Voices from D-Day

by Jon E. Lewis

  Cambes as it was revealed in the dismal light of dawn was one of the less pleasant sights of the campaign. The trees had been shredded and the paths and open spaces were littered with branches. The chateau was blasted and gutted and the village wrecked and empty, and over everything hung the sickening odour of rotting bodies. Bloated cattle lay on their backs with stiffened legs pointing skywards and our own and enemy dead lay where they had fallen, sprawling and grotesque … It took hours to collect the dead and then burial was a long and dangerous process under the constant shell fire. However, this was to be our home for a considerable period and we gradually accustomed ourselves to life in digging trenches.

  The failure to take Caen was a major setback for the Allies. The city was strategically important, for behind lay the open plain – tantalizingly good tank country – and the short route to Paris. But by 9 June the German shield around Caen had been strengthened by the arrival of the outstanding Panzer Lehr division, taking their place alongside 21st Panzer and 12th SS Panzer. For nearly six weeks, these and other German divisions would, pace Hitler, ‘fight and fall’ in defence of Caen. For the British and Canadian infantry the names of the villages around Caen, places such as Tilly-sur-Seulles and Villers-Bocage, would henceforth always be remembered with a shudder of horror.

  ***

  Private Robert Macduff, Wiltshire Regiment

  Normandy

  One of the scenes which will live forever in my mind is the arms and legs on the roadside covered in maggots. The smell was vile. Someone had been killed, someone had gone for ever. The thought in my mind was, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ In the major scheme of things I was a little unknown who would probably end up like that, someone who will never know what their contribution had been, and never know the outcome. It was very depressing.

  ***

  Across in the west of Normandy the US Army was meanwhile attempting to roll back the Wehrmacht on the Cherbourg peninsula, and capture the port of Cherbourg itself. It proved heavy going – ‘The goddamn Boche just won’t stop fighting,’ one officer complained to General Bradley – especially for troops untested in battle. To help keep their cutting edge the Americans were obliged to retain the battle-hardened airborne divisions in the bocage for over a month, although it was initially intended to withdraw them in the first week after D-Day. In numerous towns – including Cherbourg – the tenacious Germans were only defeated after massive airstrikes.

  General Matt B. Ridgway, US 82nd Airborne Division

  There were four of these crossings and by far the toughest was the causeway across the wide and sluggish Merderet. Here the road came down and made a right-angle turn through a low cut in the hills about twenty or thirty feet high. It then emerged onto a perfectly open, straight road that stretched five or six hundred yards across the swamp. The Germans naturally concentrated their fire on our end of the defile, and it was the hottest sector I saw throughout the war. We lost a lot of men there and I think the assault unquestionably would have failed if all the commanders from division to battalion had not been there in person to shove the troops across.

  We weren’t going after that crossing cold, of course. We had artillery support by then, from the battalions of the 4th Division. We had a battalion of 105 self-propelled howitzers, a battalion of 155 howitzers, a platoon of tanks, and every 50-calibre machine gun we could lay hands on. We massed them all there on the river lip, and for ten minutes before the crossing we poured shells into the German positions on the far side. It was a tremendous spectacle –- the crash of the guns blended into one great blasting roar of terrific noise, and the smoke and dust and haze soon grew so thick you could hardly see six feet in front of you.

  We really poured the fire across, and we were getting plenty in return. I lay up on the crest to the right of the crossing, alongside one of the tanks, whose gun was banging away with a noise to split the head. Off to the left the automatic weapons were going like the hammers of hell, and to the rear our heavier artillery was firing, the shells passing directly overhead.

  I lay there watching, peering through the haze and smoke, as the first men came down to the crossing, shoulders hunched, leaning forward as if they were moving against a heavy wind. Some of them began to go down, and the others hesitated. Then they turned and started back, instinctively recoiling from the sheer blasting shock of the concentrated enemy fire. I jumped up and ran down there. The men were milling around in the cut. Jim Gavin, whom I had put in charge of this operation, was there, with the regimental CO Colonel Lewis, and the battalion commanders. And there in the cut at the head of the causeway we grabbed these men, turned them around, pushed, shoved, even led them by hand until we got them started across.

  We got across all right in spite of fairly heavy casualties, and cleared the far end of the causeway, so that the 9th Division, which was to take up the attack on the other side, could pass through. The Division Commander, General Manton Eddy, told me a few hours later that he’d never seen so many dead Germans anywhere. I agreed with him. I hadn’t either. And I think that fight was as hot a single battle as any US troops had, at any time, during the war in Europe.

  After that one, my aide told me, laughing, that back at headquarters they were referring to me as ‘The Causeway Kid’. I didn’t see anything particularly humorous in the title, for I saw too many fine youngsters killed at those swamp and river crossings. The fire was always hot along those exposed stretches of straight road. I remember one night I stepped out from behind a farmhouse to the edge of the macadam highway, and saw lights winking in the dark at my feet. I said to the officer with me:

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen fireflies around here. Wonder why we haven’t seen them before.’

  ‘Fireflies, hell,’ he said. ‘Those aren’t fireflies. They’re machine-gun bullets ricocheting off the road.’

  John Houston, US 101st Airborne Division

  The next morning the order was ‘Continue the attack southwest from Carentan.’ The third platoon had no officer left and no staff sergeant, so Sergeant Houston was in charge. There were twenty of us left in action out of the fifty who had taken off from England a week before.

  It was impossible to make rapid progress because each hedgerow was a natural defence line. Machine guns seemed to be placed at every corner, and their music was punctuated by the brrrrp of Schmeissers. We had gained a few small fields along the road toward Periers when a counter-attack came at us about noon. Offence immediately became defence.

  Sergeant Cassada had his machine-gun crew, Andy Ritchie and Bill Shumate, set up in the corner of the field that our platoon was holding. Riflemen were stretched along the hedgerow and picked off any Nazi who stuck his head up. Eighty-eight fire was coming in, but it was long and didn’t do us any harm. When a light tank came around a corner of the lane in front of us, Langlinais and Milburn Young, who had rifle grenades, fired and the tank pulled back. The earth is a soldier’s best friend when fire is heavy. I went back and forth the length of the platoon line without raising a foot off the ground.

  In the middle of the afternoon word came down from regiment that tanks from the Second Armored Division were coming to help us. We soon heard the roar of big Sherman tanks on the road behind us. Each of our squads was assigned to work with a tank, and the action started. Some of the tanks had been equipped with bulldozer blades to cut through the hedgerows.

  The two tanks attached to our platoon started across the field, with machine-gun bullets bouncing off them. When the first one got to the next hedgerow, troopers rushed up to finish off the Nazis trying to get away from the tanks. Now that the German front line was broken, we moved along close to the tanks, using them for cover from the burp gun fire. Freddie Brannon was hit during this action, but that was the only casualty third platoon had that day.

  Before dark the line had been pushed out about two miles and a half from Carentan, and the tanks left us to go about their business elsewhere. The troopers dug in; it had been another lon
g day.

  Company H settled into a defence line for the next three days. Most of the foxholes were developed into two-man dugouts with roofs made of planks from broken buildings. Each soldier soon began to think of a certain spot as his ‘home’, even though it might be just a hole in the ground. When Chaplain Engle or Father Sampson came around they were shown these homes just as if they had been new houses in the suburbs back in New York. Everything is relative.

  We began to get acquainted with a new ration system called ten-in-one. They were meals for ten men packed together and easy to prepare without the facilities of a kitchen. The training that some of the men had in Boy Scouts came in handy, and each squad began to brag about the meals they prepared …

  Every now and then we were reminded that we were in the front lines by some 88 shells hitting along the road or burp gun fire near the outposts. In the afternoon of June 16 Company H was told to push the outposts farther ahead to give better observation. The whole company would move up to set up the outposts and then bring telephone wire back to our permanent positions. We moved up, using hedgerows for concealment, and, after a couple of brisk fire fights, captured two German outposts a few hundred yards in front of us.

  Heavier machine-gun and artillery fire began to come in soon after we took their outposts. Young and I were near the end of a hedgerow and crawled around it to see what was ahead. Shells burst in a line in the field in front of us, and for a split second we knew that the next one would hit our corner. The earth seemed to explode. I was lifted up and slammed down to the ground. Then there was a strange quiet as if they had determined to get us and would stop firing now that it was accomplished.

  I turned to look at Young. The shell had landed practically on him, and there was no need to ask a medic if he was dead. ‘How come I’m not dead? I can move! No blood! My ankle hurts.’ I sat up and looked at my boot. There was a small hole in it, and blood was beginning to ooze out.

  Lenny Lloyd called out, ‘Are you okay, sergeant?’

  ‘Just hit in the ankle, but Young was killed.’

  I limped over to the rest of the platoon, and we got orders to pull back to our defence line. The outpost squads were digging in, and communications men were taking the telephone wire back. Our company medic told me to leave the boot laced tight until we got ‘home’.

  Andy Ritchie cut a strong stick out of a hedge for me to use as a cane for the quarter-mile hike back to our positions. When we arrived there the company medic came around and helped me take off the boot. He said it wasn’t too bad, but he thought there was a piece of shrapnel stuck in the bone just above the ankle.

  There is a mixture of feelings in combat soldiers with light wounds. One is of relief that you can rest, sleep in a bed and not have to wonder about machine guns in the next hedgerow. The other is a feeling of guilt for leaving your buddies, so I asked the medic to bandage it up and put the boot back on.

  Captain Stanley ordered that the three of us wounded in the action would go to the division hospital in Garentan. That left Sergeant Gassada in charge of third platoon. Two lieutenants, one staff sergeant, and two of the original squad leaders had been killed or wounded between June 6 and June 16.

  Harold Denny, New York Times war correspondent

  But the troops even up close to their goal [Cherbourg] could not see the port. It was hidden in the haze of smoke and dust of our bombardment and the air was choking with the smoke of burning wooden emplacements and powder.

  I followed our advancing infantry with some mopping-up troops and, on a hill overlooking Cherbourg, found other American infantrymen had fallen into enemy fox holes to rest, some of them asleep as soon as they lay down. They were waiting while our artillery scoured the valley to our right for German batteries that had been shelling our rear. Here the devastation of our bombs was apparent. German vehicles and guns lay wrecked and wasted. German wire, which had been tied to the pill-boxes, was almost obliterated. In one open field just behind, lay dead cows and chickens …

  Now we are inside most of the German fortifications [inside Cherbourg] we see how we were helped by bad German guesswork. Most of the fortifications face seaward and the Germans were able to turn only some of their guns landwards when the threat came from the south, making our advance easier. The Germans evidently thought Cherbourg a likely target for an invasion, and the shore all around the northern tip of the peninsula is heavily fortified with beach defences such as our men encountered on D-Day.

  Leutnant Martin Poppel, Wehrmacht 6th Parachute Regiment

  Diary, 7 June

  At first light vast numbers of enemy bombers reappear, bringing death and fire into the French hinterland. Naturally, their targets are the railway junctions, strategic concentration points and channels of communication, as well as our advancing armoured units. They know well enough that if they can eliminate our reinforcements they should be able to achieve their objectives without massive casualties. As for our own pilots – they are nowhere to be seen.

  We all reckon that I Battalion has been thrown into battle alone and with no prospects of success. It must already have suffered considerable casualties if it hasn’t been wiped out completely – and my friend and comrade Eugen Scherer is with them. During the night, the Regimental Commander has ordered II Battalion to relieve I Battalion. The north-east position of the hills of St Come-du-Mont must be held at all costs, to provide a favourable basis for further counter-attacks.

  Enormous explosions can be heard in the north and north-east, which must be coming from the enemy’s naval heavy artillery. We can also hear the noise of battle from that direction.

  13.00 hours. 9 Company has now been moved to St Come-du-Mont to consolidate our positions there.

  We have learned that I Battalion has suffered very high casualties after the Americans made further airborne landings by glider to the rear of them in the early hours of the morning. With enemy units ahead of them, with a whole Regiment of elite enemy troops behind them, and with marshland to the south, all that the Battalion could do was to take up a position of all-round defence and defend themselves to the last man. Meanwhile, II Battalion has gone on the attack in the north, but made only sporadic contact with enemy units and has been forced to withdraw to the hills. There it has been reinforced by a fortress construction battalion composed partly of young and old infantrymen but partly of Russians who can’t really be relied on.

  During the morning, 9 Company advances as far as the foothills of the mountains but is then forced to yield to the enemy’s superior force. The Company is now sealing off the hills alongside units of II Battalion and the infantry.

  17.00 hours. On the order of the Battalion, second mortar group under Leutnant Schröder is despatched to reinforce 9 Company. I go with my captured French car and the lorry over the 2 kilometres of marshland to St Come-du-Mond so that I can supply the group myself and can discuss tomorrow’s plan of attack with Oberleutnant Wagner.

  At Regimental headquarters the order reaches me to prepare tomorrow’s attack with Oberleutnant Wagner. The plan is to drive the enemy back to St Marie-du-Mont. In the opinion of the men involved, this task can’t be achieved with the forces we have available. The Americans, supported by their naval artillery, are already advancing inexorably and our advanced units are already engaged in bitter fighting. Although night is slowly closing in, there has been no let-up in the noise of battle. With Unteroffizier Hiester and my loyal paladin Söser I go to the front to see Oberleutnant Wagner and discuss the situation with him on the spot.

  Despite everything we learned in our peacetime exercises, the men are lying in large groups right next to each other. They can only be dispersed with great difficulty and much profanity. A few hundred metres further on, and the shells are landing close by. At once I’m transported back into the old-style warfare. I come across Wagner behind a hedge, in discussion with the infantrymen. Today he doesn’t seem as calm and level-headed as he usually is. Messages continue to come in, bringing important informa
tion from the command posts.

  After a short time the main points of the attack have been discussed over the map, the ground signals and signals agreed. The leader of his company HQ personnel takes rapid notes and asks some final questions. Then a cry from ahead: enemy attacking with tanks!

  The men, particularly the infantrymen, are damned jittery. But even Wagner can’t seem to make up his mind what to do. Since I can’t help here but can only make things worse, I start to make the journey back with my lads. At the junction I meet my mortar group, which has just got here by truck. Quickly, we organize the unloading of the shells. I give my instructions to Schröder and then travel back in the lorry. The driver races along the narrow dirt road with its high hedgerows like the devil incarnate, and brings us back to Regimental HQ.

  A massive operation is under way there. ADCs come and go, messengers hurry past and are quickly dispatched on their way. The lamp is burning in the underground bunker – the Commander and the Battalion Commander are at work. Outside, the soldiers’ cigarettes are glowing in the darkness. The Old Man gives Oberleutnant Prive the information about tomorrow’s attack, so he discusses the last details with us. He too is less than delighted with the strength of the forces available to him. In particular, he’s angry that he has to attack with just two platoons. We can all sympathize with his predicament.