THE CAMPAIGN

BOCAGE FIGHTING

A good example of typical bocage country in Lower Normandy near the village of Saint-Hilaire-de-Briouze in the summer of 1944.

Bocage is the Norman and French name for the style of terrain found in the western area of Basse Normandie (Lower Normandy) consisting of pastures boxed in by hedgerows. It is most common in the departments of Manche and Calvados west of the Orne River to the Cotentin peninsula, and so largely in the battle zone of the First US Army and German 7. Armee. The terrain east of the Orne gradually shifts to open pastureland and rolling hills where the British Second Army engaged Panzergruppe West.

The Wehrmacht called the bocage fighting “Buschkrieg,” Bush Warfare, a point clearly made by this photograph of a rifleman of the 79th Division in action near Lessay on July 18, 1944.

An officer of the 329th Infantry described the hedgerows:

These hard earthen banks, with their matted head-dress of stumpy trees and hedges, have been standing for centuries, as boundaries between tracts of land parceled out in the days of feudalism. As time went on, the land had been sub-divided in order to give each son a plot which he could call his own, until now the fields and orchards bordered by these hedgerows are so small that further sub-division would render most of them useless for any form of farming or grazing. These hedgerows are fifty to one hundred yards apart, on the average, and made very formidable barriers to our advance, for the earthen portions range from three to eight feet in height and anywhere from three to ten feet in thickness at the base. From the tops of these banks grow the trees and hedges, thickened by the indiscriminate pruning carried on by the Norman farmers, who use them as a principal source of fire kindling wood.

The US Army characterized the hedgerow as a “system of inverted trenches.” Here, a rifleman of the 29th Division has created a firing embrasure by cutting an opening in the base of a hedgerow.

From a military perspective, the hedgerows created a network of inverted trenches, forming a natural, layered fortification system that was well suited to defense. The earthen bases of the hedgerows shielded the defender from enemy fire and were thick enough to protect against small arms and machine-gun fire. The vegetation on top of the hedgerow provided concealment for the defenders and restricted the observation of the attacking force. Bocage complicated the use of field artillery since the vegetation could prematurely detonate the artillery rounds in the trees above before their intended impact against enemy positions. In addition, the hedgerows provided a solid basis for foxholes to shield against mortar and artillery fire.

The bocage severely constrained maneuver by the infantry, and even more so for vehicles. Many hedgerows were too tall to be surmounted by tanks, and even the lower hedgerows created problems since a tank climbing over the earth wall exposed its weakly protected underside to enemy anti-tank weapons. The road network in the bocage was poor since this region did not make much use of motorized farming techniques. Aside from a limited number of regional roads between the major towns, the individual hedgerows were connected by small openings and footpaths with the occasional cart path or small unpaved road.

German Bocage Defense

This provides an example of typical German defense configurations in the bocage fighting. This area, between the village of La Meauffe and St Lô, was held by roughly a battalion of troops from Kampgruppe Kentner. This was a combat formation based on Grenadier-Regiment 897 of the 266. Infanterie-Division that was detached to the 352. Infanterie-Division in mid-June 1944. It suffered so many casualties during the July fighting that it was reinforced with II./GR 898 and II./GR 899. This sector was called the “La Mare−Le Carillon Nose” position by the attacking 35th Division since it formed a distinctive salient. The 2/137th Infantry pushed into the defenses on July 13–14, but the position was not finally cleared out until it was out-flanked to the southeast.

The bocage country was well suited to German defensive doctrine. The outer layer of the German defenses was a thinly manned outpost line. This served to identify the approach of American units and the tenacious defense of an outpost line by a small number of troops was often able to stop the advance of a much larger force. Furthermore, it served to tie down the attacking force, fixing it in place for mortar and artillery bombardment. In the event that the outpost line was captured, one or more additional defense lines were behind it to provide resilience. This type of defense was not entirely dissimilar to World War I trench warfare. However, there were some significant differences. The German commanders called this fighting “Buschkrieg,” bush warfare. Static defense was not sufficient since the defense lines could be gradually worn down by infantry attack and artillery fire. German commanders placed considerable stress on the individual initiative of small unit commanders. Once the attacking force was halted by machine-gun and mortar fire at the outpost line, small combat teams would maneuver on foot to further disrupt the attack by strikes against their flank or rear.

The size and density of the hedgerows varied. Here, a squad from the 175th Infantry, 29th Division dig their foxholes in the base of a hedgerow to the northeast of St Lô on July 15, 1944.

An anonymous US Army officer provided a pungent and succinct description of hedgerow fighting techniques from the American perspective:

There were just three ways that our infantry could get through the hedgerow country. They could walk down the road, which always makes the leading men feel practically naked (and they are). They could attempt to get through gaps in the corners of the hedgerows and crawl up along the row leading forward, or rush through in a group and spread out in the field beyond. This was not a popular method. In the first place often there were no gaps, just when you wanted one most. And in the second place, the Germans knew about the gaps before we did and were usually prepared with machine-gun and machine-pistol reception committees. The third method was to rush a skirmish line over a hedgerow and then across the field. This could have been a fair method if there had been no hedgerows.

Ordinary rifle fire was not especially effective in the bocage due to the protection and concealment of the hedgerows. As a result, riflemen began making more use of rifle grenades which could be launched further than ordinary hand-grenades. This is a rifleman of the 79th Division near Lessay on July 18, 1944.

Usually we could not get through the hedge without hacking a way through. This of course took time, and a German machine gun can fire a lot of rounds in a very short time. Sometimes the hedges themselves were not thick. But it still took time for the infantryman to climb up the bank and scramble over, during which time he was a luscious target, and when he got over the Germans knew exactly where he was. All in all it was very discouraging to the men who had to go first. Of course the Germans did not defend every hedgerow, but no one knew without stepping out into the spotlight which ones he did defend.

It was difficult to gain fire superiority when it was most needed. In the first place, machine guns were almost useless in the attack because about the only way they could be used was to fire from the hip. If you set them up before the advance started, they had no field of fire and could not shoot the enemy. If you carried them along until you met the enemy, still the only way to get them in position was to set them up on top of a hedgerow bank. That was not good because the German was in the next bank and got you before you set the gun down. Anyway, it had to be laid on the bank, no tripod, just a gun barrel lying unevenly on its stomach. On the other hand the Germans could dig their guns into the banks in advance, camouflage them, and be all set to cover the roads, trails, and other bottlenecks our men had to use.

The artillery was the major fire support weapon. But it suffered certain handicaps. In the first place it had to be adjusted from the front line by forward observers. These sometimes had difficulty knowing just where they were, and the trees frequently delayed adjustment because of the short vision. If you found the enemy in the next hedgerow he was frequently less than 100 yards from you, and that was too close for artillery fire, particularly since short rounds would probably burst in the trees over your men in your own hedgerow. If the enemy was two or more hedgerows ahead of you, that wasn’t so good either, because the mere delay in getting to him through that last hedgerow just in front of him gave him time to rise up and smite you after the artillery lifted. The mortars were effective providing you knew just what to shoot at and where it was, but the infantryman still had the delay and exposure of getting through the last hedgerow.

The Germans, being on the defensive, profited by these minor items of the terrain. They could dig in, site their weapons to cover the approaches, and prepare tunnels and other covered exits for themselves. Then when our men appeared, laboriously working their way forward, the Germans could knock off the first one or two, cause the others to duck down behind the bank, and then call for their own mortar support. The German mortars were very, very efficient. By the time our men were ready to go after him, the German and his men and guns had obligingly retired to the next stop. If our men had rushed him instead of ducking down behind the bank, his machine gun or machine pistol would knock a number off. For our infantrymen, it was what you might call in baseball parlance, a fielder’s choice. No man was very enthusiastic about it. But back in the dugout I have often heard the remark in tones of contempt and anger: “Why don’t they get up and go?”

Both sides made extensive use of anti-tank rocket launchers as improvised artillery in the bocage fighting. This is a rifleman of the 79th Division using a 2.36in. bazooka M1A1 rocket launcher on July 18, 1944. From late June to late July 1944, US infantry fired nearly 53,000 bazooka rockets, mostly against targets other than tanks.

The tanks are no better off. They have two choices. They can go down the roads, which in this case were just mud lanes, often too narrow for a tank, often sunk four to six feet below the adjacent banks, and generally deep in mud. The Class 4 roads were decent in spots, but only for one-way traffic, with few exits to the adjacent fields. An armored outfit, whether it is a platoon or an armored army, attacking along a single road attacks on a front one tank wide. The rest of the tanks are just roadblocks trailing along behind. When the first tank runs into a mine or an 88 or 75 shell, it always stops, and it usually burns up. And it efficiently blocks the road so the majestic column of roaring tanks comes to an ignominious stop.

Light mortars were one of the most effective weapons in the bocage fighting. Each US Army rifle company had a weapons platoon that included three mortar squads, each with one 60mm M2 mortar.

The next step is to try to find out where the enemy gun or tank is, and wheel up a tank or so to shoot at him. The only trouble is, only the men in the first tank saw the German’s gun flash, and they aren’t talking any more. The tanks trying to get into position to do some shooting are easily seen and get shot before they can do much about it. I have seen it happen. In the hedgerows it is almost impossible to get firing positions in the front row, and in the rear you can’t see the enemy anyway so no one bothers. Usually the tanks waited for the infantry to do something about it.

One of the “lessons-learned” during the bocage fighting was it was safer to cross a field in the center than along a lateral hedgerow since the Germans invariably covered the corners with machine-gun positions. This is a squad of the 79th Division in action in the Lessay area on July 17.

Instead of charging valiantly down the road, the tanks may try to bull their way through the hedgerows. This is very slow and gives the enemy time to get his tanks or guns where they can do the most good. Then he just waits. And in the solution, there is always a minor and local problem to be solved, a problem which caused a certain amount of irritation, and that is, who is going over the hedgerow first, the infantry or the tank? It is surprising how self-effacing most men can be in such situations.

The Wehrmacht deliberately flooded many areas of lower Normandy to complicate any attempts at airborne landings. In this case, the Séves River near Baupte, west of Carentan was dammed to flood the fields near the town’s 16th-century church, Église Notre Dame.

Anyone who actually fought in the hedgerows realizes that, at best, the going was necessarily slow. A skillful, defending force could cause great delay and heavy losses to an attacking force many times stronger. This, because the attacker can’t use his fire power effectively and because he can’t advance rapidly except on the road where he is quickly stopped at some convenient spot.

There were a number of other factors which contributed to the difficulties of fighting through the hedgerows. The area was merely a succession of small enclosed pastures with a few orchards, likewise enclosed by hedgerows. Seldom could one see clearly beyond the confine of the field. It was difficult to keep physical contact with adjacent squads, platoons, or larger units. It was difficult to determine exactly where one was. Unlike conditions in open country, flanks could not be protected by fields of fire. All these contributed to the difficulties of control and caused a feeling of isolation on the part of small units. All this meant that the front-line troops thought their neighbors were nowhere around. They could not see them, they were not in the adjacent field, therefore they were behind. Often this feeling of being out on a limb would cause the leading elements to halt and wait for the flank units to come up (and sometimes these were ahead).

German counterattacks in the hedgerows failed largely for the same reasons our own advance was slowed. Any attack quickly loses its momentum, and then because of our artillery and fighter bombers the Germans would suffer disastrous loss. In fact we found that generally the best way to beat the Germans was to get them to counterattack a provided we had prepared to meet them.

Although the hedgerows were the most distinctive feature of the bocage region, the numerous rivers and marshes further aided the defense and impeded maneuver. The July 1944 fighting took place in the area dominated by the Vire and Taute rivers as well as associated rivers and streams. The numerous small rivers running through the coastal lowlands created several large marshes that further compartmentalized the terrain and made maneuver even more difficult. East of La Haye-du-Puits was the Marais-de-Ste.-Anne swamp, fed by the Séves River. Immediately south of Carentan was the Prairies Marécageuses de Gorges, a substantial marshland fed by the Taute River and many small tributaries. In the months prior to D-Day, the Wehrmacht flooded a number of areas by using dams or other obstructions in order to complicate any Allied attempts at airborne landings. The extent of these marshlands increased in late June 1944 since the early summer of 1944 was the rainiest on record since 1900.

One obvious solution to penetrating the hedgerows was the use of dozer tanks, like this one, “Apache” of Co. A, 70th Tank Battalion, attached to the 4th Infantry Division for most of the hedgerow campaign. However, this was a fairly new device and there were seldom enough of these to have an appreciable impact on the fighting. Each tank battalion was supposed to have four of these, but shortages as well as combat losses meant that this objective was seldom reached.

BATTLING IN THE BOCAGE

US infantry units received no specialized training for combat in the hedgerows prior to the Normandy campaign. This was partly due to the concentration on the elaborate preparations for the amphibious landings on D-Day. In addition, there were misconceptions about the Normandy hedgerows. There were extensive hedgerows on the opposite side of the Channel in the southern English countryside. However, the English hedgerows were not as substantial as their Norman counterparts.

Most infantry weapons were not well suited to hedgerow fighting. German defenses were dug into the earthen base of the hedgerows, making them far less vulnerable to rifle fire. Furthermore, the extensive vegetation on top of the earthen base provided excellent camouflage and helped conceal the precise location of the German defenses. Light machine guns provided a somewhat better solution, since their volume of fire provided better suppression than aimed rifle fire.

As the GIs became more experienced in hedgerow fighting, other types of weapons were preferred. One of the most common weapons used in the bocage fighting was the rifle grenade (1). These could be fired from the normal M1 Garand rifle using an adapter that was fitted to the barrel and launched using a special blank cartridge. The rifle grenade could be fired from the normal shoulder position. However, to get maximum range, the rifle was fired from a kneeling position with the butt firmly against the ground and the rifle elevated to a 45-degree angle, giving it an effective range of about 55 to 300 yards depending on whether an auxiliary booster cartridge was used. The range of the grenade could be adjusted by using five range rings on the grenade adapter that altered the speed of the grenade depending on how deep the grenade stabilizer tube was mounted on the adapter.

The M1A1 2.36in. “bazooka” rifle launcher was another popular weapon in the bocage fighting (2). These weapons were not widely distributed in the rifle companies, with only five per company. Once their value in bocage fighting became evident, many infantry divisions took the bazookas allotted to service units and headquarters units and transferred them to the rifle companies. Although intended primarily for anti-tank defense, their high explosive warhead was effective against dug-in defenses.

The US Army avoided using field artillery close to friendly troops. This was not only due to inherent problems of accuracy. The use of field artillery in the bocage was complicated by the possibilities of projectiles prematurely detonating over friendly troops if they came into contact with trees and overhead branches when fired on a shallow trajectory. As a result, the 60mm M2 light mortar became the workhorse of the infantry for close-range fire-support (3). This could fire a mortar bomb from 100 to 1,985 yards, enabling the weapon to cover the gap between the forward edge of battle and the inner limit of field artillery support. Each rifle company had three 60mm mortars.

THE VIII CORPS ADVANCE ON LA HAYE-DU-PUITS

The Marshland Advance, July 3–11, 1944

The First US Army offensive began at 0530hrs on Monday, July 3 in Middleton’s VIII Corps sector. Both the 79th and 90th Divisions had taken heavy losses in the Cherbourg/Cotentin campaign in June and both had about 40 percent replacements in their rifle companies. Wyche’s 79th Division was regarded as the sounder of the two, and there had been a change in command in the 90th Division in hopes of improving its disappointing performance during the Cotentin peninsula fighting in June. The 82nd Airborne Division had already suffered about 50 percent casualties since D-Day and was scheduled to be returned to Britain in a few days for rebuilding. In spite of its numerical weakness, it was regarded as the most effective force in the corps due to its superior leadership and troop performance. The weather was far from favorable on the first day, with a steady downpour that prevented air support and limited artillery observation.

A German infantry squad in Normandy during the summer of 1944. The third Landser is carrying one of the new Panzerfaust anti-tank rockets.

The 82nd Airborne Division in the center of the advance made the best progress. A reinforced company of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) infiltrated the German outpost line in the Bois d’Etenelin (Hill 113) from the north while the 508th PIR took the southwest side. Ost-Batallion Huber stationed along Kampfgruppe König’s outpost line was overwhelmed before it realized that an attack had started. At first, Hausser’s 7. Armee headquarters thought that the attack was simply a reconnaissance in force as it was presumed the Americans wouldn’t attack in such poor weather; there had not been the usual pre-attack air sorties, and the rain and fog had obscured any observation of the American activity. By mid-morning, Hausser realized that a major attack was underway. The 353. Infanterie-Division, which had pulled out of the Mahlmann Line the day before to transfer further east, was ordered to turn around and return to its original defensive line.

A squad from Co. F, 2/359th Infantry of the 90th Division during the fighting for Mont Castre near St Jores on July 6, 1944. The rifleman in the center is preparing to fire a rifle grenade over the hedgerow.

82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION ATTACK TOWARDS LA HAYE-DU-PUITS, JULY 3–4, 1944

US UNITS

82nd Airborne Division

1. 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment

2. 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment

3. 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment

4. 325th Glider Infantry Regiment

5. 79th Infantry Division

6. 90th Infantry Division

GERMAN UNITS

Kampfgruppe König

A. Ost-Bataillon Huber

B. Untergruppe Lewandowski

353. Infanterie-Division

C. Pioner-Bataillon 353

D. Kampfgruppe, I./Grenadier-Regiment 943

E. II./Grenadier-Regiment 941

77. Infanterie-Division

Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 15

EVENTS

1. The 505th PIR crosses the start-line near Varenguebec at 0630hrs, July 3, with its 2nd and 1st Battalions in column. The 2/505th captures the Dupinerie ridge around 0830hrs.

2. The 508th PIR jumps off at 0630hrs with the 2/508th PIR on the right and 3/508th PIR on the left.

3. Ost-Bataillon Huber is largely overwhelmed by the 82nd Division assault and numerous troops surrender.

4. The 325th GIR jumps off at 0630hrs with 2/325th GIR on the right and 1/325th GIR on the left. The advance by the 325th GIR is held up by delays on their right (eastern) flank by the 90th Infantry Division. The regiment reached Faudemer around 1600hrs.

5. Untergruppe Lewandowski begins to pull back southward to the Mahlmann Line by late morning. Portions of the 353. Infanterie-Division begin returning to the Mahlmann Line during the day, re-establishing a secondary defense line.

6. The 2/508th PIR captures the southern slope of Hill 131 around 1145hrs and is joined by the 3/508th PIR around 1600hrs.

7. The 505th PIR captures the north side of Hill 131 around 1225hrs. The regiment is instructed to take over control of the entire hill at 1550hrs to free up the 508th PIR to assist in the capture of La Poterie Ridge.

8. Elements of the 353. Infanterie-Division begin to return to the Mahlmann Line by late afternoon.

9. Strong resistance by the 353. Infanterie-Division along the Mahlmann Line delays the planned advance of the 325th GIR. Their objective is reduced to the capture of the village of La Poterie while the other elements of the division are assigned to assault the La Poterie Ridgeline.

10. The 1st and 3rd Battalions, 505th PIR launch an attack on the Mahlmann Line at Hill 95 around 0800hrs and secure the objective around 1150hrs. They meet up with the 314th Infantry, 79th Division to the west of the main road at 2100hrs.

11. The 508th PIR passes through the 505th PIR to reinforce the attack on La Poterie ridgeline. They reach the top of Hill 95, but a counter-attack by GR 943 pushes them off. The hill is recaptured around midnight.

12. The intense fighting around Hill 95 leads to the commitment of the divisional reserve, the 507th PIR which attacks the western hill starting at 2015hrs.

13. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 325th GIR attack the village of La Poterie at 0800hrs and secure the village by 1250hrs. The regiment is instructed to take up defensive positions and to establish contact with the 90th Division to the east.

The 82nd Airborne Division’s main effort by the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) was aimed at securing the ridgeline topped by the hamlet of La Poterie. This hamlet was in fact on the edge of the Mahlmann Line, the main-line-of-resistance (Hauptstellung). The first wave of reinforcements, Ost-Bataillon 635, intervened and the glider-infantry force also came under heavy artillery fire since it was in clear view of forward observers on Mont-Castre immediately to the south. When the initial attack was stopped, the 508th PIR was ordered to continue southward to help take the three hills from Ste Catherine (Hill 95) to La Poterie. The advance ground to a halt shortly before midnight as reinforcements arrived from the 353. Infanterie-Division. It took another two days of fighting to secure the hills due to the arrival of GR 941 of the 353. Infanterie-Division and accurate German artillery fire. By the afternoon of July 5, the 82nd Airborne Division took control of the three hilltops after advancing about 4 miles. The 82nd inflicted about 1,300 German casualties including 772 POWs. It remained in the area until July 7 when it was pulled out of the line and replaced by the 79th Division.

A squad from the 90th Division advances cautiously along a ditch while under the protective watch of an M4 medium tank of Co. C, 712th Tank Battalion on July 7, 1944 near St Jores.

The 79th Infantry Division finally liberated La Haye-du-Puits on July 8, 1944. This is an 81mm mortar team from the 315th Infantry, 79th Division entering the town on Rue de Barneville. The soldier in the right foreground is carrying the 81mm mortar tube while the soldiers behind carry the bipod and base-plate.

While the 82nd Airborne Division fought for the La Poterie Ridgeline, the 90th Division was assigned to take Mont Castre, one of the main strongpoints on the Mahlmann Line. The approach to the wooded hill was along a narrow corridor bordered on the west by the hill itself and to the east by the marshes of Prairies Marécageuses de Gorges. Dense bocage and thick woods on Mont Castre constricted this sector. An assault battalion of the 358th Infantry was halted by the German outpost line near the hamlet of Les Sablons and waited for artillery support before proceeding. After seeing a German assault gun and some half-tracks, the battalion called for tank destroyer support which further delayed the attack. Another battalion was pushed forward, but artillery support directed from Mont Castre frustrated the attack and the 90th Division advanced only about 3,000 yards at a cost of 600 casualties. The attack resumed very slowly on Tuesday, July 4 when the lead battalions went to ground after an artillery bombardment had convinced them that a German counter-attack was imminent. The artillery fire was not especially heavy, but it was very accurate due to the presence of German forward observers on the Mont Castre heights above. The advance finally began to pick up some momentum by late in the day, finally reaching the road to La Haye-du-Puits; casualties were heavier than the day before and numbered about 700. The 90th Division finally captured Mont Castre on Thursday, July 6, but its hold was tenuous. Hausser reinforced this sector and staged a counter-attack from the south side of Mont Castre on July 7 using III./SS-Panzergrenadier-Rgt. 3 from 2. SS-Panzer-Division “Das Reich” and a Kampfgruppe of the 77. Inf. Div. These attacks were pushed back with heavy losses on both sides. An attempt to push the 357th Infantry down the corridor east of Mont Castre was stopped short of the Canal du Plessis, but two US companies were surrounded and about 255 troops forced to surrender. By July 8, the 90th Division had suffered 2,000 casualties for an advance barely 4 miles in depth. Its objective of joining with the 79th Division in La Haye-du-Puits had not been accomplished.

This is a scene in La Haye-du-Puits on July 9, 1944 as troops of the 12th Engineer Battalion, 8th Infantry Division pass through the shattered city.

An SdKfz 222 light armored car from 1./SS-Panzer Aufklarüngs-Abt. 17, knocked out during the fighting with 1/8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division during the fighting south-west of Carentan on July 15, 1944.

The left wing of the VIII Corps advance was conducted by the 79th Division which aimed to reach the ridge near Montgardon to the southwest of La Haye-du-Puits. At the start of the advance on July 3, the 314th Infantry attempted to seize Hill 121 on the left flank, part of the outpost line of a Kampfgruppe from the 243. Inf. Div. The hill was partially occupied on the first day of the attack but it took another day to clear the German defenders from small strongpoints around the hill. The hill offered excellent vantage points for artillery forward observers while at the same time denying the outposts to the Germans. The advance over the first two days through the bocage was slow but steady. The Kampfgruppe from the 243. Inf. Div. launched a serious counter-attack on the evening of July 4 during its attempts to withdraw from the outpost line to the main-line-of-resistance on the Montgardon Ridge. On the morning of the 5th, the 79th Division tried to make a rapid penetration of the German defenses by committing the reserve 313th Infantry, but before reaching its objective of the Ay River, the task force was hit with a heavy artillery barrage followed by a counter-attack that pushed the task force back to its start position. Although this advance had failed, the neighboring 315th Infantry with tank support reached the north slope of Hill 84, part of the Montgardon Ridgeline. Over the next two days, the 79th Division’s three regiments fought a series of disconnected skirmishes in the bocage to secure Hill 84 and Montgardon itself.

The 83rd Division conducted the VIII Corps advance on the left flank along the Taute River. Here, the divisional commander, Maj. Gen. Paul Baade, discusses plans with one of his staff officers, Capt. Smith.

The original VIII Corps plan had assumed that once La Haye-du-Puits was outflanked that the Germans would withdraw. Although US forces held both Mont Castre and Montgardon, the 7. Armee had no intention of withdrawing. A Kampfgruppe based around SS-Panzergrenadier-Rgt. 4 of the 2. SS-Panzer-Division had arrived in this sector on July 4 and reinforced the existing defenses along the Mahlmann Line. On the afternoon of 7 July, a Kampfgruppe under Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Weidinger hit the defense line on Montgarden and nearly pushed it off the ridgeline before being repulsed after the loss of three tanks.

The US Army soon learned that raw replacements needed further training before being sent into the hedgerow battle. This is a group of replacements for the 315th Infantry, 79th Division receiving special hedgerow training on July 14 before being sent into combat.

Although the VIII Corps offensive had pushed through the Mahlmann Line after five days of fighting, the operation had fallen far short of its objectives. Bradley’s expectation that the 84. AK would withdraw after a hard push proved to be fundamentally mistaken. The five days of fighting cost both American divisions 2,000 casualties each and neither division was in any position for further offensive action in view of the heavy losses suffered in June during the Cherbourg fighting. Some 1,482 Wehrmacht troops had been captured, but these were mainly Osttruppen. La Haye-du-Puits finally fell on July 9 to the 79th Division. VIII Corps resumed its attack during the second week of July, and finally came up along the Ay River by July 14. It took 12 days of fighting to advance 12,000 yards.

Although VIII Corps had failed in its tactical objectives, it had important operational consequences for the First US Army. Hausser’s plan to use the 353. Infanterie-Division to permit a shift of the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division back into the corps reserve had been prevented. Not only was one of the two army mechanized formations tied down on the front line, but the weakness of the 84. AK sector had also forced Hausser to begin committing elements of his other mechanized reserve, the 2. SS-Panzer-Division. Removing the mechanized forces from the 7. Armee reserve would prove lethal to the German defenses two weeks later.

THE VII CORPS ADVANCE FROM CARENTAN

Collins’ VII Corps started its advance a day after the neighboring VIII Corps on Tuesday, July 4, 1944, pushing out of Carentan. Its task was unenviable. On its left (western) flank was the Prairies Marécageuses de Gorges swamps. On its right (eastern) flank was the rain-swollen Taute River. In between was a dry isthmus only 2 to 3 miles wide that was congested with bocage. There was no maneuver room. This meant that only a single division could be committed to this front until the corps reached the more open ground in the vicinity of the Périers–St Lô road. Collins planned to use the fresh but inexperienced 83rd Division for this mission. Facing them was a regiment of the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, reinforced by the battered but experienced paratroopers of Fallschirmjäger-Rgt. 6.

The attack down the Carentan–Périers road stalled almost immediately. The green infantry had no experience in bocage fighting and the accompanying tanks were equally unprepared for the dense hedgerows. An attempt to reinvigorate the attack by the two lead regiments in the afternoon seemed to get some traction in one regimental sector, only to have the regiment pushed back by a German counter-attack around dark. The German paratroop commander, Friedrich von der Heydte, returned captured US medical personnel with a note saying that the 83rd Division probably needed them.

Collins pushed Gen. Macon of the 83rd Division to resume his attack on July 5, with the reserve regiment substituted for the bloodied 330th Infantry. The advance on the 5th was as disappointing as the first day, though the forward battalions beat back several German counter-attacks. Collins realized that the division’s inexperience was at the heart of the problems but he had few options in such constricted terrain. His other unit, the 4th Infantry Division, was battle hardened but had taken 5,400 casualties in June and its rifle companies were filled with nearly 4,400 new replacements. Of the 27 rifle company commanders who had landed with the division on Utah Beach on D-Day, all but five had been killed or wounded in the June fighting. The situation with platoon commanders was even worse. In spite of these issues, Collins decided to subordinate the 331st Infantry from the 83rd Division to Barton’s 4th Infantry Division headquarters, and to add the experienced 12th Infantry Regiment to the attack.

A 105mm M3 howitzer of the 4th Division engages targets south of Carentan on July 11. Each infantry regiment had a cannon company with 12 of these howitzers, a smaller and lighter cannon than the more familiar M2A1 105mm howitzer used in field artillery battalions.

The third and fourth days of the attack went no better than the previous two days in spite of the additions from the 4th Infantry Division. The regiments of the 83rd Division by this stage were short of about 600 men each, but the division began to show signs of improvement in its performance as its riflemen gained combat experience. The VII Corps attack had fallen far short of its intended goal of Sainteny and had only penetrated about 2½ miles into the German defenses. However, German casualties had also been high and Hausser was obliged to commit the last reserve battalion in this sector to the front on July 7 in the hope of restraining the American advance. The situation around La Haye-du-Puits and Carentan was so serious that on the 7th, Hausser was finally able to convince OB West to permit the transfer of the 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division from Brittany to Normandy.

The VII Corps offensive continued through July 16 at which point actions west of the Taute River were halted in anticipation of Operation Cobra. Some actions east of the Taute continued, mainly to secure better jumping-off points for Operation Cobra. The fighting in the narrow isthmus from July 9 to 16 gained about 6 square miles of terrain at a cost of 4,800 casualties. Losses were especially high in the tormented 4th Division, which suffered 2,300 casualties including three of nine battalion commanders and nine of 27 rifle company commanders in the early July fighting.

THE XIX CORPS VIRE RIVER BRIDGEHEAD

The third corps to enter the offensive was Corlett’s XIX Corps located immediately north of St Lô. Its dispositions reflected the terrain of this sector. It had penetrated further south on its left (eastern) flank since the countryside was generally more open. Its right flank on the east bank of the Vire–Taute Canal was in dense bocage country with numerous water obstructions. The corps had two battered but experienced units, the 9th and 29th Divisions, and a new unit, the 30th Division. The 3rd Armored Division was in corps reserve.

The initial attack on Friday, July 7 began in the 30th Division sector facing the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division. The initial attack was intended to push the 30th Division over the Vire River and the Vire–Taute Canal to the west bank. The 30th Division commander, Leland Hobbs, decided to use the 117th Infantry for the initial water crossing near Aire since the regiment had been the river-crossing demonstration unit at the Fort Benning infantry school. The water obstacles were not especially wide but the ground around them had been flooded and did not provide a solid basis for moving heavy bridging equipment. A major engineering effort was planned with both divisional and corps battalions. The assault waves would ford across using assault boats. The engineers would then follow with footbridges, an infantry pontoon bridge, a floating treadway bridge and the hasty repair of the stone bridge at Aire.

An M4 dozer tank of the 743rd Tank Battalion crosses the old stone bridge over the Vire River at Airel on July 7. The town had been seized by the 117th Infantry, 30th Division, earlier in the morning. The bridge had been hastily repaired by replacing the gap with treadway bridge sections as seen here.

Corlett’s headquarters anticipated that the river/canal crossing would be heavily contested judging from the activity in the two corps sectors to the west. Yet the fighting in the VIII and VII Corps sectors had drawn away a great deal of strength from the Vire River sector, particularly in the case of the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division. The main opposition in this sector was Kampfgruppe Heintz, attached to the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division. This battlegroup had four battalions each averaging about 400 combat effectives, but the battalion covering the bridge across the Vire near Aire/St Fromond was held by the remnants of the 7. Armee engineer school with barely 200 combat effectives.

The advance of CCB, 3rd Armored Division over the Vire River near St Fromond on July 9 caused considerable congestion in the restricted road network. Here, a column of M5A1 light tanks from Co. C, 33rd Armored Regiment get caught in a traffic jam with a column of jeeps, half-tracks and M8 armored cars of the 83rd Reconnaissance Battalion on the road between La Vautaire and the Saint-Fromond church.

On the morning of the attack, July 7, the weather was again gloomy with rain and a thick fog in many areas. Artillery preparation began at 0330hrs but air support was cancelled by the low overcast weather. The riflemen of the 117th Infantry began approaching the riverbank under the cover of the dim early morning light around 0430hrs and the artillery began pounding the opposite bank. The lead companies got across the river against stiff but scattered resistance. Repair of the critical stone bridge at Aire was accelerated by using special Brockway bridge erection trucks to lay treadway over the damaged sections. The entire 117th Infantry was over the Vire River by 1000hrs and three vehicular bridges were erected to provide reinforcements. The 120th Infantry next leap-frogged the Vire–Taute Canal at 1330hrs toward St Jean-de-Daye. By the late afternoon, the 30th Division had six of its nine infantry battalions across the water obstacles. By the early evening, the main problem was traffic congestion when a tank battalion and cavalry group began moving to the west bank.

THE VIRE RIVER BRIDGEHEAD, JULY 7–8, 1944

US UNITS

30th Division

1. 1/117th Infantry

2. 2/117th Infantry

3. 3/117th Infantry

4. 1/119th Infantry

5. 2/119th Infantry

6. 3/119th Infantry

7. 1/120th Infantry

8. 2/120th Infantry

9. 3/120th Infantry

10. 743rd Tank Battalion

3rd Armored Division

11. Combat Command A

Combat Command B

12. Task Force X

13. Task Force Y

14. 14. 113th Cavalry Group

GERMAN UNITS

17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division “Gotz von Berlichingen”

A. Kampfgruppe, II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. 38

Kampfgruppe Heintz

B. I./Grenadier-Regiment 984

C. II./Grenadier-Regiment 984

D. Füsilier-Bataillon 275

E. Armee-Pionier-Schule des AOK 7

F. Kampfgruppe, Schnelle-Brigade 30

G. Fallschirm-Aüfklarungs-Abt. 12

2. SS-Panzer-Division “Das Reich”

H. Kampfgruppe Weidinger (I./ SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. 3 “Deutschland” + 6. Kompanie, SS-Pz.Rgt. 2)

I. Kampfgruppe Wisliceny (II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. 3 “Deutschland”)

J. SS-Panzer-Pioner.Abt. 2 “Das Reich”

EVENTS

1. The 2/117th Infantry makes a crossing of Vire using assault boats at 0430hrs, June 7.

2. Main German defense in this sector after dawn was around the Pont Saint-Fromond stone bridge by elements of the depleted Angers engineer school. German infantry resistance is weak, but artillery from SS-Art.Rgt. 17 and Art.Rgt. 275 is persistent.

3. The Pont Saint-Fromond is repaired; a floating bridge erected on Vire south of the stone bridge by 247th Engineer Combat Battalion; an infantry support bridge erected north of stone bridge by 503rd Light Pontoon Company.

4. All of the 117th Infantry are across the Vire shortly before noon, and moving south.

5. At 1345hrs, the 120th Infantry begins a contested assault across the Vire–Taute Canal with the 3/120th Infantry west of the highway and 1/120th Infantry to the east.

6. 113th Cavalry Group moves across the canal at the bridge starting at 2030hrs to serve as right flank protection.

7. Combat Command B, 3rd Armored Division begins moving over the bridges around 2230hrs at a rate of 45 vehicles per hour.

8. As CCB deploys southward in the early morning of July 8, it is hit by a small counter-attack by PzKpfw IV tanks of 6./SS-Pz.Rgt. 2 of Kampfgrupp Weidinger supported by infantry of Füs.Btl. 275. The German attack is beaten off.

9. Congestion in the bridgehead slows the deployment of the 119th Infantry.

10. The 113th Cavalry Group and the right wing of the 120th Infantry fight against a Kampfgruppe from II./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. 38 on the western flank of the bridgehead for much of the day.

11. In the afternoon of July 8, Kampfgruppe Wisliceny attempts to counter-attack out of Le Désert with two Panzergrenadier battalions supported by armor, but is halted by heavy artillery fire and the fire from the 743rd Tank Battalion.

12. Schnelle-Brigade 30 is hastily thrown into the fight on the highway to St Jean-de-Daye with little effect. The SS-Panzer-Pioner-Bataillon is instructed to set up blocking positions on the highway south of the hamlet of Rauline.

13. The last reserve of II Fallschirmjager-Korps, its elite Fallschirm-Aüfklarungs-Abt. 12 reconnaissance battalion, is deployed to block the advance of the 120th Infantry east of Le Désert.

14. The only uncommitted element of Kampfgruppe Heintz, I./GR 984, attempts to attack up along the Vire River towards the St Fromond bridge, but makes little headway.

German resistance to the American attack was ineffective. The engineer battalion near Aire was overwhelmed. The two other battalions along the Vire–Taute Canal lost contact with the Kampfgruppe Heintz command post, located well south of St Jean-de-Daye. Some of Füsilier-Bataillon 275 took part in a counter-attack the following day in the St Fromond area, but there was no coordinated counter-attack on the 7th due to the communications breakdown.

The day’s operation had gone so well that Bradley committed the 3rd Armored Division to the attack. Corlett instructed the division to begin to move southward in the hopes of quickly reaching the high ground west of St Lô. Coordination between the 3rd Armored Division and Corlett’s headquarters was impeded when Corlett became bed-ridden with a severe kidney infection. Major-General Walton Walker, the commander of the uncommitted XX Corps, was brought in to assist. The 3rd Armored Division commander, Maj. Gen. Watson, had not been warned about a possible commitment of his division since no one had expected the advance over the Vire to progress so quickly. He decided to deploy one combat command, CCB under Brig. Gen. John Bohn, as the first wave of the mission.

The German response on the first day was weak. The fighting on the La Haye-du-Puits/Carentan fronts had depleted Hausser’s 7. Armee of any significant reserves to counter the Vire River breakthrough. OB West was also very short of reserves. In the short-term, all that was available was Schnelle-Brigade 30, a bicycle-mobile infantry unit that was clearly not adequate for the task with barely two weak battalions. Some small battle-groups from the 2. SS-Panzer-Division with a few tanks were added to stiffen the counter-attack.

The only mobile theater reserve was the Panzer-Lehr-Division in the Panzergruppe West sector that had been pulled out of the line for refurbishment. Both Rommel at Heeresgruppe B headquarters and Kluge at OB West headquarters reluctantly agreed that this unit was the only plausible savior. However, it would take at least two days to move the division to strike the bridgehead since Allied air power meant it had to travel under the cover of darkness.

An M4A1 tank of the 3rd Battalion, 33rd Armored Regiment, CCB, 3rd Armored Division passes a column of knocked out PzKpfw IV Ausf. H tanks of 6./II./SS-Panzer-Regiment 2, 2-SS-Panzer-Division “Das Reich” beyond St Fromond on July 9 after having crossed the Vire River near St Fromond. These may be the three tanks ambushed that morning by Sgt. Dean Balderson when his tank popped out of an orchard behind the German column and engaged them from the rear at short range.

Combat Command B, 3rd Armored Division, moved over the Vire River on the night of July 7–8 through a series of very constricted roads and river passages. The division was not very experienced at this point, and was hardly ideal for a bold thrust to St Lô. One of its combat commands had previously become embroiled in a short but costly skirmish near Villiers-Fossard on June 29–30. This experience had made the division nervous and very wary of using the road network since it had found that the Germans tended to set up ambushes at cross-roads and other key points. This costly introduction to bocage fighting made the division risk-averse.

The CCB spearhead moved very slowly when it tried to advance cross-country out of the Vire bridgehead. Hobbs complained to corps headquarters about the snail’s pace of the advance and so XIX Corps headquarters instructed Hobbs to take command of CCB. The 30th Division felt that it had adequate resources to continue the advance including a supporting tank battalion that was better suited to the terrain than an entire combat command. Corlett did not agree and still wanted CCB to spearhead the attack. As a compromise, Bohn was instructed to push CCB ahead to Hauts-Vents and take Hill 91 on the northwest outskirts of Pont-Hébert by 1700hrs. General Hobbs was growing increasingly anxious because his intelligence officers were warning him of the approach of at least two German counter-attack forces from 2. SS-Panzer-Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division.

One of the little-known Achilles’ heels of the German formations in Normandy was their vulnerability to Allied signals intelligence interceptions. The problem was that the divisional Flivo (Fliegerverbindungsoffiziere: air cooperation officer) used a vulnerable Luftwaffe code when communicating by radio with higher commands. This code had been broken by the Allied Ultra decryption team. In contrast, other army communications between divisions and army headquarters tended to be conducted by field telephone or teletypes that were not vulnerable to interception. These Luftwaffe radio transmissions were common during the preparation for offensive actions, since the Panzer division commanders had some hope that the Luftwaffe might stage fighter sweeps in support of major Panzer operations. These sweeps were mainly intended to rid the skies of the pesky US Army light artillery spotter aircraft that increased the precision of American artillery strikes. Inadvertently, the attempts to muster Luftwaffe assistance simply warned the Allies of impending actions, and seldom achieved the intended objective of Luftwaffe support.

The first German counter-attacks took place on July 8 but were disjointed and ineffective. Kampfgruppe Wisliceny arrived on the scene with a Panzergrenadier battalion from Pz.Gren.Rgt. 3 “Deutschland.” SS-Sturmbannführer Günther Wisliceny took over command of the remains of Kampfgruppe Heintz along with other elements of 2. SS-Panzer-Division in the area. An early morning attack near St Fromond by a company of tanks from SS-Panzer-Rgt. 2 supported by infantry of Kampfgruppe Heintz was quickly smothered. Wisliceny attempted to create a coordinated counter-attack later in the day with a battalion from the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division attacking the Vire–Taute Canal sector to the north west, his own battle group pushing up out of Le Désert from the southwest, the newly arrived Schnelle-Brigade 30 pushing up the main road to St Jean-de-Daye, and a battalion from Kampfgruppe Heintz pushing up the eastern side of the bridgehead along the Vire River. The Allied Ultra decryption team learned of this plan the night before the attack and it was stopped without significant consequence. The attacks continued the following day, but the US units were supported by no fewer than 18 artillery battalions under XIX Corps control which smothered most of the counter-attacks.

While this was taking place, the hapless CCB, 3rd Armored Division, was continuing its mission in a confused and lethargic fashion. One task force made a wrong turn on the road between St Jean-de-Daye and St Lô and lost two tanks when they stumbled into an ambush of 3in. anti-tank guns of the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion. The American gun crews had set up a road-block and were assured that no US tanks were operating in their sector.

By nightfall on July 9, a paltry six tanks from CCB 3rd Armored Division finally arrived at Hauts-Vents. After 48 hours of frustration, Hobbs relieved Bohn of command; his place was taken by Col. Dorrance Roysdon. When CCB finally did secure Hill 91 with additional forces on July 11, Hobbs admitted that his relief of Bohn had been premature. The problem had not been Bohn’s actions, but rather the decision to commit CCB into a bridgehead much too congested for it to properly deploy. Furthermore, its pre-disposition to avoid using the main roads due to the past experiences at Villiers-Fossard contributed to the loss of an opportunity to seize St Lô in a bold stroke. In the meantime, the 9th Infantry Division had been added to the forces on the west bank of the Vire.

NORMANDY BUSH WAR

Although the hedgerow fighting might have appeared to be static positional warfare, it was far more dynamic than it first seemed. German “bush war” tactics used a variant of World War I tactics, relying on a thinly-held forward outpost line followed by a main line of resistance one or more hedgerows further behind. The outpost line was intended to detect an advancing enemy formation and force the enemy troops to ground where they would be vulnerable to mortar and artillery fire. Once the enemy force was pinned down by the machine-gun defenses in the outpost line, small fire teams further back in the defenses would be sent forward to strike the attackers from their flank.

The illustration here shows one of these fire teams of the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division (1) in action outside St Lô in the middle of July 1944. American hedgerow tactics began to evolve into combined-arms tactics with tanks providing direct fire support for the leading wave of attacking riflemen as a method to overcome the deadly German machine-gun nests. Although many accounts have derided American tactics as clumsy and inept, a German Heeresgruppe B study of Bush War tactics remarked of American tank-infantry combat that “We cannot do better than to adopt the combat tactics of the enemy with all his ruses and tricks.”

To deal with the threat of American tanks in the bocage, the German teams depended on new anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust rocket launchers. The Panzerschreck 88mm rocket launcher (2) began to appear in service in the autumn of 1943, and was well integrated into German infantry tactics by the summer of 1944. This was a large, crew-served weapon that required the support of additional loaders to carry additional rounds of rocket ammunition. These weapons were deployed in a special anti-tank company in each regiment, usually with three platoons which could then be distributed to each of the battalions. The Panzerfaust (3) began appearing in Normandy later that the Panzerschreck, and there were initial difficulties with the weapon due to firing malfunctions. These were disposable, one-shot weapons and so the number available at any one time could vary enormously.

The German Army depended on the squad machine gun, usually an MG 42, as the basis of its infantry tactics. In contrast, the Fallschirmjäger force wished to deepen its firepower though the use of the advanced FG 42 assault rifle (4). In the event, the FG 42 was complicated and expensive to manufacture, and so it was never deployed in sufficient numbers. Most German paratroopers were forced to rely on the 98K rifle, sometimes supplemented by small numbers of FG 42s.

PANZER-LEHR-DIVISION COUNTER-ATTACK AGAINST THE VIRE BRIDGEHEAD

Rommel had warned GFM Günther von Kluge that “if the Vire bridgehead cannot be cleaned out, the whole [7. Armee] front will collapse.” In the event that the US Army kept pushing southward, 84. Korps could be cut off from the rest of the Wehrmacht in Normandy with dire consequences. An attack using the Panzer-Lehr-Division was slated for July 9, but moving the division into place in such a short time proved impossible. Had the counter-attack been conducted on the 9th as originally planned it might have overcome the modest American forces then in the bridgehead. By July 11, the bridgehead had been substantially reinforced with two entire infantry divisions plus large portions of the 3rd Armored Division. Under such changed circumstances, the attack had become a foolhardy act of desperation. The offensive was conducted without any serious reconnaissance and was based on a serious underestimation of US forces. There was the presumption that a shocking blow in a sector that had never seen a significant Panzer force would be enough to overwhelm the American defenses. However, by this stage of the campaign, both the 9th and 30th Divisions were combat experienced and far more familiar with the conditions of bocage fighting than the Panzer-Lehr-Division. Furthermore, the German attack was badly planned with four battalions operating along separate axes in constricted terrain with no ability to support one another.

These two Panther Ausf. A tanks of 1./Panzer-Regiment.6 were knocked out near Le Désert during the failed 11 July attack while supporting Bataillon-Philips of Panzergrenadier-Lehr Rgt. 901. Most of the ten tanks lost during this attack were ambushed by M10 3in. GMC of the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion. The poor performance of the Panther tank during this attack led the Panzer-Lehr-Division commander, Fritz Bayerlein, to complain that they were not well suited to operations in the bocage since their long barrels made it difficult to traverse the turret in the narrow country roads.

The Panzer-Lehr-Division had already suffered very heavy attrition in the British/Canadian sector during the June 1944 combat, losing 3,407 men, 50 tanks, 82 half-tracks and over 200 trucks and other vehicles in less than three weeks of fighting. While the 3,407 casualties were only 23 percent of overall strength, it was 48 percent of combat strength. The Panzergrenadier regiments were especially hard hit, falling to only about a third of their authorized combat strength. At this point in time, the replacement system was still functioning and the division received 1,633 replacement troops. The division also received 19 replacement tanks by early July.

Allied intelligence was tracking the progress of the Panzer-Lehr-Division’s transfer from the British to American sectors, and had a reasonably sound idea about the intended German attack. It is not clear how much detail from the Ultra decrypts reached tactical commanders. Most of the official histories covering this period were written before the declassification of the “Ultra Secret” and even wartime records do not directly mention Ultra intelligence. However, it would appear that corps and divisional headquarters received some detail, even if the source of the information was never specified.

The Panzer-Lehr-Division attack was conducted by two battle-groups based on the two Panzergrenadier regiments, each consisting of roughly two Panzergrenadier battalions, a company of Pioner and one or more companies of tanks. Kampfgruppe 901 launched its attack on the left flank from the area south of the Bois du Hommet, aimed at St Jean-de-Daye and the Vire–Taute Canal crossing site. Kampfgruppe 902 was on the right flank and pushed out of the towns of Hauts-Vents and Pont-Hébert with the ultimate objective being to clear out the St Fromond/Aire bridgehead. The terrain did not favor the use of armored half-tracks, so the Panzergrenadiers mounted up on the tanks and assault guns.

GIs of the 9th Division gawk at a burned-out Panther Ausf. A of 1./Panzer-Regiment 6 that was hit by fire from an M10 3in. GMC of the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion during the failed attack near Le Désert.

The attack began in the pre-dawn hours of July 11. Bataillon-Philips (I./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 901) riding on Panther tanks made the deepest penetration of the day, crashing into the 39th Infantry, 9th Division, near the village of Le Désert. However, two companies of M10 3in. GMC of the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion were supporting the infantry regiment. Knowing the terrain far better than the German tank crews, they maneuvered their tank destroyers and began engaging the Panthers in the dark. When the first Panther was hit and exploded, the resulting fire illuminated the column, making it vulnerable to attack by the other tank destroyers. Bataillon-Philips, numbering 250 men and ten Panther tanks, was surrounded and wiped out; only 30 men escaped.

Kampfgruppe 902 on the right flank penetrated about a mile but was less successful in disrupting the 30th Division positions. One of its two attack groups, II./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 902, ran headlong into Task Force Y of CCB 3rd Armored Division and was immediately stopped. Although there was considerable chaos in the American positions before daybreak, the US units quickly rallied. As the US Army had learned in the previous weeks of fighting, the bocage terrain favored the defender over the attacker. By noon, it was evident that the attack had failed. The Panzer-Lehr attack did little more than delay the advance of the 9th Infantry Division by a day, but cost Panzer-Lehr-Division about 500–700 casualties, ten Panther and eight PzKpfw IV tanks.

A well emplaced 75mm PaK 40 anti-tank gun of the 3. Fallschirmjager-Division camouflaged in a hedgerow near St Lô. FJR 5 and FJR 9 had two of these in their 14. Kompanie. They were usually deployed to cover key roads.

Following the failed attack, the Panzer-Lehr-Division was given a sector of the front to defend, roughly 5km wide. The defense was based on two Kampfgruppen organized around the Panzergrenadier regiments with Kampfgruppe Welsch (Pz.Gren.Rgt. 902) holding the right sector and Kampfgruppe Scholze (Pz.Gren.Rgt. 901) holding the left sector. The defenses used typical German tactics with a thinly manned outpost line along the forward edge of battle followed by a string of strongpoints, and then the mobile reserves for counter-attacking. This type of defensive arrangement was a waste of one of the Wehrmacht’s best-equipped Panzer divisions. This was the only division in Normandy to have all four Panzergrenadier battalions equipped with armored half-tracks. The half-tracks were useless in the bocage country, and so were parked behind the lines about 40km away from the main-line-of-resistance. To make matters worse, a Panzer division had far fewer rifleman than an ordinary infantry division and both Panzergrenadier regiments had been decimated in the previous fighting. Their usual advantage on the battlefield was their mobility and the extra firepower available on their half-tracks, but these advantages were thrown away when deployed in a static defense line. While it was not clear at the time, the weakness of the Panzer-Lehr-Division defense line was the critical ingredient in the eventual success of the Operation Cobra break-through later in July.

EAST OF THE VIRE

While 30th Division was engaged with the Panzer-Lehr-Division in the Vire bridgehead, the rest of XIX Corps to the east of the Vire River was assigned to press southward towards St Lô. The newly arrived 35th Division was assigned to push down the eastern side of the Vire River in concert with the 30th Division on the western side. Further to the east around Villiers-Fossard, the 29th Division was poised to strike towards the Martinville Ridge. The 2nd Infantry Division of the neighboring V Corps was assigned to push down to the St Lô highway after seizing Hill 192. The terrain in this sector was dense bocage, and the objectives were mainly the hills and ridgelines that paralleled the St Lô–Bayeux highway.

PANZER-LEHR ATTACK, JULY 11, 1944

GERMAN UNITS

Panzer-Lehr-Division

Kampfgruppe 901

A. Bataillon-Philips (I./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 901 + 1./ Pz.Rgt. 6)

B. Bataillon-Schöne (II./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 901 + 2./Pz.Rgt. 6)

Kampfgruppe 902

C. Bataillon-Kuhnow (I./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 902 + 8./Pz.Rgt. Lehr)

D. Bataillon-Böhm (II./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 902 + 7./Pz.Rgt. Lehr)

2. SS-Panzer-Division “Das Reich”

E. Kampfgruppe Wisliceny

275. Infanterie-Division

F. Kampfgruppe Heintz

US UNITS

9th Division

1. 1/39th Infantry

2. 2/39th Infantry

3. 3/39th Infantry

4. 1/47th Infantry

5. 2/47th Infantry

6. 3/47th Infantry

7. 1/60th Infantry

8. 2/60th Infantry

9. 3/60th Infantry

30th Division

10. 1/117th Infantry

11. 2/117th Infantry

12. 3/117th Infantry

13. 1/119th Infantry

14. 2/119th Infantry

15. 3/119th Infantry

16. 1/120th Infantry

17. 2/120th Infantry

18. 3/120th Infantry

3rd Armored Division

19. Combat Command A

20. Combat Command B

21. Task Force Y

22. 113th Cavalry Group

EVENTS

1. In the pre-dawn hours around 0330hrs, July 11, Bataillon-Schöne moves up a gap between the 47th Infantry and the 39th Infantry along the contemporary D445 road. Around 0530hrs, trailing Panzergrenadier troops overran the command post of the 3/47th Infantry.

2. Bataillon-Philips pushes up the D8 road into the village of Le Désert starting around 0330hrs, splitting the two battalions of the 39th Infantry on either side of the road. The column attempts to overrun the command post of 2/39th Infantry on the north side of the village, but is repulsed by 57mm gun and bazooka fire in a series of skirmishes lasting over two hours.

3. The 3/39th Infantry, the regiment’s reserve, is instructed to move forward and block the D8 road from Le Desert to St Jean-de-Daye. This forces the spearhead of Bataillon-Philips further northward on the D445 road towards the hamlets of La Caplainerie and La Charlemagnerie.

4. The 1/47 Infantry, the regimental reserve, is ordered forward out of La Charlemagnerie down the D445 road to block Bataillon-Philips along this axis. They are supported by four M10 3in. GMC of Co. C, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

5. Company A, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion stationed east of Le Désert, engages the southern spearhead of Bataillon-Philips about 500 yards outside the town. One Panther tank and one M10 tank destroyer are knocked out, and the two other Panther tanks withdraw.

6. After dawn, a column of Panther tanks approaches La Charlemagnerie. The lead tank is knocked out by an M10 tank destroyer of C/899th Tank Destroyer Battalion. To the east, the Panthers engage in a duel with two M10 tank destroyers. One M10 damages a Panther before being knocked out, but the other tank destroyer knocks out the damaged Panther and then burns out a second with flank shots. The M10 tank destroyers accompanying the 1/47th Infantry engage and destroy three Panther tanks.

7. At 0900hrs, three sorties of P-51 and P-47 fighters were directed again Kampfgruppe 901 troops and vehicles in Le Hommet d’Arthenay and claim to have knocked out 13 of 14 tanks.

8. By 1600hrs, Bataillon-Philips has been surrounded and destroyed by elements of the 39th and 47th Infantry and Bataillon-Schöne has retreated back to its start line.

9. The initial attack of Bataillon-Böhm from Kampfgruppe 902 ran directly into the defenses of 3/120th Infantry, penetrating as far as the battalion command post in the pre-dawn darkness. The attack is hit hard by machine-gun and bazooka fire and fails to make a penetration of the American defenses. By the time the fighting ends around mid-morning, Bataillon-Böhm had lost five PzKpfw IV tanks, four SdKfz 251 half-tracks and about 60 prisoners.

10. Bataillon-Kuhnow with seven PzKpfw IV tanks launched its attack out of Pont-Hébert pushing up the D446 road along the Vire River where 3/119th Infantry had few defenses. At least one tank reached about 1 mile behind US lines and was sited near La Cocquerie.

11. Other elements of the 119th Infantry that had been preparing to support a Task-Force Y, 3rd Armored Division attack later that day were instead directed to clean up the Bataillon-Kuhnow penetration. They knocked out two PzKpfw IV tanks with the support of the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion near Bahais.

12. Task Force Y spends the day cleaning up other scattered elements of Bataillon-Kuhnow that had infiltrated along the Vire River.

Two of the units in this attack, the 2nd and 29th Divisions, had been involved in bocage fighting since mid-June and were well aware of its many pitfalls. Both divisions were convinced that better tank-infantry cooperation was essential to tactical success. These units were aware that the bocage could be penetrated using tank dozers. However, the supporting tank battalions seldom had their nominal complement of four dozers, and these often became combat casualties or suffered from breakdowns after repeated attempts to punch through the dense hedgerows. Some other more plentiful alternative was needed. Both divisions were experimenting with different tactical innovations.

A .30-cal. light machine gun squad deployed in the edge of a hedgerow during the fighting near Hill 192 on July 11. The assistant gunner is armed with a .45-cal. M3 “grease gun” instead of the usual .30-cal. carbine.

The 2nd Infantry Division came up with the idea of preparing bocage along the start line for tank penetration. The troops would surreptitiously hollow out openings in the hedgerows, leaving enough soil and shrubbery facing the German lines to conceal the openings. At the start of the attack, the supporting tanks would charge across the fields and burst through the openings, enabling the lead assault teams to reach the next hedgerow before the Germans could bring up anti-tank weapons. From past experience, the division expected that the German defense line would be shallow and only two or three hedgerows deep in most sectors. To deal with the subsequent hedgerows, the tanks were supplied by engineer demolition charges to rapidly breach the hedgerows. The most effective technique developed for the attack was the preparation of extremely detailed 1:10,000 scale maps of the bocage in front of each regiment. These were provided to the infantry, tank, and artillery units and had prepared codenames to facilitate artillery targeting. The tank tactics developed by the 29th Division were somewhat more elaborate and are described in more detail in the accompanying Battlescene here.

Besides the “salad fork” hedgerow cutters employed by the 29th Division, there are records that indicate that other tank units in the neighboring V Corps fielded “brush cutters” on their tanks in July; however, details are lacking. These were a type of plow using a length of railroad rail fixed to the front of the tank. These devices were evolutionary antecedents of the better-known Culin “Rhinoceros” hedgerow cutter that saw its combat debut during Operation Cobra later in July 1944.

Another innovation first developed at this time was the addition of a standard EE-8 field telephone on the back of the tanks. The field telephone was wired into the tank’s intercom system, and the field telephone fitted in a .30-cal. ammo box at the rear of the tank. An accompanying rifleman or engineers could thereby immediately communicate with the tank crew instead of relying on the elaborate protocol needed if trying to interface the incompatible infantry and tank radios.

Prior to the final push on St Lô, the 29th Division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles Gebhardt, created a special training course near Couvains to instruct his troops on new tactics and techniques for hedgerow fighting. He is seen here on July 18 with one of his staff officers, Maj. William Bratton.

The 29th Division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles Gebhardt, ordered the creation of a special training area near Couvains prior to a planned assault. The M4 medium tanks and infantry squads practised a variety of new tactics to fight in the hedgerows, including the new explosive breaching technique. Another tactical change was to convince the riflemen to cross the hedgerow square through the center, not along the lateral hedgerows on the sides of the fields. The sides offered the false promise of shelter, but the German practice was to position a machine gun in each corner that could mow down any infantry squad moving along the side hedgerow. These combined arms tactics were summarized as “One squad, one tank, one field.”

THE MARTINVILLE RIDGE

The center of the XIX Corps attack was the 29th Division, fighting on the northeast approaches of St Lô. The attack was conducted primarily by the 115th and 116th Infantry Regiments. The 116th Infantry faced the defenses of II./FS-Rgt. 9, holding positions on the Martinville Ridge, also known as Hill 147. The attack started with methodical tank-infantry attacks. The German outpost line was especially well defended as well as being heavily mined. After a slow start, the 116th Infantry attack began to pick up momentum, and the 2/116th Infantry began to reach its objective to the east of Martinville by afternoon. The pace of the advance was good enough that by mid-afternoon, Gen. Gebhardt encouraged the 116th Infantry to try to reach St Lô itself. Even after the 175th Infantry was sent to reinforce the advance, the objective was beyond its grasp. The advance of the 116th Infantry was assisted by the fighting in the neighboring 2nd Infantry Division sector, especially the success of the 23rd Infantry around Hill 192 as described below.

The attack on the Martinville Ridge on July 15–16 by the 29th Division was supported by specially modified tanks of the 747th Tank Battalion, fitted with two timber prongs on the bow to create cavities in the base of hedgerows. After impaling the timber prongs into the hedgerow, the tank withdrew and accompanying engineers filled the cavities with prepared explosive charges to blow gaps into the hedgerows.

In contrast to the steady progress by the 116th Infantry, the neighboring 115th Infantry had a very hard time and was unable to take its objectives, the small villages of La Luzerne and Belle-Fontaine. In spite of the lack of progress, German casualties continued to mount, in no small measure due to the heavy American divisional artillery support that totaled 13,000 rounds that day alone.

A paratrooper armed with one of the rare FG 42 automatic rifles with its distinctive side magazine. These were built in very small numbers, around 7,000, and it probably identifies him as serving in one of the Sturmtruppen of Fallschirm-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 12, the corps-level reconnaissance battalion of II Fallschirmjäger-Korps that was equipped with this weapon.

BUSTING THE BOCAGE

By mid-July 1944, several units in the First US Army were developing new techniques to permit tanks to cut through the hedgerow. While this could be accomplished using dozer tanks, at most there were four of these tanks per battalion. The 747th Tank Battalion (1), attached to the 29th Division, worked with Lt. Col. Robert Ploger’s 121st Engineer Combat Battalion to develop ways to rapidly breach the bocage. During an attack on June 24, 1944, the engineers placed a pair of 24-pound charges 8ft apart at the base of a hedge. This did blow a gap large enough for a tank to pass through, but the engineers decided that a charge double the size was really needed. Ploger began a more careful study of the problem. A tank company, penetrating 1½ miles through bocage country, would on average encounter 34 separate hedgerows. This would require 17 tons of explosive per company or about 60 tons per battalion. This was clearly beyond the resources of any engineer battalion. Ploger and the tankers continued to experiment with explosive breaching, and found that a much smaller charge could be used if it could be buried deep within the base of the hedge. However, digging holes in the hedge while under fire was both time-consuming and dangerous. One of the tankers came up with the idea of fitting a pair of timber prongs on the front of each tank, called a “salad fork” (2). When a breach in the bocage was needed, a tank would charge across the field and embed the prongs in the base of the hedge. When the tank backed out, it would pull out the timber prong, leaving small tunnels (3). The engineers pre-packaged 15 pounds of explosive in the fiber-board containers used to transport 105mm artillery ammunition (4). Two of these improvised demolition charges could create a gap wide enough for a tank and the accompanying infantry. Small M29 Weasel tracked utility vehicles would follow the tank-engineer team, bringing along extra explosives, as seen here (5). The use of these tactics in combat in mid-July had very mixed results with some units feeling that they were too elaborate and time consuming. Neighboring units took the salad fork idea one step further and developed the “Rhino” hedge-cutter that permitted a tank to breach a hedgerow without the need for explosives.

HILL 192

For the 2nd Infantry Division, no objective had greater symbolic importance that Hill 192. This small hill was located to the east of the village of St André de l’Épine. Since the farmland to the immediate north was largely flat, the hill provided vistas to the Vire River and Caumont, allowing the Germans to observe all US movements towards St. Lô in this area. The 2nd Division had attempted to capture this hill nearly a month earlier on June 16, losing 1,250 men in the process without gaining control of the hill. During the lull in fighting in this sector in late June and early July, the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division had continued to reinforce their strongpoints. Even though there were few infantry clashes during this period, both sides exchanged mortar and artillery fire on a daily basis, and the 3. Fallschirmjäger -Division reported suffering a hundred casualties per day to the incessant bombardment.

The 2nd Division attack on Hill 192 was conducted by two of its three regiments, the 23rd and 38th Infantry, with the 9th Infantry remaining in division reserve. Only two battalions of the 23rd Infantry and one from the 38th Infantry were directly involved in the attack. Hill 192 itself was held by two German paratrooper battalions, III./ Fallschirmjager-Rgt. 9 near the crest of the hill facing the 38th Infantry, and I./Fallschirmjager.Rgt. 5 on the eastern side of the hill facing the 23rd Infantry. By this time, the German paratroopers had a well-established, multi-layered defensive position with each field covered by one or more machine guns, and every hedge line and road pre-registered by regimental mortar crews. As a result, the force ratio was about 3:2 in favor of the attacking American force, by no means an overwhelming advantage in terrain that favored the defender. The main American advantage remained the heavy artillery support, with some 20,000 rounds being fired in support of the July 11 attack.

A defensive position of the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division carved into a hedgerow outside St Lô with a dead GI in the foreground.

V Corps had planned to conduct air strikes at the start of the attack, but ground haze prevented the planned air support. The attack was preceded by a major artillery attack, including a heavy mix of white phosphorous (WP) rounds, nominally a smoke round but with a significant incendiary effect. “Willy Pete” was much feared and hated by the German troops. The WP projectiles fragmented into small shards of incandescent white phosphorus that caused excruciating burns in contact with flesh; the smoke was irritating and could be toxic in sufficient concentration.

This Panther Ausf. A tank number 232 of 2. Kompanie, Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130 was captured during the fighting near the Vire River north of St Lô. It was put back into service by the 29th Division for trials as seen here near Balleroy on July 16, 1944.

Companies E and F, 2/38th Infantry, made a methodical advance towards the west side of Hill 192, encountering especially tough resistance in the hamlet of Cloville. This was one of the few sectors with German armored support, apparently two StuG III from FS.StuG.Brigade 12. The fixed casemates on these assault guns made them very clumsy in the bocage, and both were knocked in duels with accompanying US tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion. The two rifle companies eventually cleared the Le Soulaire Farm and made it over the west side of Hill 192 to reach the objective of the St Lô–Bayeux highway.

The neighboring 1/38th Infantry, advancing towards the center of Hill 192, was hit such intense fire that the six accompanying M4 tanks of A/741st Tank Battalion were knocked out or forced to withdraw. Two of its companies managed to fight their way up Hill 192 by methodically overcoming the German paratrooper defenses in each of the hedgerows. The 1/38th Infantry reached the reverse slope of Hill 192 by early afternoon, but was only able to advance to within about 200 yards of its objective along the St Lô–Bayeux highway.

The 1/23rd Infantry faced the unenviable task of pushing over a ravine, already notorious in the division as “Purple Heart Draw.” The ravine was steep enough that it could not be negotiated by tanks and the task of breaching the draw was assigned to the 1st Platoon, Co. A, 23rd Infantry. The platoon came under intense machine-gun and mortar fire, even though four M4 tanks of A/741st Tank Battalion attempted to offer covering fire from the edge of the ravine. About two-thirds of the platoon became casualties in the ensuing fighting. Eventually, two other platoons from Co. A, supported by two M4 tanks of C/741st Tank Battalion, were able to maneuver to the opposite side of the gully and reduce the stubborn German strongpoint covering it. The 1/23rd Infantry eventually advanced to within 400 yards of its objective, the St Lô–Bayeux highway.

Mortars were one of the most effective weapons in the bocage fighting since the mortar bombs could be dropped over a hedgerow with considerable precision. This is an 81mm mortar of the 35th Division in action along the Vire River on July 14. Each rifle battalion had six of these in their weapons company.

While the main attack was underway, Co. L of 3/23rd Infantry reduced a major German strongpoint in the bocage near St Georges d’Elle. This also served to tie down other elements of the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division and prevent them from reinforcing the embattled defenders around Hill 192.

Although only one American company managed to reach the St Lô–Bayeux highway by the end of the day, the attack had been successful in overcoming the German defenses on Hill 192. German casualties had been high, including 147 prisoners. The 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division was forced to commit its last reserve, the engineers of FS-Pioner.Kompanie 3. Due to heavy losses, the German counter-attack launched late on July 11 was too feeble to push back the American line. The extent of German losses was evident in the fighting on the 12th. III./FS-Rgt. 9 had suffered a further 600 casualties, completely reducing its combat effectiveness. It was replaced by III./FS-Rgt. 8 and its troops attempted to erect a new defense line south of the St Lô–Bayeux highway. The 2nd Infantry Division secured the St Lô–Bayeux highway as far as La Calvarie. Two days of fighting cost the 2nd Infantry Division 69 dead, 328 wounded and 8 missing.

The attack by the 2nd Infantry Division assisted the progress of the neighboring 29th Division. As on July 11–12, the 29th Division attack on Thursday, July 13 was conducted primarily by the 115th and 116th Infantry Regiments. The 116th Infantry was able to push over the St Lô–Bayeux highway, and Gen. Gebhardt attempted to reinforce this advance by using his reserve, the 175th Infantry. Due to the congestion in the narrow attack sector, this did not increase the momentum of the attack. After nightfall, the 175th Infantry relieved the battered 116th Infantry on the St. Lô road. There was little infantry fighting on Friday, July 14 since there were incessant summer downpours that turned the battlefield into a sea of mud. Both sides used the lull to regroup. In the three days of intense fighting, the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division had suffered a staggering 4,064 casualties, and FS-Rgt. 9 was no longer combat effective.

NORTH OF ST LÔ

The third unit to take part in the Tuesday, July 11 offensive was the new and inexperienced 35th Division. This division arrived to the northwest of the 29th Division on the night of July 9/10 with little time to familiarize itself with the terrain. More importantly, the division had no experience at all in bocage fighting, nor any specialized training. One of its regiments was in corps reserve so the attack was conducted by only two regiments, the 137th Infantry on the left and 320th Infantry on the right. It was facing the battered but experienced 352. Infanterie-Division and its assortment of battle-groups. Grenadier-Regiment 987 held the critical sector on the east side of the Vire River while GR 916 held the main approach route to St Lô.

MSgt. Efrain Ackerman, a US Army intelligence translator, interviews Oberleutnant Kurt Lingsleben of Schnelle-Brigade 30. This unit had been formed in Normandy in February 1944 from mountain troops, and Lingsleben still has the Edelweiss insignia of the Gebirgsjäger on his field cap. Schnelle-Brigade 30 was one of several units amalgamated to the 352. Infanterie-Division outside St Lô in the hopes of keeping it combat-effective.

The division’s attack on July 11 made some gains in the western sector of the 137th Infantry against GR 987, but little on the right against GR 916. Very little progress was made towards its objective, the northern side of the Vire River northwest of St Lô. As in the case of other inexperienced divisions in Normandy, it took time for the division to become acquainted with the unique challenges of bocage fighting. By July 14, the 137th Infantry had pushed forward along the Vire River, bringing it even with the 30th Infantry Division on the western side of the Vire. The 137th Infantry faced a particularly formidable strongpoint around the hamlet of Le Carrillon. The 352. Infanterie-Division suffered 986 casualties in two days of fighting and committed its last paltry reserves when its main-line-of-resistance was penetrated.

Allied air-strikes substantially undermined German logistics in Normandy. This is a column of Skoda Diesel 706 heavy trucks that were hit along the road north of St Lô during the second week of July 1944.

THE ORIGINS OF OPERATION COBRA

Prelude to Cobra, July 14–20, 1944

Even though the bocage fighting during the first week of July had been painfully slow, Bradley began to appreciate from intelligence briefings that Hausser’s 7. Armee was exhausting the very last of its reserves. There was little evidence of any effort to create a second defensive line deeper in France. Around July 8, Bradley began to formulate a plan to penetrate the German main-line-of-resistance using a carpet-bombing attack, after which he would push through his two heavy armored divisions for the break-out and exploitation. His immediate objective was to push far enough south to permit VIII Corps to swing westward into Brittany, a major operational goal of the Overlord plans for the Allied forces in Normandy. After going over details of the plan with the staff of the FUSA headquarters, Bradley presented the plan to Montgomery on July 10. Montgomery approved the plan, but recommended reinforcing the sector in the main attack zone. The focal point was expected to be in Collin’s VII Corps sector, and Collins recommended a section of the Periers–St Lô road as the jumping-off point. After winning Eisenhower’s approval, Bradley detailed the Operation Cobra plan to the corps commanders and senior staff at his headquarters on July 12. The original plan called for a start of the operation on the 18th, but as will be related below, the start date had to be pushed back several times for a variety of reasons.

The officers of 3/175th Infantry, 29th Division discuss the planned attack towards St Lô on July 15. The officers, from left to right, are the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Edward Gill, Capt. Bernard Merson (artillery liaison), Capt. Jack Lawton (regiment S-3/operations), and Lt. Tom Sigler. The kneeling officer with the SCR-536 handie-talkie radio on his shoulder has not been identified.

The decision to proceed with Operation Cobra shaped FUSA plans for the fighting in the third week of July around St Lô. In the VII Corps sector, the 9th and 30th Infantry Divisions needed to gain better start points by reaching the Periers–St Lô road. In the XIX Corps sector, St Lô had to be finally taken since it was a major road junction that would eventually be needed once the Cobra breakthrough had been attained.

THE FINAL ASSAULT ON ST LÔ

The Capture of St Lô

The final attacks towards St Lô started on Saturday, July 15. Although the American focus was mainly in XIX Corps with the largely symbolic mission of capturing St Lô, the focus by Hausser’s 7. Armee was on the fighting west of the Vire. An American penetration in this area continued to threaten to cut off Choltitz’s 84. AK from the rest of the Wehrmacht in Normandy. The profound weakness of 7. Armee after two weeks of savage “bush war” finally had led to the consent from Berlin to transfer two more units from Brittany into Normandy. The first to arrive was the 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division. While this might seem to be a major addition to the defenses in view of the sterling performance of 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division, OB West had been reluctant to move the 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division into Normandy due to its incomplete training. Most alarming was the shortage of trained officers. The commander of FS-Rgt. 6, Oberst Friedrich von der Heydte, offered a scathing assessment of its shortcomings: “The 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division was of little combat value. Less than 10% of the men had jump training, and barely 20% of the officers had infantry training or experience. Armament and equipment was incomplete; only 50% of the authorized machine guns, one regiment without helmets, no heavy anti-tank weapons, no motorization.”

A .30-cal. light machine gun firing position cut into a hedgerow during the fighting on July 15. The weapons platoon in each rifle company had two light machine-gun squads, each with one of these weapons.

This assessment proved correct and the initial commitment of the unit was disappointing “confirming our experience that newly committed troops which have not developed teamwork and are thrown into intense combat without having been broken in, suffer disproportionately heavy losses” according to a 7. Armee report. As a result, the division was not deployed intact, but its regiments detached to reinforce other divisions. Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 14 was subordinated to the Panzer-Lehr-Division. Its three battalions were rated at strong, average, and weak, and the divisional commander, Fritz Bayerlein, complained that they were “almost useless as nearly all the time they avoided contact” and discipline was so poor that “in the rear area, there were paratroopers rambling everywhere.” Following the 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division was the rest of the 275. Infanterie-Division from Brittany which had already provided one of its regiments as Kampfgruppe Heintz earlier in the campaign. It was slated to become the 7. Armee reserve once it arrived.

A VW Schwimmwagen amphibious car of the 3. Fallschirmjager-Division was ambushed by a US tank in a narrow road between the hedgerows outside St Lô on July 15 and its crew killed by machine-gun fire.

A rifleman in a foxhole on Rue de Perth on the north side of St Lô opposite the gates of the Château des Commines. The chateau was used as the headquarters for the 84. AK and a large bunker still located in the grounds served as the command post for the corps commander, Gen. Erich Marcks, and Gen. Choltitz after Marcks’ death.

The American attacks west of the Vire were conducted by the 30th Division, facing a mixed defense by the Panzer-Lehr-Division consisting of its battered Pz.Gren.Rgt. 902 and elements of the newly arrived FS.Rgt. 14 of the 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division, supported by dug-in tanks. The first day’s attack on July 15 secured unimpressive gains, but on the 16th the 120th Infantry finally broke through the main-line-of-resistance along the road from Haut-Vents and pushed through the village of Le Mesnil-Durand. The Panzer-Lehr-Division responded in the afternoon with two vigorous counter-attacks supported by tanks, but these were stymied by heavy US artillery fire. The Panzer-Lehr-Division lost 16 tanks during the day’s fighting. The advance by the 30th Division also exposed the west flank of the neighboring 352. Infanterie-Division on the eastern side of the Vire River. Hausser was concerned that it could force its withdrawal back towards St Lô and, as a result, he ordered the Panzer-Lehr-Division to stage another counter-attack against the 30th Division. In view of its weakness in infantry, the German attacks on Monday, July 17 were ineffective though they did slow the American advance.

Medics move Capt. John Strader to a jeep ambulance on July 19 during the fighting north of St Lô. Strader, the executive officer of Co. A, 134th Infantry, 35th Division, had been wounded by shrapnel two days earlier but had returned to combat after the company commander was severely wounded. He led the company for two days before being incapacitated when hit in the leg by sniper fire. He was later awarded the Silver Star for his actions on those two days.

The attack by Corlett’s XIX Corps on the western side of the Vire River was focused in the 29th Division sector. Although a push along the St Lô–Bayeux road might have seemed the obvious route into the city, the division had found that the road was too vulnerable due to German observation from hills to the south. As a result, Gen. Gebhardt shifted his focus to the center where the 116th Infantry could use the cover offered by the northern slopes of the Martinville Ridge to reduce its vulnerability to artillery fire. By this stage, the 3. Fallschirmjäger-Division was in a perilous state, with only about a third of its combat strength and its FS-Rgt. 9 largely destroyed in the previous fighting. The FS-Rgt. 8 was moved into its place, reinforced by an improvised unit formed from troops of the divisional signals company.

The town of St Lô had been devastated by air bombardment and artillery shelling. This is the view seen by US Army units on entering the city from the north-east. The Dollée stream had become blocked by all the rubble, creating a small, fetid lake.

On Saturday, July 15, the 116th Infantry advanced faster than the division’s other two regiments, and 2/116th Infantry leapfrogged ahead on the St Lô–Bayeux road by an indirect approach over the Martinville Ridge. As a result, the two lead battalions of 116th Infantry were in an exposed salient that became the target of German counter-attacks on the 16th. The previous fighting had been so costly that Co. A, 1/116th Infantry was commanded by a sergeant. Even when a new commander and some reinforcements arrived on the 18th, the company only numbered 23 men of whom only six were from the original group; its nominal strength should have been 275 men. The 2/116th was in a precarious position on the St Lô road, isolated from the rest of the division and subjected to repeated German attacks.

Shortly before leading the final attack against St Lô on July 17, Maj. Thomas Howie, the popular commander of the 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry, 29th Division telephoned the divisional commander, Gen. Gebhardt, saying he would meet him in the city. He was killed in a mortar barrage that day. Gebhardt insisted that the lead jeep into the city carry his body to the town’s Saint Croix Cathedral, making him the first American soldier to enter the city. This image of the flag-draped body was widely published in the United States, but due to wartime censorship, was identified only as the “Major of St. Lô.”

In spite of the dangerous isolation of two battered battalions of the 116th Infantry, the situation on the German side was grim. The 352. Infanterie-Division had been reduced to a combat strength of about 2,100 men and a significant fraction of these troops was suffering from combat exhaustion due to the unrelenting fighting. The 35th Division had continued its slow push down along the east side of the Vire River against the 352. Infanterie-Division, but the eastward turn of the Vire above St Lô threatened to push the Germans against the river where they might become trapped. All the available bridges over the Vire had been downed by American air or artillery attack except for one. This surviving bridge, the Pont de Gourfaleur near Baudre, was south of St Lô and so of no use for retreating over the river. Furthermore, it had been damaged. The attacks by the 35th Division, along with the penetrations across the Vire in the VII Corps sector by the 30th Division threatened to completely unhinge the 352.Infanterie-Division’s defenses.

Task Force C enters St Lô on the afternoon of July 18, passing by Café-Restaurant Malherbe near the Carrefour de la Bascule crossroads. The M4 tank was from the 747th Tank Battalion and troops of the 1/115th Infantry, 29th Division.

This is the same Carrefour de la Bascule crossroads in St Lô later on Tuesday, July 18. Maj. Glover S. Johns had set up the command post of the 1/115th Infantry in the restaurant building to the right. The area came under fire from a German anti-tank gun to the west along Rue de Neufbourg. Capt. Sydney Vincent, the commander of Co. B, 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, moved his M10 3in. GMC, seen here on the left, around the corner of the building to try to silence the gun. The vehicle was knocked out by return fire but Vincent and his crew escaped. German mortar fire soon followed and Vincent was killed moments later behind the vehicle. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions that day. The second M10 tank destroyer, to the right, was also knocked out during this gun duel.

During the late afternoon of Monday, July 17, Hausser warned the Heeresgruppe B headquarters that the 352. Infanterie-Division would soon have to withdraw into the northern outskirts of St Lô or risk encirclement. At 1755hrs, the operations officer of Heeresgruppe B, Oberst Hans von Tempelhof, responded that Hausser should use his own discretion. There was considerable turmoil in the office since Rommel had been wounded earlier in the day by a strafing Spitfire. Kluge took over Rommel’s responsibilities late in the day and was briefed on the situation around 2100hrs, and he subsequently approved the establishment of a new main-line-of-resistance. Kluge informed GFM Alfred Jodl of the Wehrmacht high command in Berlin about these developments after the fact since Berlin was dogmatically opposed to any withdrawals, no matter how prudent and inevitable. The 352. Infanterie-Division began pulling out of its positions on the night of July 17–18. When the 35th Division resumed its attacks on Tuesday morning, it found the previous main-line-of-resistance to have been abandoned.

A patrol from the 29th Division passes down Rue de Neufbourg in the ruins of St Lô following the capture of the city on July 18.

The collapse of the 352. Infanterie-Division defenses on the north side of St Lô convinced Gen. Gebhardt that the time was right for a hard push for the city. The assistant divisional commander, Gen. Norman Cota, had organized Task Force C (Cota) for this mission, consisting of the 29th Reconnaissance Troop, supported by a tank platoon of the 747th Tank Battalion, Co. B of the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, along with engineer and other troops. The Task Force totaled about 600 men and was heavily motorized. The morning attacks on the 18th by the 115th Infantry along the boundary with the 35th Division advanced unusually rapidly and, as a result, at 1430hrs, Gebhardt instructed Cota to activate Task Force C to join with 1/115th Infantry and head into the city.

The M8 armored cars of Lt. Edward Jones’ 29th Reconnaissance Troop were the first troops into the city and they began to deploy to pre-arranged road junctions starting at 1800hrs. The city had been the target of numerous bomber and artillery strikes, leaving it a ruin with its streets clogged with rubble. Although the Germans did not intend to defend the town in force aside from some rear guards, Task Force C was hit by artillery and mortar fire from the neighboring sectors.

By this point, the 275. Infanterie-Division had finally arrived from Brittany. Hausser refused to deploy the division east of the Vire near St Lô due to the greater threat posed by VII Corps west of the river. He did provide one battalion to reinforce the failing 352. Infanterie-Division on July 18. This was used to stage a counter-attack to retake St Lô late on Tuesday. The preparations for this attack were spotted by outposts of the 115th Infantry and the attack was crushed with artillery fire before it built up any momentum.

The wreck of an SdKfz 231 heavy armored car of Panzeraufklärungs-Abteilung 130 of the Panzer-Lehr-Division abandoned on the streets of St Lô after the fighting.

The 113th Cavalry Group, in XIX Corps reserve, was sent through St Lô in the early hours of Wednesday 19 July, probing for the new German main-line-of-resistance outside the city. It was soon found that the 352. Infanterie-Division had set up a new defense line on the hills immediately south of St Lô. The rest of the 115th Infantry entered St Lô and began cleaning up German stragglers.