dared imagine') illustrate how petty the uproar surrounding the bombings really was. Unfortunately, in the postwar folklore of air-land operations, too often the short bombing is the only aspect of Cobra that gets attention. Thus, it is refreshing to read Elsenhower's reasonable, mature, and admirable judgment quoted above. The European Theater commander never lost sight of the most important result: the Cobra bombing devastated German forces and paved the way for the breakthrough that would trigger the breakout and roll back the Wehrmacht to the German homeland itself.

Cobra: Key to Breakout

The main weight of the Cobra bombings fell opposite Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins's VII Corps, on Lieutenant General Fritz Bayer-lein's already battered Panzer-Lehr Division. The initial confusion of the July 24 strikes had misled the German defenders into thinking that they had withstood and repulsed an American attack. They were not prepared for the whirlwind that descended on the 25th. The bombing, Collins recollected, 'raised havoc on the enemy side.' Though VII Corps, hurting from the accumulated short bombings of two days, did not make great progress in its ground attack on the 25th, Collins shrewdly realized that the German command and control structure had been badly disrupted by the air attack, and he planned a full-scale assault for the next morning. There began the genuine breakthrough. Combat Command A of the 2d Armored Division, ably supported by Quesada's IX TAC and building on the accomplishment of the 30th Infantry Division (which had taken the brunt of the short-bombings), cut through enemy defenses. Breakthrough now became breakout. The stage was set for the drive across Northern Europe.

Bayerlein left a remarkable account of the effects of the Cobra bombing and ground assault on his already war-weary command. In response to postwar interrogation he wrote: We had the main losses by pattern bombing, less by artillery, still less by tanks and smaller arms. The actual losses of dead and wounded were approximately: by bombing 50% by artillery 30% by other weapons 20%