On This Day In History

It's been five weeks since the successful D-Day landings and while there is no way to know precisely what was happening on this day in history 80 years ago there is this from the memoirs of my pop, Howard Gaertner, who had been dodging Germans in Normandy for several weeks already.

I had trained for a year with F Company, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Division at Camp Butner, North Carolina.  My training was basically as an infantryman.  However, after basic I was assigned to our weapons platoon, .30 caliber air cooled machine guns and 60mm mortars.  Eventually I became a gunner for the 60mm mortar, setting-up, aiming and determining the needed charge for the target.

First furlough - August 1943

However, when I arrived at the replacement depot in Normandy, the powers that be assigned me to M Company, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.  M Company was a heavy weapons company, .30 caliber water cooled machine guns and 81 mm mortars.  While more familiar with mortar, I was assigned to a machine gun squad.  Our mission was to support an attack by the lead rifle company and provide offensive fire power, also to provide defensive power.  The assignment to a .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun was no big deal.  The air cooled model's fire power was somewhat restricted because of the heat generated as versus water cooled. Needless to say our squad chose not to carry the water can needed for our weapon.  Rather, we chose to carry extra ammo.  Should push come to shove for need of water our urine was generally available.

Photo - Histomil.com

My days with M Company began shortly after the 9th had taken Cherbourg.  Perhaps four or five other replacements and I moved to the front around twilight.  All assigned to machine gun sections, we found vacant slit trenches along a hedgerow ready for our occupancy.  On the other side of the foliage was a sunken road harboring a tank destroyer. 

La Caplainerie - liberated by 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry in the battle of the hedgerows

Shortly after settling down in our slit trenches we came under heavy artillery barrages; mostly 88’s. The replacement in the slit trench to my rear leaped from his trench and pounced on my back.  He was shouting incoherently - Save me! Save me! Save me!  I told him -  Knock it off. Get back in your trench and if you know how to pray you might give it a try.

I only met this fellow the day before in the repo depot. He was foul-mouthed and a first class braggadocio.  Within days our squad noticed he had a hankering for the juice; calvados and cognac.  He was not the type of soldier you wished as a member of your squad.  Some time in August he just disappeared.  He was not captured or wounded.  Consensus leaned towards AWOL.

Les Champs de Losque - liberated by 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry in the battle of the hedgerows

The barrage made us virtual prisoners and seemed to go on for a day.  The smell of exploding artillery, mortar and rocket shells permeated the air.  Rockets fired from the Nebelwerfer were dubbed screaming meemies by the infantry.  To make matters worse, whenever the tank destroyer next door would turn-over its engine it would draw more artillery fire.

Since Roman times the sunken roads between Norman hedgerows have remained unchanged but for some paving

Within a couple of days we were given the order to attack.  I clearly remember a rather heated exchange that morning between a supporting tank commander and our battalion CO.  The tanker wanted us to lead the way across the open field to the next hedgerow.  He said something about his tanks being vulnerable once they cleared their existing cover.  Lt. Colonel Don Clayman threatened the tanker with disciplinary action. Given the provocation that’s probably the least dangerous thing he could have done.

For weeks it was one hedgerow at a time.  Casualties were mounting and progress extremely slow and limited.  Our sergeant, Bill Underwood, was killed. 

^{Sunken road, July 1944 - US Army}

During this period we were served but one warm meal when we went into reserve for a couple of days. 

Rumor had it that there was going to be a big push shortly and the stalemate in Normandy may be coming to an end.  We didn’t know that we would be part of the Saint-Lô offensive until it happened.

Jill and I spent a day navigating the Bocage (Norman hedgerows and sunken roads) that my father and his comrades fought their advance. We passed through dozens of small hamlets and villages that The Raiders of the 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Division liberated.  Many of them mere crossroads or a simple bridgehead.  The larger towns had a church and a café.  It gets very interesting when you are tooling-about in your peppy, six-speed rented Opel Astra and you encounter a Norman farmer with a Case tractor and a tank of liquefied manure meeting you head-on in a sunken hedgerow.  But I digress.

For weeks the invasion force was bottled-up on the Cotentin (Cherbourg) Peninsula.  The battle was a  deadly, nasty and ferocious slog.  The rainy season had begun.  An advance of three hundred yards was considered a good day's progress.  Troops and matériel  from Britain continued to build-up on the beachhead as the invasion was reinforced.  Something had to be done to break out of the bottleneck.  That plan would be named Operation Cobra.