The battles for St. Lo were fought in the bocage area of Normandy. In the area of a football field there are 100 small farmed fields surrounded by impenetrable 1000-year-old hedges growing on thick foundations of stone, rock, earth and roots. Tree limbs meet covering the dirt farm track. German covered foxholes were established during the occupation. Burrowing through the hedgerow foundations the defenders could fire down the road and scurry back through their tunnel to the safety of their foxhole in the field. Mortar air burst shells impacting in the overhanging branches scattered deadly shrapnel onto the advancing Americans.