After the briefing, I reported to Major Arlington. The convoys began to form on the Isigny-Saint-Lô highway at about 2000. The liaison officer group formed up immediately behind combat command headquarters.
It was strictly a start-and-stop operation, similar to a heavy traffic jam. Maintaining normal intervals between vehicles became impossible as we proceeded farther down the highway and the convoy increased in size. By this time, we had become accustomed to the periodic firing of our own artillery into me German lines. The closer we came to the intersection of the Airel-Le Dézert highway, five miles south of Isigny, the more intense the firing became.
Suddenly, we heard a whirring noise and then wrack, wrack, wrack as three incoming German artillery shells landed in the woods about a hundred yards to our right. Prior to this, all the artillery had been outgoing; now a new dimension had been added. The artillery was aimed at us.
When we reached the intersection, we turned right and headed toward Airel. The incoming artillery became much more intense; I wasn’t sure whether it was targeting us or the infantry around us. In any event, the column kept bunching up and stretching out in accordionlike fashion as it headed for the bridge at Airel.
I found myself at the head of the liaison group and immediately behind a Red Cross ambulance half-track from CCB.
I thought I’d be safe if I stayed close to the half-track. Although the incoming artillery was more frequent, I was somewhat reassured by the briefing at CCB, earlier in the day, informing us that we were not actually going into combat until the next morning
As we approached the bridge about a hundred yards east of Airel, we came upon an old tavern with an open courtyard. The building was in flames, and two dead young American soldiers were lying naked on the ground near a Jeep. Apparently, they had taken cover from artillery fire in the courtyard; a shell had struck the building and the blast had been deflected directly down on them. It had blown them both out of the Jeep and torn off their clothes. Their horribly burned flesh was splotched red and black. The light from the flames of the burning building danced across their bodies, which looked like surreal painted mannequins. As I turned away I noticed that my driver, Smith, was also choked up. There was no dignity for these young soldiers, even in death. A great sense of revulsion welled up in me, and the sadness was almost overwhelming. At this point, we both felt completely human.
A direct hit by German artillery had blown a large gap in the stone floor of the bridge into Airel. The tanks and halftracks were being routed across the bridge; the wheeled vehicles were crossing the river on a pontoon bridge about a hundred yards to the north. We came across the pontoon bridge and met up with the column again. The MPs were stopping the columns and merging them by allowing one vehicle from each to pass.
Thus, I had to stop and let the ambulance half-track go ahead. When I was allowed to go, I wound up behind one of the medium tanks assigned to CCB headquarters. I wasn’t sure whether I had gained or lost in the deal.
The column was on a narrow road that circled north around a small hill in the middle of town. As we started down the road, we were in a defiladed position between two hedgerows. All hell broke loose. I did not know it at the time, but just as we were beginning to cross the bridge, the Germans had launched a counterattack north and south of the town. As the column moved in a slow start-and-stop fashion down the road between the hedgerows, we found ourselves between the American and German units. The Germans were in the hedgerows to the north, the Americans in the hedgerows to the south.
Fortunately, the hedgerows were high, and most of the firing went over our heads. The column slowly snaked up the road toward the top of the hill. Suddenly, a German artillery shell came screaming across the top of the tank and exploded against a tree on the far side of the hedgerow. Although the top hatch was open, the tank commander had his head inside the turret and missed the blast.
Although it was dark on this back road at night, many of the buildings nearby were on fire, and the flames flickered just enough to give us light from time to time. We did not dare use our blackout lights, so we had to be careful not to run up on the vehicle in front of us. This was not a problem for me; the tank we were following was so high and made so much noise that I didn’t have much trouble keeping behind it. However, I had to be careful not to be rammed by Lieutenant Foster, the liaison officer from the 23d Armored Engineers, who was in the Jeep behind ours.
As we reached the top of the hill, an MP directed us into a field to the left that turned out to be the CCB headquarters bivouac area. It’s unclear why the billeting officer chose this area; it was on a forward slope of a hill under direct German fire, and it was an orchard. Incoming artillery would strike a tree branch and detonate, with a devastating effect to those on the ground.
My driver, Smith, pulled our Jeep as close as possible to the edge of the field, then we got out and started digging a foxhole. The earth was hard chert and extremely difficult to penetrate. We dug as fast as we could with our pick, our trench shovel, and even our helmets. Every time a round of artillery came in, we would stick our heads in the hole. We must have looked like a couple of ostriches with our heads in the sand and our butts completely aboveground.
We found out later that the Germans had managed to hoist a 75mm PAK41 antitank gun into the church steeple about a quarter mile from us. Because the top of the steeple was just about the height of the hill, they could fire directly into our area. Had it not been for the cover of darkness, the entire CCB headquarters could have been wiped out.
After about two hours of hard work, Smith and I were able to dig a two-man foxhole approximately six feet by three feet by twelve to fourteen inches deep—big enough to protect our heads and our butts. Close to daybreak, one of our tanks located the antitank gun in the steeple and knocked it out with one shot. This decreased the incoming fire considerably.
At daybreak, CCB moved out and launched a two-pronged attack. As it headed south, we found that our area was relieved considerably from artillery fire. We emerged from our foxhole and looked around to get the lay of the land. At the base of the hedgerow near us were two dead 30th Division infantrymen who apparently had been killed the night before. We called the medics, who in turn called the graves registration people to take away the bodies.
I set out to find Maj. Dick Johnson, who commanded the maintenance company for the 33d Armored Regiment. As the combat command’s senior maintenance officer, he was primarily responsible for the immediate recovery and evacuation of our vehicles. It was my job to coordinate the ordnance activities with him. The major was sturdily built, had a good sense of humor, and was well respected by his men for handling his job in a competent manner. As I walked around the bivouac area and called his name, I heard his voice come out from under a light tank: “Cooper, where are you?”
I looked under the tank, and there was the major in his sleeping bag next to the tank crew.
“What the hell are you doing under there, Major?”
“Crawled under here to get rid of those damned airbursts last night. What do you think I’m doing here?”
As I looked under the tank, I noticed a hundred pounds of TNT strapped to the glacis plate; it would be used to blow a breach in the hedgerows.
“Do you realize there’s a hedgerow breaching charge strapped to the front of this tank?” I asked.
“If this thing had been ticked off by an airburst, we would have all been blown to kingdom come,” the major said as he crawled out from under the tank. “Damn, if I’d known this thing was here, I wouldn’t have gotten near it.”