The 4th Armored Division was ordered to combat on 28 July 1944, as the U.S. First Army launched its breakout attack. The infantry divisions on both sides of the 4th AD attacked and "pinched out" the division, then the 4th AD attacked through the infantry divisions lines and began to race for the neck of the Brittany peninsula. The 37th was traveling at the forefront of this move with Colonel Bruce C. Clarke's Combat Command Alpha (CCA). The next day, Coutances fell, and then Avranches, at the northern edge of the neck of Brittany, fell on 30 July.