The 2nd Battalion continued scouting for isolated Germans within its zone until the late afternoon of July 28, sometimes shooting it out with pockets of enemy infantry. G Company rousted some youthful enemy soldiers, possibly from a training school. One G Company soldier recalled, “[T]hey fought with a will until caught in a tight spot, then with death staring them in the face they reverted to being boys again.” The most excitement came when the Luftwaffe made a quick bomb run with four planes. Bill’s platoon had an air defense mission but the German planes swooped in from behind the lines, completed their bomb run, and were gone before the crews could engage them. Luckily, they caused little damage.1
Colonel Luckett returned from a division meeting at 1720 hours with a fresh set of orders for the 12th Infantry. If anyone had any doubt about the changed nature of the Normandy battle, the movement order erased them. The regiment would march seventeen kilometers into German-held territory with 2nd Battalion serving as the advance guard. That distance exceeded any daily advance since the invasion began.2
Given the ground to be covered and the fact that most of it would be hiked in the hours of darkness, the heavy machine gun platoons mounted the guns on their jeeps. Captain Enroughty distributed them throughout the battalion formation to provide security for the entire advance guard. The hedgerows prevented the gun squads from bounding ahead by echelon between firing positions, a technique normally used to keep continuous anti-aircraft coverage along a convoy route. Bill’s platoon and the other, commanded by 2nd Lieutenant Jack Gunning, had to move within the same column they had to protect.3
The battalion hit the Initial Point (IP) at 1900 hours but quickly stalled because the 3rd Armored Division’s vehicles jammed the roads. Hurry up and wait! Once the battalion got past the traffic snarl, they marched south, passing west of the Bois de Soulles. Just beyond the woods, the lead vehicles discovered that the intended route over a small bridge dead-ended at the Soulle River. The worn-out infantrymen dropped to the ground to give their sore feet a break while a recon party raced ahead to find an alternate river crossing. The troops barely had a chance to loosen their boot laces before the Luftwaffe made another bombing run. The M1917A1 crews, still mounted on the jeeps, swiveled and elevated their guns but Bill ordered them to hold fire. Firing at the planes in the dark would have accomplished nothing except give away their location. Again, the bombs missed. The recon party returned in time to get the advance guard moving before the whole division bogged down. The battalion crossed over an undefended bridge in the town of Soulle.4
The long column wound its way through narrow Norman lanes in the pre-dawn hours of July 29. The men finally caught some sleep after digging temporary defensive positions near le Guislain. Bill’s platoon had little chance to rest because it had to defend a portion of the perimeter. Bill conferred with the closest rifle company commander to identify possible enemy avenues of approach and select firing positions for his machine guns. He assigned sectors of fire to the crews and designated FPLs to cover the company front. The squads mounted the guns back on the tripods and filled out range cards. The range cards were hasty sketches, “showing only the probable location of targets and the data as to direction and range or elevations necessary to place fire on them.” At best, the crews napped for an hour.5
The 12th Infantry resumed its attack to seize the highway between Villebaudon and Hambye four hours after halting. The 2nd Battalion found the highway then turned west toward Hambye. As they approached the town division scouts reported a strange finding—two serviceable enemy tanks, abandoned on the road by their crews. G Company’s leading rifle platoon encountered another positive sign—civilians outside their homes. The scene made a lasting impression on Private Stodghill. “By the time the point squad reached the built-up area the street was lined with people dressed in their Sunday best…Soon we were having to push our way through a solid mass of humanity.” The Americans shoved their way into the town square. “Then, as the red, white and blue French Tricolor was unfurled in Hambye for the first time in more than four years, the strains of le Marseillaise blared forth from [a] record player. Every civilian, the majority with tears streaming down their cheeks, joined in singing what must surely be the most stirring of all anthems.”6
Reports of a German counterattack cut short the celebration. Scouts spotted four hundred enemy infantrymen coming from the south, using a stream valley for their avenue of approach. The Americans scrambled to set a hasty defense. H Company Commander, Captain Enroughty, organized the battalion’s heavy weapons to repel the attack. The 81mm mortar and heavy machine gun crews deployed to deliver long-range fire into the stream valley. When the Germans got within 2,000 meters of Hambye, the eight M1917A1s opened fire, spraying the German column at a rate of 1,000 rounds a minute. At that distance, the trajectory of the rounds followed a high arc before coming down against the enemy (known as “plunging fire”), instead of raking directly over the ground (known as “grazing fire”). Each twenty-round burst sprayed an area 55–65 yards deep and four yards wide, what the Army termed a “beaten zone.” (See Figure 4) This plunging fire disrupted the enemy formations and forced their infantrymen to dodge and advance by short rushes instead of charging ahead. The gunners used a traversing handwheel on the mount to shift fire over to cover more of the enemy formation. H Company’s mortars joined the fight, dumping 81mm rounds into the valley. The German advance slowed in the face of this fire. The battalion then called in supporting fire from the 42nd Artillery Battalion. That did the trick. The German counterattack dissolved before it got close to the rifle company positions. After the enemy broke off the attack, Major Johnson sent a platoon to check out the small valley. They found nothing. The Germans had completely withdrawn from the area.7
The troops, after several armed clashes amid two days and a night of constant marching, were ready to drop in place. Junior officers and sergeants picked out spots to bed the men down. Bill met with one of the rifle company commanders to coordinate the evening fire plan when a call came in from Major Johnson. “Have you cleared all the houses in the town? Over.”
“We have the town secured. No reports of any Germans. Over.”
“I say again, have you cleared all the houses? Over.”
“Negative. Not all of them. We can do that first thing in the morning. Over.”
“Negative. Clear all houses, now. Out.”
Bill and the company commander looked at each other, bewildered by the insistent directive. But, orders were orders, so the troops spent hours going house-to-house to ensure no Germans skulked around. They finally bedded down late that night.
A heavy rumble of vehicle traffic coming from the north roused Bill before dawn. He scouted the road to see a column of Sherman tanks heading into town. First, one platoon of tanks clanked by then a second. A few half-tracks and jeeps, mixed with more tanks, drove through the village—a whole tank company. But the column did not stop. Tanks, jeeps, half-tracks, and trucks kept coming. Columns of fuel tankers and support vehicles went by, spewing clouds of exhaust into the air. Another column of combat vehicles followed that. Through the pre-dawn hours and into the early morning an entire combat command of an armored division, equivalent in size to an infantry regiment, charged through the French town.
The spectacle amazed Bill and his men. The infantrymen seldom attacked in a column of squads. Yet, right before their eyes it seemed like a whole army of tanks was attacking in single file. They lost count of the vehicles but they could see that the armored march column stretched for miles on the French highway.8
The troops in the battalion had little understanding of the greater battle going on around them but the huge flow of men and vehicles surging through the Norman countryside drove home the scale of their success. They began to sense that their advance was more than a breakthrough—it was a breakout.
In the five days since Cobra, the Americans had sheared off the entire western half of the German defensive line. The surviving elements of the German LXXXIV Corps had to retreat to avoid being pinned against the Norman west coast. Sweeping west to Coutances, General Collins’s VII Corps found nothing to its south other than makeshift fighting formations from miscellaneous enemy units, what the Germans called Kampfgruppen. Farther east, the German II Parachute Corps struggled to hold their crumbling left flank against the American onslaught.9
Collins wasted no time turning his divisions south to exploit the chaotic German defense. The Ivy Division attached tanks to the 12th Infantry on July 30 and ordered Combat Team 12 (CT 12) to seize high ground just north of Villedieu-les-Poêles, a major road hub seventeen kilometers to the south. The 26th Infantry Regiment, temporarily attached to the 4th Infantry Division, was assigned to attack due south from Hambye, alongside CT 12’s right (western) flank. The 2nd Battalion had to make room for the 26th Infantry, so it displaced to an assembly area two kilometers farther southeast, near la Chasse-Doriere. The men moved out of Hambye in the early morning to the ominous crunching sounds of a major tank battle near Villebaudon. The 2nd Battalion’s avenue of advance ran across three successive east-west streams and ridges. The three ridges pointed like fingers to the Sienne River that flowed along the western edge of the regiment’s zone. CT 12 designated the first stream as the LD for the attack and the third hill mass around the village of la Mancellière as its objective.10 (See Map IV)
At first glance, the regiment’s order, and others like it during the summer of 1944, looked sound. The format and task organization met the standards but some details necessary to direct and coordinate the combat action got neglected. The commanders and staff officers in the 12th Infantry had undergone intense training but these young men had gone from lieutenants to field grade officers in two to three years. Their inexperience showed in the order’s spotty adherence to doctrine. The Staff Officers’ Field Manual stated that a “general location or direction of principal effort” should appear on all orders. The “Plan of Maneuver” in the regiment’s field order merely instructed the battalions to “seize objectives shown [on the overlay]”, and failed to specify any enveloping maneuvers or directions of attack. Consequently, the battalions and companies used frontal attacks as the standard scheme of maneuver. Doctrine also called for detailed coordination between infantry, armor, and artillery. The regiment’s “Plan of Fire,” lacked details: no target designations, no instructions for preparation fires, no priority of fire support, and no deception fire missions. Nor did the order task the attached tank platoon with any mission during the attack. In short, the battalions had only broad guidance, not the detailed plans necessary to orchestrate a close-quarter fight against a skilled opponent.11
This situation was not limited to the 12th Infantry or the 4th Infantry Division during the summer of 1944. The entire U.S. Army in Northwestern Europe had yet to learn many of the skills necessary to manage combined-arms warfare. The battles in Normandy also revealed many oversights in the Army’s tactical doctrine. To their credit, the officers and men would learn these lessons “on the job” and later help the Army update much of its doctrine.
The 2nd Battalion Commander, Major Johnson, attached Bill’s heavy machine gun platoon to G Company for the attack. Bill did not welcome the assignment. He had misgivings about the company commander he had to work with.
Since landing on Utah Beach, the regiment had almost completely burned through its officers. A few, like Bill, had returned to duty after convalescing but most had been replaced with green lieutenants. That worked for the platoons but not at the company command level, where experience mattered. Normally, the regimental commander would promote a worthy 1st lieutenant who had some combat under his belt but in July that was not viable. Virtually all the experienced lieutenants had been killed or wounded. Colonel Luckett tried to fix the situation by shifting officers from the battalion and the regiment staffs to command companies, but most of these officers had no time leading troops in the field.12
Such was the case of the new commander of G Company. He came from a staff position that required no tactical skills, and he had taken no part in pre-invasion tactical exercises. Bill listened with growing dismay as the commander laid out his plan for the attack. Anyone with firsthand experience fighting the Germans could see obvious shortcomings. The best way to attack a ridge is to flank it then push up the point of the finger. The commander’s order directed the platoons to attack down one slope, cross the valley, and charge uphill, taking the German defenders head-on. He neglected to use the natural concealment of woods and hedgerows for his avenue of advance.
The company commander’s plan did not include orders for Bill’s machine guns, either. Bill interrupted to ask for guidance. “Sir, what do you want my machine guns to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you recommend?” the commander asked.
“I think I’ll put one section here and the other one over here,” Bill said while pointing to the map.
“Okay. Why do you want to put them there?”
“From those positions, we can do a better job of protecting the company when it falls back.”
“What do you mean ‘falls back?’”
“Well, as I see it, you’re going to get stopped the minute the Germans open fire.”
“Put your machine guns where they can do the most good and shut up. There’ll be no talk of retreat during this attack.” The commander ended the meeting and ordered the platoons to prepare for the assault.
The 2nd Battalion launched its attack at 1100 hours. Somehow, neither the division’s recon nor the regiment’s scouts had located a prepared defensive line along the regiment’s LD. At first, the infantry moved forward without taking fire but as the rifle platoons moved down the northern slope into the valley, the Germans opened fire with submachine guns, machine guns, and mortars. To make matters worse, their opponents were no scratch force. The battalion had run into part of the Der Fuhrer Regiment of the 2nd SS “Das Reich” Panzer Division. These SS troops and other assorted units had collected around the town of Percy after the American breakout. The German high command used them to shore up the western shoulder of the crumbling German defensive line.13
Bill hurried his squads forward to positions that could observe the southern slope of the valley. Normally, the machine guns had to elevate their guns and use indirect fire to support a frontal attack because the advancing infantry would mask their positions. In this case, the riflemen had already moved down the northern slope and no longer blocked the line of sight. Bill ordered his men to engage the Germans with direct fire. The gunners pinpointed the enemy MG 42s from their green tracers. Machine gun crews on both sides routinely loaded every fifth round in their ammunition belts with a tracer to help gunners observe where their bullets struck. Using “tracer control” Bill’s gunners walked the strike of their own magenta tracer rounds onto the source of the green tracer fire. Streams of colorful, deadly bullets flew in opposite directions over the valley. The Germans had the advantage because they were firing from foxholes with overhead cover. Even with the German guns in their sights, Bill’s machine guns could not completely suppress the enemy.14
Just as Bill predicted, G Company barely got started before enemy fire stopped it cold. The suppressive fire from Bill’s platoon and the company’s own machine guns helped the riflemen work their way out of the valley. The company pulled back, with difficulty, after taking some casualties from German indirect fire. The captain lost a finger to shrapnel from a German mortar. Holding his bleeding hand, the commander led his unit’s retreat past Bill’s position. When Bill saw him, he could not resist the urge to say, “I told you.”
The captain said nothing as he passed but his snarl said plenty.
The other two rifle companies in 2nd Battalion had slightly more success. They fought their way up the southern slope but got held up by fire coming from a house. The lead platoon of F Company sent a patrol under Sergeant Everett Worley forward to recon a way to assault the building. As they approached, a group of men in American uniforms waved them forward. The unsuspecting patrol advanced to join them. Too late, they discovered that the men were disguised Germans. Sergeant Worley was taken inside the house where he endured a brutal interrogation from a German officer. Worley refused to talk, so the officer shot him multiple times with his pistol to inflict pain. Luckily, the Americans overran the house and rescued the wounded sergeant.15
E and F Companies clung to the slope but could not push to the road running along the summit. Any attempt to move uphill drew severe small arms fire. The rifle companies sorely needed the firepower of the attached tank platoon but the regiment left it back in reserve. The Germans had a Panther tank that cudgeled the Americans, firing at point blank range. A German sergeant shouted to the Americans to surrender, but F Company’s infantrymen “told him to go to Hell.” The F Company commander, Captain Phineas Henry, and one of his lieutenants grabbed two bazooka gunners and went after the Panther. The rounds they fired at the tank failed to knock it out, but they managed to scare it off. Moments later, the intrepid Captain Henry picked up another bazooka that had already been loaded. The rocket detonated in his hands, killing him instantly.16
Late in the day, Major Johnson decided he needed more help from the artillery. His forward observer (FO) from the 42nd Artillery Battalion helped organize a “serenade,” the nickname for a time-on-target (TOT) fire mission.17
The Army developed the TOT technique to maximize the destructive effect of its artillery. Enemy soldiers scrambled for cover the instant they heard any incoming artillery. The first salvo from an artillery battery might catch some exposed enemy but by the time the second or third salvo landed, nearly every surviving enemy soldier had found shelter. Artillery officers realized that if more rounds landed in the first salvo, more casualties could be inflicted. They created a method that coordinated and timed the fires of multiple batteries to have all their rounds land simultaneously. A TOT required excellent communications and planning by the respective fire direction centers (FDCs). The artillery fire control radio net helped solve these problems. When a FO requested a TOT for a specific time and place, every FDC on the radio net determined whether their guns could reach the target then calculated the time its rounds would take in flight. The FDCs then gave their respective batteries the firing data and the precise moment to fire. The effect of a TOT could be devastating, especially when American artillery crews added the use of timed fuses, or the even deadlier proximity fuses, to cause the shells to burst above ground and kill even more exposed troops.18
The FO from the 42nd Artillery Battalion scheduled the “serenade” just before dark. The German defenders on the summit waited for the next American move while the sun set. All at once the heavens filled with a shrieking chorus of incoming artillery rounds. Seconds later a hailstorm of dozens of 105mm and 155mm shells pelted the ridge. The hilltop disappeared as the top layer of sediment lifted into the air.
The sudden strike ended as quickly as it started. E and F Companies’ riflemen rose from their hide positions and moved uphill. The enemy, stalwart veterans of the Russian front, recovered from the barrage and pinned down the Americans with small-arms fire. Without tank support, the American infantry could not dislodge the Germans. The Germans counterattacked the two rifle companies holding onto the ridgeline later that night. The attack seemed lackluster compared to most German attacks, and it ended before the enemy made any significant headway. The Americans figured out the next morning that the enemy counterattacked just to distract them while they withdrew from the ridge. Apparently, the artillery serenade convinced them to break contact.19
It had not been a good day for the battalion. The Germans held them up with a few well-positioned troops, machine guns, and a couple of tanks. The battalion neglected to reconnoiter its avenue of advance, relied on a simple frontal attack, failed to take advantage of concealed approaches, and did not infiltrate the gaps in the German defense. F Company made some effort to fire and maneuver its way against the Germans but the loss of key men like Worley and Henry denied them success. A more aggressive use of tanks and infantry might have yielded better results without relying so heavily on the artillery.20
The operational pace of the American Army revealed another short-coming in its tactical development. The Americans tended to attack throughout the day, but not into the night. Once the day’s fighting subsided, divisional and regimental staffs churned out the next day’s orders then went to bed. The 12th Infantry’s daily journals showed steady message traffic up to midnight, but little between midnight and 0700 hours, a sure sign of staff inactivity. The quiet in the higher-level CPs did not mean the companies enjoyed long periods of sleep. To the contrary, junior officers and sergeants in the line companies spent hours checking their positions, coordinating fire plans, and resupplying the troops. Often, these junior leaders caught a few paltry hours of sleep before they began preparing for the next attack. This daily pattern of activity soon became apparent to the Germans, who realized that they had little to worry about after the sun went down. For their part, the Germans had no reluctance to conduct night attacks. A senior German officer remarked, “A modern, resourceful and bold commander will happily exploit the dark of night and will move purposefully with his troops under its cover in order to gain operational advantages over a night-shy enemy.”21
The lack of night operations by the American Army can be traced back to its tactical doctrine that included night operations, but treated them as a separate topic and not as part of standard offensive and defensive operations. Furthermore, the doctrine applied much greater weight to the complications of night attacks than to their advantages. “As a rule,” stated a 1944 field manual on battalion-level tactics, “night combat can be conducted successfully only when there is time for the preparation and distribution of a well-conceived plan and for thorough reconnaissance by all leaders during daylight.”22
Besides doctrine, another reason why American commanders in Northwestern Europe had reservations about night operations can be boiled down to one word—inexperience. The U.S. Army of 1940 consisted of a couple hundred thousand professional soldiers, augmented by another 400,000 reservists and National Guardsmen. By 1944, it measured its strength in the millions, but many of its officers and non-coms, up and down the chain of command, lacked the experience necessary to perform complex military tasks. The leaders in Normandy had to learn on-the-job and would require more combat seasoning before they could sustain twenty-four-hour operational tempo or coordinate night offensive action.
On July 31, the regiment pulled G Company back to serve as its reserve while E and F Companies attacked south. Captain Enroughty attached Bill’s platoon to one of the other rifle companies to support the advance. Expecting contact, Bill bounded his gun sections by echelon (one moved while the other overwatched). This ensured that one section was ready to fire the instant the rifle company made contact. The troops moved cautiously over the hill that the Germans had defended the day before. The lead patrols only found a few French civilians who confided that the Germans left the area during the night. Even so, the rifle companies advanced only 1,500 meters by noon. General Barton, impatient with this pace, called the CT 12’s CP and directed it to use the roads and bypass small enemy pockets, if need be. Colonel Luckett, in turn, called the 2nd Battalion to help speed its movement. He instructed the executive officer to get the rifle companies out of their line formations and into march column with “just…a little flank protection” to provide security. The battalion moved a bit more quickly after that and consolidated on the objective, the ridge near la Mancellière, by 1540 hours.23
Late in the afternoon the 1st Battalion passed through 2nd Battalion’s position to continue CT 12’s advance toward Villedieu-les-Poêles. Farther back, the 3rd Battalion had endured a counterattack coming out of Percy for most of the afternoon. CT 12 had planned to have the 3rd Battalion follow the 1st but the action near Percy kept it in place. Instead, the regiment ordered the 2nd Battalion to follow the 1st into Villedieu. Just as the battalion organized to resume its march, scouts spotted an enemy force of infantry and tanks to the east.24
A German infantry company, reinforced with armor, counterattacked from la Laurier twenty minutes later, following the high ground into la Mancellière. The regimental S-3, Major Gorn, still urged the battalion to follow the 1st Battalion but, with a counterattack bearing down on his left flank, Major Johnson oriented the battalion to fend off the attack. Bill’s machine guns had little time to redeploy, so he ordered the squads to swivel the guns to the east and put indirect fire on the enemy column. Luckily, the tank platoon attached to the 1st Battalion had remained at la Mancellière because of a fuel shortage. The Shermans engaged the enemy vehicles while artillery and the battalion’s own weapons forced the German infantry to ground. The battalion disposed of the German counterattack by 2100 hours.
The late counterattack meant Bill had another busy night. H Company had to plan primary defensive targets for the mortars and machine guns facing the threat from the east and alternate targets facing south and north. By the time fire plans had been coordinated, guns positioned, and sectors of fire designated, Bill only had an hour or two in which to catch some sleep. The area had several farmhouses and barns available for shelter. After weeks of frequent rain, some overhead cover looked inviting.
Bill and one of his sergeants ducked into a barn already occupied by a few other troops. Bill started to unbuckle his web gear (the belt and suspenders used to carry his pistol, ammunition magazines, canteen, compass, and entrenching tool). Before he dropped his gear on the dirt floor, an uneasy sensation disturbed him. After a previous queasy feeling foretold his wounding near Montebourg, Bill paid more attention to his “sixth sense.” Nothing seemed wrong with the barn but the uneasiness kept nagging him. Finally, he turned to the sergeant. “I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What’s wrong with this place?”
“Nothing. Something’s bugging me, that’s all. We need to get out of here.”
Bill convinced the sergeant to leave but the other enlisted men, who were from a different platoon, stayed put. Bill and the sergeant had gone only a hundred meters when they heard the whistle of incoming mortar rounds and dove for cover. Boom! Boom! Bill looked back at the barn. Its roof had been blown off and the men inside killed.25
CT 12 started the morning of August 1 with its three battalions strung out over a six-kilometer north-south line. The disposition protected the VII Corps’ left (east) flank against the German defensive shoulder anchored on Percy. General Barton wanted to do more than just guard the flank. He wanted to thrust south and exploit the American success. The VIII Corps on the far right (western) flank had passed Avranches and roamed free into Brittany. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton had just activated the Third Army and unleashed his armored spearheads into the French interior. Barton felt the time had come to get the 4th Infantry Division rolling, and he exhorted his subordinate commanders to plunge ahead. “I want you, in the next advance, to throw caution to the winds…destroying, capturing or bypassing the enemy and pressing recklessly to the objective.” The division still had to take Villedieu but now it made the more distant town of St.-Pois its new objective. To help lead the division’s charge, the corps attached Combat Command B (CCB) of the 3rd Armored Division.26
General Barton committed CCB on the left (eastern) flank of the regiment and ordered both to move south. CT 12 had the job of seizing Villedieu then advancing toward St.-Pois. Colonel Luckett decided to attack in a column, given that his battalions were already stacked south to north. The 2nd Battalion had to cross a stream immediately south of its position then follow CCB east for 2,500 meters. After passing six hundred meters beyond the crossroad hamlet of le Bignon, it would turn south toward Villedieu.27
The battalion moved out at 0800 hours but had only crossed the first stream when the plan derailed. CCB ran into what seemed to be a well-organized roadblock on high ground short of le Bignon. The Germans covered the road and surrounding fields with small arms, mortars, and anti-tank (AT) guns. In this area, the fields were not bound by tall hedgerows, giving the Germans wide fields of fire. CCB’s tanks and half-tracks dared not venture into the open against the dreaded 88s, so its armored infantrymen attacked dismounted and without close tank support. This attack quickly stalled in the face of heavy enemy fire. At 0935 hours, CT 12 directed newly promoted Lt. Col. Gerden Johnson to assist CCB.28
Colonel Johnson executed a sensible plan of attack. While the armored infantry engaged the Germans, the 2nd Battalion enveloped the enemy position around their southern flank. The riflemen used a draw that sloped up to the German position to make a covered approach.29
Bill’s platoon had to support the rifle platoons firing uphill. This presented a challenge because the machine guns had to shoot over the heads of their own infantry to hit enemy targets on the crest. The closer the guns followed the advancing riflemen, the higher the angle they had to fire to go over their heads. Too high an angle would send the rounds arcing over the target. To overcome the problem, Bill echeloned the guns. While one section moved forward with the rifle companies to provide direct fire, the other section set up in a defilade position back from the base of the slope to provide indirect fire. Using a compass and map, Bill gave the approximate azimuth and distance to the targets from the guns’ defilade positions. The crew members darted forward to place aiming stakes in front of the guns on the compass heading. After sighting the gun on the aiming stake, the gunner clamped the tripod’s traverse setting. Next, the crews leveled the gun tube on “zero” horizontal. The gunner raised the tube to sight the top of the hill and called out the setting on the elevation arc (angle of sight). “Plus 57 mils.” Bill consulted the firing tables to determine the additional angle of elevation required to hit a target at that range (angle of elevation). “QE, plus 8 mils.” The squad leaders adjusted a clinometer to the 8-mil setting and placed it on the gun tube. The gunner clicked the elevation handwheel until the clinometer’s bubble leveled on the 8-mil reading. The combined angle elevated the guns the right amount to hit targets on the hilltop. Bill double-checked the firing table to ensure the QE setting gave a safe margin for riflemen advancing up the slope.30
These initial azimuth and elevation settings served only as estimates. To ensure that rounds were on target, someone had to observe their impact and relay any adjustments back to the gun squads. The open terrain around le Bignon and the gentle slope may have allowed observers to communicate via hand-and-arm signals, but the distances involved more than likely forced them to do so with telephones or radios. Bill moved forward with the observers to help adjust fire and control the other gun section.
At 1030 hours, 1st Lt. Martin MacDiarmid led E Company up the draw. Colonel Johnson brought up an attached platoon of tanks from C Company of the 70th Tank Battalion to give the company more firepower. The convex shape of the slope concealed their approach from the German roadblock at le Bignon. MacDiarmid planned to pounce on the Germans’ left flank once his platoons crossed the “military crest,” the point where the bulge on a slope permits observation to the bottom of the slope. However, the moment the lead elements moved over the military crest they started taking fire from the high ground to their right (south). The Americans discovered, to their dismay, that enemy infantry had dug in all over the high ground. E Company’s riflemen went to ground and returned fire but the extended enemy position had them trapped in the defile. German anti-tank fire kept the Shermans at bay while the enemy infantry moved to better firing positions to pick off the American riflemen caught in the low ground. Despite his good intentions, Colonel Johnson found his battalion stuck in a prolonged firefight.31
Bill’s platoon concentrated on the highest priority targets, the German AT guns and machine guns. The forward machine gun section mounted their M1917A1s and put direct fire on the enemy. Bill and the observers called the rear section and adjusted their indirect fire. The two sides blasted each other through the middle part of the day but the Germans held the better position.32
The reports coming from CCB and CT 12 rankled General Barton. He had instructed his subordinate commands to attack “recklessly” and bypass pockets of resistance. Now, his primary armored force and an infantry battalion had gotten tied down on the eastern flank. He decided to extricate his forces from le Bignon. Barton coordinated with the 1st Infantry Division on his western flank for permission to use some of their zone to maneuver CCB. At 1520 hours, Division HQ advised Colonel Luckett that CCB would turn around and switch their avenue of advance along the division’s western (right) flank.
“Do you still need my Second Battalion?” Luckett asked.
“No.”
“Then I’ll disengage them.”33
About the time that the Americans decided to break off the engagement, the German commander, who realized that his outpost at le Bignon had fixed a large American formation, took the opportunity to hit back at the American infantry pinned in the low ground.
The 2nd Battalion’s scouts spotted several hundred German infantrymen moving west from the hamlet of la Goupiliere and advancing up the eastern slope of the high ground separating them from E Company. If the Germans were masters of the art of maneuver, the Americans were masters in the application of firepower. Colonel Johnson drew E Company back a couple hundred meters to establish a safety buffer then requested a ‘serenade.’ The artillery FO timed the strike to coincide with the moment the enemy counterattack reached a patch of woods along the crest of the high ground.34
Around 1745 hours, the hilltop erupted with the impact of seventy-two artillery shells. Smoke, dust, and debris shrouded the German position. Johnson began withdrawing E Company from the battle as soon as the rounds landed. Bill shouted to his forward gun squads to displace. The men broke down their weapons, hoisted them on their backs, and hurried down the slope. E Company moved back only a short distance before the smoke cleared enough for the Germans to resume firing. Bill’s crews could not move away without first suppressing the enemy’s guns but they could not do that without putting the guns back into action. Colonel Johnson solved the dilemma by ordering another “serenade.” After the dust cleared a second time, only a single, foolish AT gun crew harassed the Americans. A third serenade put a stop to that.35
The battle near le Bignon had one footnote. The Americans caught three German soldiers dressed in American uniforms. With the memory of Sergeant Worley’s patrol still fresh, the captors shot the Germans on the spot.36
The battalion marched unmolested across the Sienne River then turned south-southeast along the Hambye-Villedieu highway. By 2110 hours, the men settled into an assembly area on ground overlooking the northern edge of Villedieu. They spent the night preparing for the attack to seize the strategic town.37
In the three days since Hambye, adjacent units on the west (right) flank enjoyed clear sailing with few enemy to impede their advance. Meanwhile, CT 12 had advanced south while fighting off heavy German pressure coming from the east (left) flank. Colonel Luckett’s men found themselves rubbing against the line of friction between the German defensive shoulder and the American breakout. Unlike Patton’s Third Army, CT 12 had to fend off the enemy with every forward step. This campaign of long marches, punctuated by fierce clashes, kept chipping away at the fighting spirit and power of the already depleted unit. The days ahead would present an even graver threat to the 12th Infantry.