Though Le Havre lies close to the Normandy beaches, it hardly features in histories of D-Day and its aftermath. Blocked at Caen, the Allied armies broke through to the south, wheeled left and raced for Paris. By the end of August 1944 the capital had been secured and the Seine crossed at last. With hindsight it seems that Le Havre had lost any strategic significance it might have had, but it was still in German hands and it was decreed that RAF bombers should flatten the town. Five thousand died in the ensuing siege, three thousand on the night of 5 September. It was the greatest single French loss of the Second World War.

LRB 6 February 2003 | PDF Download