Dad was worried that Mom would not get any details of his injuries in the official telegram from the War Department and that she would agonize over not knowing how bad he was wounded. Among the letters from Dad that Mom received during the war are several on American Red Cross stationery. A week after being wounded, Dad knew that Mom had not yet been notified because his mail from home was still being directed to the Battalion instead of the hospital. Although he could not be specific because all the outgoing mail of soldiers was censored for security reasons, the first Red Cross letter begins:
Darling I haven’t heard from you in over a week. And I don’t guess I will hear from you for another couple of days. I guess you wonder why I say that. Well I will tell you if you promise not to worry. I have been slightly wounded. And I am in a convalescent hospital. But don’t worry Love I am not hurt bad. I will be back in action in a couple of days. Darling I am sorry I can’t tell you how or where I was hurt or what is wrong with me. I wish I could because then I would know you wouldn’t worry. I intended to wait until I got back (to action) Darling and then tell you I was wounded and in the hospital for a while. But I was afraid you would get a telegram from Washington and it would worry you to death. So that is why I am telling you. But please don’t worry Darling because I am alright.
Although this letter was postmarked August 18, 1944, she did not receive it until a day or two after the telegram arrived.
Dad and I left the cemetery on the outskirts of Sainte-Suzanne and headed toward the church and the center of town. Next to the main entrance door to the church there is a plaque. The inscription on the plaque states that the original church structure was built before 1125. Dad hadn’t known that fact during the war. He clearly had remorse during the war for firing directly upon a house of God. Now, fifty years later he was again remorseful upon learning the antiquity of the structure. We entered the interior of the church and stopped to say a prayer. Dad made a cash gift in the collection box at the rear of church. It was his way of making a small token to cover present day repairs for the church that he had damaged fifty years earlier.
St James Cemetery
Dad had known for many years that Micaloni, Krusel and Milczakowski were buried in the Normandy cemetery; it was only shortly before our trip that Dad had learned that Willinger was buried in the American Cemetery in St James. The cemetery at St James is about a quarter the size of the Normandy cemetery. It is located off the beaten path in rolling farm country outside of the town of St James. It does not have the same awe inspiring panoramic surroundings as the Normandy Cemetery, and although it is smaller size, it is nonetheless a beautiful and serene final resting place for over 4,400 American heroes and is another patch of hallowed ground.
While heading toward the cemetery we were driving through a heavy rainstorm and it appeared the rain would interfere with our visit. As we stopped at the cemetery gate, however, the rain subsided and the sun began to shine. We proceeded to find Willinger’s grave site. Like the Normandy cemetery, it was quiet and peaceful. As we walked down the main walkway on the side of the cemetery, the silence was occasionally broken by the faint bleating of sheep on the other side of the cemetery’s stone wall fence.
We located Willinger’s burial site and just as in Normandy, Dad spent a few moments in quiet conversation to his friend. Willinger was a Staff Sergeant. He was from California and had entered the army in 1939, when he was nineteen years old. He was in the unit when it was part of the 11th Cavalry and stationed in California.
Willinger Cross. (Author’s collection)
The American Cemetery in Normandy receives a larger number of American visitors than St James. This fact was evident during our visit – there were no other visitors at St James when Dad and I were there. Consequently, the young American sexton enthusiastically received us. Happy to hold a conversation in English with some fellow Americans, he gave us a special tour which included a visit to the top of the chapel steeple, which is normally closed to the public. There we were treated to a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside; on the distant mist shrouded western horizon we could see the silhouette of Mont St Michel.
The grounds of both the Normandy and St James cemeteries were beautifully manicured and meticulously kept. Knowing that these European cemeteries would be kept in such conditions perpetually by the American government, Dad expressed the belief that many American families may have done their loved ones a disservice by having their bodies relocated back to the United States after the war. He felt certain that many of the cemeteries back in the States, where American soldiers were finally laid to rest, were not as well kept as these American monuments to our war dead in Europe.
As we were walking back to the car, Dad was reflecting on the ultimate sacrifice these soldiers made. The vast majority were between eighteen and twenty-five years of age, not married or like Dad, at that time, had no children. Dad said, “You know, under almost every cross and Star of David here, lies the head of an American family that never existed, a family that never was and never will be. If I would have gotten killed, you would never have existed.”
I had heard the words “ultimate sacrifice” and “supreme sacrifice” used before to described the deaths of soldiers killed in action. Until then I thought it was just a superlative description for being killed in action. Dad’s comments made me think about the loss of a soldier. Not only was his life lost, but also his lineage; his parents were as much a casualty of war as he was, they had lost not only a son but also they lost hopes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The toll on a soldier’s family is also an ultimate and supreme loss.
It was also a sobering thought to realize that if the Panzerfaust shell had hit a few inches lower and to the right, neither I nor my children would have ever existed.
As we left the cemetery, the sun slipped behind the clouds. We had no more rain but the rest of the day was gray and gloomy. After getting back on the highway and heading east, we noticed a road sign indicating the direction of Falaise, Argentan, and Alencon.
The Falaise Gap
While Dad was in the hospital recuperating from his back wounds, the fortunes of war took a dramatic turn. The battle of Falaise Gap was taking place. Sainte-Suzanne is approximately 60 miles due south of Caen and approximately 50 miles east south east of Avranches. In six days, the 90th Infantry and the 712th, under Patton, had traveled over 70 miles from Périers to Sainte-Suzanne. The Germans that had trapped Col. Barth in Sainte-Suzanne were moving through the town from south to north and were apparently trying to join the main forces of the German 7th Army that were positioned between Caen and Sainte-Suzanne. On the morning that Dad was wounded, August 7, 1944, the German 7th Army began a westward counterattack against the American forces. The Americans identified this action as the Mortain Counter Attack, the Germans called it Operation Lüttich. This action was planned by Adolf Hitler himself; he planned on attacking the left flank of the American supply lines at the town of Mortain and advancing westward to Avranches and the Atlantic Ocean, thereby cutting off Patton’s Third Army. American intelligence had learned of the counterattack in advance and the American forces were prepared; they stopped the German attack in Mortain.
The lead elements of Patton’s Third Army had reached its objective, the city of Le Mans. When the German attack started, Patton’s forces were ordered to stop their eastward advance, make a sharp 90 degree turn and move north to meet the British forces, under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery, moving south from Caen. Gen. Omar Bradley declared this was “an opportunity that comes to a commander not more than once in a century. We’re about to destroy an entire hostile army. We’ll go all the way from here to the German border.”4
When Patton turned his forces northward, Hitler’s forces in Normandy became trapped in a pocket surrounded on three sides by Allied forces. The only route of retreat for the Germans was to the east on a road through a 12 mile wide valley between the towns of Falaise and Argentan and Chambois. The high ground
on either side of this valley provided the Allies with excellent observation of all enemy actions and movements.
It was planned for Montgomery’s forces to capture the town of Falaise and meet Patton’s forces. Montgomery did not reach his objective on schedule. Patton’s forces, including the 90th and the 712th, reached Argentan and surrounding areas before the German Army could begin its eastward retreat. Patton could have advanced to Falaise in a matter of hours, thereby trapping the entire German army. Instead, for what is purported to be political reasons, he was ordered to stop his advance at Argentan, in order to allow the British to take Falaise. All historical accounts record that there was a longstanding rivalry between Patton and Montgomery; both wanted all the glory of victory. This order to halt did not sit well with Patton.
Patton’s forces reached its stopping point on August 15, seventy days after D-Day, after moving over 250 miles. During that same period, Montgomery’s forces were still 10 miles from Falaise. In that same seventy day period, Montgomery had only moved his forces 20 miles. Montgomery did not reach Falaise until August 19 thereby allowing approximately 240,000 German forces to fight their way out of the pocket and escape the trap that Patton could have closed four days earlier.
Upon reaching Chambois and the Falaise Gap, A and B Companies of the 712th, the 773rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, and other elements of the 90th Infantry Division were deployed across the bottom flatland area of the valley to stop the German escape. C Company of the 712th was on a ridge along the side of the valley. The remainder of Task Force Weaver occupied the surrounding high ground.
The 712th Battle Route – the Falaise Gap. (The History of the 712th Tank Battalion)
Lt-Col. (Ret.) Edward S. Hamilton of the 90th stated that “In war one can expect only the unexpected”. He went on to comment that he observed this truism firsthand in the startling developments that unfolded at Falaise – the death of an entire army.5 The awesome scene of annihilation was difficult to imagine, let alone witness first hand, yet this was the fate that befell the German 7th Army.6 Even though many Germans escaped because of Montgomery’s delay in closing the pocket, many more were killed or captured trying to escape through the narrow gap. The Allied forces had not only the advantage of the high ground but also air supremacy over the field of escape. That route became a killing field and the battle of Falaise Gap was marked as a stunning Allied victory. Over 200,000 Germans were taken prisoner and over 50,000 were killed, even the Germans who escaped had to do it on foot and most of their vehicles and heavy equipment were left behind and destroyed by the Allies. Of these, the 90th Infantry Division took more than 13,000 prisoners, and killed or wounded approximately 8,000. More than three hundred enemy tanks were destroyed along with 3,270 other types of vehicles and 164 artillery pieces.
Lt Jim Gifford of C Company described the events of that day:7
It was just daylight, I took out my field glasses and I went back up the hill so I could see out over this valley. I’m looking down in this valley in the early sun and I see all these little sparkles, little sparks all over the valley, what the hell is that? … I couldn’t believe the sight I saw. It was thousands of bayonets flashing in the early morning sun. They had hundreds of horse drawn artillery. These infantry guys are walking toward us, they’re about three miles away up the valley, and they’re dispersed among hundreds of tanks. Holy shit this was coming toward us, this is it. So I ran down, I got on the radio and I started hollering over the radio what’s coming.
About 20 minutes after Gifford’s radio call, P-47 Thunderbolts began flying over unloading on the German column.
Well those poor bastards … were catching bloody hell. We were firing at them from a mile or two away. We weren’t waiting till they got to us, we were blasting away at them…. And this monolith, whatever you want to call it, was slowly rolling, with all the destruction that was going on, it was slowly coming along right by us – and Jesus, it wasn’t stopping – and we were hitting everything…. A and B Company and the 773rd were catching hell because the Germans started rolling through them. And when they hit these two companies plus the 773rd, they started piling up, and the next thing they turned and started to go back and started running into themselves.
By 2 o’clock in the afternoon Piper Cubs were flying over dropping leaflets on the Germans telling them to surrender.
Dad said that Capt. Galvin of B Company had personally accepted the surrender of over 1,200 German troops. The incident surrounding the capture of these enemy troops was described in detail by Sgt Leslie Vink:8
We’d cut the last highway through Falaise, and the Germans tried to counterattack. We held the high ground, and our planes were strafing and bombing the area that the Germans had. This went on for several hours. Finally our medics cleared it with the corps to go down and pick up the wounded and bring them out. They came back and said to Captain (Jack) Galvin, “There’s a whole bunch of Germans who want to surrender.”
Galvin said to Lieutenant Vutech, “Cut the artillery, I’m going down in there.” He got in his jeep and went down and accepted the surrender of what was left of the garrison. He said at the time he was a bit ashamed, we had been in combat for several days, we were unshaven, unbathed, and he said the German officer came up in a fresh uniform, presented him with a sword, and surrendered soldiers, but it seemed like a column of four for a mile and a half at least. I think it was over 1,200 that surrendered at that time.
Galvin brought them out, and as they were coming past us, we were sitting on the high ground there, and one of them looked at Vutech and said, “I’ve seen you before.”
He had probably seen him over a hedgerow, or through a peepsight someplace.9
Probably while Vutech was out of his tank scouting around during the fighting before the breakout.
Lt Gifford recalled the carnage and the line of POW’s:
Their equipment was burning all over the place, as far as you could see, burning equipment … these guys were coming out waving flags and waving papers, there were hundreds of them … all dusty, dirty, filthy and tired. They were a bedraggled army, it was a defeated army. They were so goddamn glad to just be alive.
By the evening of August 21, the decisive Allied victory achieved at the Battle of Falaise was over. Two days later Paris was liberated, and by August 30, the last German remnants had retreated across the Seine River.
The victory at Falaise Gap, however, was not without a price to the 712th. Dad’s friends, Robert Gerald, William Hogue, and Bob Hodges were killed in action. Dad was saddened to hear the news of these casualties. Bob Hodges was married and had an infant son back home in Oklahoma. Robert Gerald and William Hogue were both from Kentucky. Hogue was an only son raised by his single mother in Bowling Green. Following the war, Hogue’s mother requested his body be returned home. He was laid to final rest in the Davis-Hoffman Cemetery in Bowling Green.
CHAPTER 8
Return to Action – Fortress Metz
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
After the Allied victory at the Falaise Gap, the Germans were in a state of shock and were struggling to prepare their defenses between the Seine and Loire Rivers. Patton was convinced that the Breakout from Normandy and the envelopment at Falaise had to be exploited by a push deep into France to prevent the Germans from developing a defensive front between the Seine and the Loire. When Bradley and Eisenhower gave Patton the green light, the Third Army sped across France. Patton’s advance was described as “rolling like a juggernaut and slashing toward the Saar” by one newsreel commentator. The march across France and the liberation of Paris occurred while Dad was in the hospital. When it was time for him to return to the 712th, the battalion had advanced east of Paris.
Dad told me that as he was about to be discharged from the hospital and sent back to his unit, his near death experience had shaken his courage and he sought the counsel of a priest. He told the priest that he didn’t believe h
e could go back to the combat, he didn’t believe that he could hold up to that stress. The priest told Dad to advise an officer how he felt. After considering the priest’s advice, Dad decided not to follow it.
The more Dad thought about the situation, the more he was overcome by his sense of duty; many of his buddies were still back on the front undergoing all of the same hardships that he had endured before he was wounded. Dad said that he didn’t want to let down his buddies. He believed he had a duty to go back, a duty to his country and a duty to his buddies and a duty to himself.
One of Patton’s favorite expressions was “Do not take counsel of your fears.” He would say this to himself whenever he would get nervous prior to implementing a battle plan.1 In his memoirs, Patton commented on the aspects of bravery and courage.
If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on. Discipline, pride, self-respect, self-confidence […] are attributes which will make a man courageous even when he is afraid.2
When I was a boy bragging to my friends about my father, I believed him to have all the heroic qualities of the soldiers in the movies. That day in 1994, my boyhood beliefs that my father was a brave and courageous soldier were confirmed.
Dad was released from the hospital and authorized to go back to the front. Bill Nick, also from B Company, was released from the hospital at the same time as Dad and they returned to the 712th together. Getting back, however, was easier said than done, it took several more weeks before they finally transported back to their unit. They were first transported to a replacement troop depot somewhere in Belgium.
As Dad and I continued driving eastward toward Metz, Dad related several stories.
I went to a Frenchman and he had chickens running all around his yard and we had nothing to eat but Krations or Crations out the can and we had some stew, hash we used to call it in those days, in cans, so I went to the Frenchman, and I said “How about making a deal. I’ll trade you these cans of stew for a chicken.” He said “No.” I said “Yeah come on, I want a chicken.” He said “No, No,” and I said “Yeah, Yeah take the stew.” He said “No, No.” But I grabbed the chicken anyway.
A Tank Gunner's Story: Gunner Gruntz of the 712th Tank Battalion Page 13