D-Day through St. Lo Breakout

At Marston Bigot we only were given dehydrated foods, powdered eggs, orange marmalade, Spam and bread that crumbled easily, dessert was a pan cake that forgot to rise, sometimes we had lamb or goat meat stew it tasted awful but it did have some vegetables in it.. So during this stay at Marston Bigot we were under intense training going to the rifle range at least five times by truck as it was several miles away and underwent rigorous physical training. We had one lieutenant who was our exercise officer and he was a little blond headed thin, short officer that wore coveralls and we called him Superman, he practically run us to death. No matter where we went to do any training we always had to police the area, in other words clean up the area that we used during this exercise or training. We always picked up the shell casings and they were recycled by someone, we were told.

Time was going fast the big day was coming, we did not know what part we would have in the invasion of France. We were told one time we would be assigned to a combat unit before D-Day and also told that we would be replacements for those that were killed or wounded in the invasion. That we would not take part in the initial D-Day landing.

On the morning of 6 June 1944 we were out doing our training and we could hear noise that sounded like a lot of airplanes in the sky, we looked up but did not see any , but we knew that they were coming and then they started flying overhead 100’s of them some pulling gliders then others were bombers heading southeast. There were some clouds but they were scattered. This was it, the invasion of France was underway. We had been put on alert about ten days previously, and told not to be off the grounds under any circumstances, so we stayed close, no more taking a chance to go to a local dance or pub. We understood that we would all go over the channel together then be split up after we were in France to go to different combat units as replacements.

On 12 June 1944 we loaded into army trucks and moved to the south coast of England, the next morning we loaded on landing craft before dawn there was a heavy mist almost rain and real damp and chilly, The channel was rough some men got seasick but we were all combat ready we had all our gear with us. The landing craft rammed into the beach at about 10:30 on the morning of 13 June 1944. Our landing craft had passed coming in what looked like a string of sinking ships or ships that were already sunk with parts of them protruding from the water,. they were in kind of a line, forming a breakwater not far from shore. The sight of these ships all dismantled and sunk did not look good and we noticed everything seemed to be in disarray on the beach. We waded ashore on a beach called Omaha Beach. They were still undergoing strafing attacks from the Germans, but we had balloons hanging in the air to keep them from coming in to low, but they could still drop bombs from higher up, and they were doing that as we landed. There were blown up vehicles, graves were being put in and bodies were still being buried when we landed, it was not a good sight.

All we could see was mass destruction everywhere all up and down the beach. Some of the soldiers already there yelled to us things like you’ll be sorry and where have you been.. We formed a line and gradually worked our way up to the top of the bluff overlooking Omaha beach, by that time it was close to getting dark and we were told to dig in. This was the hardest foxhole that I ever dug, it was almost like cement real hard ground, some gave up and did not get down that deep, my buddy and me worked a little longer an we both were just able to lie down flat in the one we dug, it was a two man foxhole.

It was cold at night and damp and very noisy, we spending our first night in a combat situation. On one side we could look out and see the water in the English channel and on the other side large shelled out areas of land, it look like a huge hilly area with large craters all over where shells had landed. There were many burned or destroyed vehicles sitting all over back up and a little over the beach embankment. That night there was high level strafing and bombing by the Germans and gunfire from the planes, it was like a lot fireworks going on. The strafing was at a higher altitude and could not cover much ground because of the balloons. Another thing was that our planes were confronting them and driving them off..

The next morning we carried our duffel bags back about a thousand feet or more, then loaded them on a truck, we kept our full field pack and rifles, the trucks would meet us later. We walked now for three days off and on at a slow pace, to reach a marshaling area. Then we would be assigned to a combat unit, they would split us up. Ending up in different units, we would not see each other again, some would stay together, very few would. Along the way we encountered a few French farmers looking us over and we were given drink of wine by one French farmer, he was very nice and glad to see us, first we made him take a drink of the wine to be sure it was alright to drink. The farmer was cutting hay with a homemade cutting device by hand and it was fairly warm as it was in the afternoon. We did run across a few Germans soldiers that had been killed and as of now had not been picked up, we did not know it but this was just a small preview of the things that were in store for us in the days ahead

We already were seeing hedge rows, we had heard a lot about them in our training, they used these to divide their fields and also along the roadways. A hedgerow which were built 2500 or 3000 years ago, is a mound of dirt with hedge growth on top or bushes of some sort, about five foot to maybe ten or twelve feet at times, you could look over in most cases, you would have to spread the hedges in some cases and look out over the mound of dirt. The hedgerows had cut outs for vehicles to go through and for the farmer to drive their livestock through. In combat you could not go looking for these cutouts.

The hedgerows were almost impassable for our tanks and other vehicles. You could cut a little bay or indention into the hedgerow to fit you body into, you used this position if you were to be stalled for any period of time this would also protect you from shells exploding on either side of you but not to your rear. This would leave the rear part of your body exposed. This was not a place that you would call a protected area as much as a foxhole, in a foxhole the shell almost has to make a direct hit. A shell hitting very close to a foxhole will sometimes kill from the concussion. Anytime that you exposed any part of your body you were asking for it. Even foxholes with out tops made out of sand bags or any wood or other material were very risky when air burst were coming in as the burst an a little above ground zero and could be adjusted to different heights by the enemy. We will be having more about this later in this writing.

D-Day through St. Lo Breakout Continued…

We walked in single file for about three days stopping at night then continuing to march slowly during the day, there was always the sounds of distance bombing an gunfire as we moved inland. We were always on the alert for planes and were strafed one time by the German’s about midway on the march, one soldier was wounded. On the fifth day in the morning we arrived at an open field on a bend of a gravel road, it had a gate big enough for vehicles to enter and we all marched in and were told to take a break. About an hour later we heard the sound of planes and bombs exploding way off somewhere, then we heard the sound of trucks approaching. There were in all about three hundred of us. A sergeant called our names to go to different areas of the field to wait, we ended up with about twenty different groups after he finished calling names. My best friends were all going to different units.

We were not able to talk or say goodbye to many of our friends as we were scattered all around the field, and could not leave our group to talk to to our friends. Another truck had carried our duffel bags form the beach area and they were dropped off in a big pile, we had to dig our duffel bag out of this pile , you can imagine three hundred duffel bags in one big pile, this took about an hour. We were loaded into 6×6 trucks army trucks.

For about an hour we traveled slowly on the road, it was shelled out in some areas and been repaired in other sections, there were large craters and we had to go off the road to go around some of them. Going around these large holes made our trip longer than it would have ordinarily have been. Finally we arrived at an open field surrounded by a forest. There was many armored vehicles sitting around the edge of the field with full camouflage nets over each vehicles. The trees along the edge of the field gave excellent coverage for the vehicles along with the camouflage It was 18 June1944.

We had arrived at the site of our new army unit that we were being assigned to. It was the 2nd Armored Division, Company A, 82nd Reconnaissance Battalion. We were all ordered to get off the trucks and line up to be assigned to a platoon in the company. The first thing I noticed was a soldier digging a large hole in the middle of the field it was square, I was to find out later this soldier was being disciplined for firing his rifle accidentally, this was his punishment. This hole was six foot wide six foot deep thus you get what they call a six by six, one of the forms of punishment for enlisted men. If you ever dug one you don’t want to dig another one. You are sweating like hell digging the hole and you buddies are walking by giving you that what did you do to deserve this look. I was assigned to an armored car, my immediate superior was Sgt. Fleming McCormick, the rest of the four man crew was Francis O’Neill, radio man and driver. Luther Shields, assistant driver, Earl Wagner, gunner and he rode in the turret with Sgt. McCormick.

The armored car would only hold four crewman, that is all that would fit inside. That made me have to ride on the back of the armored car immediately back of the gun turret. I did not know until much later that actually what the 2nd Armored was doing was preparing for combat with a twenty percent reserve, in other words we were in combat but our next transfer if we survived to that point was to take someone’s place that was wounded or killed. Sometimes the men were wounded or killed before they could be in placed in a scout car or become member of a designated crew. So instead of waiting for replacements we already had them, this kept the armored vehicles with full crews most of the time.

Coming into “A” company that day 18 June1944 were 15 replacements including myself, there names were the following: Otto F. Zitko, Ellis Littlejohn, Charles Pepe, John Taylor, L.G. O’Barr, Howard Swonger, Lavier Hatt, Vance Nelson, Boyd West, Sgt. Dee Kirkland who was in charge of us, Leslie Herbig, Francis Woods, Virgil Tatom, Thomas W. King, James G. McWilliams, Eugene Zubey, and on the 19 June 1944 the following men were also accepted into the company: Elmer Hissey, Clyde Hiatt, Herman Emas, Tull Watts, Joe Patton, Treffie Lemire, Richard Coon, David Moses, William Druschell, Claude Grindstaff, John J. Davis, Arthur Larson, William Nawrocki, Roy Gebenini, James Buschini, Harrison Green, Albert Chelich, Pete Garcia, Clarence Warner. Out of these I had probably known about ten of them in England before we arrived. Almost all of us would be riding as an extra person in some vehicle, we were mostly all privates, one was a Sgt.

Here we were assigned to a unit that most all the personnel of company “A” had been in the Africa campaign, although in a limited action it was a not a combat role. I was not looking forward to the days ahead, knowing that we would be in combat shortly, I was assigned to a unit that I knew none of the personnel, many of the men were from the south.

In the armored car which I was assigned there was exceptions, O’Neill, was from New York City, Luther Shields was from Oklahoma, Earl Wagner was from Pennsylvania, Fleming McCormick was from Georgia. We did not know at this time just when we would be committed to combat, actually no one knew but we did know that it would be soon. I had a carbine at the time that I joined the company so I was told to keep the carbine, it was light and handled easily. A carbine, called a M-1- it fired a .32 commercial cartridge, had limited power and was designed to replace the pistol, you had a better chance of hitting the target with this than a pistol.

I found the crew that I was joining was taking a wait and see attitude toward me, they were waiting to see I guess if I could handle my part of the duties they would assign to me, I was the only private in the crew. We were eating what we called field rations, C-rations everything out of a can, no fresh food. Cigarettes were included in a little 4 cigarettes pack, the brands were Spuds, Twenty Grand, Picayune, Lucky Strike, Camel, Old Gold, Chelsea. Most of the time in this location our unit sent out friendly patrols to other army units nearby just to keep contact. One platoon of another company of the battalion went behind enemy line on patrol. So our morning reports would read something like this while we are in bivouac here, patrols maintained contact throughout the day with friendly troops. Weather changeable, morale excellent. We did vehicle maintenance, armored cars had six drive wheels, the wheels in the rear were in tandem, so you actually had three wheels aligned in a row on each side The armored car was called an M-8 and it had a Hercules rear mounted engine had a 37 millimeter M-6 cannon in the turret and a fifty caliber machine gun sitting on a mount on the turret. We did not get all the 50 caliber’s until we reached Normandy , we got some from a Beach Brigade( a salvage outfit ). You could get anything you wanted, as long as it had not been inventoried there, that is how the scout sections received their Bar’s and everyone else got there 45 Colt automatic’s. When we got to Berlin and fell out for our first review A Company was the only company completely outfitted with Colt 45’s, “B” and “C” companies had Sub-Machine guns. The armored car could move out at a top speed of 56 miles per hour and could go about as fast backward as it could forward, the problem was being able to steer backwards as you had to be guided by the armored car commander, you had no rear view mirror. Most drivers had a good knack to run the car backward, simply by watching the alignment of the vehicle and keep it straight or turn to fit it into a suitable area for concealment from the enemy.

During the time we were bivouacked here I was able to get to know some of the men, some were hard to know, of course everyone had the thought that this was just about the time that we were going to be committed to combat, the days were counting down. Lt. Cook was our platoon leader, he had been a Greyhound bus driver and had a bad back, and was always seemed to be in pain on different occasions, he would later leave the company because of this. We were continuing to run friendly patrol to the units around us to be sure that there had not been any Germans infiltrating back to this area.

The vehicles were supplied with bright colored panels of all different colors, they were about 6 foot wide and 4 foot long , these were to be put on your vehicle during the day, they had rope to tie them on the scout car and the larger vehicle so that they would be visible from the air so that our planes would be able to identify us when they were looking for enemy columns to strafe, and would not attack our column by mistake. It was right after this time that the 8th Air Force made a strike an General McNair and about 300 other American soldiers were killed by this attack of planes.

We were most of the time behind the main line of attack in enemy territory, and would have had a lot of problems if we were not clearly marked for our planes to plainly see that we were friendly troops. From 13 June 1944 until 1 July 1944 we remained same location, running patrols to contact friendly troops, and doing maintenance on all equipment, cleaning our weapons that we were to carry into combat. Our map information, read as follows-France 1/50.000 GSGS,#1,250, St. Lo sheet: #T672742. l July, 1944 we moved about 7 miles, location number GSGS, #4250 to set up a Division command post, it was rainy, morale excellent. On the 14 July 1944 the platoons assault gun crews were sent to the vicinity of Caumont, France to train in firing their assault guns as a battery.

Now location about two miles W. at St. Paul Du Vernay, France. using the new sheet map location of St. Lo. #T725703. On 17 July 1944 the assault guns returned to the company at 1530A. On 18 July 1944 the company moved to GSGS, #4250, #6 F/2, St. Lo map sheet: # T 627764 which was a distance of 12 miles, and was 3/4 of a mile NE of Tournieres, France Weather was clear, morale excellent. On the 20 July 1944, weather cloudy, did maintenance. On the 21 of July 1944 we were alerted to move out, weather rainy. Then on the 22 July 1944 we were alerted to to be ready for combat mission. That night laying awake in my bed roll looking up at the stars and listening to the distance artillery firing in the distance, I had these thoughts. Here I was a young recruit, and I was trained, but I had never heard a hostile gun until a few weeks ago. I wondered, why did I volunteer? There was only one way to go here and that was forward. A good many men when they hear of war from a distance claim to be anxious to get into the battle. When they say so they generally fail to convince the people listening that they are as anxious as they would make you believe, as they approach the actual danger they become more subdued. This is not a universal rule, but I have known men who were always ready to fight when there was not an enemy in sight, and then there were some as good as there word when the fighting began. But the amount of men that fulfill this prediction is very small. How would I react in combat, you do what you have to do, the days ahead would be tell. Weather cloudy and rainy, morale still excellent. We remained at this same status until the 26 July 1944 at 0700 we moved out to location GSGS, #4250,# 6 F 4, St. Lo. Sheet: #T496751 to 1/2 mile NW of Airel , France, arriving at 1045 a distance of 9 mile. Weather clear and warm, morale excellent. On the 25 July 1944 Lt. Col. Wheeler Merriam, our battalion commander, was called to division headquarters and told to lead the division through a gap in the in the line.

He was told that the breakthrough would be made by a infantry division and it would be an easy advance for the 82nd Recon battalion. There were two Combat Commands, CCA and CCB, we were still under division control and had the company of the 17th Engineers attached to us, complete with a medium tank with a dozer blade attached to use on the hedgerows.

27 July 1944 company “A” and the 82nd Recon moved out into combat from the following location Map: France 1/50,000, GSGS, 4250, 6 F/3, Coutances sheet: #T389507 1 1/2 miles NE of Notre Dame Le-Leniley at 0830. The weather was clear and we were moving on gravel roads the had hedge rows on either side, the roads were narrow, this was to be my first day in combat and I nor any of the new replacements knew what we could expect, it was wait an see. The roads had many craters in them and we had to go around them making side passages around them and I can remember going along this road and coming out at the top of a a hill, hedgerows on each side and overlooking slight valley ahead of us and down the hill into a bunch of trees and hearing small arms fire, an occasional artillery shell hit in around the trees to the far side of the valley, their was a lot of dust coming from down in those trees. I was riding on the back of the M-8 armored car, McCormick, Wagner, Shields, and O”Neil were in the armored car, O’Neil was driving. Looking down into this bunch of trees and hearing all the gunfire and commotion I was sitting on the back of this scout car in the wide open thinking what have I gotten myself into.

We were following our scout section which consisted of 4 what they called 4×4’s or Peeps ( some called Jeeps or 1/4 tons)). As we went on down further into the bunch of trees it was turning out to be lots of shooting and light armored tanks running up the road each way, the road was gravel and was wide enough for two lane traffic, here it was flat on each side of the road and there was quite a bit of dust, the edge of a village to the front of us, but we were not quite in the village.

Our armored car was ordered to go down the road to where a small one lane road intersected and take a left, this was right at the edge of the village and reconnoiter up this little one lane road, so we moved down the road and turned to the left and started up this small one lane road alone, we were in radio contact with the other vehicles in our platoon and the company command post. We started up the one lane road and after about 300 feet we came to a small incline, of course that was as far as we could see until we would reach the top of the top of this incline we just came to the crown of the incline then directly in front of us was a PzKpfw-V-German Panther tank. (This tank was introduced before 1942, it weighed 44.8 tons, had a 5 man crew, and mounted a 7.5cm Kw K-42 gun. It had a 690 Horsepower Maybach engine which was an improvement over the former engine that was first used in this tank called the Man engine. It was beset by problems , as the transmission was not big enough for all the weight the tank carried. This tank was comparable to the Russian built T-34, maximum armor of the Panther was 120mm, it was a powerful opponent.) This Panther tank was sitting no more than a hundred feet directly in front of us.

With a German crew riding in a casual position hatches open and two of them sitting on the edge of the turret where the 7.5 was mounted. They were as surprised as we were and they immediately started getting inside to position their 7.5 and to fire on us at point blank range. In the meantime our crew was not wasting any time we were all yelling for O’Neill to reverse and he did, he was well practiced in reverse driving. O’Neill put it in reverse and moved rapidly, faster than I ever dreamed that anyone could drive one of these armored cars backwards, he was all over the one lane road but we got down to the end of the road in time to back out of the line of fire of the tank. and backed the M-8 armored car down where we had entered the one lane road before the German tank could get to the crown of the hill and fire on us.

After we backed out we met an assault tank with a B-6 Howitzer on it heading down the road and he was going to cross this intersection and we tried to stop the assault tank but to no avail, the German Panther tank put a shell through the side of the assault tank, we never knew if their were any survivors of this assault tank as we were on back then trying to get a Bazooka team or a flame thrower over to the side of the tank to try and knock him out. It was hard to knock out a German tank from the front because of the slant in the front and the amount of armor thickness. The bazooka man was wounded in the hand and could not continue, was brought back for medical attention. In the meantime flying cover for us were some P-47’s and the Company Executive officer was in direct contact with the squadron , he immediately called them to go for the tank. They were armed with two 500 bombs on each of the 4 planes , also they had plenty of other firepower, they came in with the bombs at about 1000 feet it was to the back of us and it seemed like that we had to duck they came in so low. They started a second run and a German FW 190 go on their tail, our radio control warned the squadron leader of this, he did a hook and fired 50 caliber into the plane and the German plane went down. It was over in a matter of minutes. That day we had the following wounded men Lt. Robert S. Frost, Pvt. Alvoid W. Morris Jr., Pfc. Robert Burdine, Lt. Danford J. Bubolz, Walter R. Looney. The company had knocked out that day one Mark V German tank, three towed 88mm guns, 11 half tracks and numerous other smaller vehicles, also we had captured about 125 German soldiers.

This day 27 July 1944, I saw my first American dead soldier laying along the road and it was heartbreaking, my morale was low. Seeing dead American soldiers was the upsetting to all of us, it was certainly a sight that we did not like. We were to see many more that day laying in ditches along the road or at the side of a buildings, sniping was a fact of life here and the Germans were fairly good at it. We arrived at map GSGS, #4250, 6 F/3, Coutances, France-sheet: T 389507, 1 and 1/2 mile NE of Notre Dame Le-Leniloy, France at 0300 the distance traveled was about 45 miles.