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| Engineers replace a bridge destroyed by the retreating enemy. |
Chapter 4
During the early morning hours of August 7th, the enemy struck with the greatest counterattacking force he had been able to muster since D-Day. It was an attempt to drive a wedge between the American First and Third Armies, to reach the sea along the axis: Mortain - Avranches. A strong force of German tanks and infantry led the attack, and the brunt of the blow fell on the sector of Major General Leland S. Hobbs' 30th Infantry Division in the vicinity of Mortain. Some penetrations were made, but all were contained and the counterattack was halted. However, the enemy reentered Mortain and Barenton ( a town about 7 miles southeast of Mortain) and suceeded in isolating the 2d Battalion of the 120th Infantry (30th Division) on a hill just east of Mortain.
Enemy attempts to enlarge his penetrations and carry his attack farther west were continued for several days, but they were all disorganized and scattered by the efforts of our Corps artillery and supporting air units before any major drive could be launched. Major General Paul W. Baade's 35th Infantry Division moved east to bolster the defense south of Mortain. Small groups of enemy infiltrated in several sectors, but all were quickly eliminated. On August 9th, the 9th, 30th, and 35th Infantry and 2d Armored Divisions renewed the attack, but met determined opposition and gained little ground. For several days the enemy continued a stubborn defensive battle, launching numerous small counterattacks in his effort to stop the powerful American advance. He denied all our attempts to relieve the battalion surrounded near Mortain until August 12th, when the 30th Division reoccupied that city and freed the isolated troops.
On the following day, VII Corps, with the 1st, 4th, and 9th Infantry and 3d Armored Divisions, attacked northeast in an attempt to make a juncture with the British and Canadian forces and to cut off the now retreating German Seventh Army. In the four day race that ensued, German rear guards did their best to hold the shoulders of the escape gap open, while Allied artillery and air pounded the fleeing troops. Enemy losses were heavy. Withdrawal routes were strewn with the wreckage of hundreds of tanks and thousands of vehicles. Farther east, Allied air attacks also destroyed large numbers of barges and ferries loaded with troops and vehicles attempting to escape eastward across the Seine River. Finally, on the 17th, contact was made between elements of the XXX British Corps and our 1st Infantry Division, and the Falaise - Agentain pocket was no more.
The German supply situation was now desperate. Somehow they had succeeded in finding sufficient gasoline to rescue much of their armor from the trap by moving it 40 or 50 miles to the east, but practically every supply dump of the German Seventh Army west of the Seine River had been over-run. The Third U.S. Army, operating south of the zone of the VII Corps, had advanced rapidly eastward, and even now elements of Lt. General Patton's command were probing as far as the Seine.
For several days the units of VII Corps were out of contact with the enemy, preparing for the next move, the pursuit eastward across France. When the drive began on August 21st, the 1st and 9th Divisions, the 3d Armored Division, and Col. Joseph E. Tully's reinforced 4th Cavalry Group moved rapidly against little or no opposition, making gains of from 25 to 45 kilometers each day.
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| Engineers replace a bridge destroyed by the retreating enemy. |
Corps units crossed the Seine at Melun on August 25th. On the 27th bridges our engineers built across the Marne carried our troops into the battle fields of World War I, past places famed for the glorious fighting of American troops in 1917 and 1918 - Soissons, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood. On and on, beyond the Aisne, past the ancient fortified city of Laon, the advancing VII Corps dashed - the Spearhead (3d Armored) Division leading, closely followed by the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions and screened on the south flank by the Corps mechanized cavalry. So quickly did these flying columns moved that the German command did not know where to expect them next. Motor convoys were overtaken trying to escape to the east. Even railroad trains, loaded with troops and supplies and operating in what their crews believed to be the safety of rear areas, were surprised and destroyed by our armored spearheads. Everywhere in France the German Army was in chaos, and there seemed no safe place to reorganize it short of the German border.
On August 31st our orders were changed, and the direction of our attack was altered from northeast to north. Perhaps we could cut off the retreating enemy columns, headed for the refuge of the West Wall fortifications. VII Corps troops crossed the international boundary into Belgium on September 2d in an attack that carried as far as 40 kilometers in some sectors of the Corps zone. Armored elements reached Mons, meeting only scattered rear guard action. Where was the German Seventh Army? The events of the next three days answered that question with a reply that nearly wrecked the war plans of the German High Command.