Lightning Joe Collins, our corps commander, utilized his divisions with maximum efficiency. It was as if a chess master was maneuvering his key men in various combinations to trap the enemy pawns.
Combat Command B with elements of the 4th Infantry Division secured the high ground west of Villedieu-les-Poêles, bypassed the main city across the Sienne River, and headed south toward Saint Croix. Combat Command A with elements of the 1st Infantry Division secured Mortain, turned it over to the 1st Division, and headed southward in a wide end swing. After securing Saint Croix, CCB went to Reffuveille for a twenty-four-hour rest and maintenance period.
This was the first time that the entire combat command had been out of the line since July 8. From a maintenance point of view, the M4 Sherman’s engine was supposed to be pulled after a hundred hours of operation. Many tanks were due this hundred-hour check; the number would have been higher had medium tank losses not been so great that many tanks were brand new. In spite of easier going during the offensive, tank losses had been high whenever we encountered German tanks. The hundred-hour check is normally time-consuming, requiring six to eight hours under the best conditions in garrison. In the field with rough ground and limited wrecker facilities, it required more time.
On the afternoon of August 5, C Company of the maintenance battalion bivouacked about half a mile east of Reffu-veille. Juvigny and Refruveille, two small villages about three miles apart, had been the site of a heavy firelight two days before. Because we expected a twenty-four-hour or longer maintenance period, my driver, Vernon, bivouacked our Jeep next to a hedgerow, then chose a site for a two-man foxhole.
Even in the soft ground, the foxhole, roughly seven feet long by five feet wide by two feet deep, took us more than an hour to complete. Vernon went over to the kitchen truck and drew us a box of 10-N-l rations, which would feed two men for five days. In addition, we had a whole box of K rations, which would last us for some time. Vernon always kept us well supplied with food.
The 10-N-1 contained two types of canned meat—Spam and corned beef. Most GIs ate more Spam than they care to remember. I suppose that’s why most GIs hated it when the war was over. The rations also contained canned green vegetables, canned fruit, crackers, coffee, toilet paper, and cigarettes. This was supplemented occasionally by a stray French chicken or some eggs, which was the next best thing to actually getting back to the headquarters company main chow line.
The next morning, just as we were packing the Jeep to move out, an MP Jeep arrived in the bivouac area with an MP officer, a driver, and a French farmer and his young daughter. The officer told Sergeant Fox that he would like to see the company commander. When Captain Oliver appeared, the MP officer told him that the French farmer’s daughter had been raped the night before by soldiers, perhaps from this company. The Frenchman’s farm was in the next field, just over the hedgerow. The mademoiselle claimed that when she had gone out to the barn to check her livestock, she’d been accosted by several American GIs. She claimed they held her down in the hay and gang-raped her.
Captain Oliver told Sergeant Fox to line up the company in formation. Seated in the Jeep, the MP captain, the driver, the farmer, and the young lady passed slowly in review in front of the men, stopping from time to time to look at individuals. She was trying to identify the men who had raped her. Everyone was extremely nervous, because rape was a serious offense in the U.S. Army and was punishable by death.
At the end of the inspection, the Jeep went back to the head of the column and the farmer and daughter had a powwow with Captain Oliver. Apparently, the mademoiselle was unable to identify her attackers, which relieved everyone. Some of the men later said that the French girl had voluntarily taken on several GIs in exchange for cigarettes and chocolate candy and had yelled rape when her father caught them.
The Battle of Mortain
The 33d Armored Regiment and its maintenance company were bivouacked nearby in Reffuveille. They had been working on the tanks; by daybreak they had removed the armor plate from the back of many tanks and placed the engines on the ground. The tank crews helped with the heavy work, then enjoyed a short but well-deserved rest while the maintenance crews took over.
I was with Maj. Dick Johnson at about 1000 when word came to cut short the maintenance effort and get the tanks back together as quickly as possible. It seemed that no sooner had the 1st Division turned over Mortain to the 30th Division than the Germans launched a massive counterattack. A 30th Division regimental combat team had been completely cut off, and CCB was to attack immediately and relieve them.
Everyone scrambled to get everything back together. Tank engines that had their maintenance check only partially completed were hurriedly reassembled and put back into the engine compartments. The armored decks were put back and bolted down. The battle-weary tank crews got back into their tanks. Although grampy and teed off, they realized they had to rescue their fellow GIs. By noon the tanks were buttoned up and ready to go. This was an all-time record for getting an engine back in a tank and doing whatever was necessary to prepare it for battle.
A breakthrough as massive as that at Saint-Lô required a certain amount of calculated risk. Sooner or later the enemy would make a stand and counterattack. Just exactly when and where the counterattack would come, no one knew.
On August 6, the the was cast. The Germans massed their armor and motorized infantry at Mortain and attacked due west, driving toward Juvigny and Reffuveille to Avranches. The objective was to separate the First and Third Armies and cut the Third Army’s supply routes. General Bradley ordered an all-out effort to recapture and hold Mortain.
Combat Command B’s immediate objective was to relieve the isolated elements of the 30th Division. To do so required crossing an open valley between two hills and seizing the German-occupied high ground on the other side. Together with elements of the 2d Armored Division and the infantry divisions, CCB began the assault.
The units were met by murderous artillery and direct tank fire from two German panzer divisions and supporting infantry. One M4 tank received a direct hit from a 155mm HE shell on the glacis plate about five inches above the bolted seam where the final drive casting (a heavy, contoured casting containing the control differential, drive axles, sprockets, and transmission) was bolted to the glacis plate. The armor was about four inches thick at the point of the radius and tapered to about two and a half inches where it bolted to the glacis plate. The bolts in this armored seam were ripped out for a span of twelve to fourteen inches, and the glacis plate was dented inward about one and a half inches. This allowed the blast to come directly into the body compartment of the tank and neutralize the crew.
Our tanks on open ground such as this were no match for the superior firepower and heavy armor protection of the German tanks. As our tank casualties began to mount, our troops called for an air strike. The Ninth Air Force was already overextended, so the Royal Air Force (RAF) was called to help.