wrecked the little town and again routed its garrison.”36
On 2 August, Patton ordered XV Corps to begin the drive into central France while VIII Corps cleared Brittany. The 5th Armored and 83d and 90th Infantry divisions rolled south and east to secure the narrow corridor through Avranches on which every advancing unit depended for passage and supplies. The left end of XV Corps’ initial line was anchored at St. Hilaire du Harcouet, located about eight miles southwest of a town called Mortain.37 The corps then pressed on toward Mayenne.
Elements of First Army were also shaking free and driving eastward.
M3 prime movers pulled the 3-inch guns of the 823d Tank Destroyer Battalion—which had landed on 24 June and was attached to the 30th Infantry Division—through rolling countryside with ever larger fields on both sides of the road. The unit history recorded that this was the first of the “victory marches” through Europe. “Civilians lined the roads ecstatically greeting ‘
The men observed that the terrain was increasingly suitable for maneuver warfare. The column’s destination was Mortain.38
On 4 August, British General Bernard Law Montgomery—who was still in command of Allied ground operations—ordered the first major change to the invasion plan. Patton was told to use minimum force to clear Brittany and to throw most of his troops eastward, with an initial objective of the Mayenne River. First Army would continue to attack in the Vire–Mortain area, making a tighter wheeling movement. Anglo-Canadian forces, meanwhile, would pivot toward Falaise and Argentan. The goal was to encircle German forces west of the Seine River or, barring that, to trap them against the river and destroy them. Mortain was the pivot point for all Allied movement.39
Counterblow at Mortain
On 1 August, Generalfeldmarschall Gunther von Kluge, who had replaced Gerd von Rundstedt as commander of the Western Front in July, realized that the Americans had kicked in the door to France at Avranches. He immediately made preparations for a counteroffensive to close the American corridor, which he concluded was the only way to stem the tide. Consultations with Berlin indicated that Hitler supported the idea and envisioned a concerted effort by as many as nine panzer divisions. Trapped in the reality of a rapidly decaying situation, the best von Kluge could arrange was an attack by elements of four.40
Some two weeks earlier, Generalleutnant Heinz Guderian, newly appointed Chief of the General Staff, had observed to Hitler that von Kluge lacked a “lucky touch” in commanding large armored formations.41
The 1st SS, 2d SS, 2d, and 116th Panzer divisions received orders to concentrate east of Mortain. These units, however, were already weakened by attrition and had no more than two hundred fifty tanks among them— fewer than the authorized equipment of two full-strength panzer divisions.42 The entire 2d SS Panzer Division had only thirty operational tanks remaining, and the 116th Panzer Division had only twenty-five. The 1st SS Panzer Division, meanwhile, was strung out on the roads from Normandy.43 The attack nevertheless would begin at Mortain the night of 6–7 August.
Allied air reconnaissance and the Top Secret British Ultra code-breaking system detected the scope of the German build-up, and Bradley reacted. He deployed five infantry divisions along eighteen miles of front between Mortain and Vire, backed by two armored combat commands, and held three of Patton’s divisions to anchor the right flank to the west of Mortain. He also increased pressure at Vire on the assembling German forces. Nevertheless, the German attack achieved tactical surprise.
The 30th Infantry Division was settling into positions recently vacated by the 1st Infantry Division astride the German axis of advance. Each regiment had attached a company of towed 3-inch tank destroyers from the 823d TD Battalion.
At 0130 hours on 7 August, firing broke out at the security outpost of the 3d Platoon, A/823d Tank Destroyer Battalion, as panzergrenadiers from the 2d SS Panzer Division attempted to infiltrate Mortain. Soldiers leapt to the .50-caliber machine guns on the halftracks and beat the attack off. But other German troops had more success and entered the town. Platoon commander Lt Elmer Miller decided to stick it out. But concentrated small- arms fire at close range made it impossible to serve the 3-inch towed guns, and his position was overrun. A few of Miller’s men were able to join the 2d/120th Infantry Regiment, which would remain surrounded on the nearby heights for the next five days. Others escaped in small groups.44
In nearby Barthelmy, 3d Platoon of B/823d Tank Destroyer Battalion during the night of 6–7 August positioned two guns to the northwest and two to the southeast. About 0300 hours, the men could hear hostile tanks and troops, but they could see nothing through a thick fog that blanketed the area. Three hours later, a seventy-five-minute artillery barrage crashed down on the infantry and gun crews. Close on its heels came tanks and grenadiers from the 1st SS Panzer Division advancing from the north, east, and south.45
Reduced crews manned the 3-inch guns while the remainder grabbed their carbines and deployed as infantry to help the doughs. Sergeant Chester Christensen carefully sighted his gun on the lead Panther advancing from the south and destroyed it with a hit on the hull machine-gun ball mount. The subsequent explosion blew the turret off the vehicle. The hulk blocked the road, but within an hour the Germans had dragged it out of the way, and the panzers advanced again. Christensen again KO’d the lead tank, this time at a range of only thirty-five yards.46
A German assessment noted, “Well installed American antitank guns prevented at first every penetration of our tanks.”47 Indeed, the TDs claimed three more panzers—including one with a bazooka—but the Germans overwhelmed the defensive line with a second effort. Platoon commander Lt George Greene was last seen by the men who escaped backing into a doorway and firing a .30-caliber machine gun from the hip in Hollywood style.48 He was captured after being stunned by the explosion of a Panther’s 75mm round, and many of the TD crewmen joined him in captivity.49
First Platoon of Company B, under the command of Lt Leon Neel, deployed its guns west of Barthelmy. Neel brought his first gun into Barthelmy just as the battle for the village erupted. It was destroyed by artillery fire before it could even uncouple, and only two of the crewmen reappeared. After 3d Platoon had been overrun, Neel obtained permission by radio to bring two more guns into town. One made the dash, but the second withdrew under fire and deployed to cover the road.
The first gun crew engaged a Panther supported by grenadiers advancing up the street. An AP round stopped the Mark V, and HE dispersed the infantry. Private Robert Dunham killed the tank commander, who had been leading his vehicle on foot, with his carbine at three hundred yards. A high-velocity round soon struck the destroyer, which had now revealed its position.
Neel pulled out and found the gun along the road, which he deployed in a field beside a 57mm antitank gun. The lighter gun withdrew just as more tanks appeared. The TD crew fired on a Panther that appeared on the main road out of the thinning fog and dispatched it at a distance of only fifty yards. The crewmen could now see two other tanks that had stopped just out of range. One of them circled through the fields and took up a dominating spot that the Americans could not bring under fire because of the hasty positioning of their gun. The second tank patiently surveyed the area for forty-five minutes, evidently trying to spot the American weapon.
Finally, the second tank advanced. Knowing full well that firing would reveal their position, Neel and three volunteers destroyed the panzer. The overwatching German tank fired as well, and the blast ejected the men from their position. Neel led his men toward the rear, carrying their wounded with them. The day had cost the company forty-two enlisted men and one officer, most of them presumed captured.50
The 3-inchers of Lt Tom Springfield’s 1st Platoon, A/823d Tank Destroyer Battalion, were meanwhile deployed at a roadblock on the Abbaye–Blanche road with a platoon of doughs from Company F, 120th Infantry Regiment; an AT platoon; and a section each of machine guns and mortars. At 0500 hours on 7 August, one of the 57mm AT guns destroyed a reconnaissance halftrack with a 75mm gun that was heading toward the roadblock. A
