General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War

4. The 90th Breaks Out

 The 0th Breaks Out Each time they had one of those experiences, they gained a little more confidence, lost some of their awe of the Germans, and became better soldiers. —DePuy on the war after the breakout from Normandy The Allies’ European strategy called for the expansion of the Normandy lodgment and a breakout to get on with the defeat of Germany . But July found the invaders still bogged down in the Bocage region with its hedgerows that favored defense. Omar Bradley called it “the damndest country I’ve seen.”1 To facilitate the breakout, Operation COBRA used thousands of aircraft to “carpet bomb” a path through the German defenses. The plan for 24 July 1944 called for bombardment by 350 fighter bombers, 396 mediums, and 1,800 heavies previously reserved for strategic bombing. Poor visibility in the target area and poor coordination between air and ground commanders regarding the axis of the flight of the aircraft resulted in 25 men killed and 131 wounded in the U.S. 30th Division on 24 July. Incredibly, the toll of the bombing error on 25 July, “a bright, clear day,” was 111 American dead and 490 wounded. Lesley McNair, the commander of Army Ground Forces who was in Europe to observe the fruits of his training of the mobilized force, was among those killed. Despite this traumatic and costly incident of friendly fire, the enemy was pulverized in some places, allowing the aggressive J. Lawton Collins to break out through an inferno of twisted German equipment, animals, and dead men. Eisenhower later called the Falaise Gap, the attempt to bag and destroy the German Army, “one of the greatest killing grounds of any war area, [scenes] that could be described only by Dante. It was possible to walk for hundreds of yards . . . stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.”2 The plan was for the Allies to dash across France as additional forces and logistics continued to pour inland while the Germans were stunned and off balance.3  General William e. DePuy The German counterattack, designed to cut the Allied offensive at its root, separate the fighting forces from their logistical base on the beaches and at sea, and drive the Allies back into the sea, had failed. German forces were in danger of being surrounded. The Allies intended to put the German forces in a bag. Their efforts were partially successful, but an opportunity to close the bag completely at Falaise was missed. Various accusations of blame and fingerpointing immediately followed; later, lack of aggressiveness and military incompetence were charged. Historian Martin Blumenson is particularly sharp in his criticism of senior Allied leadership. German weapons and equipment were captured and destroyed and prisoners of war (POWs) were taken, but thousands of German soldiers—Blumenson estimates as T a u te R . 26 JULY Granville Coutances St. Lo Carentan Periers La Haye du Puits Tessy sur Vire 25 JULY 27 JULY Utah Beach Breakout at St. Lo 25 - 27 July 1944 Carentan Estuary V i r e R . V i r e R . Douve R. carpet bombing 0 5 10 kilometers 5 0 10 miles xx 79 xx 8 xx 90 xx 83 xx 9 xx 1 xx 3 xx 2 xx 2 xx 30 xx 35 xx 2 xx 5 xx 29 The 0th Breaks Out  many as 100,000—infiltrated from the Falaise Gap to the rear to be reorganized. They would fight another day in the Netherlands and in the Ardennes as the struggle continued until May 1945. Blumenson argues that the Allies’ respect for the Germans may have resulted in undue caution. He believes that, with the failure of Falaise, the Allies missed an opportunity to destroy the German Army and end the war in 1944.4 Ignorant of the big picture, the 90th began to successfully fight a war of movement. Colonel Barth discovered talent, courage, and imagination in his subordinate leaders, men who were capable of rapid decision-making and personal risk-taking. Among his admiring remarks about his battalion commanders, he described Edward Smith Hamilton (USMA, 1939) as having “the dash of a Stonewall Jackson.” Ed Hamilton was one of the few Regulars in the 357th. By the time he joined the 90th at Fort Dix in January 1944, he had been a platoon leader and had commanded a heavy weapons company under a battalion commander “who knew enough to know that...