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 Arlington 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 me 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 possibilities 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 Arlington 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 Arlington 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.