by Harry Yeide
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On 28 July, Patton took control of VIII Corps (he acted as the deputy 12th Army Group commander under Bradley for three days until Third Army officially became operational). Patton characteristically led with his tanks. The 4th and 6th Armored divisions lunged toward Avranche, the gateway to Brittany and central France, twenty-five miles distant.15 Among the first targets fired on by the 4th Armored Division were men of the 2d Armored Division who had helped open the door. Pointed radio communications quickly resolved the matter.16
The 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion had been formed out of the 4th Armored Division, spent three-quarters of its Stateside training time with the division, and remained attached to the 4th Armored for most of the European campaign.17 M18 crewman Roy Roberson recalled:
The 4th Armored Division, with the 704th attached, plunged out through a dazed enemy. But the knockout was far from complete. Very soon, a German tank opened fire and knocked out five of our halftracks.
Lieutenant Addision took his 2d Platoon with Sgt [Joe] Schedevy’s tank leading and roared forward to engage the enemy. Sergeant Schedevy spotted the Jerry tank first. M18 driver Technician Fifth Grade Beck whipped the tank around into a firing position and gunner Corporal Treet laid the crosshairs on the center of the [German cross] and fired the first direct-fire round for the 704th. It was a good shot and did the job. Before the TD stopped rocking, Treet spotted another Jerry behind a hedgerow. The Jerry fired at our TD and missed. A second round from Treet left the Kraut going up in smoke. Two more enemy tanks, panic-stricken, tried to escape and exposed their positions. Second Platoon tanks fired four more shots and neutralized the enemy….18
Eighth Corps charged through Avranches late on 31 July and crossed the Selune River. “Now that’s my kind of fighting,” Patton said. “Those troops know their business. We’ll keep right on going, full speed ahead.”
Patton ordered a two-pronged assault into Brittany: The 4th Armored and 8th Infantry divisions were to advance on Rennes, and the 6th Armored and 79th Infantry divisions were to seize Brest at the tip of the peninsula. Task Force A was created to clear the north coast.19
Task Force A was controlled by the 1st Tank Destroyer Brigade, an oddball formation in its only combat appearance. Only two TD brigades were ever organized, and the second disbanded before leaving the States. The brigade was envisioned as the controlling headquarters for a number of TD groups, each consisting of several battalions. Even the Army appeared unclear as to its purpose, but notionally that appeared to be to serve as the kernel for an add-hoc command to deal with massive enemy armored offensives. The task force included the 2d Cavalry Group, the 15th Cavalry Group, the 6th Tank Destroyer Group, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, the 159th Engineer Combat Battalion, and the 509th Engineer Light Company. The command would advance to St. Malo, side-slip, and meet the 6th Armored Division at Brest.20
This task force is noteworthy because it established a pattern for Third Army’s frequent use of M18-equipped battalions in concert with cavalry units. The speedy Hellcats were able to keep up with the fastest cavalry thrusts and provided firepower that the light units lacked.21
The task force also displayed the American ingenuity in combat. The 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion on 4 August ran into a heavily defended roadblock near Chateauneuf. Headquarters Company deployed as infantry, but the Germans held firm despite point-blank fire from supporting M18s. The battalion finally cleared the block with indirect fire from an 81mm mortar mounted on the outfit’s wrecker.22
The TD battalions fought attached to widely dispersed units. As a consequence, reconnaissance companies sometimes performed their role for divisions rather than their battalions. The recon men of the 603d Tank Destroyer Battalion, for example, led the 6th Armored Division’s advance to Brest—where it took five hundred prisoners—and subsequently to Lorient.23 Other battalions, such as the 628th, split the recon company up and assigned one platoon to each of the scattered gun companies.24
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A TD battalion operating with an armored division was blessed with a robust and effective integration with the big unit that tank killers with infantry divisions could only envy. A company commander, for example, could communicate by radio with his own platoon leaders and individual vehicles, the armored combat command, the artillery, and close air support. The company was far closer to being an organic component of the combat command than part of the distant and rarely encountered TD battalion to which it belonged.25 Indeed, battalion CPs quickly lost even radio contact with their far-flung companies because of the large distances involved.26 And armored divisions tended to view their attached TD battalions as an organic component—in part because the attachments tended to be lasting. The 3d Armored Divisions history, for example, notes, “Although originally wearing the [panther] patch of TD service, the fiercely independent 703d finally adopted the ‘Spearhead, patch and was as much a part of the division as any of its own tank battalions.”27
Captain Thomas Evans, CO of C/704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, described operations with the 4th Armored Division during the breakout:
We traveled mainly on highways and on paved roads as much as possible. The forward elements of the combat command, usually reconnaissance, would travel ahead and on both the right and left of the columns…. A company of tanks would usually lead the column, and interspersed back, they’d tell [us our] position in the column, depending on what they were going to do that day….
If [reconnaissance] hit any resistance, they moved off the road and the tanks set up to attack whatever it was if need be. Of course, the [armored] infantry pulled off, too. They immediately moved up on foot behind the tanks and decided whether they were going to attack that particular position. The same time they were getting ready, the mechanized artillery would pull off and set up to fire. So we had almost instantaneous fire support….
We traveled twenty, thirty, sometimes forty miles each day, all the way across France. The whole column was just moving at lightning speed. We’d hit some resistance, get off the road, and fight to break the resistance. We didn’t even mop up lots of times. We left that to the troops behind us….
We, the combat command mostly, would call for air strikes [by the XIX Tactical Air Command] if we ran into resistance that would take a head-on attack to overcome. The P-47s would come in and drop their 500-pound bombs and strafe the area. In my command vehicle, I had a crystal in my radio so that I could call for an air strike if it was necessary.28
In Brittany, the 4th Armored Division reached Rennes on 1 August. The TDs of Evans’s company made a demonstration against the defenders while the rest of CCA executed a double envelopment and drove through a ferocious storm of German artillery fire into the city. The M18s then pulled back a thousand yards and picked off eight or ten panzers and many trucks and horse-drawn artillery pieces as the defenders tried to escape. Two TDs were lost in this fighting.29 Sergeant Roger Turcan, commander of one of the destroyed M18s, was awarded a Silver Star for continuing to load and fire his gun after three other members of the crew had been killed.30
The 6th Armored Division reached Brest by 9 August. During the subsequent siege, A/603d Tank Destroyer Battalion was ordered to fire indirect missions with the goal of provoking counter-battery fire by the big guns in the fortifications in order to locate and destroy them. The battalion’s records to not indicate how the men felt about this mission.31
The informal history of the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion, an M10 outfit that supported the 8th Infantry Division during the capture of Brest, recorded: “The operation was nastier than anyone anticipated. We found that we were facing a combination of paratroopers, marines, sailors, and fortress troops, well armed, cocky, and beautifully dug in. Hill 88, Kergroas, Pontanezan Barracks, the fort on the river, and a dozen other tight spots will stand in the history of this war as some of the toughest in Europe. Company A had to pick up rations in M10s, the pioneers dug Company C’s destroyers in on the outpost line at night, and Co
mpany B led the infantry from one critical point to the next. We watched the P-47s drop gasoline bombs, we put out red panels and were bombed by our own P-38s, watched a [B-17] go down when it collided with a Thuderbolt, began to take prisoners. Also, the Krauts had a few coastal guns that shook us up at night.”32
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Meanwhile, on the eastern flank of the Avranches corridor, fighting had been fierce. Combat Command A/2d Armored Division became embroiled in a costly drive on Tessy sur Vire in support of XIX Corps, to which it was temporarily attached. During a thirteen-hour fight against a German counterattack on 28 July, the crews of the 702d Tank Destroyer battalion knocked out eleven panzers.33 On 1 August, the tankers and TDs battled a tenacious 2d Panzer Division defense near Tessy sur Vire itself. The Germans had deployed along the reverse slope of a hill before Tessy and engaged the American armor as the tanks crested the ridge and exposed themselves on the skyline. Working along the highway, the tank killers from B/702d Tank Destroyer Battalion accounted for two Panthers and five Mark IVs. Other TDs of the 702d were assigned to support a flank attack that began about 1500, and the M10s ran into a swarm of panzers. Company A KO’d two Panthers and four Mark IVs.34
The 893d (SP) and 612th (towed) Tank Destroyer battalions operated with the 2d Infantry Division in the neighboring V Corps sector in its attack toward the Vire River. The M10s worked just to the rear of the assault battalions to defend them against armored penetrations. The towed outfit came next, and its 3-inch guns took over positions from the self-propelled TDs and provided flank protection as the attack progressed.35
Nineteenth and V corps had their hands full, but most everyone else was off and running.
The history of the 3d Armored Division recorded with regard to CCA, “So fast was the advance… that, at Brecey [on 30 July], the speeding combat command caught German troops lolling under shade trees, drinking wine. This was a pleasure that tommygun fire and grenades quickly terminated. Brecey, however, was the scene of more vicious fighting later. Company A of the 703d Tank Destroyer Battalion found the town had been reoccupied after the lead elements of CCA passed through. With their 3-inch guns, the TD men thoroughly wrecked the little town and again routed its garrison.”36
On 2 August, Patton ordered XV Corps to begin the drive into central France while VIII Corps cleared Brittany. The 5th Armored and 83d and 90th Infantry divisions rolled south and east to secure the narrow corridor through Avranches on which every advancing unit depended for passage and supplies. The left end of XV Corps’ initial line was anchored at St. Hilaire du Harcouêt, located about eight miles southwest of a town called Mortain.37 The corps then pressed on toward Mayenne.
Elements of First Army were also shaking free and driving eastward.
M3 prime movers pulled the 3-inch guns of the 823d Tank Destroyer Battalion—which had landed on 24 June and was attached to the 30th Infantry Division—through rolling countryside with ever larger fields on both sides of the road. The unit history recorded that this was the first of the “victory marches” through Europe. “Civilians lined the roads ecstatically greeting ‘les Americaines’ and showering the troops with flowers, cider, and cognac. In return, the soldiers scattered cigarettes, chocolate, and chewing gum among the populace. Happy throngs waved jubilantly at the passing columns.”
The men observed that the terrain was increasingly suitable for maneuver warfare. The column’s destination was Mortain.38
On 4 August, British General Bernard Law Montgomery—who was still in command of Allied ground operations—ordered the first major change to the invasion plan. Patton was told to use minimum force to clear Brittany and to throw most of his troops eastward, with an initial objective of the Mayenne River. First Army would continue to attack in the Vire–Mortain area, making a tighter wheeling movement. Anglo-Canadian forces, meanwhile, would pivot toward Falaise and Argentan. The goal was to encircle German forces west of the Seine River or, barring that, to trap them against the river and destroy them. Mortain was the pivot point for all Allied movement.39
Counterblow at Mortain
On 1 August, Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge, who had replaced Gerd von Rundstedt as commander of the Western Front in July, realized that the Americans had kicked in the door to France at Avranches. He immediately made preparations for a counteroffensive to close the American corridor, which he concluded was the only way to stem the tide. Consultations with Berlin indicated that Hitler supported the idea and envisioned a concerted effort by as many as nine panzer divisions. Trapped in the reality of a rapidly decaying situation, the best von Kluge could arrange was an attack by elements of four.40
Some two weeks earlier, Generalleutnant Heinz Guderian, newly appointed Chief of the General Staff, had observed to Hitler that von Kluge lacked a “lucky touch” in commanding large armored formations.41
The 1st SS, 2d SS, 2d, and 116th Panzer divisions received orders to concentrate east of Mortain. These units, however, were already weakened by attrition and had no more than two hundred fifty tanks among them—fewer than the authorized equipment of two full-strength panzer divisions.42 The entire 2d SS Panzer Division had only thirty operational tanks remaining, and the 116th Panzer Division had only twenty-five. The 1st SS Panzer Division, meanwhile, was strung out on the roads from Normandy.43 The attack nevertheless would begin at Mortain the night of 6–7 August.
Allied air reconnaissance and the Top Secret British Ultra code-breaking system detected the scope of the German build-up, and Bradley reacted. He deployed five infantry divisions along eighteen miles of front between Mortain and Vire, backed by two armored combat commands, and held three of Patton’s divisions to anchor the right flank to the west of Mortain. He also increased pressure at Vire on the assembling German forces. Nevertheless, the German attack achieved tactical surprise.
The 30th Infantry Division was settling into positions recently vacated by the 1st Infantry Division astride the German axis of advance. Each regiment had attached a company of towed 3-inch tank destroyers from the 823d TD Battalion.
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At 0130 hours on 7 August, firing broke out at the security outpost of the 3d Platoon, A/823d Tank Destroyer Battalion, as panzergrenadiers from the 2d SS Panzer Division attempted to infiltrate Mortain. Soldiers leapt to the .50-caliber machine guns on the halftracks and beat the attack off. But other German troops had more success and entered the town. Platoon commander Lt Elmer Miller decided to stick it out. But concentrated small-arms fire at close range made it impossible to serve the 3-inch towed guns, and his position was overrun. A few of Miller’s men were able to join the 2d/120th Infantry Regiment, which would remain surrounded on the nearby heights for the next five days. Others escaped in small groups.44
In nearby Barthelmy, 3d Platoon of B/823d Tank Destroyer Battalion during the night of 6–7 August positioned two guns to the northwest and two to the southeast. About 0300 hours, the men could hear hostile tanks and troops, but they could see nothing through a thick fog that blanketed the area. Three hours later, a seventy-five-minute artillery barrage crashed down on the infantry and gun crews. Close on its heels came tanks and grenadiers from the 1st SS Panzer Division advancing from the north, east, and south.45
Reduced crews manned the 3-inch guns while the remainder grabbed their carbines and deployed as infantry to help the doughs. Sergeant Chester Christensen carefully sighted his gun on the lead Panther advancing from the south and destroyed it with a hit on the hull machine-gun ball mount. The subsequent explosion blew the turret off the vehicle. The hulk blocked the road, but within an hour the Germans had dragged it out of the way, and the panzers advanced again. Christensen again KO’d the lead tank, this time at a range of only thirty-five yards.46
A German assessment noted, “Well installed American antitank guns prevented at first every penetration of our tanks.”47 Indeed, the TDs claimed three more panzers—including one with a bazooka—but the Germans overwhelmed the defensive line with a second effort. Platoon co
mmander Lt George Greene was last seen by the men who escaped backing into a doorway and firing a .30-caliber machine gun from the hip in Hollywood style.48 He was captured after being stunned by the explosion of a Panther’s 75mm round, and many of the TD crewmen joined him in captivity.49
First Platoon of Company B, under the command of Lt Leon Neel, deployed its guns west of Barthelmy. Neel brought his first gun into Barthelmy just as the battle for the village erupted. It was destroyed by artillery fire before it could even uncouple, and only two of the crewmen reappeared. After 3d Platoon had been overrun, Neel obtained permission by radio to bring two more guns into town. One made the dash, but the second withdrew under fire and deployed to cover the road.
The first gun crew engaged a Panther supported by grenadiers advancing up the street. An AP round stopped the Mark V, and HE dispersed the infantry. Private Robert Dunham killed the tank commander, who had been leading his vehicle on foot, with his carbine at three hundred yards. A high-velocity round soon struck the destroyer, which had now revealed its position.
Neel pulled out and found the gun along the road, which he deployed in a field beside a 57mm antitank gun. The lighter gun withdrew just as more tanks appeared. The TD crew fired on a Panther that appeared on the main road out of the thinning fog and dispatched it at a distance of only fifty yards. The crewmen could now see two other tanks that had stopped just out of range. One of them circled through the fields and took up a dominating spot that the Americans could not bring under fire because of the hasty positioning of their gun. The second tank patiently surveyed the area for forty-five minutes, evidently trying to spot the American weapon.
