Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

by Belton Y. Cooper

  Fortunately, the gas attack was a false alarm. It turned out that the Germans had fired a white phosphorus smoke shell into the rear of the battalion area and one of the sentries mistook the smoke for gas and gave the alarm. Other sentries took up the alarm, which quickly spread throughout the entire area. By the time it was dark, things had settled down, but there was an air of nervousness, and everyone kept his gas mask close at hand for the night.

  The ordnance companies were equipped with three decontamination trucks in the event of a mustard gas attack. The trucks contained large wooden tanks filled with water and several drums of chloride of lime powder. The procedure was to mix the powder in the water and spray it on any contaminated vehicle. The chloride of lime would release a free chlorine radical, which would neutralize the additional chlorine in the mustard gas and make it harmless. As the result of this false alarm, the drivers of the decontamination trucks checked their equipment carefully that evening, and one driver opened a drum to make sure that it held plenty of chloride of lime.

  The crew of the decontamination truck went to sleep in their foxhole, right next to the truck. Later in the evening, a heavy mist began to settle over the bivouac area, and some of the moisture apparently got into one of the drums that had been opened, and a small amount of chlorine was released. Because chlorine gas is heavier than air, it spilled over the side of the drum, down the side of the truck, and into the foxhole. The driver of the truck awakened and smelled the chlorine gas. Needless to say, the events of the previous hours had a great deal to do with what happened next. The terrified driver screamed, then fainted dead away. The assistant driver sharing the foxhole with him woke up, saw the slumped body of his buddy, and, smelling the gas, thought the man was dead. He immediately panicked and screamed, “Gas! Gas!” at the top of his voice.

  All hell broke loose. Other soldiers awakened and immediately relayed the gas signal. Some fired three shots, and the sentries whirled claxtons again. One radio operator hollered, “Gas! Gas! Gas!”

  In a matter of seconds the alarm spread throughout the entire First Army beachhead, and pandemonium broke out. Men abandoned their foxholes and ran around in the dark screaming and looking for their gas masks. Had the Germans realized what was happening, they could have attacked against a completely disorganized army. After a while, the men realized that this was another false alarm; the sentries’ gas patches, which changed color when exposed to gas, did not indicate that any was present.

  How could a well-trained, disciplined army have been subject to such sudden hysteria? Perhaps because this generation of young men grew up hearing stories about the terror of gas in World War I.

  No one, perhaps even to this day, really knows how profoundly this panic could have affected the security of the army. The next morning, the CCB commander, General Truman Boudinot, called a meeting of all the unit commanders. Boudinot expressed his shock and amazement at the disintegration of discipline among the troops. In all of his years in the army, he had never seen anything like it, and he was not about to put up with any more of it in the future. He gave a direct order from General Omar Bradley, commander of the First Army, which is abbreviated as follows.

  In view of the experience of the previous evening, it has been concluded that had the Germans actually used gas, the physical damage to our troops could not have possibly been as disastrous as the pandemonium that resulted from the gas alarm. Thus, you are hereby ordered to instruct all personnel that the gas alarm will be given under no conditions, even in the event of an actual gas attack. All claxtons and other types of gas alarm signals are to be taken up. The gas identifying patches on the sentries will remain, to be used for their personal protection. Any soldier giving the gas alarm, regardless of the circumstances, is to be shot on sight by the closest available soldier.

  This was the strongest order I’ve ever heard given by an army commander. I’m not sure whether General Bradley had the authority to issue it, but the order was effective and was probably necessary at the time. At least it got our attention and we had no more gas alarms.

  3

  The Breakthrough

  Preparation: The Hedge Chopper

  The division spent the next few days regrouping. New personnel replacements were integrated into their units. The maintenance battalion continued to work around the clock trying to catch up on some of its backlog. In addition, replacement tanks and other vehicles were coming in across the beach directly from Tidworth Downs.

  The tanks had to be refurbished by the maintenance people before being issued to the combat units. The vehicles supposedly had all the equipment on board, but some of it that was still in boxes and other wrapping had to be taken out, cleaned, and installed. This could have been done at the depot and saved the maintenance crews in the fields some time, but because the depot people were not familiar with all the equipment and how it was used, the vehicles still had to be checked in the field regardless of their condition when received. In many cases, tank crews were assigned to the maintenance battalion to help refurbish these replacement vehicles, because only experienced tank crews knew the proper place for all the equipment.

  On the afternoon of July 22, Major Arrington ordered me and the other two liaison officers, Lieutenant Nibbelink of CCA and Lieutenant Lincoln of Combat Command R (CCR), and also Lieutenant Lucas from headquarters company, to report with him to witness a demonstration in a nearby field. As we entered the field, we noted a number of high-ranking officers congregating around an M5 light tank. We could tell by the red signs on several Jeeps that there were some general officers among them. As we got out of our Jeeps and started to approach the high-ranking brass, I began to cringe, as I’m sure my lieutenant buddies also did. Major General Watson, our division commander, and Brigadier Generals Hickey of CCA and Boudinot of CCB, and most of the division staff were present.

  A tall officer standing in the middle of the group could be identified immediately. He is said to have worn more stars than any other general officer in the army: three on his helmet, three on each side of his collar, and three on each epaulet of his Eisenhower jacket. General Patton had come to witness the demonstration, but because the Third Army had not yet been activated, his presence in Normandy had been kept secret.

  Patton was a fine-looking man with rugged features and piercing eyes. In his Eisenhower jacket, brightly polished riding boots, riding britches, and leather belt with a brass buckle and holding ivory-handled pistols, he looked every inch a soldier. Although some felt that he looked overdressed, this was part of his mystique. One could not help but stand in awe of him, and he dominated the conversation by his bearing and presence. Many of our division’s officers who had previously served under him looked upon him as a demigod. His aggressive nature and severe disciplinary manner produced an ambivalence in those who served under him; they either hated his guts or worshiped the ground he walked on.

  The demonstration that we had come to see was a test of a new device that would attach to the front of the M5 light tank and allow it to breach the hedgerows. The only way a tank could currently get through the hedgerows was with a bulldozer tank in front of it, and the division had only four of these.

  A young soldier from a nearby engineering battalion had come up with the idea for this new device based on his experience back home as a farmboy clearing hedgerows with a bulldozer. The device was fabricated steel with ten- to twelve-inch-long pointed spikes welded perpendicular to the base channel. This weldment was attached to the towing clevis brackets on the front end of the tank transmission. Previously, tanks that rammed hedgerows simply reared up backward, because the thickly embedded roots reinforced the hedgerow mass. The spikes on the new device embedded themselves in the hedgerow and prevented the tank from rearing up. At the same time, they cut some of the reinforcing roots, and the inertia of the tank moved the entire hedgerow mass out of the way.

  The test worked beautifully the first time: The tank went through the hedgerow without a problem. The possibiliti
es were immediately recognized. Instead of waiting for bulldozer tanks, it was now possible to breach the hedgerows at many places simultaneously. When Patton nodded his approval, we knew it was a go situation. General Watson called Colonel Smith, the division chief of staff, and told him to make plans to have the hedge choppers installed at once. Colonel Smith and the G3 estimated that the division required fifty-seven of the devices. Because a major assault was scheduled for the next day, everything was of the utmost urgency.

  Without any idea of how many man-hours it would take to fabricate these units or even how long it would take to get the steel, Colonel Cowhey told General Watson that he would have fifty-seven hedge choppers built and installed on the tanks by 0700 the following morning. Based on this commitment, the division made its plans for the next day’s assault. Everyone realized that this quick commitment by Colonel Cowhey must have appealed to General Patton, who liked no-nonsense decisions. The commitment had to be carried out by the next lower echelon, however.

  Colonel Cowhey came over to where we were standing and asked Major Arrington how many welding machines we had in the entire division. Arrington told him that there were forty-two welding units, including those in the maintenance battalion and all of those in the maintenance units of the various combat companies. Cowhey said he would have Colonel Smith make all the welding units available to us.

  The plan was an example of how a project could be carried out under extremely adverse conditions. Several abandoned garage buildings in Saint Jean de Daye were taken over and established as the modification center. Tarps stripped from the tops of trucks were used to plug the holes in the roofs of the buildings and cover the doors during blackouts. Warrant Officer Douglas, an expert certified welder in civilian life, was put in charge of the actual manufacturing operation.

  Major Arrington called us aside and gave us our orders. Lieutenant Lincoln was to take a truck group with burning and cutting torches down to Omaha Beach and salvage as much steel as possible from leftover German beach obstacles. Lieutenant Lucas would take another group to Cherbourg, fifty miles away, and secure all the four- to twelve-inch channels and I beams he could handle from a large fabricating shop and steel warehouse on the south side of the city. All this steel was to be brought back to Saint Jean de Daye as quickly as possible. Major Arrington told me to contact Major Johnson, motor officer of the 33d Armored Regiment, and ask him to have the 33d’s tanks report to Saint Jean de Daye at 2330. These tanks were to go down the “B” line in the garage building. The 32d Armored Regiment’s tanks would start reporting at 2400 and go down the “A” line in an adjacent building.

  By the time the first tanks from the 33d arrived at Saint Jean de Daye, things were well organized. Onan portable generators were set up inside to produce electric lights for the welders. The 486th Antiaircraft Battalion had extra vehicles stationed around the area to be on alert against German air attacks in case arc flashes from the welding torches were seen.

  Warrant Officer Douglas had no drawings to go by; he simply made field sketches on pieces of scratch paper and gave them to the men. One group cut out the parts and tacked them together. The welders completed the units, then another group installed them on the clevis brackets of the tanks. In the meantime, Douglas and his crew had come up with a design that included plow-type plates on the edges of the outboard cutters, which did an even better job of breaking through the hedgerows.

  The men worked all night and by daybreak had actually completed and installed seven hedge choppers and fabricated many other parts and partial assemblies. It was determined that it took forty man-hours to complete one hedge chopper; this meant that forty welders had completed approximately one hedge chopper an hour, allowing for production slowed by the fact that no two hedge choppers were identical.

  Fortunately, misty and foggy weather delayed the bombing attack, and the assault was put off for another forty-eight hours. The welding crews continued around the clock with no relief. Some men worked so long, continuously exposed to the welding arc, that they became temporarily blinded and had to be relieved. This blinding effect was due to severe eye-strain and was not permanent.

  Planning Operation Cobra and the Saint-Lô Breakout

  At a CCB briefing, General Boudinot went over the entire situation involving Operation Cobra. Military intelligence had discovered that an attempt had been made on Hitler’s life the day before. Although details were sketchy, the information was that a bomb had exploded but Hitler was thought to have escaped without serious injury.

  I was startled that this information had gotten to us so quickly. I had no idea that the British, through Operation Ultra, had broken the German code. General Truman Boudinot said some people thought this attempt on Hitler’s life might be the beginning of an uprising in the ranks of the German general staff, but no one could know for sure and we should not count on this possibility.

  The initial objective of Operation Cobra, as the plan was known, was to deliver a crushing blow to the German front lines and also to the rear areas to break up the German reserves. Our experiences in Normandy had shown clearly that once an attack started through the hedgerows, it soon became exhausted. This slowed the attack and gave the enemy a chance to counterattack when the troops were stretched out and most vulnerable. To make a successful attack, this capability of the German reserves had to be reduced.

  The initial penetration would be made by the VII Corps of the First Army under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph (Lightning Joe) Collins, an extremely aggressive commander with a brilliant combat record in the Pacific theater. He had also shown extreme aggressiveness in Normandy with the whirlwind capture of Cherbourg. He was assigned the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 30th Infantry Divisions, all crack units, and the 2d and 3d Armored Divisions, the U.S. Army’s only two oversized, powerful, “heavy” armored divisions. The VII Corps also included a number of extra corps and army artillery battalions.

  The heavy armored division’s 390-tank force had the equivalent firepower of thirty artillery battalions. With our own three artillery battalions plus the two attached battalions and the 703d Antitank Battalion, this gave us the firepower of thirty-six artillery battalions. The 2d Armored Division had this same capability, and with the twelve artillery battalions from each of the four infantry divisions and the extra corps-and army-level battalions, VII Corps could concentrate the firepower of ninety artillery battalions into an extremely small area.

  The line occupied by the 9th and 30th Divisions concentrated on a narrow area along the northern part of the Périers–Saint-Lô highway. They were backed up by the 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions. The 2d and 3d Armored Divisions concentrated in the Bois du Hommet, a large, densely forested area just north of the Le Mesnil–Saint Jean de Daye highway. This was approximately a mile and a half north of the infantry front line and astride the road running southward from Périers through the infantry line to Saint-Lô. The main attack was to come along the highway from just south of the infantry to Marigny.

  An area approximately nine thousand yards long extending south along the highway and a thousand yards wide (five hundred yards on either side of the highway) was selected for the main bombardment. In addition to the artillery, the Eighth and Ninth Air Force would carpet bomb this area and an area from Marigny four miles east to Canisy. It would be the largest aerial bombardment of the war up to this point, and the first time that air attacks together with artillery and infantry fire would be concentrated in such a narrow area.

  As if the air force did not have a difficult enough mission concentrating so much firepower in such a small area, it had the additional responsibility of trying to miss the highway from the infantry line south to Marigny. Bomb craters on the road would slow the rapid advance of the tank columns and the wheeled vehicles that followed.

  The attack had been delayed three days due to overcast weather. Now a light mist and drizzle hung above the area, but the air force meteorologist assured us it would lift by morning, in time for the attack.
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br />   This night the entire division concentrated in an extremely small area in the Bois du Hommet. We had tanks, half-tracks, artillery pieces, and wheeled vehicles jammed bumper to bumper, some 4,400 vehicles in an area approximately one mile square. This was completely contrary to all our training. The fact that the German Luftwaffe showed little strength during daylight, and the fact that we had to concentrate like this for the attack to come off rapidly enough, made the risk worthwhile.

  The Danger of Smoking in a Foxhole

  B Company under Captain Roquemore transferred to CCR, and C Company under Capt. Sam Oliver transferred to CCB. My driver, Smith, returned to headquarters company’s antitank section, and I got a new driver, Vernon, from C Company. Vernon was a tall, lanky boy from Tennessee who took great pride in keeping his vehicle maintained and clean, which greatly appealed to me.

  The area where C Company had chosen to bivouac was right in front of the 391st Field Artillery Battalion. Vernon soon located two German foxholes that had been dug side by side; they appeared to be in excellent condition and showed no signs of booby traps. We decided to use these rather than dig new foxholes that evening.

  I was a little apprehensive about using a German foxhole, but once I got inside and examined it, I was impressed. It was a one-man foxhole almost seven feet long, about two feet wide, and four feet deep. It was completely covered and had a narrow opening at one end. The floor was flat except for a three-inch-deep trench that extended around the edge of the wall. Any moisture that seeped into the foxhole would accumulate there, so the floor would stay reasonably dry. The German who occupied this foxhole apparently had plenty of time for refinements.