Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (3 page)

The
Bocage
and the Hedgerows

The area south of the Cotentin Peninsula is the
bocage
country, the ancestral home of the Normans, who invaded England in the eleventh century. Now the process was being reversed.

The area in peacetime had an almost storybook quality. Beautiful, quaint, small villages were scattered throughout the gently rolling hills. The villages were surrounded by fields that were separated by picturesque hedgerows. These hedgerows proved to be a death trap for the American army.

The Normandy countryside has deep, rich topsoil that is free of stones. Due to this lack of stone to build walls, Norman farmers who wanted to divide their land among their sons would plant rows of hedges and trees to separate the fields, which were often only one to three acres in size. The roots embedded themselves deeply and held the soil. Natural erosion over seven centuries of Norman occupation washed away the land, leaving these hedgerows—earth mounds six to eight feet high and ten to twelve feet thick at the base. Reinforced by tree and hedge roots, these natural fortifications could not be penetrated by tanks.

This
bocage
country extended from ten to forty miles inland from Omaha Beach throughout the Normandy area. German generals could not have conceived of a more formidable defense against highly mobile armored and infantry troops. Even the vaunted Maginot and Siegfried lines paled in comparison.

In spite of this terrain, the selection of Normandy as the invasion site proved fortuitous. Northwestern France is separated from the rest of the country by the Loire and Seine Rivers. Access to the area depends on bridges. Normandy and the Cotentin Peninsula are at the extreme northwestern tip of this area. For about six months prior to the invasion, the Allied air forces bombed all the bridges across these rivers. The Germans would rebuild them by night, and Allied aircraft would knock them down the next day.

At the same time, the air forces heavily bombed the Pas-de-Calais area and built up a false concentration of military units in the Thames estuary. This ruse apparently worked well, because it convinced Hitler that the Pas-de-Calais area was the main invasion spot even after the Normandy landings had taken place. Hitler remained convinced that the Normandy invasion was a feint until the night before the Saint-Lô breakthrough. Not until then did he finally release the panzer divisions that had been held in reserve in the Pas-de-Calais area. Fortunately for the Allies, this decision came too late.

The planning and execution of Operation Overlord was brilliant. Naval, ground, and air forces cooperated with precision. Logistics and supplies were well coordinated. It appeared that great lengths were taken to attend to the most minute details. A small booklet entitled “Invade Mecum” (invade with me) was given to platoon leaders before the D-day invasion. It contained detailed drawings of every hamlet and village in the Normandy area, with the location of major buildings in the village, such as the mayor’s home, city hall, the public utility building, and the telephone exchange; in some cases it even gave the names of the mayor and the director of utilities.The booklets proved an invaluable source of information to the combat troops.

In spite of all this planning, and even though hedgerows existed in England, somehow the tremendous defensive potential of the hedgerows was completely overlooked. If the G2 and G3 sections were aware of this, it never reached the combat units that had to negotiate these terrible obstacles. The hedgerows were to cost the Americans dearly in lives and equipment.

The maintenance battalion set up its first bivouac in several fields about a mile south of Isigny. The vehicles pulled off the road between yellow taped markers, then circled the edges of the field. It occurred to us that the hedgerows would provide excellent cover. Little did we realize the price we would pay for this camouflage.

Everyone was cautious about mines, particularly antipersonnel mines. After a time, however, we developed a kind of sixth sense about our surroundings.

A dilapidated lean-to against a hedgerow in one corner of the field we entered was occupied by a young Frenchwoman and her little boy. They had fled Isigny when the fighting started and had been here ever since. Although thin, they appeared to be in good health. We fed them and turned them over to the military government, which evacuated them. These French civilians, the first I had encountered, impressed me with their will to survive and their ability to adjust to the most primitive conditions.

Combat Command A: Action at Villiers-Fossard

We had no sooner settled down than we were called for a briefing to inform us of the tactics that the Germans would use to oppose us in the hedgerows. They would run telephone wire completely around the perimeter of each of several fields in a row. As they were driven out of a field into the one behind it, they could hook their telephone clips into the wiring and immediately call for mortar fire in the field they had just left. This ability to get mortar and artillery fire almost instantly would prove to be devastating to our infantry and tanks who had just occupied the field.

At the French village of Villiers-Fossard, south and east of Airel on the Vire River, the Germans had penetrated three thousand yards into the 29th Division area. Combat Command A (CCA), which had come in ten days before Combat Command B, was given the mission of capturing Villiers-Fossard and eliminating the German salient. After three years of training, the division was being committed for the first time.

The combat command was organized in three separate task forces, each consisting of a reinforced tank battalion with infantry and artillery support. The attack started on the morning of June 29 with two task forces abreast and one in reserve. The columns on the right and left of the highway each had one bulldozer tank to get through the hedgerows. The initial penetrations moved rapidly but soon ran into heavy small-arms, mortar, and antitank fire from a German reinforced infantry battalion. The two bulldozer tanks were knocked out early in the operation, leaving only explosives to break through the hedgerows.

It was here that we encountered, for the first time, the deadly combination of hedgerows and the short-range German
panzerfaust
. Operated by a single man without any special training, the
panzerfaust
was an ideal weapon for close-range hedgerow fighting. After the two dozer tanks were knocked out, the only way to get through the hedgerows was by planting explosives and blowing enormous gaps so that the remaining tanks could pass. This, of course, warned the Germans where the next tanks were coming; they concentrated their fire at those points, with murderous effect.

After two days of bitter fighting, CCA accomplished its objective and withdrew. It lost 31 tanks, 12 other vehicles, and 151 men—heavy losses for an operation of this type— but the lessons learned by the combat command would save many lives and much equipment in future operations.

At a critique following this operation, General LeRoy Watson, the division commander, voiced his concern not only about the losses but also about our having left several knocked-out tanks in the fields. Although the maintenance people of the 32d Armored Regiment had T2 armored recovery vehicles, they explained that some of the knocked-out tanks were actually behind the German lines and others were in no-man’sland between the lines. Burned beyond repair, they were not worth the sacrifice of further lives. Colonel Joseph Cowhey, seeing an opportunity to enhance the prestige of the ordnance maintenance battalion, told the general that if the armored regiments could not recover the tanks with their T2s, he and the maintenance battalion would retrieve them.

As a West Point graduate, Cowhey had stood high enough in his class to be selected for ordnance duty. Having taken considerable pride in this, he apparently became greatly concerned when lower ranking classmates, assigned to the infantry and artillery, were being promoted much faster than he was. He saw the recovery of these tanks as an opportunity to show what a combat ordnance unit could do.

Because the maintenance battalion had no T2 recovery vehicles, Cowhey selected an M25 tank transporter—a large, heavy-duty six-by-six tractor—to do the job. Probably no other vehicle was less suitable. The colonel proceeded down the Isigny–Villiers-Fossard highway with his small task group: the M25 in the lead; followed by the Jeep holding himself, another officer, and a driver; and a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier with a tank maintenance crew.

Except during heavy fighting, the front lines in combat were extremely quiet and calm, as was the case this day. As the small convoy approached the last infantry outpost, the M25’s 250-horsepower engine created quite a commotion. The convoy was stopped at the roadblock by an infantryman and cautioned about proceeding further.

At this point, a disheveled-looking soldier emerged from the hedgerows with a Thompson submachine gun. “Who in the hell told you to bring that monster down here!” he yelled.

The colonel got out of his Jeep and came around to the front of the transporter. “I did, damnit!”

“And who the hell are you?” hollered the young soldier as he nervously pulled back the bolt on his Thompson. His helmet net did not camouflage his insignia; he was a captain. He was obviously nervous; his unit had been under heavy mortar fire. He was infuriated that anybody could be dumb enough to bring a large, noisy transporter into this area, which would call additional fire on his men simply to recover worthless, burned-out tanks.

“I’m Colonel Cowhey of the 3d Armored Division, and I’ve come to recover our tanks.”

Apparently unfazed, the captain pointed his tommy gun directly at the colonel. “I’ll give you fifteen seconds to turn around that pile of junk and get the hell out of here. If you don’t, I’ll blow your brains out.”

The colonel, who had never been talked to in such an insubordinate manner by a junior officer, yelled to the lieutenant to turn the convoy around and leave. On the way back to Isigny, Cowhey realized that what he had done must have appeared to be a grandstand play, and the captain had risked a court-martial against the chances of being killed in action. Cowhey was so humiliated that he never mentioned the incident. Some felt that, in the long run, it resulted in the survival of other officers and men in the maintenance battalion.

Combat Command B Actions at Airel,
Pont Hébert, and Vents Heights

On the afternoon of July 8, Major Arrington, the maintenance battalion shop officer and my immediate superior, told me to report to Combat Command B (CCB) headquarters at 1700. Each unit in the combat command had its own liaison officer, and we all assembled with the staff to hear the briefing by General Bone, CCB’s commander.

In a brief opening statement, the general told us that we were now ready to put to use all those years of training for combat. He felt that the state of readiness was excellent, our morale was high, and the equipment was good. I had a slight twinge of uneasiness when I remembered the disaster our tanks met in CCA’s first engagement. However, we had just received a few new M4A1 tanks with 76mm guns, which I felt would give us a better chance against German armor. They were bound to be more effective than the short-barreled 75mm M2.

The G2 briefed us on the enemy situation and gave us a general outline of German positions along the Vire River and slightly north and south of Airel. The G3 then briefed us on the general plan of operation. It appeared that the line north and west of Saint-Lô was highly irregular, and certain positions of high ground should be seized prior to the final assault on Saint-Lô itself, a key communication center for the German 7th Army. Its capture was essential to breaking out of Normandy.

The immediate plan of operations was to capture the high ground north and west of Saint-Lô. The 30th Division had already launched an attack at daybreak across the Vire River at Airel, driven three thousand yards deep, and set up a perimeter defense around the village. Combat Command B was to cross the river at Airel on the night of July 8 and bivouac in this perimeter before attacking at daybreak. This operation was supposed to straighten out the line somewhat and give the American First Army a better position from which to assault Saint-Lô.

After the briefing, I reported to Major Arrington. The convoys began to form on the Isigny–Saint-Lô highway at about 2000. The liaison officer group formed up immediately behind combat command headquarters.

It was strictly a start-and-stop operation, similar to a heavy traffic jam. Maintaining normal intervals between vehicles became impossible as we proceeded farther down the highway and the convoy increased in size. By this time, we had become accustomed to the periodic firing of our own artillery into the German lines. The closer we came to the intersection of the Airel–Le Dézert highway, five miles south of Isigny, the more intense the firing became.

Suddenly, we heard a whirring noise and then
wrack, wrack,
wrack
as three incoming German artillery shells landed in the woods about a hundred yards to our right. Prior to this, all the artillery had been outgoing; now a new dimension had been added. The artillery was aimed at us.

When we reached the intersection, we turned right and headed toward Airel. The incoming artillery became much more intense; I wasn’t sure whether it was targeting us or the infantry around us. In any event, the column kept bunching up and stretching out in accordionlike fashion as it headed for the bridge at Airel.

I found myself at the head of the liaison group and immediately behind a Red Cross ambulance half-track from CCB. I thought I’d be safe if I stayed close to the half-track. Although the incoming artillery was more frequent, I was somewhat reassured by the briefing at CCB, earlier in the day, informing us that we were not actually going into combat until the next morning.

As we approached the bridge about a hundred yards east of Airel, we came upon an old tavern with an open courtyard. The building was in flames, and two dead young American soldiers were lying naked on the ground near a Jeep. Apparently, they had taken cover from artillery fire in the courtyard; a shell had struck the building and the blast had been deflected directly down on them. It had blown them both out of the Jeep and torn off their clothes. Their horribly burned flesh was splotched red and black. The light from the flames of the burning building danced across their bodies, which looked like surreal painted mannequins. As I turned away I noticed that my driver, Smith, was also choked up. There was no dignity for these young soldiers, even in death. A great sense of revulsion welled up in me, and the sadness was almost overwhelming. At this point, we both felt completely human.

A direct hit by German artillery had blown a large gap in the stone floor of the bridge into Airel. The tanks and half-tracks were being routed across the bridge; the wheeled vehicles were crossing the river on a pontoon bridge about a hundred yards to the north. We came across the pontoon bridge and met up with the column again. The MPs were stopping the columns and merging them by allowing one vehicle from each to pass. Thus, I had to stop and let the ambulance half-track go ahead. When I was allowed to go, I wound up behind one of the medium tanks assigned to CCB headquarters. I wasn’t sure whether I had gained or lost in the deal.

The column was on a narrow road that circled north around a small hill in the middle of town. As we started down the road, we were in a defiladed position between two hedgerows. All hell broke loose. I did not know it at the time, but just as we were beginning to cross the bridge, the Germans had launched a counterattack north and south of the town. As the column moved in a slow start-and-stop fashion down the road between the hedgerows, we found ourselves between the American and German units. The Germans were in the hedgerows to the north, the Americans in the hedgerows to the south.

Fortunately, the hedgerows were high, and most of the firing went over our heads. The column slowly snaked up the road toward the top of the hill. Suddenly, a German artillery shell came screaming across the top of the tank and exploded against a tree on the far side of the hedgerow. Although the top hatch was open, the tank commander had his head inside the turret and missed the blast.

Although it was dark on this back road at night, many of the buildings nearby were on fire, and the flames flickered just enough to give us light from time to time. We did not dare use our blackout lights, so we had to be careful not to run up on the vehicle in front of us. This was not a problem for me; the tank we were following was so high and made so much noise that I didn’t have much trouble keeping behind it. However, I had to be careful not to be rammed by Lieutenant Foster, the liaison officer from the 23d Armored Engineers, who was in the Jeep behind ours.

As we reached the top of the hill, an MP directed us into a field to the left that turned out to be the CCB headquarters bivouac area. It’s unclear why the billeting officer chose this area; it was on a forward slope of a hill under direct German fire, and it was an orchard. Incoming artillery would strike a tree branch and detonate, with a devastating effect to those on the ground.

My driver, Smith, pulled our Jeep as close as possible to the edge of the field, then we got out and started digging a foxhole. The earth was hard chert and extremely difficult to penetrate. We dug as fast as we could with our pick, our trench shovel, and even our helmets. Every time a round of artillery came in, we would stick our heads in the hole. We must have looked like a couple of ostriches with our heads in the sand and our butts completely aboveground.

We found out later that the Germans had managed to hoist a 75mm PAK41 antitank gun into the church steeple about a quarter mile from us. Because the top of the steeple was just about the height of the hill, they could fire directly into our area. Had it not been for the cover of darkness, the entire CCB headquarters could have been wiped out.

After about two hours of hard work, Smith and I were able to dig a two-man foxhole approximately six feet by three feet by twelve to fourteen inches deep—big enough to protect our heads
and
our butts. Close to daybreak, one of our tanks located the antitank gun in the steeple and knocked it out with one shot. This decreased the incoming fire considerably.

At daybreak, CCB moved out and launched a two-pronged attack. As it headed south, we found that our area was relieved considerably from artillery fire. We emerged from our foxhole and looked around to get the lay of the land. At the base of the hedgerow near us were two dead 30th Division infantrymen who apparently had been killed the night before. We called the medics, who in turn called the graves registration people to take away the bodies.

I set out to find Maj. Dick Johnson, who commanded the maintenance company for the 33d Armored Regiment. As the combat command’s senior maintenance officer, he was primarily responsible for the immediate recovery and evacuation of our vehicles. It was my job to coordinate the ordnance activities with him. The major was sturdily built, had a good sense of humor, and was well respected by his men for handling his job in a competent manner. As I walked around the bivouac area and called his name, I heard his voice come out from under a light tank: “Cooper, where are you?”

I looked under the tank, and there was the major in his sleeping bag next to the tank crew.

“What the hell are you doing under there, Major?”

“Crawled under here to get rid of those damned airbursts last night. What do you think I’m doing here?”

As I looked under the tank, I noticed a hundred pounds of TNT strapped to the glacis plate; it would be used to blow a breach in the hedgerows.

“Do you realize there’s a hedgerow breaching charge strapped to the front of this tank?” I asked.

“If this thing had been ticked off by an airburst, we would have all been blown to kingdom come,” the major said as he crawled out from under the tank. “Damn, if I’d known this thing was here, I wouldn’t have gotten near it.”

We established our first vehicle collecting point (VCP) on the south side of the hill, on the main road coming through Airel toward the Saint Jean de Daye highway. The 33d Maintenance T2 recovery crews started bringing the first vehicles from the initial combat around 0900. The first casualty was an M4 medium tank with the body of one of the crew still inside. According to surviving crew members, they were hit on the highway. The German gun crew apparently held their fire until the tank was no more than fifty yards away, then let go with two rounds from a 75mm PAK41 ground-mount antitank gun. Because of its extremely low silhouette, the gun could not be seen until a tank was upon it. The first round severed the main drive shaft of the M4, incapacitating the tank. The second round struck the top of the turret with a glancing blow right over the tank gunner’s head, killing him.

I got on top of the turret to examine the damage but deliberately didn’t look at the body that was still inside. The second round had struck the tank turret at the top of the long radius where the armor varied in thickness between two and a half to three and a half inches and the angle of incidence of the shell to the armor could have been no greater than fifteen degrees. In our ordnance training we had been told that thirty-eight degrees was the critical angle, below which a shell would normally ricochet. This was particularly true for an American shell from an M2 low-velocity tank gun.

Upon examining the front of the tank, I found that the first shot had struck the final drive, which was a large, heavy-duty armored casting that contained the transmission and the differential, which drove the tank tracks. The projectile had struck the tip of the final drive casting in line with the radius of the casting at its thickest point, which was about four and a half inches. The projectile penetrated the armor, passed through about a foot of fifty-weight oil, severed a five-and-a-half -inch steel driveshaft, then passed through another eight to ten inches of oil and a one-inch armored back plate before entering the driver’s compartment. By this time the shell had spent itself and nested between the driver’s feet under his seat. Because it was an armor-piercing shot, no explosion took place. Even though the second round had ricocheted off the turret, its velocity was sufficient to penetrate the armor in a gash approximately three inches wide and ten inches long. The blast inside the tank killed the gunner; the shot had gone right through his periscope. I realized that we could not repair it in the field, because the mounting had to be machined. We had to evacuate the tank to the ordnance company.

Tragic Inferiority of the M4 Sherman Tank

By this time, a number of tanks had entered the VCP with all manner of damage. Those evacuated from the column on the Saint Jean de Daye–Saint-Lô highway were mostly damaged by tank and antitank fire, whereas those coming from the Airel–Pont Hébert highway were mostly knocked out by
panzerfausts
. The German
panzerfaust
could penetrate our tanks with impunity, even through the extra armor we’d put in front of the driver and on the ammunition boxes on the side. These
panzerfausts
were obviously more powerful than our American bazookas.

As the tanks and other armored vehicles were brought into the VCP with broken and twisted bodies still inside, the horror of war began to settle into my being. When a tanker inside a tank received the full effect of a penetration, sometimes the body, particularly the head, exploded and scattered blood, gore, and brains throughout the entire compartment. It was a horrible sight. The maintenance crews had to get inside and clean up the remains. They tried to keep the body parts together in a shelter half and turn them over to graves registration people. With strong detergent, disinfectant, and water, they cleaned the interior of the tank as best they could so men could get inside and repair it.

Often when a tank was penetrated, the shower of fragments would sever the electrical cables. Even though the cables were protected by armored covers, the fragments would cause a short and could set the tank on fire. If the tank crew pulled the fire extinguisher switch before evacuating, the fire would be snuffed out and the interior of the tank would burn only partially. If the crew was unable to do this, the tank would burn up completely, and the tremendous heat would soften the armor and make the tank impossible to repair.

After the repairs were completed, the tank’s fighting compartment would be completely painted. In spite of this, the faint stench of death sometimes seeped through. A new crew might hesitate to take a tank assigned to them because they were superstitious about tanks in which their buddies had been killed.

Seeing our mounting tank losses made me realize that our armored forces had been victims of a great deceit, and we in ordnance had been part of that deceit. During my summer at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1939, we were told that our total annual research and development budget for tanks was only $85,000. I had felt that the tremendous engineering and manufacturing capability of the United States had more than made up for this deficiency in the intervening five years. However, the isolationist Congress during the interwar period had completely decimated the army’s technical capability, particularly that of the armored forces. The few imaginative and innovative ordnance engineers who came up with new ideas were quickly discouraged due to budgetary restraints.

A brilliant young tank designer named J. Walter Christy had come up with an entirely new concept in hull and suspension design in the early thirties. The idea involved an ingenious torsion bar suspension system for the bogey wheels that supported the tracks. This suspension system had a greater amplitude of deflection, and thus provided a much easier ride over rough terrain, than did the helicoil system used on our M4 tanks. In addition, the tracks could be quickly removed, and the tanks could travel on the highway as wheeled vehicles at speeds up to sixty miles per hour. It was a radical concept at the time, and the ordnance engineers at Aberdeen were greatly restricted by their less innovative superiors, who did not choose to rock the boat.

Discouraged by lack of American interest, Christy took his invention to Russia, where engineers recognized the tremendous advantages of the system and adopted it. Many German tanks in World War II also used this system to great advantage. In addition to the high deflection of the Christy system, the bogey wheels could be overlapped, which allowed use of a wider track. The resulting greater track bearing area and lower ground bearing pressure per square inch allowed German tanks to negotiate muddy terrain with much greater ease than could American tanks. This shortcoming proved disastrous in several battles. Not until the war was almost over did we realize our error and start using Christy suspension on the new M24 and M26 and all other new tanks to follow.

In spite of the flaws of the M4, we were told that it was a good tank, comparable to the German tanks we would be meeting in northern Europe. Back in the States and also in England, we had received numerous ordnance evaluation reports on German equipment, most dealing with the German PzKw IV, which we usually called the Mark IV. The original Mark IV had a short-barreled gun similar to the 75mm M2 on our M4s; its muzzle velocity was fifteen hundred feet per second. These had been replaced on the PzKw IV by a 75mm KwK41 gun with a much higher muzzle velocity (three thousand feet per second). The Mark IV was a smaller, low-profile tank that weighed only twenty-two tons compared to our M4’s thirty-seven and a half tons. It had four inches of armor on the vertical part of its glacis plate and a wider track than the M4, which enabled it to negotiate soft ground more easily than the M4 could.

In the meantime, we began to receive M4A1 medium tanks with a long-barreled 76mm gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,650 feet per second. Considering that the penetrating capacity of the projectile varies as the square of the muzzle velocity, even the Mark IV outgunned both our M4 and M4A1. When we ran into the German PzKw V Panther, a fifty-two-ton tank with three and a half inches of armor on a thirty-eight-degree glacis plate, compared to two and a half inches of armor at forty-five degrees on the M4, we were grossly outgunned. The Panther carried the even more powerful 75mm KwK42 gun, with a muzzle velocity of 3,300 feet per second. The myth that our armor was in any way comparable to German armor was completely shattered. We realized that we were fighting against German tanks that were far superior to anything we had to offer. As a result, many young Americans would die on the battlefield.

This situation had been further aggravated by command decisions made earlier. After arriving in England in January 1944, General Eisenhower had ordered some of the division commanders and staff officers to report to Tidworth Downs, the main ordnance depot for armored equipment in the European theater, where all the latest ordnance equipment available at the time was demonstrated. The operation was code-named for an ordnance colonel from Aberdeen Proving Ground who came over to perform the demonstration.

Many general officers from the U.S., British, and Canadian armies had attended plus a number of high-ranking colonels and other field-grade officers. The maintenance battalion of the 3d Armored Division was stationed at Codford Saint Mary, a short distance from Tidworth Downs. Some of our maintenance people who had been detailed to this demonstration to provide maintenance support for the armored weapons systems told us what they had seen. When I visited Tidworth Downs fifty years later, the post historian told me that no records of the demonstration exist other than to note that it took place.

First to be demonstrated were infantry weapons systems, including small arms, machine guns, and mortars. Particularly impressive was the firepower of the M1 Garand rifle in comparison to that of the German Mauser, of World War I vintage. There was some concern that our .30-caliber machine guns, also of World War I vintage, had a much lower cyclic rate of fire than the German machine guns; however, the Germans had no counterpart for our .50-caliber machine gun. Our 60mm and 81mm mortars appeared comparable to the German weapons, and our 4.2-inch chemical mortar was an excellent weapon for laying down white phosphorus smoke shells.

Artillery was demonstrated next. Although it could not be fired due to lack of range, aspects of various pieces were demonstrated, particularly the unlimbering setup and relimbering preparatory to movement. The 105mm howitzer, the 155mm howitzer, the 155mm rifle (Long Tom), the 8-inch howitzer, the 8-inch gun, and the 240mm howitzer were all of modern design, were completely motorized, and had pneumatic tires for high-speed highway transport. This equipment was equal or superior to the German guns, because the Germans still used a great deal of horse-drawn artillery.

Finally, the armored weapon systems were reviewed. First came the armored artillery. The M7, a modified M3 tank carriage with a 105mm howitzer and a .50-caliber ring-mounted machine gun, proved an excellent weapon. The M12, another modified M3 medium tank chassis, carried a 155mm GPF rifle of World War I vintage. Even though this weapon did not have the muzzle velocity of the newer 155mm Long Tom, it proved to be extremely effective. The 991st Field Artillery Battalion, equipped with these M12 gun carriages, was attached to the 3d Armored Division throughout the European operation.

Next came the antitank weapons. The small 37mm antitank gun, already obsolete, was being replaced by the 57mm antitank gun, which was still inferior to the German PAK41. The 90mm gun was a dual-purpose weapon that had been originally developed as an antiaircraft gun. In addition, it could be lowered to a horizontal position and used as an antitank gun. It was similar to the German 88mm; however, it had a lower muzzle velocity than the 88 and therefore was not as effective an antitank weapon.

Then came the tanks. The M5 light tank was demonstrated first. It had an inch and a half of armor at forty-five degrees on the glacis plate and an inch of armor on the sides. It was equipped with a 37mm antitank gun in the turret, two .30-caliber machine guns, and a .50-caliber ring mount. It had two Cadillac engines driving a hydramatic transmission, which proved to be a good power train that provided considerable mobility and speed.

The M5 was a good, fast light tank, although it was too light to be engaged in firefights with German tanks and was already considered obsolete. It was being replaced by the M24 light tank, which was still in production in the States and would not be received until we were well into Central Europe. Instead, films of this tank were shown. The M24 was between the M5 and the German Mark IV in size, had a wider track system than either of them, weighed approximately twenty tons, and was the first American tank equipped with Christy suspension. It had better armor protection than the M5 and also had a 75mm gun. The muzzle velocity was still too low to be effective against German armor.

Our main battle tank, the M4, was demonstrated next. It had two and a half inches of armor at forty-five degrees on the front glacis plate and an inch and a half to two inches on the side of the hull and on the sponsons. The turret had three to four inches on the front and two inches on the side plus a five-inch mantlet that fitted over the gun tube and raised and lowered with the gun. The tank had two .30-caliber machine guns, one in a ball mount in front of the assistant driver and one in the turret coaxial with the main gun. There was also a .50-caliber machine gun on a ring mount on top of the turret. The tank’s main armament consisted of a short-barreled 75mm M2 gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,050 feet per second. The tank had narrow tracks with a ground bearing pressure of approximately seven pounds per square inch on the ground. Theoretically, this was about the same pressure that a man exerted walking on soft ground; it was felt that if a man could walk across the ground, a tank could also negotiate it. This was almost twice the ground bearing pressure per square inch of the German tanks.

The M4A1 was shown next. It was essentially the same tank as the M4 but with an improved high-velocity 76mm gun and a different turret to accommodate it. This was a vast improvement over the M4, but the gun was still less powerful than the German KwK41. By the time we arrived in Normandy, between 10 and 15 percent of our tanks carried the 76mm, and thereafter almost all replacements were 76s.

From our experience in North Africa, it had been belatedly recognized that both the M4 and the M4A1 were inadequately protected. Thus, we had arranged with the British main ordnance depot at Warminster to modify all of our M4 tanks by putting one-inch armor patches over the three ammunition boxes and quarter-inch armor inside the sponsons and also underneath the turret. We also put an additional two-inch armor patch in front of the driver’s periscope and the assistant driver’s periscope on the front of the glacis plate. All the new tanks coming off the production line in the States already had this modification before they were shipped to England.

The next demonstration opened up a can of worms that placed rank and authority against knowledge and experience, and pitted the narrow interpretation of tactical doctrine against flexible response to meet new, changing conditions. A new heavy tank known as the M26 Pershing had just been developed and was ready for production. There was no working model of this tank in England at the time, but films of it were shown. The tank had been thoroughly tested and approved by both the ordnance and armored forces boards. The Tank Automotive Center in Detroit was prepared to go into full production immediately upon receipt of a go-ahead from Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). Because of the urgency of this project, a high priority had been granted by the War Production Board to proceed immediately, and schedules had been prepared that would allow these tanks to be delivered in time for the invasion.

The M26 was the first totally new main battle tank that we had. Instead of old hulls modified bit by bit but still maintaining the old disadvantages, the M26 was brand new from the ground up. It weighed forty-seven and a half tons and had four inches of armor at forty-five degrees on the glacis plate. The sides had about two inches of armor, and the turret had six inches in front plus a five-inch mantlet. It had a .30-caliber coaxial machine gun in the turret and a .50-caliber ring mount on top. The main armament was a ground-mount 90mm M3 gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,850 feet per second, a muzzle brake, and a special recoil mechanism for mounting in a tank. The tank had a 550-horsepower engine and a hydramatic transmission. The suspension system was a brand-new torsion bar Christy with double bogey wheels on each arm and a wide track. This wider track gave the tank about half the ground bearing pressure of the old M4 and made it comparable to the German tanks in negotiating soft, muddy terrain.