Against the Panzers

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AGAINST THE PANZERS

United States Infantry versus

German Tanks, 1944-1945

A HISTORY OF EIGHT BATTLES

TOLD THROUGH DIARIES, UNIT HISTORIES AND INTERVIEWS

by ALLYN R. VANNOY and

JAY KARAMALES

with a foreword by T. N. D U P U Y

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

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Printed by special arrangement with McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina.

ISBN 0-7864-0129-X

No part of this book, specifically including the table of contents and index, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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and without whose support and understanding none of this would have been possible:

Cynthia Vannoy Maureen Karamales

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Acknowledgments

This book is the culmination of several years of research, which included countless hours going through archives, numerous letters to and interviews with veterans and experts, and trips across the United States to tap into official sources of information. In order to clarify our understanding of the actions we were study-ing, and to absorb that undefinable flavor of a battle that can only come from walk-ing the ground, we also made a trip to France and Belgium to visit the battlefields of Mortain and the northern half of the Battle of the Bulge. This also allowed us to access European collections of documents and artifacts and to talk with a num-ber of Belgian citizens who had lived through the fighting that ravaged their home-towns. In a sense, then, this book represents a joint effort by an enormous and diverse group of people to reconstruct clashes between U.S. infantrymen and Ger-man panzers.

We would like to thank the coauthors of SAIC's Anti-Armor Defense Data (A2D2) study—Dr. Charles M. Baily, Victoria Young, and Joyce Boykin—for set-ting the stage for this book and for their professionalism and dedication in col-lecting an enormous amount of data regarding the battles at St. Barthelmy, Krinkelt-Rocherath, and Dom Bütgenbach. Albert Mcjoynt drafted many of the original maps from which our maps in these chapters are derived. Dr. Arthur Volz, a noted researcher and expert on German artillery from Bammental, Germany, pro-vided very useful information and made several trips to the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg for the A2D2 project. And our chapter on Mortain would have been impossible without the contributions of Lawson Neel, George Greene, Thomas Springfield, Dean Noble, Sid Eichen, Travis Brewer, and Clair Farley, all of the 823d Tank Destroyer Battalion. We owe special thanks to Messrs. Greene and Springfield for allowing us to fly them to Virginia for interviews and to Lawson Neel and his wife Josie for inviting us into their home and patiently granting a lengthy interview.

Our sincere thanks to the many veterans of the 5th, 28th, 80th, 94th, and 104th Infantry Divisions—the infantrymen, tankers, medics, artillerymen, cannon-eers, tank-destroyer crewmen, antitank gun crews, and engineers—who provided assistance and contributions: Ralph R. Cupelli, Stanley Hays (Colonel, U.S. Army, retired), Charles S. Holtz, Thomas Tucker, Wilfred Haughey, Jr., Earl Waldron, Julius Beers, Frank V. Langfitt, Jr., Jack Davis, Harold Storey, Charles (Charlie)

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Marks, Randolph C. Dickens (Major General, U.S. Army, retired), Fred Gage, Martin F. Loughlin, Jim Hardy ("Red Devils," 702dTank Bn. Association), Charles (Charlie) W. Brown, M. C. (Woody) Chitwood, W. Edmund Tyler, Lou Kalita, Carl W. Pape, Charles. R. Good, James H. Hayes (Colonel, U.S. Army, retired), Fred E. Mikolowsky, Jr., Anthony A. Scacco, Milton Bartelt, Charles Brodeur, George E. Burns, Versel Case, Jr., Thomas R. Cheatham, Roger Pendleton (104th Infantry Division Association), Thomas Danowski, Charles Davis, Henry A. Ducat, Tom Raney and Bruce Crissinger of the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, Howard Meyer and John J. Stevenson of the 202d Engineer Combat Battalion, Frank Hal-lahan, and Charles F. Shotts. Without their help and personal accounts this book would have been much less interesting.

We want to acknowledge Charles B. MacDonald and Sidney T. Mathews' excellent book, Three Battles, which provided the basis for our chapters on Arna-ville and Schmidt. Additional sources, i.e., veterans' accounts and archival records, helped us add further details and correct some omissions and errors.

Since the Battle of the Bulge is such a thoroughly studied topic, there is a plethora of kind people to thank for their cooperation. Robert Phillips, veteran of the Twenty-eighth Division's stand in front of Bastogne and author of the book

To Save Bastogne, was helpful in reviewing the chapter on Hosingen. Jack

Flana-gan of the 612th Tank Destroyer Battalion cheerfully provided a wealth of infor-mation and contacts about his unit's operations with the 99th Division, and graciously invited us to several reunions of the Battalion to discuss the Bulge and the SS atrocities at Honsfeld. The monographs of Thomas Rivette and Donald Gendron laid the foundation for the Dom Bütgenbach chapter. Special thanks are due Richard Byers of the 99th Division for his assistance and for providing us with copies of his correspondence with former Colonel Wilhelm Osterhold.

Material related to the actions of KG Peiper would have been impossible without the patient and generous assistance of General Michael F. Reynolds, CB, probably the greatest living expert on Peiper's exploits in the Ardennes and author of the final word on the subject, the book The Devil's Adjutant: Jochen Peiper,

Panzer Leader. To be led along Peiper's route by General Reynolds is to make a

voyage of discovery, not only of one of the most fascinating chapters of military history, but also of the hospitality of the Belgian people. Among these, we would like to thank Edouard and Marie-Berthe de Harenne for kindly giving us lodging in their home, the stately Chateau Vaulx-Renard, and showering us with kindness while regaling us with history. We would also like to express our appreciation to Gerard and Marie-France Gregoire, respectively the founder and caretaker of the December 1944 Museum in La Gleize. Marie-France, aside from giving us the run of the museum after hours, also kindly consented to drive us along Peiper's route for two days while General Reynolds narrated and we filmed and scrawled notes. We would also like to thank the de Harennes of "the big house" (Chateau Froid-Cour) for graciously allowing us into their home and introducing us to Orval beer; Georges and Susie Balaes, for hours in their jolly company and wine on the ter-race of their dacha overlooking La Gleize; and Joseph Dejardin and his wife of Stavelot, who helped make the Christmas of 1994 a special one for those of us

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wondering what the Christmas of 1944 had been like. A special note of thanks is due to Jack Bauseman, author of The Malmédy Massacre, traveling companion, his-torian, and Southern gentleman.

No historical research would be possible without the dedication of the archi-vists and librarians who guard the country's troves of documents, journals, and official records. We would particularly like to thank Richard Boylan and Victoria Washington of the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland; Harry Riley and Robin Cookson of the Foreign Military Studies section of the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; David Holt, curator of the Armor School Museum, Fort Knox, Kentucky; the staff of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; of the U.S. Mil-itary History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the Pentagon Library, Arlington, Vir-ginia; and the Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH), Washington, D.C., for their assistance and advice in tracking down relevant records and doc-uments.

We have endeavored to present, as much as possible, an accurate and schol-arly account of the events in this book, but inevitably eyewitnesses' recollections differ, or official documents contain errors. In such cases historians must make informed guesses, based on their experience and knowledge of the battle, units, and people involved. Many of these guesses turn out to be wrong. In a number of cases, mistakes we have made have been corrected by the witnesses, experts, and friends named above, and it is to their credit that this book is as accurate as it is. As the price we pay for getting to put our names on the cover of such a collabo-rative effort, we, the authors, must bear all responsibility for any errors contained in the text, and we apologize for any consternation or confusion that may ensue. It is our sincere hope that we have made some small contribution to the reputa-tion of the units and men that paid a much higher price as they wrote their names into the pages of history long before we put pen to paper.

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= Tank Destroyer (Towed) = Tank Destroyer (SP) = Antitank (Towed) = Antitank (SP) = Cannon = Mortar = Chemical Mortar = Anti-Aircraft Artillery = Rocket Artillery Machine G u n Military Police Ammo & Pioneer Medical Signals Maintenance Quartermaster Service Transport = American = German Nationality/Branch Unit Type

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Foreword

Allyn R. Vannoy and Jay Karamales have converted a relatively routine research contract task into a dramatic, action-packed book. They were members of a research team of the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) assigned to work on a study for the United States Army of the performance of American infantry against German armor in World War II. The purpose of their

research was to employ a methodology similar to one I had pioneered a few years earlier in order to derive quantifiable patterns from the data of a large number of combat engagements. Presumably they were successful in this endeavor although the book does not—and is not intended to—focus on their research objectives or results.

Rather, these two authors saw in the variety of documents they examined in their research the outlines of a number of tales of human drama of frightened men, struggling to overcome fear and do their duty, in the deadly environment of battle. In their preface they describe these documents as "official U.S. Army records," but it is obvious from the accounts that their sources included some Ger-man records and postwar narratives of GerGer-man participants in the battles they were researching. Furthermore, the presentation is remarkably evenhanded. It is obvious to the reader that the authors realize that there is nothing to choose—in terms of heroism, courage, and devotion to duty—between the American and Ger-man soldiers fighting in World War II.

The authors use the records well. And they translate the often plodding and dull reports into coherent and graphic tales of battlefield action. The engagements all come from the year-long operations of American and German forces opposing each other in northwestern Europe from June 1944 to May 1945. Actually the first of their battle selections is from the Battle of Mortain, in Normandy, in August 1944; the last is in mid-January 1945 in the Saar region of western Germany.

About forty percent of the book is devoted to engagements during the Ger-man Ardennes Offensive of December 1944-January 1945: the Battle of the Bulge. Interestingly—but not surprisingly, in light of the purpose of the initial research— the three widely spread (geographically) Bulge engagements they describe are con-centrated in time between December 16 and 21,1944. This, of course, is when the Germans, with a heavy preponderance of armored forces, struck against mainly infantry units of the American V and VIII Corps.

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Vannoy and Karamales are to be congratulated for giving us good, solid history, presented in fascinating, fast-paced yarns of men struggling—sometimes successfully, sometimes in vain, but always heroically—against machines.

Col. Trevor Dupuy served in Burma in World War II as an artillery o f f i c e r . After the war he became one of America's foremost military historians, authoring more than 80 books. He also founded the Dupuy Institute for military studies, and developed the Quantified Judgment Method

of combat modeling.

T. N. DUPUY COL., U.S.A., RET.

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Preface

Every great battle or campaign is made up of many small, individual battles-warfare, at its core, is a series of fights between individuals or small groups. To those involved the relationship of the small actions to the bigger picture is seldom clear. One cannot visualize the larger operation without getting down to compa-nies, platoons, and even individuals. The advantage of looking at the "little pic-ture" is that things are more concrete, more realistic; it underscores the noblest part of the story (if any part of combat can be said to be noble)—the struggle of the individual soldier—whether an engineer straining to throw a bridge across a dark swirling river, a member of a wire team fumbling in the snow to repair a bro-ken line, a rifleman scrambling through the shattered streets of a village or advanc-ing through minefields and killadvanc-ing with the desperation that comes in the heat of a firefight.

This book was the outgrowth of a study by the Science Applications Inter-national Corporation for the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency on American infantry versus German armor during the Second World War. While doing research for the book it became clear that our focus needed to be widened, that the armies of World War II fought as combined arms teams—infantry, tanks, artillery, tank destroyers, antitank guns, and engineers. In selecting the engagements to be cov-ered, we attempted to identify actions where the Americans were usually facing a superior German attacking (or counterattacking) force.

It was our intention to place incidents in their larger perspective while mak-ing the situations more understandable—to clear away some of the fog of battle without dehumanizing the stories and to show the impact a single soldier, an indi-vidual, can have on larger events and on the lives of others.

In the engagements researched, we found a certain amount of mystery. Here were men, just average Joes, ordinary, yet extraordinary, caught up in events out of all proportion to their regular lives back home. Willing to place their lives in danger, yet, more than that, demonstrating through their deeds that they could overcome the deadliest and most terrible weapons of their time.

These accounts are based on official U.S. Army records from the National Archives and the U.S. Army Military History Institute-daily journals, unit diaries, journal files, unit histories, and after action reports—and on personal diaries, inter-views, and correspondence with veterans.

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In Chapt cr 1 we have tried to make the seemingly complex organizations of the U.S. and German armies more understandable and provide some background on their weapons and battlefield tactics. We have attempted to select a mix of actions—river crossings, meeting engagements, defensive operations, assaults on towns; a cross section of actions from the Normandy breakout, operations in Lor-raine, the Huertgen Forest, and the Ardennes. Covered are operations from August 1944 to January 1945—a period of rapid advances and intense combat, starting with Chapter 2-Mortain, France, 7 August 1944, where, supported by a platoon of four antitank guns, a battalion of infantry of the 30th Infantry Division lay in the path of an attacking panzer division. Chapter 3 describes a river crossing operation dur-ing September 1944: the 10th and 11th Infantry Regiments, 5th Infantry Division, at Arnaville, France. Chapter 4 covers the terrible ordeal of the 112th Infantry Reg-iment in the Huertgen Forest from November 2 to 8, 1944. Chapter 5 details a daring night assault on the small German village of Lucherberg, 2 - 5 December 1944, by elements of the 145th Infantry.

Included are a series of actions from the Battle of the Bulge beginning with the infantry of the Twenty-eighth Division at Hosingen, Luxembourg, on 16 December 1944 (Chapter 6); vignettes surrounding actions of the Second and Ninety-ninth Infantry Divisions at Krinkelt-Rocherath, Belgium, from 16 to 19 December 1944 (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 covers the bloody defense of a Belgian manor house by the Twenty-sixth Infantry Regiment against the full weight of the 12th SS Panzer Division at Dom Bütgenbach, 18 to 21 December 1944. And finally (Chapter 9), we describe American efforts to bait the Germans into throwing the panzers and panzer grenadiers of the Eleventh Panzer Division at the waiting guns of the Ninety-fourth Infantry Division at the villages of Butzdorf and Tettingen, Germany, on 18 January 1945.

The American soldier (and his German counterpart) was a fierce fighter, coura-geous, willing to put his life on the line to achieve his assigned mission or protect the lives of his comrades. But like anyone faced with the unknown, the brutality of war, and the knowledge of his own mortality, he was given to fear from time to time. Many were the acts of individual courage in combat by GIs, men willing to risk everything, willing to pay the ultimate price that came with duty against the enemy—against the panzers.

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Infantry Against Armor

Organization of American Forces

During World War II the American army operated three main types of divi-sions—infantry, armored, and airborne. Of the eighty-nine divisions in existence at the end of the war, sixty-six were infantry (all but one seeing combat), sixteen armored, five airborne, one mountain, and one cavalry (mechanized). The group-ing together of nondivisional (those units not organized into divisions) infantry and artillery units would have amounted to another six infantry divisions and that of independent armored units to an additional twenty armored divisions. Each of the basic types of divisions was usually reinforced or supplemented by the attach-ment of other (nondivisional) units in order to ensure that the division could fulfill its assigned mission. Such attachments might include tanks, tank destroyers, anti-aircraft artillery, chemical weapons companies, truck companies, engineer bridge companies, field hospitals, ambulance companies, and counterintelligence and POW interrogation teams.

By the end of the war, 317 regiments of infantry (most assigned to divisions) of various kinds had been formed. A new and specialized type of infantry was cre-ated during the war, intended as the dismounted element of the armored divisions-armored infantry. Armored infantry differed from standard infantry only in that it had sufficient transport of its own to move its entire force in one trip and in that its vehicles (half-tracks—predecessors of modern armored personnel carriers or APCs) had cross-country capability and light armor and were thus able to keep pace with and support the tanks.

Within the infantry regiment the smallest subunit was the rifle squad of twelve men (armed with ten Ml .30-caliber Garand rifles, one Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR, pronounced as if spelling it) and one M1903 Springfield sniper's rifle). Three squads plus a command element formed a rifle platoon, and three rifle platoons, one weapons platoon, and a company headquarters (HQ) composed a rifle com-pany. The weapons platoon had two air-cooled .30-caliber light machine guns (LMGS), three 60mm mortars, three bazookas, and a water-cooled .30-cal or air-cooled ,50-cal heavy machine gun (HMGs).

The key fighting element of the American army was the battalion. A battal-ion was comprised of three rifle companies, a headquarters company, and a heavy

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weapons company with six 81mm mortars, eight LMGs, seven bazookas, and three HMGs. A battalion numbered 871 officers and enlisted men.

The battalion's HQ company included an antitank platoon of three 57mm antitank guns. The battalion's headquarters section operated the battalion's com-mand post (CP) and was the nerve center of the battalion-where the battalion commander and his staff did their work. The HQ section also manned the bat-talion observation posts (OPs), which were the eyes and ears of the batbat-talion. Each company also had its own CP and OP.

A battalion communication platoon consisted of a headquarters, message cen-ter section, wire section, and radio/visual section. It laid wire to the OPs, to the CP of the AT platoon, to the CP of the Ammunition and Pioneer (A&P) platoon, or to the battalion ammunition supply point. Wire was also laid to the company CPs and to the CP of the battalion on the right flank. The communication pla-toon also manned the SCR694 radio that linked the battalion to the regimental command net. A battalion radio command net was established by distributing SCR300s to the battalion OPs, the CPs of the AT platoon and the rifle and heavy weapons companies. Another SCR300 and operator went with the commanding officer when he left the CP so that he could stay in contact.

The battalion's A&P platoon was composed of a headquarters and three squads of ten men each. The pioneers ran the battalion ammunition supply point. Ammu-nition moved forward from there to the company area. The A&P platoon could also perform light engineering tasks, such as bridging small ditches and streams, improving roads and trails, the demolition of fortifications and obstacles and the laying, locating, and removal of mines. In a pinch, the pioneers could fill in on the line as riflemen.

The infantry regiment (3,118 personnel) held three battalions along with a HQ and HQ company, a cannon company (six 105mm howitzers), an antitank company (twelve 57mm AT guns and a mine-laying platoon), and a service com-pany in charge of transporting supplies.

Cavalry (mechanized) units served as the eyes of armored and infantry divisions, performing reconnaissance missions by employing infiltration tactics, fire, and maneu-ver. As a general rule, cavalry was to engage in combat only to the extent necessary to accomplish reconnaissance or to perform screening missions. Each U.S. mecha-nized cavalry squadron (the counterpart to the infantry battalion) comprised a head-quarters and HQ troop, with three reconnaissance or cavalry troops (comparable to an infantry company) and supporting elements, i.e., a light tank company and an assault gun troop. During the war more than one hundred divisional cavalry units were formed—an armored reconnaissance battalion in each armored division and a cavalry reconnaissance troop in each infantry division. Despite their stated role, only three percent of their assignments were concerned with pure recon-naissance tasks. Other types of missions included defensive operations (33% of assignments), acting as a mobile reserve (29%), security missions involving block-ing, screenblock-ing, protecting flanks (25%), and offensive operations (10%).

One of the responses of the U.S. Army to the early war successes of the Ger-man blitzkrieg was to investigate ways of stopping armor. American planners

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Table of Organization and Equipment:

US Infantry Division, 15 July 1943

concluded that it was impractical to equip infantry divisions with enough anti-tank guns to stop such attacks although each division was outfitted with sixty-three towed AT guns. The War Department's planners decided that the answer was to use fast moving, high velocity guns en masse. Tactically, a few would be sited in static defensive positions, but the majority would be held as a mobile reserve ready to "seek, strike, and destroy" enemy armor. These new mobile antitank bat-talions were called tank destroyers (TD) as opposed to antitank, in order to empha-size their aggressive role even though the two types of units might use the same equipment. Thus an infantry division could have antitank (AT) units outfitted with towed 57mm antitank guns as well as a tank destroyer battalion that was also equipped with 57mm guns. The TD force grew to eighty battalions, each having thirty-six guns. About half the battalions were equipped with self-propelled (SP)

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guns, the rest with towed pieces. Many battalions were converted from towed to self-propelled guns as the war progressed, reflecting the hard-won knowledge that towed pieces were at a severe disadvantage on a changing battlefield. The self-pro-pelled TDs were lightly armored, open-turret vehicles mounting high velocity guns. The principles of the use of self-propelled TDs were never very well defined, but in many cases the infantry commanders to whom they were attached used them like tanks—their effect on the morale of the infantry being similar to that of tanks. Essentially a supporting arm, field artillery, which included light pack (75mm), medium(105 and 155mm), and heavy weapons (240mm), was able to give close and continuous fire support to the combat troops. It also provided counter-battery fire and fire on enemy reserves; it restricted the enemy's movement in rear areas and disrupted his command and communications. The quality of American artillery was augmented by the development of the fire direction center and the wide use of forward observers and spotter aircraft. The use of spotter planes was standard in every division.

Antiaircraft artillery (AA or AAA) battalions were independently organized and then attached to divisions. They served not only to defend ground forces from enemy planes but also provided devastating fire in support of ground operations with their quad-50s (e.g., quad [4-gun mount] ,50-cal machine guns mounted on half-tracks).

Among the army ground forces the engineers filled a range of roles: heavy and light pontoon battalions, maintenance and depot companies, camouflage bat-talions and companies, combat regiments and batbat-talions. Front-line engineers were employed to clear and construct obstacles, lay and clear mine fields, ferry troops across rivers, and build bridges. Those engineers behind the front or in the rear operated saw mills, built shelters, roads, ports, and airfields. By June 1945, there were 89 divisional combat engineer battalions, 204 nondivisional combat engi-neer battalions, 79 general service regiments, and 36 construction battalions.

Divisional engineers provided road repair and bridge building services. A reconnaissance section was attached to the engineer battalion HQ and service com-pany, so that the commanding officer could formulate his own estimates for bridg-ing or road repairs. Heavy engineerbridg-ing assets (i.e., pontoon bridgbridg-ing) were held at higher levels (corps groups) and were used to supplement divisional engineers as necessary.

Tactics

The power of the weapons used in ground operations required units to come up with solutions when under enemy fire. The primary answer was to disperse forces. This placed a heavy burden on the ingenuity and skill of small unit lead-ers as well as on the individual soldier. As a result the use of communications equipment increased. For the first time in general warfare the elements of a com-pany could communicate with each other by radio. By the end of the war there were eight radios included in the equipment set of the U.S. Army's rifle company.

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In addition, by using sound powered telephones, the Americans added telephone communication even on the platoon and squad level. During offensive operations radios served as the communications workhorse in forward areas. Here the Americans held an advantage because they had a good intracompany radio system using an amplitude modulated (AM) set, the SCR-536, or handie-talkie. One of the communications mainstays of the war was the SCR-300, the walkie-talkie, an FM set, used primarily at company and battalion levels. German sets, all of which were AM, were subject to interference by the sheer volume of their own numbers as well as by Allied radio traffic. Perhaps because of the lack of intercompany wire or radio, the Germans used visual signals, such as colored lights and pyrotechnics, more often than the Americans did. When telephone lines were destroyed or dis-rupted by enemy artillery fire, U.S. artillery radios nets were often pressed into service as the sole means of communications between forward companies and CPs.

The basic mode of combat operations on both sides of the front was "fire and maneuver." The tactic was quite simple. Once the defender's force was located, the attacker would attempt to pin down the defender with long-range weapons (machine guns, mortars, and artillery). While the defender was thus occupied, the attacker would send in forward maneuver forces, usually infantry with tanks or self-propelled guns. If the defender was not too occupied with keeping his head down, the attacker was likely to get shot to pieces. If the maneuver force survived, it would "close in and capture or destroy the enemy." Smaller combat elements operating without long-range support would split into two groups and advance in leap-frog fashion, with one group providing cover fire while the other advanced. This tactic had numerous variations but remained essentially "fire and maneuver." For defensive purposes, the "maneuver" force would remain stationary and direct fire on the advancing enemy.

Fire superiority, brought about by the effective use of infantry and armored weapons in combination with artillery and air support, was the key to success in both attack and defense. Without fire superiority neither maneuvering against an enemy force in defensive positions nor repelling a well-executed assault were pos-sible. U.S. combat strategy reflected a heavy reliance on artillery support.

Initially, basic infantry assault tactics were the ones that had emerged in the final phases of World War I. Each twelve-man rifle squad included a squad leader, a two-man scout section, a four-man fire section (with a BAR providing the main source of the squad's firepower) and a five-man maneuver and assault section. The scouts, accompanied by the squad leader, were to locate the enemy. The squad leader would then call on the fire section to give covering fire while the maneuver and assault section advanced and positioned itself to eliminate the enemy threat. When necessary the infantry squad would turn to the tanks and tank destroy-ers for help. For this reason it became the norm to assign armor to all sizable infantry formations. Tanks and TDs were also of major importance when dealing with enemy armored and fixed emplacements, e.g., concrete pillboxes. A favorite method of attack was to use an infantry company supported by a platoon of tanks (three to seven vehicles). Sometimes the tanks would advance first, sometimes the tanks would be preceded by an infantry skirmish line, sometimes the infantry rode

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on the tanks. The tanks took on the enemy strongholds, while the infantry dealt with antitank weapons.

Generally, the axiom of combat was, and still is, that the artillery does the killing while the infantry does the dying. Fragmentation weapons (bombs and shells) inflicted between eighty and ninety percent of the wounds in battle while the infantry suffered over eighty percent of the casualties. In 1944-45 the Amer-icans relied heavily on artillery superiority. If solid artillery support was available, the Americans could hold out against almost any odds, but without it, they did not fare as well.

As a standard rule, an infantry battalion could defend one to five kilometers of frontage, depending on how it was deployed. Spread across five kilometers, it defended by using a series of nonsupporting (independent) strongholds. With somewhat less frontage to cover, the strongholds (manned in platoon or company strength) would be within sight and small arms range of one another. Thus they could cover and support each other in the event of an attack. If the front was smaller still (one kilometer or less), it would then be possible to hold a continu-ous line. Even in this case, the defense consisted of strongholds, but they were placed closer together. A maneuver force, mobile and armored if possible, would be held in reserve to meet any enemy breakthroughs. The strongholds would be placed so as to cover vital areas such as roads, defiles, and river crossings.

To prevent the enemy from obtaining information or intelligence, each side would establish a "security zone" between itself and the enemy. This zone, vary-ing in width from a few hundred meters to a few kilometers, would be patrolled constantly as both sides sought to collect information and prevent the opponent from doing so. The extended nature (i.e., thin line of defenses) of the American positions in the Ardennes allowed the Germans to cross this security zone largely unopposed.

Up until 1945 most American units, caught in situations where tactics counted for more than firepower, had been tested severely. This was particularly true of offensive situations in terrain suitable only for infantry (e.g., Huertgen Forest). American tactics depended to a large extent on the well-executed application of superior firepower in the same way that the German Army in 1939-42 had depended on its superior mobility (motorization) in its blitzkrieg.

The success or failure of a German attack could be foretold by the respon-siveness of American fire support. German attacks during daylight hours—with or without tanks—against established veteran infantrymen with an operating com-munications net were defeated in nearly every case. If the Germans chose to attack at night, under conditions that limited visibility, or if the American artillery was moving or in disarray, then the Germans stood a chance of success.

Rarely did the threat of tanks break an American line supported by artillery. Normally, any accompanying German infantry support would be stripped from the tanks by concentrated small arms fire, then the tanks would be knocked out with bazookas and AT guns. Often, concentrated artillery fire was enough to break up a German attack.

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By 1944 the war had turned into one of attrition, where the application of firepower prevailed. The American units had the firepower and knew how to use it. They had the guns, the ammunition, and the most advanced fire control systems (for both field artillery and air to ground support operations) developed during the war. In a slugfest, American firepower would triumph.

The Opposition

By 1944-45 the German army was well past its prime. The struggle in Nor-mandy, followed by the Allied breakout and drive across France, had resulted in a tremendous battering of the German forces—divisions sustaining heavy losses of men and equipment. However, most of the losses were in the front line forces, the infantry and panzers while the supporting services managed to retain most of their strength and experienced personnel, and the artillery mostly retained its old, battle-proven subordinate officers and men. However, the artillery suffered from ill-assorted equipment, a limited number of guns, and an increasing shortage of communications equipment and ammunition. Moreover, losses of experienced artillery liaison officers (forward observers) in the front line units reached critical stages.

A common German defensive tactic in the face of a major enemy offensive was that of a flexible or "mobile defense." A number of panzer or panzer grenadier units (in division strength if available) were to be maintained ten to twenty miles behind the front line in order to be ready to launch immediate counterattacks against enemy penetration. However, as time wore on, the lack of fuel and short-age of equipment limited this option. In addition, as these forces dwindled, they had to cover a wider frontage and deal with more and greater crises. The concen-tration of panzer forces could not be carried out as mobile forces often became tied down; even if local successes might be achieved, recovery of lost ground was usually not possible.

The heavy drain of the war had forced the German army early in 1944 to reduce the strength of its standard infantry division from just over seventeen thou-sand men to just under thirteen thouthou-sand men. This was done in part by elimi-nating one of the battalions from each of the infantry division's three regiments, a reduction from nine to six battalions, although a fusilier or pionier (engineer) bat-talion was normally employed as a seventh infantry batbat-talion. At slightly over four-teen thousand men, the basic American infantry division thus had a thousand more men than its German counterpart. To offset the manpower cuts, the Germans increased the number of individual automatic weapons in their divisions by adding a machine pistol known as the Schmeisser, whose high cyclic rate of fire made a b-r-r-r-r-r-p sound, which led the Americans to dub it "burp gun."

In spite of the German army's manpower reductions in 1944 neither the

Panzergrenadier divisions nor the German parachute division had to take the same

sharp reductions imposed on the infantry (Landsers) or Volksgrenadiers ("peoples" divisions—an honorary title for units called up in the final draft of the war). Thus,

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both types of divisions still had nine battalions of infantry. The parachute divisions, controlled by the Luftwaffe, were considered an elite, and in months long past they had been made up almost entirely of volunteers. However, after heavy losses in the airborne assault on the Greek island of Crete in 1941, Hitler had become disen-chanted with airborne troops and airborne training virtually ceased. The title of parachute division had become nothing more than honorary.

The Wehrmacht (regular German army) panzer (armored) and Waffen-SS panzer divisions were composed of a panzer regiment with two panzer battalions, a self-propelled tank destroyer (Panzerjäger) battalion, and two panzer grenadier (mechanized infantry mounted in half-tracks) regiments, plus artillery and service elements. By late 1944, a full-strength panzer division was supposed to have about 130 tanks and tank destroyers or self-propelled guns. However, due to equipment shortages, the panzer battalions rarely had the full number of tanks, and in some divisions only one of the panzer grenadier regiments was armored (mounted on half-tracks), the others were either riding in trucks or walking.

The infantry of both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS panzer grenadier divisions was organized into four panzer grenadier battalions in the army division, six in the SS division. The Wehrmacht's panzer grenadier division was to have thirteen thousand men and the SS division half again as many to a total of twenty thou-sand. All the SS divisions were given special treatment as they were supported by an attached tank or self-propelled gun battalion, a Nebelwerfer battalion, and a heavy 170mm artillery battery.

The one major advantage of the Germans was the quality of their tanks vis-à-vis those of the Americans. The American TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment) for armored divisions still included seventy-seven light tanks for use in reconnaissance units, even though their armor was absurdly thin and their 37mm main gun was of little value except against infantry and light or unarmored vehi-cles. The standard American tank was the 33-ton M4 Sherman; most of them were still equipped with the short-barreled 75mm gun although some had an improved long-barreled 76mm high-velocity piece (M4A1). By December 1944, the Sher-man was considered by Sher-many to be virtually obsolete, its only advantages over Ger-man tanks being a greater rate of fire (a result of the gun's gyro-stabilizer and the turret's power traverse), its somewhat greater mobility, and mechanical reliability. As a drawback, the Sherman used regular gasoline rather than diesel fuel and was thus easily set on fire; some of its crews called it the Ronson after a popular ciga-rette lighter. American heavy tanks did not reach the battlefield until 1945. But the Shermans were plentiful, and when operating in rough terrain or in the streets of the many villages and towns that dotted the European countryside, they could gain an equal footing with their larger and tougher German counterparts.

The workhorses of the German Wehrmacht panzer and SS panzer divisions were medium tanks: the 24-ton Mark IV (Panzerkampfwagen) mounting a long-barreled 75mm gun and the 45.5 ton Panther (Mark V), which also mounted a 75mm gun but had much thicker armor than either the Mark IV or the Sherman. Although the Shermans fought on equal terms with the Mark IV, they could knock out a Panther only if they managed to hit the side or rear of the vehicle.

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Table of Organization and Equipment:

German SS-Panzer Division, 1944

Total Authorized Personnel Strength:

6 0 6 O f f i c e r s 3 , 9 3 1 N C O S 1 3 , 2 7 2 E M

1 7 , 8 0 9 t o t a l

Total Authorized C o m b a t Strength:

5 1 2 O f f i c e r s 3 , 5 3 4 N C O s 1 1 , 2 7 3 E M 1 5 , 3 1 9 t o t a l Authorized W e a p o n Strengths: 7 9 x M k P a n t h e r 1 0 1 x M k I V p a n z e r 3 x Mk III p a n z e r 39 x PzJg IV Jagdpanzer 1 2 x W e s p e 1 0 5 m m S P G u n 6 x H u m m e l 1 5 0 m m SP G u n 63 x light h a l f - t r a c k s 2 4 1 x h e a v y half t r a c k s 8 x 3 7 m m SP Flak 1 8 x 8 8 m m t o w e d Flak 9 x 3 7 m m t o w e d Flak 10 x q u a d - 2 0 m m SP Flak 5 0 x 2 0 m m Flak 1 2 x 1 0 5 m m S P G u n / H o w (sIG) 2 , 0 0 0 x Panzerfausts 68 x f l a m e t h r o w e r s 6 2 x light m o r t a r s ( 8 0 m m ) 2 6 x h e a v y m o r t a r s ( 1 2 0 m m ) I , 1 0 2 L M G s 1 0 2 H M G s I I , 6 8 5 rifles 1 , 7 1 2 m a c h i n e pistols 4 , 3 6 2 pistols

The Germans also had a 55-ton Mark VI, a behemoth known as the Tiger and a 68 to 75 ton King Tiger (Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B Königstiger, also known as Tiger II or Royal Tiger among the Allies), both of which were heavily armored and mounted a deadly 88mm gun. Although many reports by American soldiers referred to Tiger tanks, they were the minority among German armored forces along the front and were employed in independent battalions of about forty-five vehicles each. The only American weapon that could consistently be counted on to knock out a Tiger was an American tank destroyer equipped with a 90mm gun, which had been developed originally as an antiaircraft weapon (like the famed

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German "88"). The TDs, on the other hand, were too thin-skinned to be deployed against a Tiger.

The Germans also had a vast array of assault guns, tank destroyers, and tank hunters, varying in quality from French and Czech converted equipment to the outstanding 45-ton Jagdpanther mounting an 88mm main gun. This dispersion of effort into variants and experimental vehicles to some extent diluted the effective-ness of the German armored forces, especially because supplying and repairing the bewildering number of models became increasingly difficult.

Weapons

The American counterparts to the burp gun included the .45-caliber Thomp-son submachine gun and the M3 "grease gun," but they were not issued in such large numbers as were the German machine pistols. The other small arms of the two antagonists were roughly similar. The basic shoulder weapon in the U.S. Army, the Ml Garand, a semiautomatic .30-caliber rifle, gave the Americans some fire-power advantage over the German Mauser bolt-action 7.92mm piece, but wide-spread use of machine-pistols by the Germans lessened that advantage. Also widely used in American units was the stocky, semiautomatic .30-caliber Ml carbine, especially among officers. The U.S. rifle squad's main source of firepower came pri-marily from a World War 1 weapon, the .30-caliber Browning Automatic Rifle, the BAR. The firepower of the BAR proved so important to the infantrymen that a second authorized weapon was added to the rifle squad later in the war (and even a third, "unauthorized," BAR could be found in some squads).

Light air-cooled machine guns were comparable on both sides, but the Ger-man piece (the 7.92mm MG-42) had a much higher cyclic rate of fire, which pro-duced such rapid fire that the German soldiers called it the Hitler-Sage (Hitler's saw). The Americans used both a ,30-pal light machine gun and a heavy machine gun (,50-cal). In both armies the machine gun was an integral part of the infantry company though the heavier versions were usually found in the heavy weapons Company within the rifle battalion.

In both the German and American armies the basic mortar was the 80mm and 81mm tube, respectively. The American soldiers also placed considerable faith in the 60mm mortar; the Germans having abandoned their less effective 50mm by 1944. On the American side there was a limited number of a much more pow-erful weapon, the 4.2-inch (106.68mm) mortar, designed and initially deployed for firing chemical shells but also effective with high explosive and white phos-phorus (WP) rounds. The Germans used heavier mortars (i.e., 120mm) in increas-ing numbers in 1944 to supplement their depleted artillery.

In the offense, the American battalion base of fire was to be provided by the eight heavy machine guns and six 81mm mortars of the battalion heavy weapons company, supplemented by the cannon company and field artillery. As the attack echelon neared the assault line, these weapons would be forced to lift and shift to other targets. Just before that happened, the light machine guns (air-cooled

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.30-caliber) and 60mm mortars were supposed to join in and fill the ensuing gap. After the enemy position had been taken, the LMGs and the 60mm mortars were to rush forward to help repel the inevitable counterattack. In a formal defense, the L M G S reinforced the fire of the heavy machine guns on the final protective line. The mortars covered the dead space in the fields of machine gun fire.

« The Germans supplemented their artillery with a six-barrel 150mm rocket launcher and mortar, the Nebelwerfer, which was mounted on a carriage and fired electrically. Though the projectiles (all six fired in unison) of the Nebelwerfer made a terrifying sound while in flight, which earned it the nickname "Screaming Meemie," it was an "area weapon" due to its inaccuracy. Its shells also had little fragmentation effect. The Americans had their own area-effect weapon in the 4.5-inch (114.3mm) multiple rocket launcher.

Two other widely used weapons were hand grenades and close-range antitank weapons. The Americans had two fragmentation hand grenades (the M2A1 "pine-apple" and the cylindrical M3A1) while the Germans used their "potato masher" concussion grenade, which had changed little since World War 1. Both sides had individual infantry antitank weapons, firing rockets employing a shaped charge; these were rocket-propelled warheads with an explosive charge shaped to create a focused burst of energy, or plasma jet, that could penetrate the steel plate of a tank or armored vehicle. The Americans had a 2.36-inch (59.94mm) rocket launcher, the bazooka (named after a makeshift musical instrument played by the hillbilly radio comedian Bob Burns), while the Germans had a one-shot 88mm

Panzer-faust (mailed fist) and the Panzerschreck, a weapon patterned after U.S. bazookas

captured in North Africa. The Americans also had an antitank rifle grenade, but it was not widely used because it was too cumbersome.

American crew-served antitank weapons included a towed 57mm piece, which was standard issue until later in the war. Even though the towed antitank guns were considered to have a number of liabilities—lack of mobility and limited pen-etrating power—they were frequently the GIs' primary antitank defense. The Ger-man infantry division employed eighteen self-propelled assault guns

(Sturm-geschütz) mounting a 75mm main gun, which were normally used as close support

for attacking infantry but were also effective against tanks. If any German weapon can be said to have impressed the American soldiers, it was the "88," a high-veloc-ity, dual-purpose 88mm antiaircraft and antitank gun. Though widely used, the 88 was not nearly as ubiquitous as the American soldiers believed.

The basic artillery pieces of both combatants were light and medium how-itzers of similar caliber and performance. In both German and American infantry divisions, tables of organization called for one medium battalion of twelve how-itzers (150mm for the Germans, 155mm for the Americans) and three light artillery battalions (twelve 105mm howitzers in each), supplemented by additional units controlled at corps and army levels. Usually, one light artillery battalion was assigned to provide direct support to each of the division's three infantry regi-ments, and the medium battalion remained in general support for the entire divi-sion, using its fire power to deal with the most important missions or crises. Both German and American artillery in infantry divisions were, in theory, motor-towed,

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but due to fuel and equipment shortages the Germans increasingly had to turn to horse-drawn guns. To supplement American division artillery, each infantry reg-iment had six towed, short-barreled 105mm howitzers in a cannon company. In practice the howitzers of the regimental cannon companies were usually directed by the division in order to add to its firepower. American armored divisions (and German panzer divisions to some extent) were supported by self-propelled artillery pieces that could keep pace with the division's armored units.

Lessons Learned

The Germans were struck by the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Ameri-can arms and ammunition. They were also particularly impressed with the fragile little American liaison or artillery spotter planes. This light aircraft was invaluable for adjusting artillery fire and for spotting German artillery behind the lines. The Germans also had considerable respect for the efficiency of American communi-cations equipment and the way it made possible the rapid calling up and adjust-ment of artillery fire.

The American troops augmented their firepower and their chances of sur-vival by picking up extra weapons and equipment to fill a perceived need. This resulted in veteran units having a few extra machine guns, bazookas, and even a truck or two. Some units even managed to acquire light artillery pieces, tank destroyers, and the occasional tank. Such equipment was usually "found" in vary-ing states of disrepair on the battlefield and became an "unofficial" part of the unit, or it was acquired by drawing supplies from understanding supply person-nel.

To provide increased direct fire support for the infantry and better antitank defense, it had become standard practice by the fall of 1944 to attach to each Amer-ican infantry division a tank battalion and a tank destroyer battalion. The tank battalion had a company of light tanks (thirteen M5 or M5A1 Stuarts) and three companies of medium tanks (fifty-three M4 or M4A1 Shermans). Some battalions had an assault gun platoon with six armored, tracked vehicles mounting a 105mm howitzer (i.e., a Sherman mounting a 105). The tank destroyer battalions evolved throughout the war from towed 57mm or towed 3-inch (76.2mm) (the latter so designated because it was a copy of a naval weapon) guns to 29-ton GMC (gun motor carriage) M10 "Wolverines" mounting a 3-inch gun, the M18 ("Hellcat") with a 76mm gun and weighing 18 tons, and by late in 1944 the 28-ton M36 with its hard hitting, high velocity 90mm gun.

One of the major differences between the opposing forces was the presence of American fighter-bomber aircraft. By September 1944 the Luftwaffe had virtu-ally ceased to exist as a tactical ground support element. The Americans came to depend so heavily on air support that their planning and operations were greatly impacted_by adverse weather. Each American field army had one tactical air com-mand (TAC) assigned for support. A TAC usually controlled six fighter-bomber groups, with a group normally having three squadrons of twenty-five planes each,

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either P-38 Lightnings, P-47 Thunderbolts, or P-51 Mustangs. Requests for air support usually came from frontline divisions through an air section at corps head-quarters, but since air targets could not always be anticipated, a fighter group often was assigned to a specific corps or division for an entire day to take advantage of "targets of opportunity."

The air support behind the Allied armies was tremendously powerful. In close support of the ground troops were the TACs, but eleven groups of medium and light bombers (B-26 Marauders, A-20 Havocs, and A-26 Invaders) of the Ninth U.S. Air Force and other mediums under British control were also available. On occasion, the devastating heavy bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force (B-17 Fly-ing Fortresses and B-24 Liberators) and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command could be called in. Not counting Allied aircraft based in Italy, the Allies could muster more than 17,500 first-line combat aircraft.

The attachment of additional units to American infantry divisions made them considerably stronger and at least equal to a full-strength German panzergrenadier division (i.e., mechanized infantry), which had organic medium tank and tank destroyer battalions and a contingent of half-tracks for transporting its grenadiers (motorized infantry). Since American divisions had a wealth of motor vehicles as well as attached tanks and tank destroyers, they were as mobile as the panzer-grenadier divisions and more so by the time they met in western Europe, given the shortages of fuel and vehicles affecting the German army.

American infantry divisions employed their infantry regiments as combined arms teams (regimental combat teams, RCT) formed to operate independently, with additional elements, such as a battalion of 105mm howitzers, a company of engineers, and a company each of tanks and tank destroyers. The RCT was identified by its regimental number (e.g., the 317th Infantry Regiment and sup-port units being identified as the 317th RCT).

In order to carry out specific missions or operations the Americans copied the basic principles of the German Kampfgruppe (combat group) and organized small, independent combat groups, known as task forces. Various parts of a divi-sion or regiment were drawn on to form a task force, which was usually a tempo-rary organization composed of select combat units or elements. A task force might be built around a tank battalion by attaching a company each of infantry and engi-neers (a tank-heavy force) or by placing a battery of howitzers and a platoon of tanks and tank destroyers under the direction of an infantry company (an infantry-heavy force). Once the objective was taken or the mission completed, the task force was dissolved or reorganized.

Both sides had specialized units such as signal, quartermaster, ordnance, engi-neers, and the like, but the German army's units were inferior in both numbers and quality. The Germans suffered from critical shortages, for example, of tank recovery vehicles. Even late in the war several of their engineer battalions had yet to erect their first bridge. The American units, on the other hand, were usually at full strength and thoroughly trained in the use of their equipment. American engi-neer battalions, in addition to their engiengi-neering training, were trained to fight as infantry, and thus provided an additional or emergency reserve force. American

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units also had a built-in "tinker-factor": the average American soldier was more likely to have come from civilian life with a knowledge of basic vehicle mechan-ics than was the average German Landser. Thus, the American soldier was often able to repair his vehicle by himself which in turn reduced the burden on the divi-sion's maintenance section.

As the American infantry and antitank forces came into contact with the Ger-man panzers, the Americans were tested to their limits.

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Test of Courage

On 25 July 1944 the U.S. Army launched Operation Cobra to penetrate the strong German defenses that had kept the Allies in the Normandy hedgerows since D-Day. Preceded by a bombing raid by over two thousand bombers and fighter-bombers dropping over four thousand tons of bombs and napalm on the German positions, the attack tore a hole in the German lines through which several U.S. divisions quickly advanced. Encountering generally weak resistance in the bombed area, the U.S. breakthrough turned into a breakout under the aggressive leader-ship of American commanders like General J. Lawton Collins of the VII Corps, who thrust his armored divisions far south through the gap. Within a week of the opening of the American offensive, the VIII Corps had driven down the Atlantic coast toward Brittany, capturing the important road center of Avranches. In the next week the advance continued as some U.S. forces turned west down the length of the Brittany .Peninsula toward Brest while even larger formations continued south and east, spilling into lightly garrisoned areas of France well behind the main German lines.

The situation was critical for the Germans. The American capture of Avranches had unhinged their left flank, which had been anchored on the Atlantic coast, and their flanks were being bent back to form a deep pocket pointing west-ward. In a desperate bid to regain the initiative in France, Hitler ordered a coun-teroffensive through the tip of this pocket with the objective of retaking Avranches and thus cutting off General George S. Patton's Third Army in the south. After rebuilding a strong northward-facing defensive line and destroying the Third Army, the Germans could then turn their full attention again toward the First Army of General Omar Bradley and drive the Allies back into the sea. The first phase of this grandiose scheme, the counterattack to retake Avranches, was given the code-name Operation Lüttich (Liege); to the Americans it would become known as the Mortain counterattack.

German Forces at Mortain

Under Hitler's auspices the commander of Army Group B (all German forces in the west), Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, assembled four panzer divisions

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and the remnants of a panzer grenadier (mechanized infantry) division to hurl against the Allies. He placed these divisions under the control of the XLVII Panzer Korps, commanded by General Hans Freiherr von Funck. The XLVII Panzer Korps assembled a few kilometers east of the town of Mortain, which the U.S. First Infantry Division had snatched from the reconnaissance battalion of the Second Panzer Division on 3 August.

The German High Command scheduled the attack to begin on 6 August even though Hitler had wanted to delay the counterattack until additional units from southern France had arrived to reinforce the assault. But von Kluge saw his left flank collapsing and knew that he had to attack immediately or risk being com-pletely surrounded by the almost uncontested American advance to the south and east. On 6 August, the German attack force consisted of two Wehrmacht panzer divisions, the Second (Viennese) Panzer Division and the 116th (Windhund) Panzer Division, and two SS panzer divisions, the First SS Panzer Division ("Leibstan-darte Adolf Hitler") and the Second SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich"). Attached to the Second SS Panzer Division were the remnants of the Seventeenth SS Panz-ergrenadier Division ("Götz von Berlichingen"), which amounted to about a reg-iment's worth of men and equipment. In any event, the 116th Panzer Division did not participate in the attack because its commander, Lt. Gen. Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, refused to commit his men to what he believed to be a futile and sui-cidal attack. He was relieved of his command, but this came too late to affect the battle.

The German plan was essentially to make a two-pronged drive toward Avranches. The attack would be made between the Seé River to the north and the Selune River to the south, providing excellent natural protection for the flanks of the corps as it advanced into the American rear. The Second SS Panzer Division in the south was to recapture Mortain and the high ground to the east and then move on toward St. Hilaire while the Second Panzer Division in the north would attack in the little village of St. Barthelmy, through which ran the main highway from Mortain to Avranches. Once these initial forces had broken through the American defenses, the First SS Panzer Division was to drive through the gap and push its way into Avranches.

The American Forces

The target of this onslaught was a single U.S. division, the Thirtieth Infantry, attached to VII Corps. The Thirtieth was in the process of relieving the First Divi-sion around Mortain on 6 August. Most of the diviDivi-sion's component units did not bother establishing well-prepared defensive positions, expecting to continue the offensive after a brief respite.

The 117th Infantry Regiment, one of the Thirtieth's three regiments, was assigned to move into the sector around St. Barthelmy. Company A would cover the north and northeastern approaches to the village while Company C to its right would be on the southeast and southern edges of the town. Company B was

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deployed about 600 meters to the northwest around the crossroads at Le Fantay. The regimental command post was set up in some houses in an orchard about one kilometer to the west, a spot known locally as La Rossaye. Later, the Amer-icans would come to know it as "Chateau Nebelwerfer." Arriving at St. Barthelmy in the late morning of 6 August from the division's former assignment with the XIX Corps near Tessy, the 117th occupied the positions of the departing First Division men, who told them that the only significant German forces in the area were some armored reconnaissance elements, or "cavalry," to the northeast. They also said that "there wasn't a German within a hundred miles of there who wanted to fight"—a statement that the men of the 117th wanted to believe. As they set-tled into their positions covering the highway and the approaches to the town, the GIs of the 117th were looking forward to resting a day or two before resum-ing their advance.

A few miles away, the German advance was having trouble getting started. Allied air attacks made ground movement during daylight hours all but impossi-ble, and the Germans were suffering from a shortage of motorized vehicles. Many of their units were forced to march to their assembly areas on foot at night. In addition, the First SS Panzer Division was late moving into its assembly area, and with its units strung out along the roads, it was late moving out. As a result, the Panzergrenadier Regiment "Der Führer" of the Second SS Panzer Division, which was behind it, was also late in arriving. Because of these delays, von Kluge post-poned the jump-off time for the attack first to the evening of August 6 and then to midnight. The Second Panzer Division's assault on St. Barthelmy, however, had

The German Counterattack

at Mortain Aiifu«t 1944

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to wait for a battalion of tanks from the First SS Panzer Regt., and that attack would ultimately not start off until 0500 on 7 August.

As a matter of practice, elements of the American 823d Tank Destroyer Bat-talion provided antitank support for the Thirtieth Division's component regiments. Company B of the 823d was attached to the 117th Regiment. The Third Platoon of Company B, commanded by Lt. George Greene who had been with the outfit only five weeks, received orders to establish defensive positions within St. Barthelmy. The First and Second Platoons took up positions farther west toward Juvigny on the Mortain-Avranches road.

Moving from the Thirtieth Division's previous area at Tessy, Greene's TD platoon arrived in the city of Mortain about midday on 6 August. Together with two other GIs, Lt. Greene drove north in a jeep to evaluate positions for his pla-toon's towed 3-inch guns in St. Barthelmy. As they exited the north end of the suburb l'Abbaye-Blanche, Greene and his men came under mortar fire from well-placed German observation posts on Hill 314, about 2 kilometers northeast of St. Barthelmy. To escape the German fire, Greene pulled off the main road at the Grande la Dainie crossroads and onto a sunken trail that paralleled the main road about 100 yards to the east. The high hedgerows with thick vegetation on either side of this trail provided total cover from the German observation posts, and Greene decided that this would be the best route for his platoon's prime movers and antitank guns when they moved to St. Barthelmy.

When he reached St. Barthelmy, Greene was disappointed to learn that the tank destroyers that supported the First Division and whose positions he had hoped to use for his guns, had been self-propelled M10 TDs, so there were no suitable prepared defensive positions for his towed guns and no time to build new ones before dark.

The Mortain Counterattack

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Greene's guns arrived between 2130 and 2200 that evening, moving up the covered sunken trail. The Germans on Hill 314 fired their mortars blindly at the vehicle noises but hit nothing. As the American gun crews began to set up their pieces to cover the likely approaches into the village, it became apparent that many of the sites with the best fields of fire were not suited for the unwieldy 3-inch guns. Some of them were in gardens or cabbage patches where the ground was very soft and had been churned up by the treads of the First Division's M10s, making it impossible to move or reorient the guns quickly in case of a German attack. With night falling, however (during the summer at that latitude it does not get fully dark until almost midnight), Greene was forced to leave the guns in their hastily set up positions on the edge of the town. Of the four guns in Greene's platoon, two (guns #1 and #2) were deployed on the south edge of town, covering the main road from Mortain. Guns #3 and #4 were set up in the northeast section of town, from where they could cover the main crossroads in the town as well as a trail enter-ing the town from the northeast. The gun crews dug in the wheels of the guns in order to lower their silhouettes but were unable to make any other defensive prepa-rations because they had to rely on moonlight only. They were also unable to coor-dinate their positions with the nearby infantry of Companies A and C, 117th Infantry. Greene's security squad, commanded by Sgt. Higgins, provided the only infantry support. Although only two or three men were available to cover each gun, their effect was enhanced by their having picked up five extra Browning Auto-matic Rifles (BARs) in the Normandy fighting, which they used instead of the Ml carbines they had been issued. Since all the GIs in St. Barthelmy expected to con-tinue the drive across France in a day or two, they were not concerned about the overall lack of. defensive preparation.

Meanwhile, in the early afternoon of 6 August, Company B's Third Platoon had set up a roadblock at the crossroads between le Bois du Pare and le Fantay, consisting of two 57mm antitank guns, two heavy machine guns, one BAR team, two bazookas, and the infantrymen of the First Squad. Just to the southwest, Sec-ond and Third Squads deployed on either side of the road behind the roadblock to provide cover in case the roadblock was forced to withdraw. Not long after this position was set up, around 1645, a dozen German infantrymen approached the roadblock, probably to test its strength. The Company B men fired on the Ger-mans, who withdrew back to the northeast from where they had come. At about the same time, Company A sent some men to establish an outpost at the cross-roads at la Sablonniere, and Company C sent a detachment to Grande la Dainie. Each of these teams consisted of a squad of infantry and a bazooka team.

At about 1600 on 6 August, the Germans began a sporadic artillery shelling of St. Barthelmy. This desultory bombardment caused no damage or casualties but was apparently intended to harass and unnerve the American defenders. If so, it failed miserably. After the intense combat around the Vire Canal in July, the men of the Thirtieth must have considered the St. Barthelmy area to be practically a rest camp.

St. Barthelmy was relatively quiet, except for the occasional German shell, until about 2030, when three German Kettenkrad (half-tracked motorcycles) came

Against the Panzers

AGAINST THE PANZERS

United States Infantry versus

German Tanks, 1944-1945

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Infantry Against Armor

Organization of American Forces

Table of Organization and Equipment:

US Infantry Division, 15 July 1943

Tactics

The Opposition

Table of Organization and Equipment:

German SS-Panzer Division, 1944

Weapons

Lessons Learned

Test of Courage

German Forces at Mortain

The American Forces