sustained from infantry weapons since infantry commanders have been prevented from using destroyers in front of infantry. It will be noted that Sherman tanks have suffered the same fate when operating in front of infantry….
While the assignment of the 803d Tank Destroyer Battalion in actual tank roles is contrary to basic policy, no member of this organization felt he could do otherwise. The infantry required every assistance they could obtain to perform their mission, and the morale factor plus the actual firepower of the tank destroyers did greatly benefit them. Casualties are no greater three hundred yards from the enemy than they were three thousand yards behind the front.29
As had his counterparts in Italy, Goodwin recommended in July that TD units be given a support mission—to be executed according to the best judgment of the TD commander—rather than being attached to an infantry unit. He also took the more practical step of welding the .50-caliber turret mounts on his M10s onto the front above the gun tube and providing crewmen with periscopes welded to the turret side so that they could fire the MG without exposing themselves. (Many other battalions adopted variants of this solution as the campaign progressed.) In July, Goodwin’s men destroyed two tanks, two SP guns (plus one probable), at least a dozen machine gun positions, and two antitank guns. It lost eight men killed and thirty-eight wounded—but no more M10s.30
At 0300 hours on 11 July, Maj Hoyt Lawrence, commanding the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was alerted to help doughs of the 9th Infantry Division repel what appeared to be a substantial German tank-infantry thrust in the vicinity of Le Desert. The infantry had reported the sound of tracked vehicles beginning around midnight, and fighting broke out a couple of hours later. Intelligence had detected the movement of the Panzer Lehr Division into the sector the day before. The armored division incorporated panzer tactics instructors from the training schools in Germany, but the unit had lost nearly one-third of its 15,000 men during fighting in the British sector. In the early hours of 11 July, division commander, Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein, counted only thirty-one tanks ready for battle. He also had two panzergrenadier regiments and three battalions of 105mm howitzers.31
Panzer Lehr deployed three columns in its attack, dividing the available tanks among two of them. The three axes were to converge at St. Jean de Daye. Unknown to the Germans, the spearheads struck the Americans where a gap had developed between the 39th and 47th Infantry regiments. The attackers overran a battalion CP and pushed as far as two thousand yards behind American lines.
The M10 crews engaged the attackers in the darkness, firing at dimly seen shapes despite the knowledge that the flash from the 3-inch guns betrayed their position to German panzers, infantry, and artillery. Sergeant Nicholas Peters and the other men in 1st Platoon, Company A, were holding defensive positions with the 39th Infantry Regiment, along with the rest of the company. The Panzer Lehr attack carried by their position about three hundred yards east of Le Desert. The TDs pivoted and raced down a parallel route until they could engage the head of the German column.
The TDs opened fire on the lead panzer, which burst into flames. The bonfire exposed three more Panthers, and Peters ordered his gunner to engage. The TDs set two more Mark Vs alight before the German column withdrew. But the Jerries accounted for one M10 before they left.32
The battle was the 899th’s first encounter with the Mark V, and by dawn the crews realized that their guns could not penetrate the Panther’s frontal armor.
The men knew what to do. They bravely maneuvered into flanking positions, often at nearly point-blank ranges. And the panzers burned.33
To the west of Le Desert, Pvt Pat Rufo sat in an M10 in 3d Platoon of Company A. The platoon had already destroyed a Mark IV—one of ten panzers advancing along an unimproved road—by firing at gun flashes in the darkness. One M10 had been KO’d during the fire fight, and the company commander requested infantry support.
Three Panthers were spotted on a nearby dirt road, and Rufo’s M10 was ordered into an adjacent field to engage them. The M10 had the drop on the panzers, and a dozen rounds destroyed the Panthers and a halftrack.34
Later that day, SSgt Herschel Briles, from the 3d Platoon of Company C, dismounted to lead his M10 down the road in search of the enemy. Shortly after daybreak, he and his crew had destroyed a heavily camouflaged Panther. Now Briles carefully reconnoitered past the wreck. A second Panther appeared on the road just in front of the sergeant. Briles yelled for his gunner to fire as he dropped flat. The 3-inch gun barked, but the Panther’s turret rotated toward the M10. The gunner corrected his aim, and the gun spoke again in awful harmony with the long- barreled 75mm on the Panther. Both shots killed. (One post-war account describes a more extended fire fight, but contemporary records portray the action as indicated here.)
Briles counted the men bailing out of his M10, and the total was one short. The sergeant raced back and leapt to the deck. Ammo was beginning to explode inside the turret, but Briles grabbed a fire extinguisher and managed to put out the flames. The last crewman, alas, was dead.35
Panzer Lehr conceded failure before dusk and coiled back. It had lost one Mark IV and twelve Panthers to the guns of the 899th, and more to fighter-bombers that joined the fray during the day.36 The forward deployment of the tank destroyers with the infantry had worked, and the team had smashed the only major armored attack against the Americans during the beachhead fighting.
The attachment of tank destroyer companies and platoons directly to infantry regiments and battalions raised two major challenges for TD officers. The first was that TD outfits were neither trained nor organized to establish close and continuing liaison with the infantry units beside which they now fought in close quarters. Nor did the two arms share radio gear that could communicate with one another. In some units, the company administrative officer became the liaison contact with the infantry regiment, and a recon platoon was attached with the commander to take on the administrative duties. In other units, the battalion staff sent additional personnel down to the line companies to take on the regimental liaison duties. The TD platoon commander often set up shop at the infantry battalion CP and controlled his vehicles by radio. This left the burden of tactical command on the scene to the platoon sergeant.37
The second problem was that the attachment of TD companies and platoons to infantry regiments on a continuing basis effectively ended the TD battalion headquarters’ control over them. The battalion staff soon exercised no more than a supply function, and in some cases it was unable to do even that. Once battle commenced, even company commanders lost most of their influence over the employment of their line platoons.38
Lieutenant Wilfred Ford commanded 2d Platoon of B/899th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which from 14 to 18 July supported the doughs of the 2/60th Infantry Regiment in the 9th Infantry Division’s drive from Les Champs de Losque to cut the St. Lo–Periers road. The German infantry in this sector had armor support, too, and the panzers were extremely well camouflaged amidst the hedgerows and orchards. Company B, meanwhile, had only eight M10s still serviceable.
Early on 14 July German infantry penetrated Company B positions and attacked with grenades and small arms. Crews resorted to .50-calibers, carbines, and grenades to beat the raid off. After the shooting stopped, seventeen German bodies lay around 1st Platoon’s positions alone.
When the doughs started forward in the morning light, one of Ford’s M10s was hit and burned. In the bocage, it was practically impossible to tell where the fire originated.
Ford tackled the problem by personally accompanying the infantry forward on reconnaissance to spot not only the German positions but also concealed routes of approach and firing points for his M10s. He also hit upon the idea of asking the infantry to cover the sound of his vehicles’ forward movement with noisy firing demonstrations.
Second Platoon got its first kill—a tank believed to have been a Mark V—at 1345 on 15 July with three rounds fired at only one hundred yards. The Panther burned. A short while later, the platoon had a second M10 damaged when a shell burst perforated the radiator of one motor.
The next day, Ford’s TDs again moved out to provide direct-fire support to the doughs. Two panzers had
