"I have been to two church socials and a county fair," said one P-47 pilot, "but I never saw anything like this before!"
THE RETREAT was turning into a rout, and a historic opportunity presented itself. As the British and Canadians picked up their attack, Patton had open roads ahead, inviting his fast-moving armoured columns to cut across the rear of the Germans-whose horse-drawn artillery and transport precluded rapid movement encircle them and destroy the German army in France, then end the war with a triumphal unopposed march across the Rhine and on to Berlin.
Patton lusted to seize that opportunity. He had trained and equipped Third Army for just this moment: straight east to Paris, then northwest along the Seine to seize the crossings, and the Allies would complete an encirclement that would leave the Germans defenceless in the west. Patton could cut off German divisions in northern France, Belgium, and Holland as he drove for the Rhine. That was the big solution. But neither Eisenhower nor Bradley was bold enough to risk it. They worried about Patton's flanks; he insisted that the Jabos could protect them. They worried about Patton's fuel and other supplies; he insisted that in an emergency they could be airlifted to him. But Ike and Bradley picked the safer alternative, the small solution. They wanted the ports of Brittany, so they insisted that Patton stay with the pre-D-Day plan with modifications. It had called for Patton to turn the whole of Third Army into Brittany: when he protested that he wanted to attack towards Germany, not away from it, Eisenhower and Bradley relented to the extent that they gave him permission to reduce the Brittany attack to one corps, leaving two corps to head east.
An entire corps of well-trained, well-equipped tankers, infantrymen, and artillery had been wasted at a critical moment. To Patton it was outrageous that his superiors wouldn't turn him loose. In the boxing analogy, Patton wanted to throw a roundhouse right and get the bout over; his superiors ordered him to throw a short right hook to knock the enemy off-balance. But the enemy already was staggering. He should have been knocked out.
HITLER KNEW his army was staggering. Should it fall back? Get out of Normandy and across the Seine while the getting was good? That was what his generals wanted to do because it made obvious military sense.
But Hitler hated to retreat and loved to take risks. Where his generals saw the jaws of a trap closing on them, he saw a once-only opportunity to go for the American jugular.
As Patton began his short right hook, swinging his divisions north, a glance at the map showed Hitler that the corridor through which Third Army received its supplies was exceedingly narrow (about 30 kilometres) and thus vulnerable. By bringing down more infantry and tankers from north of the Seine, Hitler told Kluge that he would have ample troops to cut that corridor. With these fresh troops Kluge could mount a full-scale counteroffensive. It would start at Mortain, objective Avranches. Once the line had been cut, Patton could be destroyed in place. The Germans could force the fighting back into the hedgerow country, perhaps even drive the Americans back into the sea.
Kluge and every soldier involved thought it madness. Beyond the problems of the Jabos and American artillery, these new divisions were not well equipped-few Panthers or Tigers-and anyway they were not fresh troops. Major Heinz-Giinter Guderian was with the 116th Panzer Division. He recalled, "Most of our people were old soldiers from the Eastern Front. Many of our wounded had returned. We also received parts of a training division, teenagers who had just been inducted and were not trained. To begin an attack with the idea that it is without hope is not a good idea. We did not have this hope." Hitler ordered it done.
Because Hitler mistrusted his generals, he took control of the battle, which forced him to use the radio, allowing Ultra-the British deciphering device-to reveal both the general plan and some of the details. So on August 5 Eisenhower knew what was coming: six German armoured divisions. Between them and Avranches stood one American infantry division-the 30th.
Despite the numbers, no one in the American high command doubted that the 30th, supported by Thunderbolts and British Typhoons and American artillery, could hold. Eisenhower told Patton to keep moving. In Elsenhower's view the Germans were sticking their heads in a noose. On the morning of August 7 he flew to Normandy and met with Bradley, who agreed to hold Mortain with minimal forces while rushing every available division south, through the corridor and out into the interior.
THE GERMAN attack had begun before dawn, tanks rolling forward through the night without artillery preparation. It had achieved tactical surprise and by noon was in Mortain. But the Germans could not dislodge the 700 men of the 2nd Battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment, 30th Division, from an isolated bluff. Hill 317, just east of the town. The GIs on the hill had a perfect view of the surrounding countryside, and forward observers with a radio system that allowed them to call in artillery and Jabos. The Germans had to take that hill before driving on to the coast.
Before dawn on the next day, August 8, one of the forward observers, Lieutenant Robert Weiss, heard, more than he saw, a concentration of German tanks milling around at a roadblock set up by the GIs the previous night. He had the coordinates already fixed and called in a barrage. "That kept them away," Weiss reported, "except for one tank which came through into our company territory, sniffing the dark like a nearsighted dragon. Our guys lay motionless, not a breath, not a sound. In the dark the tank found nobody to fight. It turned and went back to its lair."
With daylight German 88s began shelling the hill. At the top there was a rocky ridgeline. Weiss crawled up to it and lifted his head. He had a panoramic view, but there was the great danger that the Germans would spot him as he spotted them, especially as the sun was coming up and there was a reflection off his binoculars. He sucked in his breath, called his radio operator forward, and started crawling to the top of the crag. "We had to be quick," Weiss said. "The fire missions had to come with almost the speed of the shooting in a quick-draw western-and with comparable accuracy."
Sergeant Joe Sasser, tucked into the reverse slope, set up his radio:
"Ready, Lieutenant." Weiss called Sergeant John Corn to move up beside him before scrambling up the precipice to the top. The sun glared. Head low, body flattened, elbows stretched far apart and resting on the ground, binoculars up to his face, Weiss searched and waited.
The Germans began firing-88s and mortars. "Smoke from the muzzles of the German guns wreathed their position like smoke rings from a cigar," Weiss remembered. He called out to Sergeant Corn, "Fire Mission. Enemy battery," and gave the coordinates. Corn passed it on down to Sasser, who radioed in the coordinates.
Weiss could only wait in apprehension. Sasser called up softly, "On the way."
"A freight train roared by from the left side," Weiss said. "Almost instantly clouds of smoke broke near the German position. I shouted an adjusting command to Corn who passed it quickly to Sasser and on to battalion. The next salvos were right on target." That German battery was out of action.
Shells came in from the left from six enemy self-propelled guns. Weiss repeated the sequence with similar satisfactory results. Then a single tank and yet another battery fired on Hill 317. Weiss called in a barrage on the tank that set it ablaze, then turned his attention to the battery. The follow-up rounds were on target. "The enemy," Weiss noted with satisfaction, "had been neutralized."