Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

Logistic Innovations

By this time, the success of the invasion and breakout had become obvious. When the breakthrough occurred west of Saint-Lô on the morning of July 26, the total combined Allied forces included approximately thirty divisions. Opposing them were seventy-two German divisions, concentrated in areas where the Germans thought the landings were most likely to occur.

The round-the-clock bombing of the bridges over the Seine and Loire Rivers, which had started four to five months before the invasion, should have tipped off the Germans that Normandy was being isolated. Because the heaviest bombing was in the Pas de Calais area directly across the English Channel from Dover, the Germans were confused. Not until July 25, the night before the Saint-Lô breakthrough, was Rommel able to secure the release of the panzer divisions in reserve in the Pas de Calais area. But by then it was too late to stop the Allied juggernaut.

The Allies had worries of their own. They were busy solving massive logistic problems moving, arming, and feeding their armies. Despite the military bureaucracy, British and American troops showed great ability to generate innovative ideas. Even more surprising, those in authority listened. For example, even with the largest invasion armada ever assembled—more than four thousand ships—we had the landing craft capacity to handle only parts of seven divisions. By careful coordination and quick turnaround time at the English ports, our forces unloaded an average of thirty thousand troops a day and vast amounts of cargo. Precast concrete caissons sunk along the beaches with pontoon bridges between them, known as Mulberrys, were of tremendous help in unloading the cargo on rough days.

One of the major logistic problems of the invasion was the gasoline supply. A full combat load for our division alone was more than 300,000 gallons, which amounted to three hundred GMC trucks each carrying 1,000 gallons in 5-gallon cans. In the initial planning, it had been recognized that the Germans would attempt to hold the Channel ports. Without places for tankers to dock, some other means of handling large volumes of fuel would have to be used until the Channel ports could be opened.

The British built large steel spools approximately a hundred feet in diameter. Around these spools they wrapped quarter-mile lengths of four-inch steel pipe that had been prewelded and had quick-coupling flanges on the ends of each section. Attached to the bridle of each drum was a large hydraulic gear reducer, which converted the drum into a giant winch. The bridle was in turn hooked to the stern of a powerful oceangoing tug. With one end of the pipe fastened to a shoreline pressure pumping station, the tug proceeded to cross the Channel with the pipe unrolling. Drums of this size could contain many miles of pipe.

On the other end of the line, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used lightweight four-inch pipe with quick-disconnect couplings that would fit into a GMC truck. As the truck moved slowly down the road without stopping, a crew inside the truck would throw the pipe out on the ground. A pipe crew following behind them on foot would fasten the joints together. Every few miles, a pumping station would be installed to boost the pressure. This fuel supply system depended upon thousands of GMC tracks operating continuously.

Ordnance Innovations

Many innovative ideas, such as the American hedge chopper, came from the field. The British produced the “flail” tank as an answer to the severe mine problem. When a tank struck a mine, the explosion would break the track and sometimes tear off a bogey wheel assembly. In some cases the Germans would stack mines on top of one another, which generated sufficient force to blow through the one-inch armor plate in the bottom of a tank and kill the crew.

The British flail tank had a large cylindrical drum mounted on heavy, adjustable brackets stretched across the front of the tank. Welded to the drum at various points were six-foot lengths of heavy chain. As the tank moved forward, the drum would rotate, and centrifugal force would cause the chains to flail against the ground. If they hit a mine, it would usually detonate without damaging the tank. Normally, these flail tanks were effective in a minefield; however, the horsepower required to drive the flail limited the mobility of the tank in extremely rugged terrain or in muddy fields.

Some tank crews mounted sandbags and even spare track blocks and wooden timbers on the faceplate of the tank for added protection against the murderous German antitank guns. The will to survive increased the innovative spirit.

Soldiers sometimes put sandbags on the floor of a Jeep to protect against mine blasts, which could blow the quarter-ton Jeeps to pieces. Although this might have been effective against small antipersonnel mines, I never felt it would do much good against an antitank mine. We never used sandbags in our Jeep, because I decided that they were too heavy and would slow us down. In running the gauntlet at night, speed was our best protection.

In spite of the American tanks’ inferior guns and armor compared to German tanks, they were faster and more mobile on paved highways. Tracks of American tanks lasted longer and achieved greater highway speeds than those on German tanks. The key was in the design of the track block itself. The track would arc upward when it went over the final drive sprocket and would conform to the sprocket contour. As the track went down to the first bogey wheel, it was straightened out, and the tank bogeys rolled along the track. When the track reached the last bogey, the torsional energy stored in the rubber doughnuts within the track caused the track to pick itself up slightly and thus go over the rear outer sprocket more easily.

This made the entire track an energy accumulator. Part of the energy put into the track as it bent around the final drive sprocket was recovered when the track returned over the rear-idler sprocket. Thus, the tank could move with less horsepower, leaving more power available for speed and mobility. In addition, the rubber covering on the track shielded the tank from road shock. This, along with the rubber-tired bogey wheels, gave the track a much longer useful life. The rubber coating on the inside of the track allowed it to be turned over and reversed after the outside had been sufficiently worn. A set of tracks for an M4 medium tank would last for approximately 2,500 miles on the highway, including one reversal. This was far superior to the German tracks, which were thought to last about 500 miles per set, after which the metal pins on the track began to break excessively.

The only problem with the American track was that it was too narrow and got stuck in muddy terrain. German tanks were designed with much wider tracks that could operate over rough, muddy ground. Because most major tank engagements took place off the road, the overall effect favored the Germans.

In addition to our tanks’ greater speed and mobility on the highway, all of our other armored vehicles were faster and more mobile than those of the Germans. Our self-propelled guns were mounted on tank chassis, and our half-tracks had rubber tread tracks for greater speed and longer life. The armored cars were fast and had four-wheel drive, which could be disengaged on the front wheels when driving on a paved highway. (All of our wheeled vehicles had four-wheel and six-wheel drive, which could be disengaged on the front wheels when necessary.) This kept the front and rear wheels from fighting one another and increased the life of the vehicle power trains.

Advance from Paris to the Northeast

The excellent Allied intelligence no doubt contributed greatly to our success to this point. Unknown to us, the British had secured a model of the German Enigma decoding machine and were using it to decode German messages. In addition, they had captured a German field order describing the German retreat routes from Normandy back into Germany. A retreat is always difficult, and with our air superiority it was hard for the Germans to move during daylight. Even though a large part of the German 7th Army managed to escape the Falaise Pocket, they now had a new danger ahead. With our speed and mobility, we plunged deep into France and swung around Paris to try to intercept the German columns.

After meeting other American armored units at Saint-Denis-le-Gast and isolating Paris, we headed toward Meaux, on the Marne River fifty miles east of Paris. This was where the French army had stopped the German advance in World War I. We were soon to pass through many sites of the most bitter fighting of that war.

That evening I had to take the combat loss report back to division trains, across the river at Corbeil. As I passed through a small French village, I had an eerie feeling. The village square was completely deserted, and roadblocks made of wagons, furniture, and automobiles blocked the entrances to the town. All of a sudden, the doors of shops and houses flew open and out rushed mobs of people with hoes, rakes, and German rifles screaming, “Vive l’Amérique! Vive l’Amérique! ” Next they screamed in broken English that the “marchai” were coming. I didn’t know who the marchai were.

Bitch, our adopted mascot, stood on the hood of the Jeep taking it all in. The French children came out and kissed the dog and hung garlands of flowers around her neck. They plied us with champagne and Cognac as though we were great heroes. I was a little nonplussed. I soon learned that they wanted us to take command of the French garrison and fight the marchai, who were just a few miles down the road. One Frenchman, who I assumed was the mayor, spoke good English. He explained that the marchai was a splinter group of Frenchmen who had collaborated with the Germans. Apparently, the German troops had given them guns.

I tried to explain to the mayor that I had to get back across the river to deliver my combat loss report. I also told him that there was an engineer bridge company about a mile down the road at the river crossing, and if they needed further assistance they could go there. He seemed to understand, and I departed among many “Vive l’Amériques” and “Vive la Libérations.” On my return trip the next morning, I passed through the same village and saw that the roadblocks had been removed. There were no signs of fighting, so I assumed that the marchai never came.

I joined Combat Command B at Meaux, and the division immediately moved forward toward Soissons in multiple columns, CCA on the right, CCB on the left. We were well into the German communication zone, and German communications were completely disrupted, with German combat troops trying to retreat behind the Siegfried line. Whenever we came upon a German unit, whether it was a combat unit or communication zone troops, they fought hard. Even though we were moving rapidly, we still had considerable casualties in these engagements.

Soissons appeared to be the next point the Germans would pass through, and the division pushed rapidly in order to get there first. The task force 1 was following chose a secondary paved road through a wooded area to the left of the main highway. The pavement soon yielded to dirt, and we found ourselves on a logging road.

As we penetrated further into the woods, we began to encounter sniper fire. It got heavier as we approached Villers-Cotterêts, a small village about two-thirds of the way to Soissons. I tried to stay as close as possible to the half-tracks. The tanks and half-tracks constantly blasted any suspicious clumps of bushes. Finally, we emerged from the woods into the village. From then on we followed a paved road.

On the morning of August 28, the division advanced rapidly toward Soissons, although we encountered numerous firefights along the way. At Braine, elements of the 486th Antiaircraft Battalion entered the town and saw a train pulling out of the station. It carried a German tank, several armored cars, and a company of infantry with supplies. The battalion opened fire and exploded the locomotive’s boiler. As the German soldiers rushed out to man the tank and the armored cars, they were gunned down by automatic weapons fire.

Although the 37mm ammunition bounced harmlessly off the tank like Ping-Pong balls, it kept the Germans from manning the tank.

At about the same time, elements of the 32d Armored Regiment and 54th Armored Field Artillery encountered another train in the same area. It had four Mark VI King Tiger tanks aboard and a number of other vehicles, plus many soldiers and supply cars. The Americans raked this column from stem to stern and prevented the Germans from manning the tanks. This turned out to be a real debacle for the Germans; many soldiers were killed and wounded. The few who escaped into the woods were soon rounded up.

As our soldiers surveyed the wreckage in the trains, they were surprised to find that much valuable space was taken up with women’s lingerie, lipstick, and perfume instead of sorely needed ammunition and food. The Germans apparently had done a good job of looting all the Paris boutiques before they pulled out. Lingerie, lipstick, and perfume made excellent trading items with young French mademoiselles. The great tragedy at Braine was that, had the Germans not taken the time for last-minute looting, the train might have left before our columns arrived, thereby sparing many German lives.

The advance to Soissons pressed on. It was known that there were a number of French pillboxes north of the city dating from World War I. The French had rebuilt and hardened them with reinforced concrete. There was concern that the Germans might use these fortifications. At the same time, General Collins requested that a detachment be sent to Château-Thierry, the site of a famous World War I battle and now occupied by elements of both the 3d and the 7th Armored Divisions.

As the division approached Soissons, they found that the main highway bridge to the north had been destroyed but that several other bridges that were damaged were still intact. General Rose was riding with a column that approached one of the bridges. Although some mines on the bridge approach had been removed, it was not known whether the bridge was safe for the armored column to cross. Without a moment’s hesitation, General Rose crossed the bridge and returned safely. For this act of heroism, along with similar actions in the past, General Rose received the Distinguished Service Cross. The division crossed the river, both at Soissons and to the east, and entered the city. Finding numerous firefights, they set up the artillery to cover the road junctions that the Germans were attempting to use north of the city.

Early the next morning, I started back to the maintenance battalion headquarters, located in Meaux, to deliver my combat loss report. As I approached Villers-Cotterêts, I could not decide which road to take. According to my map, there were three possible routes: the main paved highway to the left, the central road running through the woods, which we had taken the day before, and another main highway to the right.

I wasn’t about to take the road through the woods that we had been on the day before. It would have been foolish for two men in a Jeep to take a chance with all those snipers. My choice was one of the other two roads.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by a group of French civilians screaming, “Vive l’Amérique” and “Vive la Liberation.” Then a GMC truck appeared with a hundred German prisoners aboard. An MP sergeant riding a motorbike was in charge, and two MPs were in the cab.

The sergeant came up to my Jeep. “Lieutenant, I have a hundred prisoners here that I’m supposed to take back to Meaux. I don’t know where in the hell I am. You’re the ranking man; you’ll have to take charge.”

The last thing I needed was to be slowed down with a truckload of prisoners when I was trying to get back with my combat loss report as quickly as possible. But I knew that the sergeant was right. A cardinal principle in the army is that vital decisions must be made by the ranking man.

“Okay, let me find out what’s going on,” I said. “I have to go back to Meaux, too, so you can follow me.”

There they were, a hundred German POWs packed in the back of an open-top truck like sardines in a can.

There was just enough room for them to stand up. Some had been there so long that they had wet their pants, but the sergeant knew that if he let them out, he would never get them back. I felt little compassion for them, because I’d heard many stories of what American prisoners were made to suffer.

Vernon had taken the map out of its case and spread it on the hood of the Jeep. I assumed that the elderly Frenchman who was the most verbal in the group was the mayor of the village.

“Parlez-vous Anglais?” I asked.

“Non,” he replied.

I explained in my best French that I was trying to find out which of the two roads might be clear. I knew that the Germans often closed in and blocked the roads after an armored column passed through.

The mayor kept saying, “Non compris, non compris.” I knew he didn’t understand a word I was saying. I had studied French for three years in high school and two years in college. “Cooper, if you had not been such a dumb butt and paid more attention to what was going on in class, you would know what these people were talking about.”

Suddenly, a young German lieutenant leaned over the side of the truck and said to me in perfect English, “Lieutenant, I speak French, German, and English fluently and will be glad to act as your interpreter if you’ll let me out of the truck.”

The two MP drivers with their carbines stood behind the truck gate and the sergeant positioned himself there with his tommy gun as the lieutenant got out of the truck and stood beside me. I could tell by his bearing and the way he spoke English that he was well educated and probably from an upper-middle-class background. I also suspected that he was a dedicated Nazi.

He looked at the map. “I do not know about the road on the left; however, I do know that the road on the right would be unsafe for you now.”

He pointed to a small, wooded hill about half a mile out of town and told me he had been captured there the previous day after a heavy firefight. He said that even though the Americans had knocked out his roadblock and captured him and some of his men, there were at least two more tanks and a couple of half-tracks filled with infantry that had disappeared into the woods undetected.

I knew that if one of our columns had overrun the roadblock, they would not pursue the Germans into the woods. I also knew that our infantry would not arrive until later that afternoon. If the German was telling the truth, the roadblock could have been reestablished.

Was the man lying or telling the truth? I tried to put myself in his position. If I could get the Americans to go down this road and get shot up, it would give me a chance to get rescued by German troops and free me to fight again for the Führer. There might be some embarrassment for surrendering to the Americans; however, this would be outweighed by the fact that I had misled them in order to get myself free again.

On the other hand, if we went down that road and the Germans spotted us, they would certainly see the high profile of the truck and open fire. They would not immediately know that the truck was full of German prisoners. I would have a good chance of getting my butt shot off and having a lot of my men killed. At the same time, the American lieutenant in the low-profile Jeep might escape the fire and get away. In addition, I was at least safe as an American POW. If we could get back to the POW enclosure, we had a good chance of surviving the war.

At this moment, my thoughts were interrupted by a French schoolgirl about fourteen years old who stepped forward from the crowd of French villagers. She spoke some English and appeared to understand my poor French. She confirmed what the German lieutenant had said. Some of the villagers who had returned that morning reported that the Germans had blocked the road approximately where the German prisoner had indicated. She didn’t know the situation on the left-hand road but thought the Americans had been up the road the day before.

“Merci beaucoup,” I said to her many times.

I made my decision and hoped I was right. I told the sergeant we were taking the road to the left. I wanted the truck to follow about sixty yards behind me and I wanted him to ride behind the truck on his motorcycle. I instructed the two MP drivers to watch for any hand signals that I might give. If I encountered a roadblock or any other resistance, I would hit the ditch on the side of the road; the truck driver was to do likewise.

Everybody mounted up and we started toward the road. By this time, the French crowd was screaming and yelling obscenities at the prisoners, giving the well-known single-finger salute.

The road was a main highway, paved and in good condition but somewhat hilly and curving for the first mile or so. As we started up a small hill curving around a high embankment, I saw on the crest of the hill a Panther tank with its gun pointed straight at us. Vernon hit the ditch and we scrambled out of the Jeep, expecting to be blasted at any second. The truck driver saw what was happening and pulled into the ditch to the left.

I grabbed an M1 rifle and a high-explosive grenade from the grenade box. Vernon grabbed his M1 carbine and we started crawling back down the ditch to the bottom of the hill. I had heard no shots from the tank and didn’t hear the motor running, so I motioned to Vernon. We circled around the back side of the hill and started up the slope through the woods to a point that I thought would put us above and slightly to the rear of the tank. As we approached the crest of the hill, I could see the top of the tank turret through the woods. The cupola doors were open. I had my hand on the safety and was ready to toss the grenade into the turret when I realized that the back of the tank was completely blackened by fire. The tank was gutted. I felt a tremendous sense of relief.

From the top of the hill we could see no signs of any Germans, so we ran back to the Jeep and motioned the truck crew to move out. We went around the tank and headed down the road at top speed. Seeing the burned-out tank now appeared to be a sign that one of our columns had gone up the road the day before, but I was not sure that the Germans hadn’t come back and blocked the road again. Although we proceeded with extreme caution, we felt that speed was our best defense.

About halfway between Villers-Cotterêts and Meaux, we came upon a straight, clear stretch of road about a mile and a half long. Just as we entered one end of this stretch, I saw another vehicle enter the other end headed in our direction. It appeared to be either a Jeep or a Volkswagen. We both seemed to slow down simultaneously. I was holding my rifle and told Vernon to be ready to hit the ditch at any moment.

Finally, both vehicles reached the point where we could recognize each other. I was relieved to find out that it was an American Jeep. A major and his driver were headed north and wanted to know the situation between there and Soissons. I told him that the division had occupied Soissons the night before; I also told him the route I had taken from Soissons to this point. I explained about the German snipers in the woods on the logging road and about the supposed roadblock on the west highway on the other side of Soissons. He thanked me and told me that the road to Meaux was clear as far as he knew.

When we arrived at Meaux, I turned over the sergeant and the truckload of soldiers to the POW enclosure in division trains, went to the maintenance battalion headquarters and turned in my combat loss report, then went to division trains headquarters and told them about the possible roadblock on the west road. I was told that they had already received confirming information on this roadblock and that about forty-five minutes before I came through Villers-Cotterêts, an American ambulance half-track with red crosses painted on the front and both sides and filled with wounded men was ambushed at this same roadblock. All personnel had been killed. I realized what a narrow escape I’d had.

This incident had a profound effect on me, and it is with a deep sense of humility that I recall it. I realized how life takes strange turns and how seemingly unimportant things can become of paramount importance. In all those years I studied French, I felt it was a waste of time, but I realize it was probably the very margin that saved my life and the lives of those with me.

I was reminded of this several years later when I came to Birmingham, Alabama, for an engagement party for me and my fiancée at the home of Frank Dixon, the former governor of Alabama. Dixon was the law partner of my fiancee’s father. During the course of the evening, I chanced to step into the den and was immediately drawn to a map on the wall. It was of Villers-Cotterêts. The town didn’t seem to have changed much from the way it looked on the map I had used in World War II and still had in my possession.

I told Governor Dixon that I was interested in the map because I’d had an extremely narrow escape in this town during the war. I wondered how he happened to have a copy of it. He told me that he’d also had a narrow escape in this area, and he pointed to an open field about three miles east of the town. This was where he’d been shot down as an observer in the Army Air Corps during World War I. His leg had been shattered, and he lay in a shell hole in no-man’s-land for twenty-four hours before the medics could get to him. As a result, gangrene set in and he lost his leg. He said the map had been in his pocket when he was shot down, and he’d kept it ever since.

Soissons and Laon: Battleground of World War I

I arrived back at Soissons about noon that same day and immediately went to CCB headquarters, located in a villa on the west side of town. As I was coming out of the villa from a liaison officers’ briefing, I was met by a crescendo of ack-ack fire. There were several M15 and M16 half-tracks from the 486th Antiaircraft Battalion protecting the headquarters, and all of the armored vehicles and some of the GMC trucks had .50-caliber machine guns. They seemed to open up simultaneously.

We had two L5 Cubs aloft observing artillery fire north of Soissons. As I took cover, I looked up and saw what I thought at first were P47s diving in on the area, but I realized as they got closer that they were FW 190s. I assumed they were going to strafe CCB headquarters, but instead they went after the two observers flying about a thousand yards to our left at about fifteen hundred feet. They were fighters, and they came in single file one after another.

As the fighters approached our planes, our antiaircraft fire ceased to avoid hitting our own people. One of the L5s was hit and exploded in midair. The flaming wreckage plummeted to the ground. The other pilot immediately put his plane into a steep dive; he barely pulled out and skimmed the treetops before hitting the ground. The FW 190 on his tail was going too fast and had to pull out. The second L5 escaped and was covered by the antiaircraft fire that started up again. The German fighters did not stay around long enough to strafe our headquarters.

I finally got out of my cover and went to see if Vernon was okay. One of the other men said that the last time he saw my driver, he was making a beeline for one of the concrete culverts under the road. That’s where I found him, about ten feet inside—a much better hiding place than I’d had.

The next morning, with enemy resistance around Soissons neutralized, the division started north to Laon. By that time, C Company Maintenance Battalion Headquarters Platoon had joined Combat Command B, and Captain Sam Oliver asked me to take the company through Soissons and meet him on the other side.

We finally arrived at a straight stretch of road about half a mile outside of town, where I stopped the column.

The men were stretched out at normal march interval. I told Sergeant Fox to pass the word for everybody to be on the alert. The column, headed by an armored scout car with a .50-caliber machine gun, was followed by fifty-four vehicles, including thirty GMC trucks. Every ninth truck had a ring mount with a .50-caliber machine gun. This gave us seven .50 calibers, a 57mm antitank gun, and two hundred men equipped with M1 carbines.

I stood on the road beside my Jeep with my map case on the hood and was discussing the route with Vernon and one of the C Company platoon leaders. Bitch was in the backseat next to my maintenance manual box.

On our right was a cornfield with a gently rising slope that crested about three hundred yards away. The cornstalks had been harvested and stacked neatly in rows.

Suddenly, our tranquillity was interrupted by a series of sharp cracks, which I knew immediately was sniper fire. I hit the road. The fire became a regular fusillade. We crawled across the road on our hands and knees and dropped into the ditch on the opposite side. Bitch saw us crawling and jumped out of the Jeep, but instead of running at her full twelve-inch height, she got down on her knees and elbows with her little belly dragging on the pavement, crawled across the road, and snuggled underneath my armpit. I wondered if she thought she was a human being.

Sergeant Fox immediately swung the .50 caliber to the right and let go with several short bursts. The fire from the other side stopped immediately. From the field slightly to our rear and to the right came a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier with a 37mm antitank gun mounted on the back. The gun swung toward the top of the hill. The sergeant in charge asked what we were shooting at. I told him we had received some fire from the other side of the hill. Captain Oliver arrived, got in the scout car with Sergeant Fox, and, because the firing had stopped, told me to proceed.

We left C Company and headed toward Laon at top speed. We had gone about half a mile when the road curved to the right and started down a hill. A dozen French underground fighters had congregated at the edge of the road just around the curve and waved me down. As I came to a stop, they pointed toward a World War 1-era concrete bunker that had been reinforced and rebuilt. They wanted me to go in the bunker and get a couple of German soldiers who were holed up there.

“You go in there and get ’em,” I said. “It looks like you’ve got about a dozen men, and you’ve all got German rifles.”

There was always a language barrier between my poor French and their understanding, and I could hear many statements of “non compris.” I could see what was bothering them; they had absolutely no desire to go into that pillbox and face a couple of armed men in the dark. I felt the same way. We had been instructed to move as rapidly to the target as possible and not allow ourselves to be delayed or sidetracked by events that could be easily handled by others. The mission of the infantry, supplemented by the Free French, was to mop up stragglers. In my judgment, this situation was pretty well in hand.

I pulled out a white phosphorus grenade, gave it to one of the men, and explained how to hold the safety, pull the pin, throw it into the bunker, then hit the deck fast. A broad grin broke out on his face. “Oui compris, oui compris.”

The Frenchman got around the bunker and yelled in French and German for the two German soldiers to come out. When there was no response, he pulled the pin and tossed the grenade down the stairway. There was a muffled explosion, then white smoke began to come out of the bunker. As I started down the highway in my Jeep, two German soldiers came screaming out of the bunker with their hands over their head. I realized that it was the fire from these Free French that had been enfilading our column.

A few miles north of Soissons, we passed through a major World War I battleground. On the right was an American cemetery with a large statue dedicated by the French government to the American war dead. The statue, which stood in the middle of the cemetery, was eighty to ninety feet tall and was made from white Italian marble. It was a Statue of Liberty holding a dead American soldier in her arms; her head was drooped and she was crying. On the base of the statue—a block of granite fifteen to twenty feet square—was an inscription with the names of all Americans killed in that area.

German stragglers were running through the cemetery trying to take cover from the Free French who were following close behind them. There was a considerable firefight in the cemetery before the Germans were rounded up.

I’ve thought many times of this terrible irony. Here was a beautiful memorial, a symbol of the men who sacrificed their lives in World War I, desecrated by the failure to keep the peace afterward. This profoundly sad moment made me realize that nothing appeared sacred anymore.

We bivouacked in a large, open cornfield outside of Laon. We were on high ground above the city with only the neatly stacked rows of cornstalks available for camouflage. Each vehicle parked as close as possible to a large stack, then spread a camouflage net over both the stack and the vehicle. Vernon drove the Jeep right into the middle of the stack so that it was almost completely covered. We placed our bedrolls as close to the stack as possible and turned in. It was a clear night with plenty of starlight but fortunately no moon.

Sometime after midnight I was awakened by a heavy drone. Practically overhead appeared a large squadron of German Ju88 twin-engine bombers. Flying in three-column formation, the planes appeared to be spaced only a couple of yards apart. They flew extremely low, perhaps less than a thousand feet, and we expected to be deluged with butterfly bombs at any moment. It was the largest group of German planes—at least fifty—that I had ever seen in combat.

The drone continued overhead for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the last plane disappeared to the southwest. The planes returned about an hour later, flying northeast; they appeared stretched out and fewer in number. Someone said later that these planes had bombed Paris one last time and had encountered some American night fighters on the way back. In both instances, our antiaircraft people were sharp enough not to fire on them. This large group could have wreaked havoc on our ground forces.

I remembered an incident in Mayenne on the night before we moved toward Chartres and Paris. A lone German reconnaissance bomber flew over our position, and the antiaircraft fire opened up with great intensity. We could tell the difference between the motor of a German aircraft and that of our own. We soon heard a second droning noise, which sounded different. All of a sudden the antiaircraft fire ceased, and we saw a stream of impending tracers make a short burst through the air, then terminate in an explosion as the German plane’s flaming wreckage struck the ground. We had heard that the air force had a night fighter equipped with radar, known as the “Black Widow,” but this was the first time we had seen it in action.

Thereafter, night reconnaissance by German planes decreased.

The division moved rapidly in multiple columns as it led the VII Corps. Information from captured German field orders apparently was extremely helpful, because the Germans were using Meaux, Soissons, and Laon as main exit points. The other points indicated in the field order were Maubeuge and Mons, to the north of us; the division proceeded rapidly in that direction.

On the morning of September 2, the division crossed the Belgian border and proceeded toward Mons via Maubeuge. The night before, I had gone back to Soissons to division trains to deliver my combat loss report to Major Arlington. He’d told me he had a contingent of replacement tanks to go forward. The convoy was assembled early the next day.

I had seventeen M4 medium tanks, a two-and-a-half-ton GMC truck, and a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier for the maintenance crew. Each tank had a skeleton crew of two men. About a third had been survivors of knocked-out tanks; the rest were ordnance maintenance mechanics. Each repaired or replacement tank was fully loaded and equipped with gasoline, water, rations, and ammunition.

Although the maintenance men had no combat experience, they were skilled in operating the weapons. The tanks were evenly dispersed among the twelve tank platoons of the 1st and 2d Battalion medium tank companies of the 33d Armored Regiment. Only in a couple of incidences did we have two tanks in the same platoon. I mention this because the tanks had radios set to talk only on certain channels. For example, a tank could talk to other tanks in the same platoon and to the platoon commander, but the platoon commander could talk only to the company commander, who in turn could talk only to other company commanders. It was important for the men to understand this in case we ran into a firefight.

I showed the men our route on the map and told them we might meet up with a German column at any time, even though the division had already gone through this area. The turret man in each tank would be the acting tank commander and would man the .50-caliber ring-mount machine gun. Although the tanks might not be able to communicate with one another, the men could use hand signals. As we started up the road to Laon, I realized that although we didn’t have full crews, with seventeen tanks we had the equivalent strength of a medium tank company.

The Roadblock at Maubeuge

Whenever I traveled those roads, day or night, I noted potential trouble spots on my map case. Our convoy moved along smoothly through Laon, but the road on the far side of town was new to me, so we proceeded more cautiously.

In the early afternoon, as we approached the crest of a hill about half a mile outside Maubeuge, I stopped the column and went forward to do a little reconnoitering. The main highway crossed a river on a bridge, which I learned might have been damaged. It could be crossed by wheeled vehicles, but a column of thirty-two-ton tanks was another matter.

If there were any Germans in Maubeuge, I didn’t think they could see the tank column. At the top of the hill, the highway from Laon to Maubeuge intersected another road that ran between northern France and Belgium.

On the lower slope of the hill, about a thousand yards to the west, was a large, heavily wooded area. To our right was an open field with a wooded area about three hundred yards beyond.

Suddenly, a lone man dressed as a typical French fanner emerged from the bushes to our left. I raised my M1 rifle, and Vernon pointed his carbine directly at him. He raised both hands high as he approached our Jeep and yelled in broken English, “Me no Boche, me Français, me Français! ”

“Parlez-vous Anglais? ” I asked.

“Un petit,” he replied. He pointed frantically toward the woods down the hill to the left. “Beaucoup Boche en le bois, beaucoup Boche en le bois.”

I knew he was trying to tell me there were a lot of Germans in those woods. With a better command of English than I had of French, he explained that he was a member of the French underground army and that the woods down the hill to the left hid between one and three thousand German soldiers, perhaps half a dozen tanks, and other equipment.

He also said that an American armored column had gone through Maubeuge early that morning on the way to Mons. Because I knew that the division normally traveled in parallel columns, and that there was another road about two miles to the west, I assumed that another of our columns came up that road. If the Germans were actually in those woods, they would probably stay there until dark because they were afraid of American airpower.

The Frenchman told me he knew where the French resistance headquarters was in Maubeuge and we could go there to get more information. I went back down the hill and told the sergeant about the situation, then took off for Maubeuge to contact the French resistance headquarters.

As I crossed the bridge into town—it was a modern structural steel bridge with an arch and a reinforced concrete roadway—I noticed several pockmarks along the left side of the bridge that had apparently been made by exploding shells. They didn’t appear to have done any damage to the structural steel underneath, so I felt that the bridge was safe for tanks.

The French resistance headquarters was located downtown in a cellar next to a restaurant. It was guarded by men with German rifles who stood all around the building and inside. In addition to German burp guns, which the guards seemed to prize highly, were a number of American carbines and tommy guns. Many of the guards wore GI coveralls, which I assumed had been air-dropped to them.

I was conducted into their situation room. Hanging on the walls were marked maps with overlays showing the various locations of known troops in the area, both friendly and enemy. I was particularly impressed with the commander, a tall, good-looking French mademoiselle with short-cropped blond hair and wearing GI coveralls that looked as though she had been poured into them. In Camp Polk jargon, she would be considered “some kind of ’licious chicken.” She had an impressive command of the situation and seemed to know exactly what was going on. Several radios seemed to be in constant communication with other French resistance units.

The 3d Armored Division, which had apparently arrived in Mons the night before, had run into a number of German units that were making a last, desperate attempt to get through Mons, one of the main junctions on the road to Charleroi and Aachen. The armored division was apparently surrounded and having a hell of a fight.

The commander informed me that, other than bridges over small streams, the only bridge to be crossed was the main one coming into town, and that all of the bridges were intact. I thanked her profusely for the information, returned to my Jeep, and headed out of town.

Sergeant Devers met me at the top of the hill, where he had been in a concealed position observing the woods to the left with his field glasses. Having detected no movement, he felt that the Germans had not seen our tank column. I told him to assemble the acting tank commanders so I could give them a quick briefing.

We would move out, go through Maubeuge, and proceed to Mons. I explained that the division was cut off there and would need these tanks as soon as possible. Because we would be visible to the Germans in the woods as we crossed the top of the ridge, the tank commanders should swing their turrets to the left and be prepared to fire if we noticed any evidence of German movement. Our objective was to get the tanks to the division and not be delayed by a firefight with an isolated group.

Just as we were getting ready to move out, a motorized infantry column led by a one-star general in a Jeep appeared on the crest of the hill to our rear. The column pulled up parallel to ours and stopped. I wasn’t happy to think I’d probably have to deal with some high-ranking brass.

Brigadier General Wyman, the assistant division commander leading the 26th Regimental Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, immediately demanded to know who was in charge and what we were doing here. I stepped forward, laid a snappy VMI salute on him, and said, “Lieutenant Cooper, ordnance liaison officer, CCB, Third Armored Division, sir.”

He wanted to know why a first lieutenant was in charge of an entire task force. I explained that this was not a task force but merely replacement tanks, and we were trying to get to Mons and meet our division as quickly as possible. I told him about my experience with the French underground headquarters in Maubeuge, about the German group reported to be in the forest to our left, and what I knew about our division. I explained that the bridge to Maubeuge was safe, because I had just crossed it.

He asked if I thought I could fight this tank group as an effective combat unit. I explained that the tanks did not have radio communications with one another but could use hand signals, and I felt that we could put up a good fight if we had to.

Wyman told me to set up a perimeter defense around this road junction and await further orders from him. He gave me the name of the commander of an engineer combat battalion in a little village about a mile to the east of us and said he would notify the commander of my position. He explained that this was an important road junction that the Germans might try to cross later and cut the corps supply lines.

He said that although he didn’t have time to deal with the Germans in the woods because he had to get to Mons immediately to relieve my division, he would call for an air strike. He turned to his aide, who was sitting in the backseat of the Jeep and already had out the map. Wyman located the position in the woods and gave the coordinates to the air corps liaison officer in the scout car, who in turn got on the radio and called for the strike. Then the column headed down the road.

Six P47s came in at about two thousand feet and circled over the woods to identify the target. They apparently recognized our column and dipped their wings as they circled back over the woods. I knew that the Germans were really in for it. The planes came screaming down single file with their eight .50 calibers blasting wide open. When they reached about a thousand feet, they released their bombs, started to pull out, and gained altitude to get back in line for a second pass.

The woods literally boiled with flame and smoke. Metal started flying through the air. It could have been parts of German vehicles, but at this distance I couldn’t be sure. German soldiers started to run out of the woods to the south and west, but none came up the hill toward us. There was no evidence of any German flak. The entire strike consisted of one bomb run for each plane and then one or two strafing runs. The strike was over in less than two minutes, and it was obvious that the Germans had suffered a devastating blow.

I told Sergeant Devers to coil the tank column off the road and circle the perimeter of defense on the back slope of the hill away from the woods. While waiting for the message from General Wyinan, we were joined by another American column that came up from the south. It turned out to be Lieutenant Carter, from B Company, and his maintenance platoon, who had been back at the last VCP. They had finished their work and were heading forward to join the division.

Rusty, as Lieutenant Carter was known to his lieutenant buddies, was a down-to-earth good ol’ boy from Louisiana and used to be, so he said, a genuine cowpoke. He was the first American officer I ever saw with the audacity to wear cowboy boots with his dress uniform.

There was some question about who received his commission first: Rusty from the CMTC or I through the ROTC. It was generally understood when an officer came on active duty that his date of rank started when he signed up at division headquarters. I signed in on the morning of June 22, 1941; Rusty signed in at about 1400 on the same day. We were both promoted to first lieutenant at the same time by the same order. Thus, Rusty and I had had a friendly ongoing argument about who outranked whom.

Rusty bivouacked his platoon inside our coiled circle of tanks. He had his entire maintenance platoon plus the crews of several repaired vehicles, a total strength of sixty men plus one M15 half-track with twin .50s and a coaxial 37mm antiaircraft gun and two M16 half-tracks with quad .50 antiaircraft guns. These half-tracks had their full regular crews plus a complete load of ammunition, fuel, and rations. Rusty’s platoon was indeed a welcome addition.

At about 1500, I received a personal message signed by General Wyman briefly outlining the situation.

General Wyman’s 26th Regimental Combat Team from the 1st Division was engaged with the 3d Armored Division in heavy fighting in Mons. There was speculation that the Germans might try to bypass Mons to the south. We should be prepared to intercept elements of up to seven German divisions.

The 18th Regimental Combat Team was somewhat south and west of us and should cross this same highway about two miles west of our road junction sometime between midnight and daybreak. I was to prepare a position around the road junction and defend it at all costs. If I did not hear differently from Wyman by 0900, I could assume that the situation had calmed down and I was to proceed to Mons. He sent a similar message to the major who was commanding the engineer battalion about a mile to our east.

I wasn’t particularly anxious to assume responsibility of the entire group, but 1 knew that somebody had to, and I felt that my training and exposure in combat gave me a better background than Rusty had. Our friendly ongoing argument about who outranked whom was to remain friendly, because when 1 briefed him about the situation, he said without a moment’s hesitation, “Cooper, you’re in charge. What do you want me to do?”

Combat elements of seven divisions could be as many as 35,000 to 40,000 men. I had heard stories of first lieutenants assuming command of infantry battalions when all the other officers were killed, but I’d never heard of an ordnance officer commanding a task force under these conditions. I began to realize and appreciate the value of the training in armored warfare tactics that I’d had in the Armored Force Tank School in the summer of 1941. German panzer divisions had swept through this same area in May 1940. Small French tank units, we were taught, had held up much larger German units by moving quickly from one dug-in position to another. With this lesson in mind, I made my plan to defend this position.

Rusty and I called up the noncoms and the acting tank commanders and briefed them. With seventeen tanks, three half-tracks, and 120 men armed with rifles and a few bazookas, we had a fairly sizable force. We set up a perimeter defense approximately six hundred yards in diameter centering on the main road junction. On the western flank, facing the enemy, we set up three M4 Sherman tanks staggered in depth. The first tank was behind a hedgerow near the road that ran through the woods where the Germans had been bombed that afternoon. The second tank, also hidden behind a hedgerow, was about thirty yards to the rear and across the road. The third tank was about thirty yards to the rear of the second tank and on the same side of the road as the first tank. The three tanks formed a triangle, so that if one tank was attacked, the attacking force would come under the fire of the other two tanks. This principle had been emphasized strongly at the Armored Force Tank School for an ideal tank defense. We instructed the tank crews to load initially with HE and to fire it directly at any tank in their group that was overrun by infantry. The high explosive would not penetrate the tank but would have a devastating effect on any enemy outside it.

Two men were positioned on top of the hundred-foot-tall water tower that was in the middle of this triangular arrangement. Fifteen men on the ground were well dug in around the tanks. One of the M16 antiaircraft half-tracks trained its quad .50-caliber machine guns down the road. I felt that this firepower could wreak havoc on any approaching enemy force.

We placed a similar force of three tanks, each with fifteen riflemen, dispersed in the same triangular fashion on each of the other three road junctions, facing north, south, and east. We kept five tanks and one half-track in mobile reserve.

We set up our headquarters on the northeast corner of the road junction in a defiladed position away from the woods to the west. We had two tank maintenance sergeants, one acting as sergeant of the guard and the other as his assistant. All the men were informed of the password and parole, which had been established in a previous division order for this phase of the operation. Runners went from headquarters to each roadblock at fifteen-minute intervals. We had no radio contact with any other unit and were strictly on our own for the next eight to ten hours, but I felt we had done reasonably well with what we had.

Rusty and I took turns on watch; I took the first watch, from 2000 until 0200. I spent most of the time at the command post talking to the runners as they came in. Things were pretty quiet until about 0100, when firing suddenly erupted down the road to the west. As I approached the roadblock, I was properly challenged by the sentry and gave him the password and parole.

The sergeant in charge of the roadblock said that the men on the water tower reported some activity about a mile down the road. Sporadic machine-gun fire was coming from the south side of the road across to the woods to the north. We knew that these were American units, because the machine-gun fire was .30 caliber and .50 caliber, but mostly .50 caliber. Apparently, elements of the 1st Infantry Division had arrived at the road, which was in accordance with what General Wyman had told me to expect. I told the sergeant to look out for any German units diverted up the road toward our roadblock but to be extremely careful not to fire on our own troops. I assumed that General Wyman had notified the 1st Infantry Division of our position.

The sporadic firing continued throughout the night. By daybreak, it completely settled down as the 1st Infantry Division moved north around the western flank of Maubeuge and headed toward Mons. I was considerably relieved that we had not been attacked by the Germans. I was sure they had seen our tanks on the hill and had probably estimated us to be a large force.

Following General Wyman’s orders to move out by 0900 if we received no further word from him, I had Rusty line up the column. We headed for Mons, the tank column in front and Rusty’s maintenance platoon behind it.

I have often reflected on the significance of our position at this road junction on the outcome of the battle of Mons. The battle cut off the last escape route of German troops in northern France heading for Germany and the Siegfried line. German troops retreating from Paris, Normandy, and the Pas-de-Calais area were gradually squeezed and funneled into a narrow corridor. This road junction, south of Maubeuge, included a major road that would have allowed the Germans to bypass Mons and go directly to Charleroi. This was the reason that General Wyman had said to expect perhaps seven divisions to try to come down this road. The Germans, forced north into Mons, were blocked by the main elements of the 3d Armored Division and the rest of the 1st Infantry Division.

A Meeting Engagement at Mons

The situation at Mons was confusing. The advance elements of the 3d Armored Division as well as some of the German units arrived simultaneously. It was late, and neither side was aware of the other’s exact position.

In one incident, some of our soldiers moved into a building only to find the upper floors already occupied by the Germans. They met the Germans on the stairway and took them prisoner. In another incident, one of our MPs was directing traffic into a bivouac area with tanks approaching from two directions. In the darkness and noise, the MP became confused and stopped one of our columns to let a German tank pass into the bivouac.

When the Americans realized that it was a German tank and saw the commander trying to crawl out, they climbed on the back of the tank and knocked the commander on the head with a monkey wrench. The German tank crew was subdued and taken prisoner.

In the meantime, the 3d Armored Division set out reinforced roadblocks on all the main entrances to the city and awaited the German advance. The Germans came fast and furiously in tanks, half-tracks, armored cars, trucks, horse-drawn artillery, wagons, and all types of miscellaneous vehicles that crowded down the narrow roads. They were making a desperate attempt to get back behind the Siegfried line, because France and Belgium were no longer defensible.

As the Germans approached the roadblocks, the lead tanks were knocked out, which blocked the road. The reinforced roadblocks poured murderous fire into these vehicles, setting many of them on fire. As the Germans abandoned their vehicles and took off into the fields on either side, they came under fire from infantry, automatic weapons, and other tanks dug in on both sides of the road.

Pandemonium broke out among the fleeing Germans. Some units managed to regroup and infiltrate into the city. Other groups brought up some of their heavier Panther tanks and inflicted considerable damage. It was difficult to knock out a Panther tank from the front end with an M4A1 Sherman’s 76mm gun, but a hit on the flank could penetrate and set the Panther on fire. At one roadblock, an M4A1 Sherman, with supporting infantry and automatic weapons, was credited with destroying five 170mm heavy artillery guns, one 88mm dual-purpose gun, and some 125 miscellaneous trucks, half-tracks, Volkswagens, and horse-drawn carts.

Even with periscopes in the cupola hatch, it is extremely difficult to see out of a tank when it is buttoned up.

Sometimes the tank commander must open the hatch and look out momentarily. When one of my good buddies, a tank platoon leader in the 33d Armored Regiment, stuck his head out of the turret at a roadblock, he was struck by a 75mm antitank projectile and was decapitated instantly. I was horrified to learn of his violent death.

I had often thought about casualties when we were back in England, and I knew that a certain number of our soldiers would be killed or wounded in the upcoming invasion. It was wishful thinking to hope that there would be none with whom I was too personally connected. Combat proved my early thoughts completely out of touch with reality. Our casualties had been much higher than we had been led to believe, and the ranks of our platoon leaders and tank commanders were rapidly decimated. They were difficult to replace; because the army had underestimated the number of tank casualties, it was reported it closed the tank replacement crew training school at Fort Knox. I never knew whether they started the tank training school back up after they began to receive the very high tank casualty figures from Normandy; regardless, it was too little too late.

After General Wyman passed through our position at Maubeuge, he headed north to reach the 3d Armored Division, which had been cut off at Mons. He was immediately followed by the 16th Regimental Combat Team.

The 18th Regimental Combat Team was on a parallel road about four miles west of us. After crossing the road near us, the 18th Regiment continued to Bavay, then headed off across open country to strike the Germans on the flanks as they were coming from Valenciennes toward Mons. The German columns piled up here, in some cases three abreast, and the traffic jam made them ideal targets for air force P47s, which raked them from one end to the other all day long.

The battle of Mons was a classic example of how an armored corps could completely emasculate a much larger force if the column moved rapidly. The German forces probably numbered in excess of 100,000 men, whereas the combined forces of the 3d Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division totaled less than 30,000 men. Our advantage was that we arrived in considerable strength, whereas the Germans had only their forward recon elements. By overcoming these elements and quickly establishing roadblocks around the perimeter, the 3d Armored was able to block the main highways.

When the Germans found the roads blocked, they flowed around them, so the division was surrounded by the morning of September 3. General Wyman and the 26th Regimental Combat Team broke through and relieved them, then set out flanking protection all around the city.

The combined forces of the P47s constantly raking and bombing the columns, the tenacious roadblocks set up by the 3d Armored tanks, and the flanking protection provided by the 1st Infantry Division proved too much for the Germans. Although we suffered considerable casualties, they lost many times more. They suffered five thousand men killed and wounded, and we took in excess of thirty thousand prisoners.

By noon on September 4, we arrived at Mons and turned over the much-needed replacement tanks to CCB.

General Collins, continuing his vigorous and daring pursuit of the Germans, had ordered the 3d Armored Division to turn over its positions to the 1st Infantry and advance rapidly to Charleroi to cut off and isolate more German units. In the meantime, the 9th Infantry Division on the eastern flank had bypassed Mons and was proceeding rapidly south of Charleroi toward Namur. This allowed the VII Corps to continue cutting off and isolating German units and overrunning them. The Germans dropped off units at various points and fought a desperate rear guard action to protect the balance of their forces as they tried to get them behind the Siegfried line.

Attack on Charleroi

We entered Charleroi late in the evening. The Germans put up a desperate, block-by-block fight. As the tank columns moved through the city, protected by infantry and combat engineers, the Germans maintained heavy fire.

Our maintenance unit was riding right behind the tank column; when they stopped for a firefight, we would stop. When they started up again, we would move forward fifty to a hundred yards, then stop while the fight resumed. The firefights would last between fifteen minutes and a couple of hours.

Vernon and I took turns catnapping, because we’d had virtually no sleep at the roadblock south of Maubeuge.

We had found out long ago that it was often necessary to go some time without actually getting into your sack in the foxhole and really sleeping. I had learned to sleep sitting in the Jeep, sitting on the ground, and standing up leaning against the wall. I think I could even sleep while walking, as long as I had my hand on somebody’s shoulder in front of me.

The firefights were sporadic, with moments of intense firing between our tanks and the German antitank guns.

Occasionally, a stray mortar shell or machine-gun fire would impinge on our area, then would let up just as quickly as it started. Flames from burning buildings and knocked-out German vehicles usually shed enough light for me to read my maps.

As the firefights became routine and fairly regular, a strange thing happened. Belgian civilians, particularly the young mademoiselles, would wander out in the streets and give flowers and Cognac to the soldiers. The soldiers would reciprocate with cigarettes and chocolate. Some of the K rations had a small Nestle chocolate bar, and our emergency ration was a large chocolate bar impregnated with some type of bran flake. Needless to say, we soon ran out of K rations and emergency chocolate bars.

It was during one of our particularly long waiting periods that Vernon told me that he would like to get out of the Jeep and talk to one of the soldiers in the truck to the rear. I asked only that he stay within calling distance.

I had to stay awake to be ready when the signal came to start forward again. As I sat in the Jeep glancing at the map, I got extremely drowsy. Occasionally, I would be shocked out of lethargy by the ping of a stray bullet off a wall nearby. It must have been thirty to forty minutes later when I heard the signal coming down from the tank column to wind up. Although the tanks kept their engines running, most of the trucks and other wheeled vehicles had their engines off.

I immediately called for Vernon; there was no response. I got out of the Jeep and walked back to the truck in the rear. There was no driver or assistant driver in the cab. As I passed by the side of the truck, I could hear shuffling and scraping on the steel deck of the truck bed mixed with amorous moans. When I reached the rear of the truck, I saw that the tailgate was up and the curtains were drawn. I called Vernon’s name, and the commotion ceased. Vernon emerged with a sheepish look on his face; he was followed by about ten other befuddled GIs.

A young Belgian mademoiselle appeared, straightening out her skirt and blouse, grinning from ear to ear, and chewing gum. As the men opened the tailgate to let her out of the truck, the top of her shoulder-strap purse opened slightly and I could see that it was filled with cigarettes and chocolate bars. She turned and smiled at the young GIs, strolled away, then called back, “Vive l’Amérique, vive l’Amérique.”

The war seemed to do nothing to reduce the GIs’ libido; they certainly took every advantage of getting a little “couchez avec” when the opportunity arose. I’m not sure whether Vernon had a turn or not. When he got back in the Jeep, I did not question him; however, I did chew out his butt for getting outside of hearing range.

I also told the truck driver behind us that when a combat column stopped, there damn well better be somebody in the cab at all times. I think he understood.

As we approached the center of Charleroi, we came to a bridge blocked by a burning German tank. One of our tank dozers had to push it out of the way so we could continue.

The immediate objective after leaving Charleroi was Na-mur. One of the main highway systems in Belgium ran through Dinant, on the Meuse River, then northward to Na-mur. It was felt that the Germans might try to make a stand on the banks of the Meuse, which swung north again east of Liège. For this reason, General Collins ordered the 3d Armored Division to move as rapidly as possible along both sides of the river and to secure whatever bridges they could. With Combat Command A on the north supported by the 1st Infantry Division and Combat Command B south of the river supported by the 9th Infantry Division, the 3d Armored Division advanced at top speed toward Huy, where the Belgian underground had informed us that a bridge was still intact.

With recon elements in front, CCB also advanced at top speed—about thirty-five miles per hour on the road.

The M4 Sherman tank, with a 400-horsepower Wright radial engine, was stretching its upper limit even without a governor. Fortunately, by this time, we had replaced a number of tanks with the newer M4A1. It used the Ford V8 in-line engine, which developed 550 horsepower with the governor off. Under ideal conditions, this engine could drive a medium tank at or slightly above thirty-five miles per hour. Some of the GIs in CCA, on the north side of the river, said that the CCB must have been going downhill with a hundred-mile-an-hour tail-wind all the way. In any event, they captured the bridge intact.

Liège: The Heaviest Fortified European City

Having secured both sides of the river up to Huy, the division immediately launched an all-out attack toward Liège. The topography of Belgium in this area was different from that of northern France. Instead of broad, rolling plains with wide, straight highways, there were rolling hills and narrow roads. This made it much easier for small German units to set up roadblocks. As we drew closer to Germany, the Germans put up a stiffer resistance.

The division advanced in four columns. Combat Command A, along with CCR and the 1st Infantry Division, made a frontal assault on the city from the west. Combat Command B, along with the 9th Infantry Division, made a long swing to the south, bypassing Liège and curving back to approach the city from the southeast.

The assault from the west with the envelopment from the southeast was a classic example of how an armored corps assaults a heavily fortified city. Liège had tremendous Maginot-type underground reinforced concrete fortresses facing Germany. We did not know if the Germans had occupied these forts and turned the guns against us. Fortunately, our rapid advance gave them little time to get ready.

The frontal assault met considerable resistance from a German heavy antiaircraft group. Before this antitank fire could become too severe, Gen. Doyle Hickey ordered an artillery barrage against the gun emplacements.

Hickey’s command included both the 54th and 67th Armored Field Artillery Battalions, equipped with the M7 105mm self-propelled howitzers. These howitzers could stop in the middle of the highway and start firing immediately, without leaving the road to set the trailer spade into the ground, as with towed artillery pieces.

Eighteen guns in each battalion bringing extremely heavy fire onto the German antiaircraft guns soon neutralized them.

Combat Command A and the 1st Infantry moved rapidly into the city amid numerous firefights. Combat Command B and the 9th Infantry came in from the southeast and blocked any German retreat. On one roadblock, CCB knocked out thirty-five German vehicles and killed a German lieutenant general as he was trying to run the roadblock in his staff car. Another German general was captured about the same time. On another roadblock, CCR knocked out seven German Mark IV tanks as they tried to escape toward Verviers.

On September 9, Joe Collins ordered the 1st and 9th Divisions to take over the 3d Armored Division’s positions in Liège and continue the mop-up. The 3d Armored Division was ordered to advance as rapidly as possible toward Verviers.

Verviers to the Siegfried Line

The approach to Verviers was similar to that at Liège. Combat Command A, with two columns, approached and secured the high ground northeast and northwest of Verviers by nightfall. Combat Command B with its twin columns approached the south between Verviers and Theux but met extremely heavy resistance and could not secure its position by nightfall. The men coiled into a defensive position and prepared to attack at dawn the next morning.

At daybreak, CCA continued its advance and entered the city. Combat Command B continued against heavy resistance. At the same time, the forward elements of the 83d Recon bypassed Verviers and headed northeast.

Although Verviers was finally subdued after considerable fighting, it was obvious that the resistance was getting much stronger.

The campaign was entering a dramatic new phase. Eastern Belgium, from Verviers to the German border, was taken by Germany in May 1940. This buffer zone, where many German nationals lived, had long been contested. The people spoke both French and German, and many were strongly pro-German. As we raced across Belgium, we would notice Belgian flags hung from the windows of the houses. We now saw a combination of Belgian flags and white flags; the deeper we went toward Germany, the more white flags we saw. The flags were to let us know that the German nationals living in these homes were willing to surrender peacefully; they knew that the Belgians would turn them in to the Americans.

During the initiation of this new phase, Major Arlington called the three liaison officers, Lieutenants Nibbelink and Lincoln and me, into his trailer. Because we would now be moving into enemy territory, we could no longer depend on help from friendly civilians; to the contrary, he said, the Germans would look upon us as invading their homeland and would do everything in their power to stop us.

Arlington warned us that because, as liaison officers, we would travel alone a great deal of the time, especially at night, we were much more exposed than soldiers traveling in a group and that Germans were not above torturing and killing captured liaison officers. This is the reason I had a thermite grenade in my plywood map box, to destroy the box in the event of imminent capture. The major knew that we realized the danger; he just wanted to caution us not to take any unnecessary chances and to perform our job as expeditiously as possible. I appreciated his remarks, because I knew he had our best interests at heart and was doing everything possible to protect us.

We approached the northern reaches of the Ardennes Forest. This area of Germany, known as the Eifel, had narrow roads and heavily wooded hills that extended from the Ardennes up through the Hurtgen Forest.

The next morning, CCB launched an all-out attack against Eupen. Part of Germany prior to World War I but ceded to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles, Eupen was still really a German town. In May 1940, when the Germans launched their assault through Belgium into France, they took back Eupen. Although the citizens spoke both French and German, the majority of the sentiment was pro-German. Here was where the white flags began to outnumber the Belgian flags.

After overcoming a number of roadblocks and isolated strongpoints, CCB quickly passed through Eupen and headed east. The division was now only a few miles from the German border, and General Rose ordered both CCA and CCB to reconnoiter in force for weak points in the outer defense. Combat Command A reached the outer rows of the dragons’ teeth—heavy reinforced-concrete mats, forty to a hundred feet wide and extending three to six feet below the ground—on the German border at a point south of the Aachen-Eynatten Forest and east of Eupen. Lieutenant Colonel Doan’s Task Force X probed these outer defenses and reconnoitered through the night preparatory to attacking the next morning.

After overcoming a number of roadblocks and mines, Lieutenant Colonel Lovelady’s task force in Combat Command B crossed the German border on the afternoon of September 12 and entered Rötgen. After several firefights, the town fell, and CCB proceeded northward on the road toward Rott and the dragons’ teeth. The 83d Recon Battalion sent units to outpost Rötgen, and CCB coiled for the night preparatory to attacking the dragons’ teeth at dawn. This was the first time since the Napoleonic wars that a German town had fallen and been held by an enemy. The division drew up before the vaunted Siegfried line, poised to attack. The battle of Belgium was over, and the battle for Germany had begun.