The Battle of Saint-Lô was one of the three conflicts in the battle of the hedgerows which took place between July 7 and 19, 1944, in Saint-Lô, Manche, Normandy, France, just before Operation Cobra. Saint-Lô had fallen to Germany in 1940, and, after the Invasion of Normandy, the Americans targeted the city, as it served as a strategic crossroads. American bombardment caused heavy damage (up to 95% of the city was destroyed) and a high number of casualties, which resulted in the martyr city being called "The Capital of Ruins", popularized in a report by Samuel Beckett.
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