THE US FIRST ARMY THE FORGOTTEN HEROES OF WW2; THE BREAK OUT FROM ST LO : CHAPTER 5

The soldiers from the XIX Corps started the push to St Lo from Carentan on July 3 pushing past the German east flank over the bridge at Ariel, ten miles north of St Lo. Repeated German efforts to destroy the bridge and halt the advance of the Americans were thwarted by the superb combat skills of the 3^rd armored division, particularly the combat engineers who fought tenaciously to keep the advance route open to the American tanks of the 3^rd Armored Division.

With the road junction in the village of St Jean du Hayes secured, the tanks of the 3^rd Armored Division were able to turn left to start the push south while the US VIII Corps advanced down the western flank to secure the Armored advance. The 29^th infantry division was now able to advance on the town itself especially as the dominant height of hill 192 was securely in American hands. St Lo finally fell on July 16, 1944.

OPERATION COBRA

In mid July, the US First Army under Lieu Gen Omar N Bradley began preparations towards Operation Cobra, a planned break out of the hedgerow country of Normandy focused on a three mile stretch of the frontlines close to St Lo. Cobra was an adaptation of the British plan, operation Epsom and Good wood which involved a heavy carpet bombing of German front lines on a narrow stretch followed by close armor and infantry exploitation of the breach caused by the heavy bombardment.

Against fortified and entrenched German positions, it was realized that the Allies could successfully employ their massive air power to carpet bomb a narrow stretch of the German frontline positions through which a concentrated thrust by armor, infantry and artillery closely following can exploit, resulting in a decisive break through the German lines and rapid advance into the open country beyond the hedgerow area into Brittany.

 The Allies knew the concentrated force of 3,000 bombers within a three mile stretch of the frontlines would pulverize every German unit within the vicinity and the overwhelmed and traumatized defenders could easily be overcome before they have a chance to recover and return to their positions.

For Operation Cobra, the second armored division’s combat command A and the 22^nd infantry Division practiced close combat co-ordinate assaults and drilled thoroughly in preparation for the attack with the infantry force projected to ride on the rapidly moving tanks into battle to speed up the advance and secure the tanks in their flank and rear, while protecting them from grazing fire.

First army whose troops were to handle the attack began extensive preparations for the operation which was tentatively scheduled for the 18^th of July but was rescheduled due to weather problems in the United Kingdom which fore stalled movement of aircraft and reduced visibility which was vital for accurate bombing runs. On July 24 the weather had cleared sufficiently for the attacks to begin but as the first wave of planes took off, the overcast returned resulting in the cancellation of the operation.

However a squadron of planes unaware of the cancellation orders proceeded to bomb and ended up dropping their bomb loads on American positions resulting in 25 American fatalities and over 130 soldiers injured including Lieutenant General Lesley Mc Nair Junior, the highest ranking American officer to be killed in the fighting in the European theatre of operation.

0n July 25^th the weather finally cleared and over 3,000 American bombers and fighters of the Eight air force dropped a combination of fragmentation, napalm and high explosive bombs on the German positions devastating the Panzer Lehr Division while General Collins VII Corps subsequently led an advance into the gap thus created, meeting sporadic but determined resistance from the remnants of Panzer Lehr and the German 5^th Parachute division to the West that had escaped the bombing relatively unscathed.

In spite of the intense resistance on the first day that held VII Corps to an advance of only two miles, the next day the attack was pressed and the Americans noticed the resistance was stymied not organized. That same day the US 1^st infantry division and the 2^nd Armored joined in the attack as planned with a view to widening the breach and seeking a deeper penetration of the breach in the German lines. The commitment of General Troy H Middleton’s VIII Corps after a slow start turned the tide as the Germans began to withdraw seeing that their flanks were collapsing, and the tempo of the American advance increased.

The American advance was helped by the fact that the bulk of the German armor had been deployed to stave off any advance on the British /Canadian front where the Germans felt a breakthrough, would be more dangerous to their position in Normandy and had consequently deployed the bulk of their armor and reserves. Whereas the British were confronting seven German armored divisions, the Americans faced just one and a half division, without any depth of defense or reserves.

First Army therefore resolutely pursued the break through with vigor against just over 177 German tanks standing in the way against over 2,500 tanks leading the American advance with most of them equipped with the Rhino tooth designed to cut through the hedgerows headlong.

 Brushing past pockets of determined German resistance led by 88mm gun emplacements, the advance continued relentlessly until the 28th^th of July when the German defenses finally gave way under the combined pressure of VII and VIII Corps attacks. As the Americans approached the breakthrough point, German resistance mounted in the form of counter offensives by the 2^nd SS Panzer division, 17^th SS Panzer grenadiers and the 352^nd division all seeking to escape the American entrapment.

 The desperate bid launched against the 2^nd armored division failed and the disheartened Germans fled on foot abandoning their vehicles and equipments. In fact Panzer Lehr was completely put out of action as a coherent unit after the fighting as reported by its commander General Bayerlain ‘with its armor wiped out, personnel missing or captured, and all headquarters records missing’.

Meanwhile the newly appointed German supreme commander in the West Field Marshal Von Kluge rushed forward re- enforcements in the form of the elements of the 2^nd and 116^th panzer divisions that caught up with the XIX Corps led by Maj Gen Charles H Corlett which had just joined in the fighting on the left flank of VII Corps resulting in the fiercest fighting since operation Cobra started between 28 and 31^st July. Other desperate attacks on the 2^nd armored by elements of the German 2^nd SS Panzer and 17^th SS Panzer grenadier divisions were repelled by the Americans as their confidence grew in the knowledge of the fact that the initiative now lay with them.

On the 30^th of July the US VIII Corps seized Avranches described as the gateway to Brittany and the next day 31^st July, XIX Corps threw back the last of the German counter offensives finally freeing the way for US forces to advance into Brittany and beyond the Boca’ge country.

Picture courtesy of HERE and HERE

THE US FIRST ARMY THE FORGOTTEN HEROES OF WW2 ; THE BATTLE OF THE HEDGE ROWS CHAPTER 4

As the Allied Armies continued to consolidate and expand their footage on the coast of Normandy, the 1^st United States Army was charged with securing the Cotentin Peninsular and the port city of Cherbourg. That meant that the units and men of the First army had to advance eastwards towards the base of the Cotentin peninsular.

The first challenge the First army faced was to advance into and beyond the dense hedgerows that inundated the Normandy country side and was known as the Bocage to the French. The dense hedgerow made the Normandy terrain suitable and ideal for defensive warfare and this, the Germans greatly exploited to the detriment of the Allies.

 In fact the hedgerows and their unsuitability for tactical military maneuvers presented the Allies with such a formidable problem that it took two whole months to advance and break out of the bocage province of France. The Germans had so fortified this terrain and enjoyed such tactical advantages that the whole Allied offensive efforts to break out of Normandy bogged down, and mounting anxiety and despair began to grip the Allied military leadership at SHAEF (Supreme headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe) and doubts began to mount as to the effectiveness of General Montgomery’s plans for a break out into open country beyond the Bocage country.

With the British 21^ST battle Army Group also held back in the hedge row fighting and struggling to take Caen, their D-Day assigned objective, the whole Allied offensive was being threatened with a stalemate, and the Allies desperately needed to fine tune their plans for an eventual breakthrough into open country beyond Caen for the British and into Brittany for the Americans. The Germans feared the effect of a British breakout more as the region beyond Caen led directly to Paris and the Seine River.

For this reason, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel concentrated most of his available Panzer divisions within the vicinity of the British positions around Caen. With the British tied down at Caen and the Americans bogged down in the hedgerows, the only viable option for the First Army was to fight its way out of the hedgerow country. With time and some measure of ingenuity the Allies found an effective way to flush the Germans out of the hedgerows.

This involved the principle of combined arms and consisted of close support and tactical co-ordination between infantry, armor and artillery, and involved clearing one hedgerow at a time. With German machine guns, mortars and anti tank guns deployed beyond the perfect cover of the thick hedges, the element of surprise naturally was absent and Allied casualties were heavy as breaching the well-camouflaged German positions was a big challenge.

 The Americans in particular were vulnerable in this fixed positional warfare as their tanks were highly vulnerable to the German hand-held anti-tank guns also known as panzerfaust each time they tried to go over the top of the hedges exposing their vulnerable underbelly to the projectiles of the German anti tank guns.

With each field surrounded by the hedgerows about the size of a football field, each assault had to concentrate on taking one plot at a time in separate costly assaults in terrain that highly favored the defense over the attack. With the fighting bogged down, the First Army had to improvise, and here the ingenuity of the average American soldier came to play.

  A soldier attached to the 2^nd Armored Division’s 102^nd Calvary reconnaissance squadron by name Sergeant Curtis G Collins decided to implement a suggestion he overheard one of the men making during a discussion on how to overcome the hedgerows. He suggested that a metallic tooth could be welded to the front of the Sherman tanks to cut through the hedges in an assault.

 He accordingly designed a heavy steel tooth from abandoned German metal beach obstacles and welded it to a Sherman tank and found out that the tank became quite effective in cutting through the thick hedges in an advance.

Tanks fitted with the metallic teeth became known as Rhinoceros tanks because of the steel cutters that they carried and the idea became so popular and effective that Army commander General Bradley directed that the steel tooth be fitted on as many tanks as possible.  By late July 1944 over 60% of first Army tanks were fitted with the Rhino teeth.

With improvements in the tactical maneuverability of the Allies, the First Army was able to now set its sight on a breakthrough from the hedgerows and make a bid for the capture of St Lo and eventually break out into Brittany and cut off the Germans remaining in the Cotentin Peninsular.

 The fresh impetus in advance took the First Army to within the outskirts of St Lo but to get there Carentan had to be captured and this task was subsequently accomplished by the 101^st airborne in concert with combat command A of the First Army’s 2^nd Division on the 12^th of June 1944. Carentan stood at a strategic point on the important road junction between Omaha Beach and Utah Beach.

The capture of Carentan was thus assigned to the 101^st airborne Division that had landed just close to the city at midnight of 5/6^TH of June on D-Day. Carentan, a small town of four to five thousand stood at the base of the Cotentin Peninsular and dominated a road junction that linked Cherbourg to the Northwest, Bayeux and Caen to the South east and Countenance to the South west.

The Germans flooded much of the Douve River flood plain before the invasion making the resulting marshland impervious to armor and infantry advances. The task of capturing Carentan was thus left to the 101^ST airborne and an armored force detached from the 7^th armored Division whose advance elements had advanced from the beach and linked up with the 101^st close to Carentan.

The only access to the town through the flooded marshlands was through bridges and cause ways that had been largely destroyed by the Germans in the face of the Allied advance. It took a courageous charge face-on against the German defenders, which included units of the elite German paratroop units known as the fallschirmjagers regiment of about two Battalions strength to reach Carentan

The US First Army’s VII Corps and the V Corps had assaulted Utah beach and Omaha Beach respectively. Both units now vigorously pushed forward to integrate their lodgment areas respectively after the visit of the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D Eisenhower to Omaha Beach on the 7^th of June.

The Germans strongly resisted this move and even committed Panzer forces to if possible split the American-held beaches and drive the Allies to the Sea. The US 101st airborne was thus directed to Capture Carentan and prevent the German breakthrough, because Carentan was the hinge on which both sectors were linked.

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THE US FIRST ARMY THE FORGOTTEN HEROES OF WW2; THE BEACH LANDINGS CHAPTER 3

As a result on D-Day, 6^th June 1944, three divisions of the US First Army were responsible for projecting American military power in the Allied invasion of France. While the landings on Utah met with relatively light opposition and made rapid progress, the landings on Omaha beach ran into a heavy curtain of well prepared and pre –positioned defensive fire that tied the attackers down on the beach for several hours during which, at some point the senior officers led by Lt General Omar N Bradley briefly considered abandoning the beach head altogether.

The landings in the words of General Bradley became a nightmare as the officers and men of the 1^st and 29^th infantry division of the First Army were pinned down by heavy fire from the experienced and battle hardened German 352^nd division made up of both veterans of the Russian front and Italian Campaign with a mix of raw recruits and inexperienced conscripts. 

    

The bravery of the American soldiers that day under intense machine gun fire and mortar rounds in breaching the German beach obstacles and assaulting the German positions well entrenched in the cliffs above, through the open gaps created by demolition charges set by the combat engineers under fire would remain a defining moment in the annals of the United States Army in the 20^th century.

Small groups of infantry men led by brave officers exploited the gaps created by the combat engineers and assaulted the German positions above the sea walls with support from pointblank naval gunfire from a group of US destroyers that risked running aground as they moved right up to the beaches to place direct fire on the fortified German positions on the high ground overlooking the beaches below.

The bravery and tenacity of the men of the 1^st and 29^th infantry division as well as the 116^th regiment will go down in history as one of the sacred moments of American military achievements. With 29 out of the 31 D-D amphibious tanks lost to the waves as they disembarked, the beach obstacles, high sea wall and heavy enemy fire threatened to derail the whole operation.

Against overwhelming odds, stemming partially from inadequate planning, and faulty intelligence, the fighting on Omaha beach became a study in heroism, courage and perseverance. In fact the fighting on Omaha Beach became symbolic of the spirit and resilience of the Allied Servicemen as they undertook the arduous task of re- conquering Western Europe from the Nazi overlords that had held the continent hostage for over four years. Even the German defenders were amazed at the tenacity of the Allied soldiers who refused to give up even in the face of withering and debilitating fire.

The heroics of the 29^th infantry division will continue to maintain a hallowed place in the annals of military history where courage, perseverance and tenacity are concerned. Against the overwhelming odds facing the soldiers on Omaha beach that day, nobody gave them a chance of pulling off a coup that day against the well entrenched German defenders and yet their victory was crucial and essential to the overall success of the Allied cause

In the face of heavy mortar and machine gun fire particularly the newly launched MG 42 machine gun, the fastest in the world at that time, the GI’s had every reason to cut loose and make a dash for the beach and the returning landing crafts on their way out of the combat zone, but the fact remained that they chose to endure the withering machine gun fire of the Germans.

 Even senior officers observing the fighting from the warships offshore deemed Omaha beach a lost cause by 08; 00hrs that morning and were actually actively considering withdrawing the soldiers pinned down behind the sea walls. In fact postwar interviews granted by some of the German soldiers involved in the fighting revealed their amazement as to why the American soldiers simply refused to give up even when some of the first assault waves suffered 80-90% casualties.

Even the famous combat photographer Robert Cappa, who landed on D-Day on Omaha beach at 6; 15 am with the first wave of assault troops on Easy Dog sector of the beach, headed back to the invasion ships anchored offshore at a point when the ordeal became unbearable.

Men saw their buddies cut down in a hail of withering fire. The men of the 29^th infantry division were helpless, despondent and trapped, yet they would not give up. With radio contact lost as most of the radios were water logged and damaged, it was difficult to radio messages demanding a halt to further disembarkment.   This led to congestions on the beaches as the men sought cover on the few beach obstacles providing some form of shelter. In fact most of the radios were jettisoned by the signal officers as they leapt off the landing crafts into the water to escape the murderous fire from the beach defenses as soon as the ramps were opened.

With so many wounded and dying and many sheltering behind the seawalls and beach obstacles, it was now a race against time as to the next course of action. With death flying around in the form of bullets and mortar rounds, while the mines and beach obstacles made the 100 yards dash across the beach to the seawall a suicide mission, it became a terrifying spectacle as the stalemate endured for hours while men searched for a strategy to break the deadlock.

It was a terrifying and horrendous experience for the men particularly as most of them had no combat experience, but the soldiers knew that there was not going to be a looking back in this campaign dubbed by the Allied Supreme Commander as the Great Crusade.

 They knew they had no alternative but to seize and hold that beach that day to enable the follow-up supplies and re-enforcements to come through so that the great campaign to liberate Western Europe could go through. They knew that enormous time and resources had been poured into this operation by their nation and that the events of that day were crucial to the success of the whole Allied undertaking.

THE US FIRST ARMY THE FORGOTTEN HEROES OF WW2; THE PREPARATION FOR OPERATION OVERLORD CAP 2

The US First Army was the primary United States Army designated for the beach landings in France under the code name operation Overlord. Three divisions of the First Army were to land on Omaha and Utah beach supported by the US 82^nd and 101^st airborne divisions who were to land in the rear and protect the western most flanks of the designated beach heads on the Normandy coast between Sainte Honorine des pertes to Vierville Sur mere for the 1^st infantry and the 29^th infantry division on Omaha Beach, as well as Pointe du Hoc for the 5^th Ranger battalion.

On Utah Beach VII Corps , 4^th infantry division and the 359^th RCT of the 90^th infantry comprising about 23,250 men were to land around Poupperville and La Madeline, while the 101^st airborne division was to land around Vierville and the 82^nd airborne division was to land at Saint Mere Eglise to protect the right flank of the invasion beaches. Altogether First Army’s contingents numbered about 73,000 men including 15,600 men from the airborne divisions.

The planning for the beach assaults took six months and by April, exercises aimed at fine tuning the troops for the actual assault landings were already taking place all over England. One of them , code-named Operation Tiger became a major disaster when German E- boats attacked and sank two troops transports carrying the assault forces involved in the training exercise to the exercise beaches on the coast of South England.

Troops of the US 29^th and 1^st infantry division were to land on Omaha beach, while troops of the US 4^TH infantry division, all of the First Army were to assault Utah Beach under the overall command of Lieutenant General Omar N Bradley.

Photo Source: Overlord