; then it was hurled back. The battle settled down to a slugging match between the British Second Army and a German army, apparently the Seventh. Best break for the Allies was that the enemy never collected enough armor for a solid breakthrough attack. He committed his tanks piecemeal until four Panzer divisions were engaged in the fighting...
...Match. Now, even before Cherbourg's port was restored, the Allied armies had enough power piled up to begin an offensive in the Second Army's sector. They drove head-on into the Germans. British and Canadian infantry, following up the tanks, pushed their lines forward until Caen was encircled on three sides and the highways and railroads to the north and southwest of the city were...
...British tanks, firing over hilltops, and high-velocity antitank guns, blasting from the hedgerows or forest edges. Heavier attacks were driven off by British artillery, which dumped shells like loads of coal onto the advancing Panzer formations. The Nazis could not crack the British positions. The enemy might delay Caen's fall; he could not prevent...
...Plain Beyond. When Caen is passed, the Allies will have driven out of the broken, hilly, difficult Norman country and into open, fairly level ground. The next arena of battle might well be the Plain of Caen, an area about ten miles wide and extending some 21 miles south to Falaise and southeast to St. Pierre-sur-Dives...
...such a showdown. Besides the four Panzer divisions already identified, he was reported to have at least three more in reserve. Lieut. General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey, commander of the Second Army, found that some prisoners were veterans from the Russian front. Their units had been moved to Caen within the last month...