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

Breakthrough Becomes Breakout

Operation Cobra now entered its second phase. On August 1, the 12th Army Group, with Gen. Omar Bradley in command, became operational. The army group consisted of the newly activated Third Army under Gen.

George Patton and the First Army under Gen. Courtney Hodges. General Montgomery retained command of the 21st Army Group, which consisted of the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army. With the British 21st Army Group maintaining terrific pressure on the Germans in the Bayeux-Caen area facing southward, the American 12th Army Group made the deep penetration through the Saint-Lô breakthrough and now began to swing around to envelop the entire left flank of the German 7th Army.

As the infantry moved into Coutances, CCB was ordered to leave the high ground and to double-back to Camprond. There they helped the 1st Infantry Division reduce a German strongpoint. They then headed south toward Cerisy la Salle. In the meantime, CCA came down on the left flank of CCB and bypassed the town of Montpinchon, a German strong-point. They put a roadblock north of Montpinchon, and elements of the 2d Armored Division swung to the left and south of CCA and blocked the road south of Roncey. This cut off the retreat of a large German column consisting of fifty tanks and self-propelled guns plus infantry, artillery, and a number of horse-drawn vehicles.

The American armored commanders called for an air strike. A drove of P47s came in, bombing and strafing the entire length of the column. When the Germans tried to abandon their vehicles and run into the fields, they came under the roaring fire of the strafing planes. This, plus the tank, artillery, and automatic weapons fire from both the armored divisions, produced a horrendous debacle for this German column.

Tanks, half-tracks, and self-propelled guns littered the highway. Many were burning; others had been abandoned by the troops in a mad dash to avoid the screaming P47s. The burned bodies of German tankers climbing out of their tanks looked like charcoal mannequins. Dead German soldiers were strewn along the highway and the fields on both sides. Many horses were killed because they could not escape the traces holding them to the burning caissons. Tank dozers had to clear the road in many areas to allow our columns through.

After the air strike, CCB headed south toward its next objective, the high ground just west of Villedieu-les-Poêles. The retreating German army was at a great disadvantage. The units that had survived outside of the initial bombardment area and then were overrun during the first phase of the breakthrough broke up into smaller columns and headed south and east as rapidly as possible to escape the oncoming Allied juggernaut.

With complete air superiority in daylight, the P47s ranged ahead of the columns and notified the ground troops of the Germans’ positions and movement. This enabled the armored columns, with infantry riding on the backs of the tanks, to intercept the retreating enemy columns. Nothing is more devastating to an infantry column than to be caught in the open by tanks. The tanks would fire rounds of high explosive (HE) aimed to hit the road in the middle of the column, then glance up about three feet before exploding. Where the two columns ran into each other, the armored column’s overwhelming firepower was immediately apparent. In many cases our armored columns would race ahead of the Germans, block the road in front of them, men call for an air strike. This ideal situation for an armored division demonstrated time and again the catastrophic results on the enemy of mobility, firepower, and shock action.

In addition to the 75mm and 76mm guns on the tanks, we had the awesome firepower of massed automatic weapons. Our .30-caliber machine guns, both air and water cooled, were of World War I vintage. The cyclic rate of fire, some six hundred rounds per minute, was much slower than that of the German counterpart, but they were reliable weapons and easy to maintain. Both the barrel and the bolt mechanism could be interchanged in a few minutes. The German standard .30 caliber was an MG42 of much more recent design and with a higher cyclic rate—twelve hundred rounds per minute. This was an excellent design, but the tolerances were so close that the barrel and the bolt were not interchangeable. For that reason, the German spare parts situation was much more critical than ours; in many cases it was easier for them to replace the entire gun if the barrel went bad. The Germans had no weapon comparable to our .50-caliber M1 machine gun. If this massive slug penetrated the torso, the hydraulic shock would generate a virtual explosion inside the body. If an arm or a leg was struck, the entire limb might be severed. The Germans were terrified of it.

Lightning Joe Collins, our corps commander, utilized his divisions with maximum efficiency. It was as if a chess master was maneuvering his key men in various combinations to trap the enemy pawns.

Combat Command B with elements of the 4th Infantry Division secured the high ground west of Villedieu-les-Poêles, bypassed the main city across the Sienne River, and headed south toward Saint Croix. Combat Command A with elements of the 1st Infantry Division secured Mortain, turned it over to the 1st Division, and headed southward in a wide end swing. After securing Saint Croix, CCB went to Reffuveille for a twenty-four-hour rest and maintenance period.

This was the first time that the entire combat command had been out of the line since July 8. From a maintenance point of view, the M4 Sherman’s engine was supposed to be pulled after a hundred hours of operation. Many tanks were due this hundred-hour check; the number would have been higher had medium tank losses not been so great that many tanks were brand new. In spite of easier going during the offensive, tank losses had been high whenever we encountered German tanks. The hundred-hour check is normally time-consuming, requiring six to eight hours under the best conditions in garrison. In the field with rough ground and limited wrecker facilities, it required more time.

On the afternoon of August 5, C Company of the maintenance battalion bivouacked about half a mile east of Reffu-veille. Juvigny and Refruveille, two small villages about three miles apart, had been the site of a heavy firelight two days before. Because we expected a twenty-four-hour or longer maintenance period, my driver, Vernon, bivouacked our Jeep next to a hedgerow, then chose a site for a two-man foxhole.

Even in the soft ground, the foxhole, roughly seven feet long by five feet wide by two feet deep, took us more than an hour to complete. Vernon went over to the kitchen truck and drew us a box of 10-N-l rations, which would feed two men for five days. In addition, we had a whole box of K rations, which would last us for some time. Vernon always kept us well supplied with food.

The 10-N-1 contained two types of canned meat—Spam and corned beef. Most GIs ate more Spam than they care to remember. I suppose that’s why most GIs hated it when the war was over. The rations also contained canned green vegetables, canned fruit, crackers, coffee, toilet paper, and cigarettes. This was supplemented occasionally by a stray French chicken or some eggs, which was the next best thing to actually getting back to the headquarters company main chow line.

The next morning, just as we were packing the Jeep to move out, an MP Jeep arrived in the bivouac area with an MP officer, a driver, and a French farmer and his young daughter. The officer told Sergeant Fox that he would like to see the company commander. When Captain Oliver appeared, the MP officer told him that the French farmer’s daughter had been raped the night before by soldiers, perhaps from this company. The Frenchman’s farm was in the next field, just over the hedgerow. The mademoiselle claimed that when she had gone out to the barn to check her livestock, she’d been accosted by several American GIs. She claimed they held her down in the hay and gang-raped her.

Captain Oliver told Sergeant Fox to line up the company in formation. Seated in the Jeep, the MP captain, the driver, the farmer, and the young lady passed slowly in review in front of the men, stopping from time to time to look at individuals. She was trying to identify the men who had raped her. Everyone was extremely nervous, because rape was a serious offense in the U.S. Army and was punishable by death.

At the end of the inspection, the Jeep went back to the head of the column and the farmer and daughter had a powwow with Captain Oliver. Apparently, the mademoiselle was unable to identify her attackers, which relieved everyone. Some of the men later said that the French girl had voluntarily taken on several GIs in exchange for cigarettes and chocolate candy and had yelled rape when her father caught them.

The Battle of Mortain

The 33d Armored Regiment and its maintenance company were bivouacked nearby in Reffuveille. They had been working on the tanks; by daybreak they had removed the armor plate from the back of many tanks and placed the engines on the ground. The tank crews helped with the heavy work, then enjoyed a short but well-deserved rest while the maintenance crews took over.

I was with Maj. Dick Johnson at about 1000 when word came to cut short the maintenance effort and get the tanks back together as quickly as possible. It seemed that no sooner had the 1st Division turned over Mortain to the 30th Division than the Germans launched a massive counterattack. A 30th Division regimental combat team had been completely cut off, and CCB was to attack immediately and relieve them.

Everyone scrambled to get everything back together. Tank engines that had their maintenance check only partially completed were hurriedly reassembled and put back into the engine compartments. The armored decks were put back and bolted down. The battle-weary tank crews got back into their tanks. Although grampy and teed off, they realized they had to rescue their fellow GIs. By noon the tanks were buttoned up and ready to go. This was an all-time record for getting an engine back in a tank and doing whatever was necessary to prepare it for battle.

A breakthrough as massive as that at Saint-Lô required a certain amount of calculated risk. Sooner or later the enemy would make a stand and counterattack. Just exactly when and where the counterattack would come, no one knew.

On August 6, the the was cast. The Germans massed their armor and motorized infantry at Mortain and attacked due west, driving toward Juvigny and Reffuveille to Avranches. The objective was to separate the First and Third Armies and cut the Third Army’s supply routes. General Bradley ordered an all-out effort to recapture and hold Mortain.

Combat Command B’s immediate objective was to relieve the isolated elements of the 30th Division. To do so required crossing an open valley between two hills and seizing the German-occupied high ground on the other side. Together with elements of the 2d Armored Division and the infantry divisions, CCB began the assault.

The units were met by murderous artillery and direct tank fire from two German panzer divisions and supporting infantry. One M4 tank received a direct hit from a 155mm HE shell on the glacis plate about five inches above the bolted seam where the final drive casting (a heavy, contoured casting containing the control differential, drive axles, sprockets, and transmission) was bolted to the glacis plate. The armor was about four inches thick at the point of the radius and tapered to about two and a half inches where it bolted to the glacis plate. The bolts in this armored seam were ripped out for a span of twelve to fourteen inches, and the glacis plate was dented inward about one and a half inches. This allowed the blast to come directly into the body compartment of the tank and neutralize the crew.

Our tanks on open ground such as this were no match for the superior firepower and heavy armor protection of the German tanks. As our tank casualties began to mount, our troops called for an air strike. The Ninth Air Force was already overextended, so the Royal Air Force (RAF) was called to help.

A group of low-flying Hawker Typhoons came screaming in at low altitude, firing rockets at the German armor and infantry on top of the hill. This, combined with our heavy artillery, infantry, and tank fire, eventually brought the German counterattack to a slow, grinding halt. Combat Command B with supporting infantry finally broke through to the isolated 30th Division regiment.

The entire valley was littered with burned-out tanks and half-tracks. When we finally got our recovery vehicles into the area, the maintenance crews worked around the clock.

During this operation, the crew came upon the crashed wreck of one of the British fighters lying next to one of our tanks. It apparently had been shot down by German ground fire. The pilot had been able to crash-land the plane, but it was upside down with the tail section dug into the ground. One of the maintenance mechanics notified the sergeant that a body was hanging upside down inside, still secured by his seat belt.

There was a strong odor from the gasoline leaking from the plane’s tanks as the graves registration people removed the young British flight lieutenant’s body and put it on a stretcher. But suddenly they realized that the lieutenant was still alive. He had been hanging upside down for a number of hours; it was a miracle that he survived. A fuel line in the engine compartment had broken and fuel was leaking inside the cockpit and running down his seat, down his back, into his hair, and onto the ground. He was soaked with gasoline from head to foot and was beginning to develop red burns on his neck and hands from the high-octane fuel.

The medics brought some blankets, rolled him on his stomach, and stripped off his gasoline-soaked clothing.

His entire back, buttocks, and the back of his legs were burned raw from the gasoline. As he slowly regained consciousness, he was obviously in severe pain. As soon as the medics had moved him a safe distance from the plane, he asked for a cigarette. One of the men remarked, “Damn, I knew those Limeys had guts, but this beats the hell out of anything I’ve ever seen!”

This young pilot had risked his life to help save our tankers, and our men felt deeply indebted to him, particularly because he was not an American. This type of bonding was common among Allied soldiers.

A frail, gaunt-looking member of the press corps had come over with the medics when they removed the pilot. I don’t think anyone recognized him at the time; years later when I read his book Brave Men, I realized that this was Ernie Pyle. He described this incident in such detail that he must have gotten his information firsthand.

While the work was going full blast on recovered tanks, we secured a list of the “W” numbers as well as the extent of damage and map coordinates on all the tanks and other vehicles that had been damaged beyond repair and left on the battlefield. We turned this list over to Division Ordnance in order to secure replacements as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the mad rush was on to repair those vehicles we had in the best and most expeditious manner. If the tank had not been set on fire completely, we could usually repair it.

When a projectile penetrated a tank, a series of incandescent particles usually showered the inside of the fighting compartment. Any crew member in the way would be killed instantly; if not, the ricochet effect inside the tank would utterly destroy him. In some cases, at close range, a projectile would strike the side of the tank and go all the way through, exiting on the other side. In this case the crew would be lucky because they would avoid the terrible ricocheting effect.

The incandescent particles would also generate many small slivers, which embed themselves in the electrical cables, causing them to short out. Often the sparks from this would set the tank on fire. There were manual fire extinguishers inside the tank and also a master lever, which the crew could pull to engulf the fighting compartment with CO2. A penetration in this compartment would often kill or severely wound several crew members, and those abandoning the tank would not have time to set off the fire extinguishers. The oil and gasoline vapors inside the tank plus the paint, seats, insulation, and other flammable materials made any fire difficult to put out once it started.

Penetration of the gas tanks or the engine would also cause fires. Once the gasoline and the ammunition went up, the tank would explode. The open cupola acted like a smoke stack, and the fire would generate such great heat it would anneal the hardness of the armor plate leaving the tank beyond repair.

If the tank struck a mine, the bottom plate would sometimes be warped to the extent that the hull could not be repaired. In this case, if the turret was not severely damaged, it could be removed and replaced on a good hull. If the turret was struck in the trunnion mount, jamming the gun elevating mechanism, it could not be repaired but could be removed and replaced with a good turret. If the tank was penetrated in the ring mount (the junction between the turret and hull), it would warp and damage the ball bearing races on the bottom of the turret and the entire tank would have to be replaced.

One of our maintenance welders found a spent projectile inside a hull. He took a carbon arc and cut the tip off, using this cone to make a plug to weld up the hole the projectile had made. After he ground the surfaces smooth on both sides and we painted the tank inside and outside, it was difficult to find the patch. I always thought this technique was one of the true ironies of warfare, that the projectile also served as the patch. It took considerable skill on the part of the welder to grind and thus camouflage these patches, because a tank crew did not like to get a replacement tank that had been penetrated, particularly if they felt there had been casualties in the tank. In spite of this, tank crews liked to get their old tank back because of sentimental attachments. After a reasonably short time, all the damaged vehicles had either been repaired or replaced, and C Company of the Maintenance Battalion headed south to join CCB near Gorron and Mayenne.

Northeast Toward Falaise

Once the German penetration at Mortain had been sealed off, it became our turn again. The Germans had committed all their available reserves to make the breakthrough at Mortain, and they had overextended themselves. SHAEF immediately recognized this opportunity, and General Eisenhower ordered Bradley’s 12th Army Group to make a wide end run deep into enemy territory. In the meantime, Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was to mount a major offensive in the Caumont-Falaise area and drive south to meet the 12th Army Group, which would trap the bulk of the German 7th and 5th Panzer Armies.

I left the VCP in the afternoon of August 11 and headed south in my Jeep to try to catch up with CCB. I knew that their route was down through Saint Hilaire-du-Harcouët to Gorron and on to Mayenne, but I did not know exactly how far they had gotten. Gorron and Mayenne, heavily damaged by air strikes and artillery and tank fire, were important road junctions, and wherever the Germans held out there was a firefight.

The 3d Armored Division would lead the VII Corps attack and would move rapidly. The corps was getting stretched out, and I realized that the supply routes would be vulnerable. Occasionally, I would pass infantry, artillery, and other motorized units, but a great deal of the time my driver and I would find ourselves alone on a highway in our Jeep going as fast as we could. As we entered Gorron, we had to slow down and pick our way through the heavy debris, then check which route the combat command had taken.

Many of the houses had been damaged and burned. As we drove slowly around the ruins, Vernon suddenly whistled and hollered, “Here, here!” A small gray object emerged from beneath the charred timbers of a smoldering house, ran toward our Jeep, jumped into Vernon’s lap, and started licking his face. The wire-haired terrier puppy, about twelve inches high and probably about three months old, had no collar and apparently had been wandering in the rubble for some time.

Vernon wanted to keep the puppy as a mascot. I told him that the last thing we needed was a puppy to take care of when we were trying to catch up with CCB. We decided that the French would return to the village soon because the Germans had been gone for at least six hours. Civilians normally hid in the woods until the fighting was over, then returned to their homes to see what they could recover. With a look of disappointment, Vernon put the puppy on the ground and gave him a pat, and we took off in a cloud of dust.

Looking closely at the rubble in the streets for signs of tank tracks and examining the map, I finally was able to determine which road CCB had taken. We got on the highway, and Vernon accelerated the Jeep to top speed and drove in stony silence.

About a quarter mile out of town, I happened to look in the rearview mirror and saw a small object bounding down the middle of the road behind us. My resistance melted. “Vernon, stop the damn Jeep!” I yelled. The puppy, which had gathered considerable momentum, got a few feet from the Jeep, then cleared the back end in a single leap. Vernon reached into the air and snagged it like a forward pass.

“Well, I guess we do need a macot,” I replied as Vernon cuddled the puppy, “but he’ll be your responsibility.”

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll take good care of him.”

The “he” turned out to be a “she,” and Vernon named her Bitch. He put her in the backseat on the cushion next to my map box, and we took off again.

We encountered no more Americans on the road toward Mayenne. I realized that we were in the area known as “the void,” somewhere between the combat command and the following mop-up elements. I knew that CCB was moving fast, and the faster it moved the greater this void became. I did not know whether Mayenne was in our hands or whether CCB had bypassed it and gone ahead; in any event, I did not want to go into Mayenne after dark.

It was beginning to get dark, and I thought it best to find a place to bivouac for the night. We saw a small field on the left of the road with a dry creek running through it. Poplar trees and heavy hedges flanked both sides of the creek. We decided this would be a good place to stop.

Vernon found an opening in the hedges where wagons had crossed the little stream, and he drove the Jeep through the opening into the creek bed. It was flat and sandy, about ten feet wide and four feet below the level of the field. This made for perfect camouflage; the entire Jeep and all our equipment were below ground level. Someone walking past would not be able to see us.

I laid out our bedrolls and put an M1 rifle on each side. We decided to eat K rations; it was late and we were both too tired to deal with our mess kits. The K rations came in a small waterproof box and were of three types: breakfast, lunch, and supper. The breakfast box contained a small can of scrambled eggs and bacon bits pressed into a patty, which was tasty once you got used to it. Lunch consisted of a can of Cheddar cheese, and supper was a can of potted meat. All the meals contained Waverley crackers, which had lots of protein.

There was also coffee, powdered milk, sugar, cigarettes, and toilet paper.

Vernon gave Bitch a can of potted meat. She was ravenous and consumed it in no time. We decided not to build a fire, because it was getting late. We drank water instead of coffee. One thing I wasn’t going to do was light up a cigarette and get in the bedroll; I had learned my lesson in the Bois du Hommet.

I suppose all soldiers develop certain hang-ups after they’ve been in combat for a while; I’ve had my share of them. Vernon’s main hang-up was that the Germans might sneak up on us at night and throw a hand grenade into the foxhole. It was easy enough to assure him that this was highly improbable when we were with the combat command inside the security line, but when we were in the open and on our own, the situation was different.

Suddenly, 1 began to appreciate the dog. Bitch seemed to be extremely intelligent and would do what we told her. She had an almost instinctive understanding of the situation, and she fitted in perfectly with our sleeping arrangements. Vernon placed her between our bedrolls; she snuggled against him and we all dozed off.

I woke with a nudge from Vernon.

“Lieutenant, somebody’s in those bushes on the other side of the bank.”

Bitch had apparently heard the noise first, but instead of barking she nuzzled Vernon to wake him.

I strained my ears, listening intently; suddenly, I heard a crackling noise as if someone took a step in dry grass. 1 reached under my combat jacket, which I was using for a pillow, and took out my .45 pistol. I slowly pulled back the bolt and engaged the cartridge in the chamber. Vernon took the safety off his M1 carbine.

There was another crackling noise. If it was a German patrol, there would probably be several of them and they would be making more noise than this. If it was two or three stragglers who had seen us come into the field earlier, they could be trying to bushwhack us. On the other hand, it was dark and they probably couldn’t see us as well as we could see them.

After waiting some time with bated breath, we heard no further noises. I was beginning to think it was just a rotten limb falling. I whispered to Vernon that I didn’t think the noise was anything unusual, trying to convince him and myself at the same time. I lay back down with my pistol at my side and was just beginning to doze off when Vernon nudged me again. As I emerged out of a semisleep, I could definitely hear a crackling noise. But then the noises came further and further apart, then ceased altogether. Exhausted, we both finally drifted off to sleep.

When I awakened it was barely daylight. Bitch was snuggled against Vernon; her muzzle rested on his shoulder blade, and he had his right arm around her. Lying there in the early morning light, Vernon looked like a little boy snuggling his teddy bear. I was glad we had kept the dog. What a terrible thing war does; it takes young men in the flower of their youth, it demeans them, it humiliates them, it destroys the last vestige of dignity. It sometimes kills or horribly maims them. Those who survive are never quite the same.

I had gotten out the K rations and loaded my bedroll and the two rifles back into the Jeep when Vernon awakened. “Lieutenant, did you ever figure out what was making that noise?”

“No, Vernon, I didn’t hear a thing after I finally dozed off the last time.”

Vernon got up and stretched, then walked about fifty feet downstream in the dry creek bed to take a leak. He suddenly called out, “Lieutenant, I found it.”

A large goose and her goslings had a nest in the high weeds on the embankment. Apparently, every time she ruffled her wings, they made a crackling noise. She appeared to be asleep and we did not disturb her.

We took off down the road and soon found CCB maintenance company just west of Pré en Pail.

General Rose Assumes Command

All of the division’s units reverted back to division control on August 12 under our new division commander, Gen. Maurice Rose. General Rose had led a combat command in the 2d Armored Division and had an outstanding record in North Africa as well as in Normandy.

Combat Command B had taken the brunt of the heavy fighting in Mortain and suffered severe casualties. The command’s four task forces, plus elements of the 2d Armored Division and additional infantry, engaged three German panzer divisions and one German infantry division in a bitter battle around Mortain. With the timely assistance of the Ninth Air Force and the RAF, they finally brought the Germans to a halt and turned them back, though not without severe losses. Task Force Hogan alone lost twenty-three tanks plus a number of personnel. The Germans also suffered severe losses. The 116th Panzer Division lost approximately half its strength. The 85th Division was severely depleted, as were the 2d Panzer and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions. The objective of preventing the Germans from breaking through to Avranches and splitting the First and Third Armies in two had been accomplished.

As the division regrouped west of Pré en Pail, new personnel replacements arrived, and the maintenance, ordnance maintenance, and ordnance supply units once again worked around the clock to repair and replace all the damaged tanks and other vehicles. By August 12 the personnel strength had been rebuilt to about 91 percent officers and 96 percent enlisted men. The artillery was up to 100 percent strength, tanks to 94 percent, and the other vehicles to approximately 98 percent. The remarkable American supply and maintenance system had shown its worth again. The division had been thoroughly bloodied and tested. In spite of our heavy casualties, we had learned invaluable lessons.

When we first started in Normandy, the officers rode the column’s lead tank, but most of the time the lead tank was knocked out. If the officer was killed and his tank was knocked out, the platoon lost its command center as well as any radio contact with the company.

The platoon commander started taking the third tank in the column, which gave him a better chance to coordinate the platoon and maintain contact with the company commander. If the lead tank survived the day, it would rotate back to the rear of the column and the next tank would take its turn.

The platoon commanders also learned that they should not frontally assault German positions fortified with tanks and antitank guns. Instead, they should lie back and call for artillery support, then try to outflank the target. This was strictly according to Armored Force Tactical Doctrine, but it took many bitter losses for some men to learn it.

In other cases, the tank column would unknowingly run up on a German roadblock and come under withering high-velocity antitank fire. Sometimes, the Germans would let a column pass and catch them on the flank, exposing the tanks’ vulnerable side armor. Time and again it was thrown up to us that we simply did not have a heavy tank to match that of the Germans. As a result, many Americans were bleeding and dying needlessly.

Closing the Falaise Pocket

On August 12, the Saint-Lô breakthrough entered its third and final stage. The left flank of the German army had been shattered, and General Patton’s Third Army was now ranging deep into enemy territory with little resistance. The First Army had driven far to the south, then swung east to roll up the shattered flank of the German army. The German 7th Army tried to retreat as rapidly as possible using the roads between Condé-sur-Noireau and Argentan. The American First Army was then ordered to swing north and the British Second Army and Canadian First Army to drive south in an attempt to meet and cut off the German retreat.

In the early morning hours of August 13, the VII Corps, now back up to strength, launched an attack toward the north, led by the 3d Armored Division. It was to meet British units driving south from Thury-Harcourt and the Caen area. Combat Command A advanced along the right flank and CCB to the left. The task forces of the two combat commands would sometimes cross over one another.

By this time, we had driven so deep into enemy territory from the beachhead (approximately a hundred miles) that we were through the dense part of the bocage. The entire corps was moving rapidly in fairly open tank country. The 2d Armored Division with its accompanying infantry secured the left flank. The motorized infantry divisions leapfrogged over one another and secured the strongpoints that the armored divisions had bypassed.

This was classic armored warfare. The situation was highly fluid, and it was extremely difficult to know where the friendly and enemy units were at any one time. We did have the tremendous advantage of our airpower dominating the skies in the daylight hours. The Germans could not spot our positions by air, whereas we had a fairly good idea of theirs. Although resistance may have started out much lighter, as we advanced north it became stronger and stronger; the Germans were determined to prevent the encirclement of their 7th Army.

After passing through Carrouges and Rânes, we found much heavier resistance and had to contend with an unanticipated situation. Political rather than military, it came as a complete surprise to the troops in the field.

General de Gaulle had insisted that French troops be involved in the battle of France. On the surface, this appeared to be a good idea, because the Poles and other Europeans had been involved with both British and American troops for some time. However, bringing in an entire division that had not been training with British and American units was a different matter than working with small continental European units attached to either British or American units.

The French 2d Armored Division, which did not participate in the Normandy landings, suddenly appeared on the road between Pré en Pail and Rânes. Although the higher commanders must have known about this, the troops in the field were generally uninformed and were much surprised to see the French. With extremely poor march discipline, the French got their half-tracks scattered up and down the highway, then stopped without pulling off the highway, which blocked the roads for our follow-up infantry reinforcements and maintenance and supply units. This impeded both CCA and CCB, which were trying to get forward before the Germans could set up strong roadblock positions.

Finally, General Collins ordered the French division commander to get his troops completely off the road and clear the way. This was not intended to disparage the French troops, who I’m sure were dedicated brave soldiers trying to help liberate their homeland. It merely demonstrated that an extremely poor decision had been made at a higher level. The French 2d Armored Division later performed extremely well when they were attached to the French First Army under a French army commander with their own communications.

The fighting between Rânes and Fromentel became much heavier as the Germans brought down crack units to prevent our trapping the 7th Army. As CCA advanced along the main highway toward Rânes, CCB traveled a parallel route toward the high ground just southwest of Fromentel. Both CCA and CCB task forces bypassed all heavy opposition where possible. At night they would coil off the road and set up their perimeter defenses with tanks and infantry in order for the maintenance, supply, and medics to work all night. The Germans, in the meantime, would completely surround the task forces, forcing them to break out again the next day in order to advance. After the fall of Rânes, both CCA and CCB continued northward.

The road between Rânes and Fromentel was a typical French country road, fairly straight with lines of poplar trees on both sides. The Germans cut down alternate trees on either side of the road to form roadblocks, in some instances more than a hundred yards deep. They sewed Teller mines on both sides of the road and covered the roadblocks with heavy antitank and automatic weapons fire. Bands of Panther tanks roamed the countryside and covered the flanks. In one incident, the tanks hid in a cave; they would come out to fire and then go back into the cave, making them difficult to find.

The Germans were desperate by this time, and some of their SS troops began to resort to brutality. One SS unit infiltrated one of our 703d Antitank Battalion positions and captured the platoon commander and four soldiers. One of the soldiers, a combat engineer, managed to escape. Shortly thereafter, the young officer and the three men were discovered; they had all been shot in cold blood. This enraged our men and undoubtedly resulted in severe retaliation later against other SS troopers.

The battle for Fromentel became a series of intensive separate actions, completely isolated and highly fluid.

The fighting in some instances was at extremely close range. One of our tank destroyers knocked out two Panther tanks at a range of twenty-five yards. The tank destroyer commander dismounted to try to rescue the crew from one of the burning tanks, but he was killed by exploding ammunition in the German tank. Even under the severe strain of combat, the quality of mercy was always present.

The Germans were putting up a desperate, courageous fight, and in some cases fanatics refused to surrender.

Our tanks came upon an isolated group of young Hitler Jugend who had been drafted into the 1st SS Adolf Hitler Panzer Division, which at one time had been Hitler’s personal bodyguard. One tank commander reported that the young German soldiers would not surrender. In their fanatical, desperate last efforts, they had to be gunned down by the tanks and finally physically run over and crushed in their foxholes. The carnage sickened the tank crew.

The situation in Fromentel became so fluid that it was extremely difficult to tell which part of the town the Germans occupied and which part the Americans occupied. This confused the air force, and on two occasions CCA had to abandon positions when they were mistakenly bombed by P38s. Finally, after seesawing back and forth, CCA occupied the town. Although we had expected to meet 21st Army Group units before this time, the Canadian First Army, which was leading the group, was having a hard time and was still north of us.

On August 17, CCB moved north and west of Fromentel and secured hill 214 just south of Putanges. On the same day, twelve hundred German armored vehicles plus several thousand other vehicles streamed across our front and came under heavy bombardment by both British and American artillery and airpower.

On the morning of the eighteenth, elements of CCB made contact with Canadian armored units south of Putanges. Although the VII Corps captured approximately five thousand German prisoners, and other units captured many more, a number of German units escaped. Field Marshal Kluge, apparently anticipating our action, had moved his major gasoline dumps forty miles to the east, which gave the Germans sufficient fuel to head east across northern France. German units that escaped were badly mauled and suffered a crushing defeat.

On August 19, the infantry continued to mop up the smaller, isolated pockets of resistance. On August 20 and 21, the 3d Armored Division reassembled for a two-day maintenance and supply period in an area just south of Rânes. The 23d Engineers set up a shower area in a nearby stream. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but later I realized that my last shower had been on July 1, just before we left Codford, England. It had been fifty days since I’d had a shower! For some of the fellows in CCA who came over before us, it had been more than sixty-five days. Even after we had moved out into the field at Codford, about a month before D day, we still enjoyed the luxury of a shower each night at the nearby Quonset hut lavatory.

Personal sanitation in the field is difficult at best. I was able to brush my teeth and wash my face almost daily and shave with cold water every third or fourth day, but I had no change of clothing except clean socks.

When my turn for a shower finally came, I took off my helmet, pistol, combat jacket, money belt, regular belt, and combat boots and put them in one pile along with the contents of my pockets. I stripped off my wool shirt, wool trousers, long underwear tops and bottoms, and socks and made a dirty clothes pile next to the shower area. Having worn the same shirt, trousers, and long underwear for fifty-one days, I felt that they were raunchy enough to walk to the pile by themselves.

The quartermaster gave us fresh cakes of soap, and I indulged myself even though the water was ice cold.

When we came out of the shower, we were each given a clean olive-drab towel and a new wool shirt, wool pants, socks, and long underwear. We never wore khaki uniforms and always wore long underwear, because in northern Europe the evenings were cool even in summertime.

Regrouping After Falaise

On the road between Rânes and Fromentel, the division had been severely bloodied, and our losses in personnel and combat vehicles were high. On one roadblock alone where the Germans had laced the highway with felled trees for a hundred yards or so, we lost eighteen tanks. Few of these were recovered, because most of them had been fired at until they burned. The tanks that could be recovered from that spot and other areas were dragged back to the VCP south of Rânes, where the maintenance and ordnance troops worked feverishly to repair them.

Replacement tank crews, infantry, and other troops were also brought in and integrated into their units. The combat troops and the ordnance, maintenance, and supply troops had developed a healthy respect for one another. The combat troops laid their lives on the line constantly, and we were determined to do everything possible to supply them with the best and most efficiently repaired combat-ready equipment. We did this knowing that our new M4A1 tank, even with the 76mm gun, was hopelessly outmatched by the heavier German tanks.

The M4 tank had two types of power traverse on the turret—hydraulic and electric. The hydraulic drive was smoother and easier to maintain. We went to great pains in England when we were drawing our initial tanks to select only those with hydraulic traverse. Although many of these tanks had now been replaced, we tried to continue using the hydraulic traverse.

The Ford Motor Company, under the direction of the ordnance department, had taken the British Rolls Royce Merlin engine and cut it down to eight cylinders. This made an excellent 550-horsepower tank engine, about 25 percent more powerful than the radial engine. The V-8 design made the engine easier to maintain, and it had fewer problems with sparkplug fouling. Because of this, we selected Ford engine tanks for replacements when we could get them.

When tank crews came to pick up their tanks, the new replacement crewmen had no idea what the tank was like.

Whenever a tank was knocked out, one to three men were usually killed or wounded, so it was not long before the new recruits outnumbered the veterans. If the recruits survived their first engagement, they became veterans themselves.

The ordnance maintenance crews did everything they could to familiarize the new crews with the tanks, particularly any new equipment. This participation became more prevalent as the number of veteran tankers continued to decline. It became more and more apparent that the ability of the division to revive after heavy combat operations depended largely on the ability of maintenance crews to train the new people and get the tanks and crews ready to go again.

Major Dick Johnson, as the ranking maintenance officer in the combat command, had the responsibility of recovering vehicles from combat areas. He insisted on every precaution while recovering vehicles under combat conditions. Most maintenance men had eighteen months to three years of training and were deemed irreplaceable. It was unwise to risk their lives to try to recover burned-up tanks that could not be repaired.

Tank Recovery in Combat

When a firefight broke out, several tanks and other vehicles would be knocked out. The maintenance crews from the regiment would go forward with T2 recovery vehicles to evacuate the shot-up equipment. If there were mines, the engineers would clear a path for the recovery vehicles. If the area was still under direct fire, we would wait, because a T2 recovery vehicle and maintenance crew would be a far greater loss to the division than a few shot-up tanks.

Even after the recovery operation had started, the enemy fire would often start again and the recovery crews would take cover. Sometimes, the Germans would use an abandoned vehicle as a decoy in hopes that a maintenance crew would come to recover it and they could catch them in the open.

One day I approached a knocked-out tank on the forward slope of a hill. I came up from the rear to study the damage and also get the “W” number. When I stepped in front of the tank to determine the extent of the penetration in the faceplate, I heard a dull thud like the popping of a champagne cork. I immediately recognized it as the muzzle blast of a mortar. I jumped behind the tank just before the round landed on the other side, and the tank took the blast. I got out of there as fast as I could and we recovered the tank later.

A New Commanding Officer

By August 20, we had gotten the division in good shape. We were ordered to move out the next morning toward Chartres and to Paris in a routine road march, which meant that the roads had already been traveled by friendly troops and we would probably not encounter anything but sporadic enemy resistance.

I headed over to the maintenance battalion headquarters for the night. Even though it was late and getting dark by the time I left C Company, I knew there was a good chance of getting a hot meal there.

As I approached the mess tent, I passed a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier and heard the tune of the old Negro spiritual “Dry Bones.” I could tell by the sound of the voices that the singers were feeling no pain. I caught some of the words.

I thought I recognized the voices, and when I looked under the tailgate I saw four of my old lieutenant buddies, Nibbelink, Lincoln, Binckley, and Lucas. They had managed to stash away several bottles of Eau de Vie, a powerful Norman Cognac, and had gotten loaded to the gills.

“Cooper, where in the hell have you been? We’ve been waiting on you. We got some big news!”

“I’ve been over at C Company working my damn butt off. I haven’t had time to get drunk like you fellows, but I’m ready now. Lay it on me.”

Lincoln passed me the bottle and I took a big swig. I thought it was the worst liquor I had ever tasted, worse than the white lightning corn whiskey I had sampled as a teenager back in Huntsville.

Ernie tossed back his head and broke out in a broad, boyish grin. “Cooper, listen to this. Would you believe that Colonel Cowhey is no longer commanding the maintenance battalion? Colonel McCarthy is our new CO.”

Cowhey had been transferred to the XX Armored Corps to serve as ordnance officer under General Walker, who had been commander of the 3d Armored Division back at Camp Polk. Walker thought highly of Colonel Cowhey.

I felt immense relief. Was it really possible that we no longer would have to live under the constant threat of Cowhey’s distorted ideas about having the most battlefield-decorated maintenance battalion in the entire U.S.

Army? If this transfer was true, our chances of survival had increased immeasurably. Cowhey had many fine characteristics, but his deep frustration affected his judgment. Apparently, this went back to his early days, when he graduated near the top of his class at West Point.

It was a custom in the regular army during the 1930s for the top 10 percent of the West Point graduating class to be chosen to go to Fort Belvoir for engineering training. After two years at Belvoir, the top 10 percent of that group was given an opportunity to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for another two years and be trained as ordnance officers. These young officers belonged to an elite group during the mid-1930s in the peacetime army; there were only six hundred of them when the war started. The remaining ordnance officers had to be drawn from the nine universities that taught ordnance ROTC.

When World War II started, the situation began to reverse itself. As the army quadrupled in size, the vacancies in the combat units were many times greater than those in ordnance. Thus, many of Cowhey’s former classmates in infantry, artillery, or cavalry, all of whom he had outranked, advanced much more rapidly than he did.

Cowhey’s combat military career ended tragically. He was approaching a roadblock near Trier when he was stopped by an infantry captain and warned that a German roadblock was right around the corner. Cowhey ignored the warning and proceeded down the road. The Jeep had barely gotten a hundred yards when the captain heard a wild burst of machine-gun fire. He crawled around the bend and saw Cowhey’s Jeep on the shoulder of the road. The driver was dead and Cowhey was severely wounded, with many machine-gun penetrations in his stomach and torso. This captain, at great risk, dragged Cowhey to safety. He was evacuated back to the States, where he eventually recovered after a long hospitalization.

I met Cowhey, who was then a captain, when I first arrived at Camp Polk in June 1941. For the first couple of days he was as nice as he could be; he took me around the post and introduced me to my company commander, then took me to the ordnance office and described the procedures used there. I remember being warned by another second lieutenant, who had been there several months longer, about Cowhey’s vicious temper.

“You’ve really got this guy all wrong,” I said. “He’s all right once you get to know him.”

“You just wait and see,” the lieutenant said.

I didn’t have to wait long. I was assigned to A Company as shop officer but had no knowledge of tanks and other armored vehicles. I was fortunate to have Gus Snikers as my shop master sergeant. An enlisted man in World War I, Snikers was probably the most experienced and best master sergeant in the entire ordnance department.

A Company was assigned to remove a 75mm M2 tank gun and its mount from an M3 tank and set it on a wooden platform for instruction purposes. These tanks were new to us, and no one in the division had ever tried to remove one of the guns. It was Sergeant Snikers who finally figured out how to do it.

While the crews worked on the gun, I designed a wooden mount. I knew that it had to be extremely rigid and heavy to support the gun while the men practiced on it, and I was having difficulty getting the right size timbers. The whole project took longer than we had anticipated.

The next morning in the officers’ mess, Captain Cowhey was seated at his table drinking his after-breakfast coffee surrounded by a group of the higher-ranking officers in the battalion. I had discovered that this was a customary practice; the officers were trying to get their points in and at the same time do a little brownnosing.

I was seated at another table with some of my lieutenant buddies when the captain called out, “Lieutenant Cooper.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied as I picked up my cup of coffee and headed toward his table, overjoyed that I had been invited to the inner sanctum. Little did I realize what was about to take place.

“Lieutenant, I’ve been telling the other officers about the gun mount you’ve been making,” said Cowhey. “Is it ready for testing this morning?”

“No, sir,” I replied. “We encountered some difficulty in obtaining the right size timbers. I think it will be ready this afternoon.”

Immediately Cowhey’s expression changed. The veins on his neck bulged as a red flush rose in his cheeks. His dark, piercing eyes fluttered as he looked at me, and he appeared to be momentarily speechless. In the next instant, however, he exploded.

“Lieutenant Cooper, when I ask you a question, I expect an answer and no damn excuses. It’s either, ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir.’ Do you understand?”

I was caught so completely by surprise that I could not answer. Before I could collect my thoughts, he started out again. “Another thing, you are an officer in the United States Army and you are supposed to know, not think. Don’t you ever tell me that you think something. You either know it or you don’t know it. Do you understand?”

It took me a few moments to regain my composure, and I replied rather weakly, “Yes, sir, I understand.”

Like a puppy with his tail between his legs, I went back to the table where my lieutenant buddies were sitting.

They couldn’t help but hear what had transpired, and as I sat down I felt completely humiliated. The silence was deafening. Finally, it was broken by Bissell Travis, the lieutenant who had cautioned me about Cowhey in the first place. He could have easily said, “I told you so,” but instead he said, “Don’t worry, Cooper, he treats all new officers that way, and this just happened to be your turn. It’s his way of indoctrinating a new officer into his way of thinking.”

I knew that Cowhey had violated one of the basic principles of conduct: Never reprimand a subordinate in front of others. If a reprimand is due, it should be done privately and on an individual basis, between the superior and the subordinate.

I had been through a military cadet hazing system at VMI that was probably equal to or more severe than what Cowhey had gone through at West Point. The cadet hazing system is designed specifically to humiliate a person and convey the lesson that until you learn how to take it, you shouldn’t dish it out. If you are going to be an officer and give orders, you have to learn how to receive them, regardless of the conditions.

In spite of his shortcomings, Cowhey exerted many positive influences. His tremendous drive and determination to get the job done as quickly as possible, come hell or high water, was the type of thinking that an officer must develop in combat. Although I have ambivalent feelings about Cowhey, his total influence on me was positive, and I have always been thankful for it.

To Paris and Across the Seine

The next morning, we proceeded south to Carrouges and on toward Alençon. The 7th Armored Division, which we considered our sister division because it was activated at Camp Polk and drew its initial cadre from our division, was traveling on another road somewhat south of us.

As their forward recon elements approached a small French village, they were reportedly met by a German officer with a white flag who, after surrendering, said he’d left a small contingent of men in the village to protect a large poison gas depot. He was afraid that if the men abandoned the depot and went back to Germany, French civilians might release the gas and blame it on the Germans. The recon officer sent word back, took all the Germans prisoner, and impounded the gas dump. Our intelligence was evidently correct that the Germans had poison gas in northern France.

During the day, I had to drop back several times to see if I could assist any broken-down vehicles. The tail end of each column was always followed by an ordnance maintenance wrecker and a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier with several tank mechanics. With breakdowns strung out over fifty miles of road, it was important to keep the ordnance company commander informed.

During a routine road march of this type, one could appreciate the magnitude of maintaining an armored division on the move. The 3d Armored Division reinforced had about 17,000 men and 4,200 vehicles. All of this equipment was of a relatively new design, and there had been little field testing prior to issuing the equipment to the troops. As a young engineer, I could only partially appreciate the tremendous genius and effort that provided our military with great quantities of good equipment. All of our wheeled vehicles, artillery, ammunition systems, and firepower control equipment was excellent. The weakness was the gross inferiority of our tanks and antitank weapons.

As we entered Chartres near sunset on August 24, we encountered elements of the French 2d Armored Division. In the main plaza in front of the cathedral, there was a great celebration going on. Young French soldiers were being plied with Cognac, flowers, and young French mademoiselles from every direction.

Of course we were jealous, but we were also resentful that while we were pressing on, these men stayed back and had a ball. We found out later that they were waiting for General de Gaulle to come from London so that the French division commander could parade his troops through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris the next day with General de Gaulle while all the newsreel cameras were rolling. Thus, French history books could tell French children in generations to come that French troops had liberated Paris, with little emphasis on the contribution of the U.S. Army.

It was after dark when Vernon and I arrived at a little French village near Corbeil, just south of Paris. We decided to bivouac in a village green surrounded by houses in the middle of town. Seeing a couple of half-tracks and a scout car parked nearby, we felt that this must be a relatively safe place and for the first time decided not to dig a foxhole. We laid our sleeping bags and bedrolls on the village green and soon were sound asleep.

I was awakened early the next morning by a beautiful young voice. “Voulez-vous du café? ”

I looked up and saw a lovely little French girl about ten years old standing beside the bedroll. “Voulez-vous du café? ” she repeated.

“Oui,” I replied in my best French. We stashed our bedrolls, followed her across the street, and entered the kitchen of a small house, where her mother and father were seated around a wooden table. They both looked worn and haggard, evidently from having stayed up all night for fear the Germans might return to the village before the Americans arrived. Upon seeing us, they broke into broad grins. We shook hands and sat down at the table. The mother got up and poured a steaming hot brown mixture into a cup.

“Ersatz café,” she said. The imitation coffee was made from roasted crushed barley grains. It took a great deal of imagination to think that it resembled coffee, but it was hot and tasted good.

Our conversation consisted of my marginal French and the little girl’s English, which she had picked up in school. I was soon to learn that many French, Belgian, and German children had a much better knowledge of English and other foreign languages than American children of the same age. As our limited conversation continued, I began to get the feeling that this little French family was typical of the urban French people who had suffered a great deal under the Germans for the last four years. Hardly any French family had been spared the consequences of the war.

The family seemed genuinely appreciative of our efforts and showed us as much hospitality as possible with their limited resources. In turn we gave them several packages of Nestle powdered coffee and sweetener. As we left their home and walked across the street to our Jeep, we heard “Vive l’Amérique ” and “Vive la France” all the way.

The division’s forward elements had already crossed the Seine on pontoon bridges. We crossed on the morning of August 26 and rapidly followed the fast-moving tank columns. The advance columns proceeded to the little village of Saint-Denis-le-Gast, just east of Paris, where they met with other American armored columns that had crossed the river north of Paris. This sealed off the escape of those Germans who had not been captured in the city itself. The battle of western France and the liberation of Paris had ended.