The Falaise Pocket or Battle of the Falaise Pocket (12 21 August 1944) was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War.
The Battle of the Falaise Pocket ended the Battle of Normandy with a decisive German defeat.
The battle is also referred to as the Battle of the Falaise Gap, after the corridor which the Germans sought to maintain to allow their escape and is sometimes referred to as the Chambois Pocket, the Falaise-Chambois Pocket, the Argentan Falaise Pocket or the Trun Chambois Gap.
Later that month, 2e DB participated in the Battle of the Falaise Pocket, which inflicted a major defeat on the German Army.
Having managed to break out of the Falaise Pocket, the 10th SS, 12th SS and 116th Panzer Divisions would then attack Hill 262 from the southwest.
In the aftermath of the Falaise Pocket, the German 7th Army was effectively annihilated, losing anywhere from 50,000 200,000 men in the pocket, as well as over 200 tanks, 1,000 guns, and 5,000 other vehicles.
The 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions would continue their grinding offensives against the northern extremities of the Falaise Pocket, inflicting heavy casualties on the exhausted remains of the 12th SS Panzer Division.
Operation Cobra transformed the high-intensity infantry combat of Normandy into rapid maneuver warfare, and led to the creation of the Falaise pocket and the loss of the German position in northwestern France.
Then some 40,000 of 100,000 Germans escaped the Falaise Pocket in northern Normandy, although the accompanying battle was savage.
The town is famous for a battle in the area (the "Falaise pocket") during the Allied reconquest of France in 1944 in which 50,000 German troops were encircled and taken prisoner.
