Guard Wars: The 28th Infantry Division in World War II

10. From Normandy to the West Wall

169 10 From Normandy to the West Wall When the 28th Infantry Division reached the shores of France on July 27th, its soldiers found the Normandy beaches littered with the refuse of fighting. After clambering up from the shore, they stared at “a small green field covered with row upon row of white crosses.”1 On their way to the front the soldiers saw and smelled the consequences of the recent fighting—fields scattered with German corpses and dead draft horses. “Death, which had been a report in the newspapers, an abstract, unpleasant thought, had become a cold, hard fact.”2 Veterans of the fighting told them to “[f]orget all your past training, this is different.”3 The Keystone Division quickly marshaled northwest of St. Lo, entering combat on July 30 in the midst of Operation Cobra. It functioned as a backstop while other divisions raced east to try to cut off the German forces. During August, the American, British, and Canadian armies tried to trap the enemy in the “Mortain Pocket” after the Germans attempted to counter the Allied breakout of the deadlock around Normandy. The Allies were not able to seal off all escape routes when German forces tried to flee, and although approximately ten thousand of the enemy were killed and fifty thousand captured , anywhere from twenty to one hundred thousand escaped.4 Brown’s division (and many others) would nip at their heels all the way to the German border. The 28th ID’s combat experience was going to demonstrate an unfair reality of war in the mid-twentieth century: difficult terrain combined with dull-minded leadership trumped sound combined arms training. Once the divisionleftthemaneuver-friendlyprovincesofnorthernFrance,itsmenfound that bravery and firepower could not easily overcome the defenses along the Franco-German border. By November, they would suffer debilitating casualties because of the unimaginative leadership of their commanding general and his superiors, who squandered the division’s hard-won capabilities and used them up against German firepower. 170 | Guard Wars The division’s first frustrations took place in hedgerow country, terrain that had stymied the Allies for weeks. In his portion of Operation Cobra, Major General Charles H. Corlett, the XIX Corps commander, intended to drive south. He assigned the 28th a supporting role covering VII Corps’s left flank since it was not a combat-tested division. Its baptism of fire came at the village of Villebaudon while the 29th and 30th Divisions led the attack. The next day it moved to Percy so as to strike east toward Vire. Along the way the 28th displayed the usual characteristics of unbloodied divisions, such as a reluctance to move and fire. It suffered a stunning 700+ casualties on August 2, but still seized St.-Sever-Calvados two days later.5 Hidden snipers and 88mm cannons were their most lethal adversaries, and soon the limited visibility among the bocage fragmented the fighting into platoon- and squad-sized firefights.6 Brigadier General Norman D. Cota observed that the Germans exploited the bocage masterfully, using the ground to protect their withdrawals while they inflicted serious losses on the Allies. “Many officers became casualties due to their pushing forward, trying to speed up the advance.”7 Lieutenant Julian Farrior commented, “We came so close to the enemy that hand grenades were St. Lo Vire Caen Paris Paris Villebaudon Percy Gathemo Sourdeval Elbeuf St. Quentin Bricqueville XXXX First Cdn XXXX Second Br XXXX First XXXX Third XXXX Fifth Pz XX 28 Falaise Argentan X X X X X XXXXX XXXXX 21 12 Source: http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/norfran/p18-19 (map).jpg Normandy Coast Map 4 The 28th Infantry Division’s Route August-September 1944 From Normandy to the West Wall | 171 tossed back and forth across the hedgerows and we opened fire at point blank range.”8 Right away the first of many replacement soldiers and officers arrived to restore the division’s muster rolls to near full strength.9 Now that they had some know-how to pass on, leaders in the rifle companies gave replacements instruction on hedgerow fighting.10 August saw an ominous development for the division’s riflemen: high casualties . The 110th Infantry alone suffered 1,779 during August, 251 of whom were killed in action. The 109th Infantry fared better, with 698 wounded or missing and 153 killed.11 Colonel Theodore A. Seeley informed General Brown that his 110th regiment was...