Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (10 page)

Logistic Innovations

By this time, the success of the invasion and breakout had become obvious. When the breakthrough occurred west of Saint-Lô on the morning of July 26, the total combined Allied forces included approximately thirty divisions. Opposing them were seventy-two German divisions, concentrated in areas where the Germans thought the landings were most likely to occur.

The round-the-clock bombing of the bridges over the Seine and Loire Rivers, which had started four to five months before the invasion, should have tipped off the Germans that Normandy was being isolated. Because the heaviest bombing was in the Pas de Calais area directly across the English Channel from Dover, the Germans were confused. Not until July 25, the night before the Saint-Lô breakthrough, was Rommel able to secure the release of the panzer divisions in reserve in the Pas de Calais area. But by then it was too late to stop the Allied juggernaut.

The Allies had worries of their own. They were busy solving massive logistic problems moving, arming, and feeding their armies. Despite the military bureaucracy, British and American troops showed great ability to generate innovative ideas. Even more surprising, those in authority listened. For example, even with the largest invasion armada ever assembled—more than four thousand ships—we had the landing craft capacity to handle only parts of seven divisions. By careful coordination and quick turnaround time at the English ports, our forces unloaded an average of thirty thousand troops a day and vast amounts of cargo. Precast concrete caissons sunk along the beaches with pontoon bridges between them, known as Mulberrys, were of tremendous help in unloading the cargo on rough days.

One of the major logistic problems of the invasion was the gasoline supply. A full combat load for our division alone was more than 300,000 gallons, which amounted to three hundred GMC trucks each carrying 1,000 gallons in 5-gallon cans. In the initial planning, it had been recognized that the Germans would attempt to hold the Channel ports. Without places for tankers to dock, some other means of handling large volumes of fuel would have to be used until the Channel ports could be opened.

The British built large steel spools approximately a hundred feet in diameter. Around these spools they wrapped quarter-mile lengths of four-inch steel pipe that had been prewelded and had quick-coupling flanges on the ends of each section. Attached to the bridle of each drum was a large hydraulic gear reducer, which converted the drum into a giant winch. The bridle was in turn hooked to the stern of a powerful oceangoing tug. With one end of the pipe fastened to a shoreline pressure pumping station, the tug proceeded to cross the Channel with the pipe unrolling. Drums of this size could contain many miles of pipe.

On the other end of the line, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used lightweight four-inch pipe with quick-disconnect couplings that would fit into a GMC truck. As the truck moved slowly down the road without stopping, a crew inside the truck would throw the pipe out on the ground. A pipe crew following behind them on foot would fasten the joints together. Every few miles, a pumping station would be installed to boost the pressure. This fuel supply system depended upon thousands of GMC trucks operating continuously.

Ordnance Innovations

Many innovative ideas, such as the American hedge chopper, came from the field. The British produced the “flail” tank as an answer to the severe mine problem. When a tank struck a mine, the explosion would break the track and sometimes tear off a bogey wheel assembly. In some cases the Germans would stack mines on top of one another, which generated sufficient force to blow through the one-inch armor plate in the bottom of a tank and kill the crew.

The British flail tank had a large cylindrical drum mounted on heavy, adjustable brackets stretched across the front of the tank. Welded to the drum at various points were six-foot lengths of heavy chain. As the tank moved forward, the drum would rotate, and centrifugal force would cause the chains to flail against the ground. If they hit a mine, it would usually detonate without damaging the tank. Normally, these flail tanks were effective in a minefield; however, the horsepower required to drive the flail limited the mobility of the tank in extremely rugged terrain or in muddy fields.

Some tank crews mounted sandbags and even spare track blocks and wooden timbers on the faceplate of the tank for added protection against the murderous German antitank guns. The will to survive increased the innovative spirit.

Soldiers sometimes put sandbags on the floor of a Jeep to protect against mine blasts, which could blow the quarter-ton Jeeps to pieces. Although this might have been effective against small antipersonnel mines, I never felt it would do much good against an antitank mine. We never used sandbags in our Jeep, because I decided that they were too heavy and would slow us down. In running the gauntlet at night, speed was our best protection.

In spite of the American tanks’ inferior guns and armor compared to German tanks, they were faster and more mobile on paved highways. Tracks of American tanks lasted longer and achieved greater highway speeds than those on German tanks. The key was in the design of the track block itself. The track would arc upward when it went over the final drive sprocket and would conform to the sprocket contour. As the track went down to the first bogey wheel, it was straightened out, and the tank bogeys rolled along the track. When the track reached the last bogey, the torsional energy stored in the rubber doughnuts within the track caused the track to pick itself up slightly and thus go over the rear outer sprocket more easily.

This made the entire track an energy accumulator. Part of the energy put into the track as it bent around the final drive sprocket was recovered when the track returned over the rear-idler sprocket. Thus, the tank could move with less horsepower, leaving more power available for speed and mobility. In addition, the rubber covering on the track shielded the tank from road shock. This, along with the rubber-tired bogey wheels, gave the track a much longer useful life. The rubber coating on the inside of the track allowed it to be turned over and reversed after the outside had been sufficiently worn. A set of tracks for an M4 medium tank would last for approximately 2,500 miles on the highway, including one reversal. This was far superior to the German tracks, which were thought to last about 500 miles per set, after which the metal pins on the track began to break excessively.

The only problem with the American track was that it was too narrow and got stuck in muddy terrain. German tanks were designed with much wider tracks that could operate over rough, muddy ground. Because most major tank engagements took place off the road, the overall effect favored the Germans.

In addition to our tanks’ greater speed and mobility on the highway, all of our other armored vehicles were faster and more mobile than those of the Germans. Our self-propelled guns were mounted on tank chassis, and our half-tracks had rubber tread tracks for greater speed and longer life. The armored cars were fast and had four-wheel drive, which could be disengaged on the front wheels when driving on a paved highway. (All of our wheeled vehicles had four-wheel and six-wheel drive, which could be disengaged on the front wheels when necessary.) This kept the front and rear wheels from fighting one another and increased the life of the vehicle power trains.

Advance from Paris to the Northeast

The excellent Allied intelligence no doubt contributed greatly to our success to this point. Unknown to us, the British had secured a model of the German Enigma decoding machine and were using it to decode German messages. In addition, they had captured a German field order describing the German retreat routes from Normandy back into Germany. A retreat is always difficult, and with our air superiority it was hard for the Germans to move during daylight. Even though a large part of the German 7th Army managed to escape the Falaise Pocket, they now had a new danger ahead. With our speed and mobility, we plunged deep into France and swung around Paris to try to intercept the German columns.

After meeting other American armored units at Saint-Denis-le-Gast and isolating Paris, we headed toward Meaux, on the Marne River fifty miles east of Paris. This was where the French army had stopped the German advance in World War I. We were soon to pass through many sites of the most bitter fighting of that war.

That evening I had to take the combat loss report back to division trains, across the river at Corbeil. As I passed through a small French village, I had an eerie feeling. The village square was completely deserted, and roadblocks made of wagons, furniture, and automobiles blocked the entrances to the town. All of a sudden, the doors of shops and houses flew open and out rushed mobs of people with hoes, rakes, and German rifles screaming,
“Vive l’Amérique! Vive l’Amérique!”
Next they screamed in broken English that the
“marchal”
were coming. I didn’t know who the
marchal
were.

Bitch, our adopted mascot, stood on the hood of the Jeep taking it all in. The French children came out and kissed the dog and hung garlands of flowers around her neck. They plied us with champagne and Cognac as though we were great heroes. I was a little nonplussed. I soon learned that they wanted us to take command of the French garrison and fight the
marchal
, who were just a few miles down the road. One Frenchman, who I assumed was the mayor, spoke good English. He explained that the
marchal
was a splinter group of French-men who had collaborated with the Germans. Apparently, the German troops had given them guns.

I tried to explain to the mayor that I had to get back across the river to deliver my combat loss report. I also told him that there was an engineer bridge company about a mile down the road at the river crossing, and if they needed further assistance they could go there. He seemed to understand, and I departed among many
“Vive l’Amériques”
and
“Vive la Libérations.”
On my return trip the next morning, I passed through the same village and saw that the roadblocks had been removed. There were no signs of fighting, so I assumed that the
marchal
never came.

I joined Combat Command B at Meaux, and the division immediately moved forward toward Soissons in multiple columns, CCA on the right, CCB on the left. We were well into the German communication zone, and German communications were completely disrupted, with German combat troops trying to retreat behind the Siegfried line. Whenever we came upon a German unit, whether it was a combat unit or communication zone troops, they fought hard. Even though we were moving rapidly, we still had considerable casualties in these engagements.

Soissons appeared to be the next point the Germans would pass through, and the division pushed rapidly in order to get there first. The task force I was following chose a secondary paved road through a wooded area to the left of the main highway. The pavement soon yielded to dirt, and we found ourselves on a logging road. As we penetrated further into the woods, we began to encounter sniper fire. It got heavier as we approached Villers-Cotterêts, a small village about two-thirds of the way to Soissons. I tried to stay as close as possible to the half-tracks. The tanks and half-tracks constantly blasted any suspicious clumps of bushes. Finally, we emerged from the woods into the village. From then on we followed a paved road.

On the morning of August 28, the division advanced rapidly toward Soissons, although we encountered numerous firefights along the way. At Braine, elements of the 486th Antiaircraft Battalion entered the town and saw a train pulling out of the station. It carried a German tank, several armored cars, and a company of infantry with supplies. The battalion opened fire and exploded the locomotive’s boiler. As the German soldiers rushed out to man the tank and the armored cars, they were gunned down by automatic weapons fire. Although the 37mm ammunition bounced harmlessly off the tank like Ping-Pong balls, it kept the Germans from manning the tank.

At about the same time, elements of the 32d Armored Regiment and 54th Armored Field Artillery encountered another train in the same area. It had four Mark VI King Tiger tanks aboard and a number of other vehicles, plus many soldiers and supply cars. The Americans raked this column from stem to stern and prevented the Germans from manning the tanks. This turned out to be a real debacle for the Germans; many soldiers were killed and wounded. The few who escaped into the woods were soon rounded up.

As our soldiers surveyed the wreckage in the trains, they were surprised to find that much valuable space was taken up with women’s lingerie, lipstick, and perfume instead of sorely needed ammunition and food. The Germans apparently had done a good job of looting all the Paris boutiques before they pulled out. Lingerie, lipstick, and perfume made excellent trading items with young French mademoiselles. The great tragedy at Braine was that, had the Germans not taken the time for last-minute looting, the train might have left before our columns arrived, thereby sparing many German lives.

The advance to Soissons pressed on. It was known that there were a number of French pillboxes north of the city dating from World War I. The French had rebuilt and hardened them with reinforced concrete. There was concern that the Germans might use these fortifications. At the same time, General Collins requested that a detachment be sent to Château-Thierry, the site of a famous World War I battle and now occupied by elements of both the 3d and the 7th Armored Divisions.

As the division approached Soissons, they found that the main highway bridge to the north had been destroyed but that several other bridges that were damaged were still intact. General Rose was riding with a column that approached one of the bridges. Although some mines on the bridge approach had been removed, it was not known whether the bridge was safe for the armored column to cross. Without a moment’s hesitation, General Rose crossed the bridge and returned safely. For this act of heroism, along with similar actions in the past, General Rose received the Distinguished Service Cross. The division crossed the river, both at Soissons and to the east, and entered the city. Finding numerous firefights, they set up the artillery to cover the road junctions that the Germans were attempting to use north of the city.

Early the next morning, I started back to the maintenance battalion headquarters, located in Meaux, to deliver my combat loss report. As I approached Villers-Cotterêts, I could not decide which road to take. According to my map, there were three possible routes: the main paved highway to the left, the central road running through the woods, which we had taken the day before, and another main highway to the right.

I wasn’t about to take the road through the woods that we had been on the day before. It would have been foolish for two men in a Jeep to take a chance with all those snipers. My choice was one of the other two roads.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by a group of French civilians screaming,
“Vive l’Amérique”
and
“Vive la Libération.”
Then a GMC truck appeared with a hundred German prisoners aboard. An MP sergeant riding a motorbike was in charge, and two MPs were in the cab.

The sergeant came up to my Jeep. “Lieutenant, I have a hundred prisoners here that I’m supposed to take back to Meaux. I don’t know where in the hell I am. You’re the ranking man; you’ll have to take charge.”

The last thing I needed was to be slowed down with a truckload of prisoners when I was trying to get back with my combat loss report as quickly as possible. But I knew that the sergeant was right. A cardinal principle in the army is that vital decisions must be made by the ranking man.

“Okay, let me find out what’s going on,” I said. “I have to go back to Meaux, too, so you can follow me.”

There they were, a hundred German POWs packed in the back of an open-top truck like sardines in a can. There was just enough room for them to stand up. Some had been there so long that they had wet their pants, but the sergeant knew that if he let them out, he would never get them back. I felt little compassion for them, because I’d heard many stories of what American prisoners were made to suffer.

Vernon had taken the map out of its case and spread it on the hood of the Jeep. I assumed that the elderly Frenchman who was the most verbal in the group was the mayor of the village.

“Parlez-vous Anglais?”
I asked.

“Non,”
he replied.

I explained in my best French that I was trying to find out which of the two roads might be clear. I knew that the Germans often closed in and blocked the roads after an armored column passed through.

The mayor kept saying,
“Non compris, non compris.”
I knew he didn’t understand a word I was saying. I had studied French for three years in high school and two years in college. “Cooper, if you had not been such a dumb butt and paid more attention to what was going on in class, you would know what these people were talking about.”

Suddenly, a young German lieutenant leaned over the side of the truck and said to me in perfect English, “Lieutenant, I speak French, German, and English fluently and will be glad to act as your interpreter if you’ll let me out of the truck.”

The two MP drivers with their carbines stood behind the truck gate and the sergeant positioned himself there with his tommy gun as the lieutenant got out of the truck and stood beside me. I could tell by his bearing and the way he spoke English that he was well educated and probably from an upper-middle-class background. I also suspected that he was a dedicated Nazi.

He looked at the map. “I do not know about the road on the left; however, I do know that the road on the right would be unsafe for you now.”

He pointed to a small, wooded hill about half a mile out of town and told me he had been captured there the previous day after a heavy firefight. He said that even though the Americans had knocked out his roadblock and captured him and some of his men, there were at least two more tanks and a couple of half-tracks filled with infantry that had disappeared into the woods undetected.

I knew that if one of our columns had overrun the roadblock, they would not pursue the Germans into the woods. I also knew that our infantry would not arrive until later that afternoon. If the German was telling the truth, the roadblock could have been reestablished.

Was the man lying or telling the truth? I tried to put myself in his position. If I could get the Americans to go down this road and get shot up, it would give me a chance to get rescued by German troops and free me to fight again for the Führer. There might be some embarrassment for surrendering to the Americans; however, this would be outweighed by the fact that I had misled them in order to get myself free again.

On the other hand, if we went down that road and the Germans spotted us, they would certainly see the high profile of the truck and open fire. They would not immediately know that the truck was full of German prisoners. I would have a good chance of getting my butt shot off and having a lot of my men killed. At the same time, the American lieutenant in the low-profile Jeep might escape the fire and get away. In addition, I was at least safe as an American POW. If we could get back to the POW enclosure, we had a good chance of surviving the war.

At this moment, my thoughts were interrupted by a French schoolgirl about fourteen years old who stepped forward from the crowd of French villagers. She spoke some English and appeared to understand my poor French. She confirmed what the German lieutenant had said. Some of the villagers who had returned that morning reported that the Germans had blocked the road approximately where the German prisoner had indicated. She didn’t know the situation on the left-hand road but thought the Americans had been up the road the day before.

“Merci beaucoup,”
I said to her many times.

I made my decision and hoped I was right. I told the sergeant we were taking the road to the left. I wanted the truck to follow about sixty yards behind me and I wanted him to ride behind the truck on his motorcycle. I instructed the two MP drivers to watch for any hand signals that I might give. If I encountered a roadblock or any other resistance, I would hit the ditch on the side of the road; the truck driver was to do likewise.

Everybody mounted up and we started toward the road. By this time, the French crowd was screaming and yelling obscenities at the prisoners, giving the well-known singlefinger salute.

The road was a main highway, paved and in good condition but somewhat hilly and curving for the first mile or so. As we started up a small hill curving around a high embankment, I saw on the crest of the hill a Panther tank with its gun pointed straight at us. Vernon hit the ditch and we scrambled out of the Jeep, expecting to be blasted at any second. The truck driver saw what was happening and pulled into the ditch to the left.

I grabbed an M1 rifle and a high-explosive grenade from the grenade box. Vernon grabbed his M1 carbine and we started crawling back down the ditch to the bottom of the hill. I had heard no shots from the tank and didn’t hear the motor running, so I motioned to Vernon. We circled around the back side of the hill and started up the slope through the woods to a point that I thought would put us above and slightly to the rear of the tank. As we approached the crest of the hill, I could see the top of the tank turret through the woods. The cupola doors were open. I had my hand on the safety and was ready to toss the grenade into the turret when I realized that the back of the tank was completely blackened by fire. The tank was gutted. I felt a tremendous sense of relief.