Most thought that, if they could just get to the shore alive, the war would be won quickly. They were wrong. After the successful landing on D-Day, Allied troops were soon bogged down in bloody bocage fighting among the hedgerows and berms lining Normandy’s’ fields. Sure, the Army brass knew the hedgerows were there. But they never gave much thought to training or equipping troops for hedgerow fighting. Big mistake.

In the end, it took GI-ingenuity — soldiers adapting to the challenges on the ground — to figure out how to prevail in hedgerow fighting. Sgt. Curtis Culin’s famous “hedgerow cutter” was only one of many on-the-ground innovations that made the Normandy breakout possible.