Word: brest
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...Brest-major port protected by permanent forts and an unusually rocky coastline. Possible landing beaches are southward across the bay; the most obvious attack would be from the Lorient area...
Until recently Colonel General von Kleist held back ten armored divisions, probably in the Minsk-Brest-Litovsk area; by now he has probably had to throw them against the Russian avalanche. In France, in addition to the 30-odd coastal-defense divisions, twelve divisions stand in the rear, supposedly between Amiens and Sedan, waiting to counterattack Allied forces landing in the west. These forces are formidable but they are not true reserves: they cannot be readily spared for duty elsewhere...
...British cruiser Charybdis was sunk by torpedoes and H.M. destroyer Limbourne, also torpedoed, was later abandoned and sunk by the British. The Germans seemingly got away scot-free in the first major naval engagement in the Channel since the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen fled from Brest past Dover's white cliffs...
...Boat Bases: Eight of eleven operational bases attacked. Brest (very light), Lorient (considerable), St. Nazaire (very heavy), La Pallice (severe), Trondheim (most severe), Helgoland (very light), Bordeaux (very light permanent damage), Gdynia (negligible material damage, considerable morale destruction by shattering sense of security). Concrete pens for U-boats, heavily bombed many times, were damaged only at Trondheim...
Round-the-clock preoccupation with Cologne (submarine engines and parts), Wilhelmshaven, St. Nazaire and Brest (U-boat bases) bore out reports that one major Casablanca decision was to interrupt or abandon indiscriminate bombing of industrial targets. The chosen alternative: concentrate on submarine building centers and ports, thus easing the U-boat strain from United Nations supply lines...