by Mehlo, Noel
Randall Ching provided a first hand account of the September 2nd attack on Fort de Toulbroc’h. The 2nd Section of 2nd Platoon, B Company advanced through the ravine leading south from Kervaër to the beach, then up to the perimeter of the fort before sunset. Their mission was physically led by Section Leader S/Sgt Herbert Hull with orders to advance to the outskirt of Fort de Toulbroc’h and perform reconnaissance of the defenses of the fortification. The twelve man Section had advanced down the draw, and then up its steep eastern slopes. This reconnaissance patrol is associated with the B Company, 2nd Platoon patrol of Lt. Gombosi referred to in Glassman, Black and other’s work. S/Sgt Hull physically led his patrol down the draw and then up to the fort. They were close to the fort when S/Sgt Hull was wounded by the landmine, connected to a booby trap trigger mechanism. Ching recalled that Hull had his leg “mangled by the mine.” PFC Ching and his fellow Rangers administered first aid to S/Sgt Hull. Each Ranger was equipped with 3 doses of morphine, sulfa powder, bandages and a safety pin for the bandages. Ching is sure Hull received a dose of morphine with repeated instructions to "wait for 4 hours for the next dose." Randall was interviewed by his daughter, and she asked him, “Did he say anything to you when you saw him step on the landmine, or did you see him wounded or did you just hear about it?” Randall told me, “We left your Grandfather there. I told him, “I’ll see you back at the States.” The two men shook each other’s hand in friendship. Hull responded, “Be careful,” and that was the last the two men ever saw of one another.
The Assistant Squad Leader took Hull’s role after he went down. Randall went on in his interviews to say, “So we left him there, he could not proceed with us to the fort, because, we got to the fort, actually nice and quiet.” Ching reported that 2nd Platoon spread out in formation and approached the fort to proceed with their recon. The Section Leader, Cardinali said send a message back to Headquarter Company, for permission for attack. The Assistant Section Leader radioed back to Battalion HQ for permission to Attack the fort at 1930 hours. This call to HQ was shortly after Hull was wounded, and appears in the Battalion Journal. Headquarters immediately responded with orders to attack. “So we went to attack the fort, ” recalled Ching.
For Randall, the loss of a comrade often became forgotten. Not so here. S/Sgt Hull was his friend. He spoke of their time training and fighting together where he said, “That’s a whole year, it was brief, not too long though, one year.” His daughter relayed to me elsewhere in our interviews that as soon as Randall heard the name Herbert Hull, he decided to help me. He had never opened up about his wartime experiences to anyone before including his own family members. He felt so strongly about his friend and how he was a lost Ranger, that he made a personal choice to tell me about my Grandfather, so that I could know him through his eyes. His personal accounts form a very deep, personal and resonating conclusion to the journey to find my Grandpa. The interspersion of his personal accounts has resulted in massive rewrites to this book before going to the publisher.
Figure 314: German Coastal Defenses, Special Series Number 15, June 15, 1943, U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service. The Germans had taken great pains to employ mines and booby traps into their defenses all around Brest. They utilized their Teller-mines and S-mines. They also developed improvised explosives by rigging naval explosives and French artillery shells as booby traps. Some of these were as big as 200 pounds. They used antisubmarine mines and torpedo heads as charges, set to be used against infantry. The Americans found two road intersections to be rigged with up to one ton each of explosives. They also used 75 mm shells fitted as mines. Around the old French forts, they sowed crops of thickly sown S-mines, complete with trip wires that were completely hidden in tall grass. They would employ their mines in well laid out minefields such as in the preceding diagrams, or along natural paths or routes of travel. They meticulously mapped them for their own records. A typical German minefield pattern is illustrated by Figure 314.
It is highly likely that an S-Mine was the type of device tripped by a Ranger that caused the crippling wounds to S/Sgt Hull. In the family history, it was said that a wire was tripped, and then S/Sgt Hull put his arms up and down. As the Section Leader, these motions would have correctly been used to indicate to his men to immediately drop to the ground and take cover. This would allow them to avoid becoming casualties from the imminent blast from the SMine. He didn’t have a chance to get down as the mine then went off.
The S-Mine was normally triggered by a three pronged pressure fuse, but could be modified for use with a special German tripwire, as was the case on September 2. When triggered, the mine had a two stage detonation sequence. 1. The first stage was to fire the mine 2’ 10” to 4’ 10” up into the air by means of a propellant charge.
2. ½ second after the propellant charge ignited, the main charge detonated to more fully disperse the shrapnel contents of the mine as an air burst.
Figure 315: Diagram of S-35 German landmine and pressure sensor from 1943 US Army training manual. (FM 5-31, Nov 1 1943) The method of detonation made this a very effective killing device that would kill or severely injure anyone in the immediate blast zone of the device. The mine contained 360 steel balls, short steel rods or scrap metal fragments. Whatever the contents packed into the device, the shrapnel sprayed horizontally at high velocity. It was lethal within 20 meters (66 feet), and could inflict casualties within 100 meters (330 feet) of the blast. The time delay from triggering and the firing of the propellant charge varied between 3.9 and 4.5 seconds. U.S. Training manuals instructed soldiers to immediately fall and lie face down as quickly as possible to avoid as much of the blast as possible. Any attempt to run from a triggered mine would likely result in death.18 It appears as if S/Sgt Hull took the quick actions required to protect his men at his own peril. Accounts from both Ching and Copeland regarding their friend indicated Hull was a strong leader and protected his men from his earliest time as a Ranger. This knowledge helped fit together those very cryptic early notes from my Mom. A diagram of the offending mine is shown in Figure 315.
S/Sgt Hull’s medical records state “On 2 September 1944 at Brest, France, this soldier was wounded in action when a field mine was tripped by one of his comrades, striking the soldier in the left arm and left knee.” Elsewhere his medical records state, “this soldier was struck by fragments from a landmine sustaining wounds to the left arm and knee.” He also received several lacerations to his back resulting in scarring that his children remembered seeing on him after the war.
Figure 316: Drawing of ravine reconnoitered by the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion, B Company, 1st Platoon on September 2, 1944. The drawing above shows the ravine that B Company, 2nd Platoon reconnoitered during the afternoon of September 2. The approximate location of the drawing is latitude 48.345524° longitude -4.632064°, with an elevation 105 feet above sea level and is looking south. Lt Gombosi and the 1st Section went down the lane to the water, then they took the coastal trail to the fort, while 2nd Section under Platoon Sergeant Herbert Hull took the ravine noted to the left and ended up exploring the perimeter of the fort pictured below in the fields above the slopes.
Figure 317: Drawing of ravine reconnoitered by the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion, B Company, 2nd Platoon on September 2, 1944. Figure 317 is a view of the field where S/Sgt Hull was wounded looking from the southwest corner of Kervaër, France. The approximate location of the drawing is at latitude 48.345366 longitude -4.627413, with an elevation 228 feet above sea level. The ravine near MGRS 842956 begins as the ditch in the center of the picture, turns left at the end of the road and then continues west in the brush shown to the left of the power pole. This is the same ravine that the B Company Rangers took cover in at 1810 hours. The suspected location of the S-Mine that struck Hull was to the left of the ravine in the field. Fort de Toulbroc’h is to the left of the drawing along the horizon. The barracks shown in Figure 318 are what the men saw as the reconnoitered the edge of the fort. These structures remain today as home
s.
Figure 318: View of German barracks battery Toulbroc'h towards 1944-1946, Service Historique de la Marine, Brest German Barracks buildings noted as “Camp” on map on Page 19. (patrimoine.region-bretagne.fr) As the Rangers of 2nd Platoon, 2nd Section approached the fort Randall Ching recalled: “What happened, we got close to the fort, about 75 yards into the fort, and the damn Germans opened up on us, with machine gun, mortar, and everything, and we almost got slaughtered, but we didn’t. They approached the fort generally from the direction shown in the photo below. We were just lucky to get out of that “God-damned” {can’t make out} so we say ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ So we haul ass back to the Company.” This German opposition hindered this Section of Rangers from ever entering the main part of the fort from the northwest. This massive fire directed on 2nd Platoon, 2nd Section corresponded time-wise to the fire taken by Lt. Gombosi and 2nd Platoon, 1st Section already inside the fort to the southwest.
Back to Gombosi’s 2nd Platoon, 1st Section, the Battalion After Action Report recorded: “Going slowly from dugout to dugout, it was nearly a half an hour before he struck any enemy. Then he found himself outnumbered better than ten to one and was forced to withdraw to the ravine west of Kervaër (MGRS 842956). If he had only half the platoon inside the fort, he was outnumbered by much more than the reported 10:1 ratio often attributed to the event. Gombosi had entered the fort in the area near the coast at the top of the picture below. They rejoined 2nd Platoon, 2nd Section after they too took refuge in the same ravine. At this point, the Battalion reserve platoon (the Company D platoon) came to B Company, 2nd Platoon’s aid and the enemy was stopped. All casualties had been carried from the fort in their retreat.”
By 2007 hours, the Germans were fully alerted to the Rangers Company’s positions and were mounting fierce resistance and a determined counterattack. B Company requested an ambulance. T/4 Mullin, Germaine, and Clawson were tied down and the Rangers were unable to get to the casualties. General Raaen and I believe that Hull was one of the casualties who were pinned down for a time. One of the casualties was reported shot in the head under enemy fire. The men reported they would stay put until resistance is cleared. At 2012 hours, D Company reported the situation was the same, with B Company attacking. During this time, Lt. Askin commenced his attack southward along Route de Toulbroc’h and proceeded some 500 yard south of RJ 69. He was then ordered to withdraw to RJ 69 to avoid being cut off. The Battalion situation was deemed critical as the only reserves had been committed and the companies were stretched out very thin. The Germans counterattacks intensified against all positions. The battalion situation was critical as night fell. All four platoons of Companies B and D were stretched out in a thin line and were under ferocious German counterattack. Company F was attacked so fiercely, it appeared as if they might have to withdraw. They attacked the Germans and held. By 2141 hours Major Sullivan radioed the rear echelon and ordered an alert of every available man in the Battalion. He ordered that these Rangers move to the command post immediately, bringing one truck and all available weapons, machine guns and ammunition. These men would form up as a Ranger Company to act as a Battalion reserve.
The fighting waged on through midnight and beyond. It was heavy enough that there were no unit record entries beyond the last report made at 2141 hours. By the end of September 2, the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion had suffered 8 casualties. Of that number, B Company had suffered three wounded and two killed in action. One of the wounded was S/Sgt Herbert Stanton Hull. The battalion had taken twelve POWs and killed twelve enemy personnel.
General Raaen told me through correspondence that the main reason the Germans were so bold on September 2 was that the Americans obviously had very little artillery support as they attacked. The Germans picked up on this and were emboldened by it. He told me the Americans were restricted to firing less than ten rounds of High Explosive (HE) rounds a day. By nightfall there was no artillery ammunition left. There was an artillery liaison officer; Lt. Van Cook positioned at the Rangers battalion headquarters. He distinguished himself by going to the main elements and adjusting artillery fire, which he saved the platoon of destruction. They were able to call in only a few smoke rounds to support B Company, 2nd Platoon as they were fighting for their lives the night of September 2. This fire was largely ineffective, but did aid 2nd Platoon. (Raaen correspondence)
In 2012, General Raaen shared his thoughts with me regarding why Hull was not properly reported in the Battalion level documentation. “The company clerks who made out the MRs worked in Headquarters Rear. They may have been caught up in the sweepings when we formed Headquarters Company into a provisional Ranger Company. What I am trying to say is the clerks may have been late in their reporting for a number of reasons, such as late reporting to them…” Raaen also sent me a copy of the “Combat Journal for the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion covering much of the Toulbroc'h battle. Usually it would list the casualties, but because we couldn't get to them to evacuate them, who was wounded was unknown at the time of this journal.” (Raaen correspondence) The Company records including the Company Morning Report and the Company Daily Sick Report had recorded his wounds and disposition properly, however, a clerical oversight at the Battalion level reporting in the midst of fierce fighting directly led to S/Sgt Hull becoming a Lost Ranger. When Glassman and others would compile the unit history at the conclusion of the war, he was left out.
September 3 began with heavy combat. At 0015 hours, Headquarters sent word for all Company Commanders to report to the Command Post at 0900 for a briefing. A jeep carrying rations en route to the company positions hit a landmine at 0055 hours wounding James E. Royle and Arthur Laskowski. By 0100 hours, wire had been run out to the Company positions except B Company, who were out of contact with Headquarters. The German Counterattacks had abated by this time. Hull lay wounded on the battlefield for several hours pinned down until he was recovered by his fellow Rangers and evacuated to the 108th Evacuation Hospital where he remained for several days. Casualties were now focused on and moved to the rear. I think that this is when S/Sgt Hull was evacuated by ambulance to the battalion aid station. At 0240 hours, F Company requested artillery support south of Kerneis (MGRS 861959) to fend off German action. Things quieted down the remainder of the night. This was the time in the middle of night when PFC Ching returned to his Company and found S/Sgt Hull had been evacuated. The overnight hours were spent scrounging for every last bit of ammunition to load clips, particularly clips of .30 caliber ammo for the BARs. This was done by taking apart bandolier ammo meant for .30 caliber machine guns. The newly loaded ammo was then run out to the fighting positions for distribution. The Rangers on the front line had to gather up all clips and magazines and send them to the rear to be reloaded the ammo situation was so bad. {Raaen correspondence}
In the morning at 0900 hours the provisional Ranger Company was formed and moved into position behind B Company (MGRS 884963). The Company Commanders met at the Command Post to plan out the attack. Orders received the companies then readied themselves for the assault. F Company remained in position on the left flank to prevent German counterattack from fresh troops. Orders were for B Company to attack the fort from the north. 1st Platoon would again assault straight down from RJ69. 2nd Platoon would assault south from its position near RJ 49 at Languiforc’h (MGRS 842956) which is at the head of the ravine they saw action in the day earlier. This had been their fallback position after the Germans fought them overnight. D Company would form up in column about 500 yards to the rear of Company B and carry the assault behind them. Headquarters Company remained in reserve consisting of all the available men pulled together the night before. The plan was for the attack to commence at 1030 hours, and was to be preceded by an aerial assault of the fort. Just before the attack commenced, the Germans shelled the Ranger Command Post with 105 mm artillery.
Headquarters had made arrangements with the XIX Tactical Air Command for the air support. The air support came in the form of eight
P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber aircraft. The P-47 was produced by Republic Aviation and was also known as the “Jug.” They were the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history with a single reciprocating engine (Figure 319). The P-47 was powered by the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine, and was effective from the deck to high altitude. Each plane came heavily armed with eight air-cooled .50-caliber machine guns with four in each wing. The machine guns used armor-piercing (AP), armor-piercing incendiary (API) and armor-piercing incendiary tracer (APIT) ammunition that could penetrate most but not all German armor (Figure 320). The fighter-bomber weighed up to eight tons fully loaded. When configured for ground support, each aircraft could carry up to 2,500 pounds of bombs or five inch rockets. This bomb load was equal to more than 50 percent of the load able to be carried by the B-17. The ground assault variants could be armed with triple-tube rocket launchers with M8 high explosive 4.5 inch rockets. These had the explosive power of a 105 mm artillery shell. The plane was heavily armored and could take a pounding from antiaircraft fire and remain in the battle. They offered their pilots excellent visibility, which made them good for the ground assault role, because the pilots could often make out friendly forces. When the P-47s arrived, the Germans often decried “Achtung! Jabos!” (fighter-bombers) with much trepidation and fear.19
