BACK TO THE FRONT - MORTAIN

by David Thibodeau

After escaping from Avranches with a whole skin, I never volunteered to go "up forward" with the forward observing party again. Nobody else did, either, so a system of taking turns was devised by Capt. McGannon.

My turn came at a battle at Mortain early in August 1944 where the Germans put up their last determined resistance in Normandy. We took the usual jeep ride in silence, and disembarked near a French farmhouse in the early dawn. The Infantrymen of E Company were sleeping in and around the house, as they were temporarily in reserve. By then, the company had suffered over 100% casualties, so only one or two were left who had come in on D-Day. The next morning E Company moved out toward the front, only about 300 yards away. My Lieutenant had just rejoined the battery after having been wounded at Utah Beach on D-Day.

We shortly began running across a sunken road between two hedgerows with a German tank firing short machine-gun bursts at each man as he jogged across. Their machine guns fired much faster than ours, and we called them "burp guns."

The men were crossing at almost identical intervals, and a kid finally got hit, knocked sprawling by the force of the bullet. I dragged him by the foot to safety behind the hedgerow. I could hear sucking noises from the hole in his chest and, as my training instructed, I used his compress bandage to plug the wound after sprinkling it with his penicillin. He kept asking if his legs were sticking up in the air and I suspected damage to his spine. The sucking noises kept up, and I realized he was shot clear through, so used my own compress to plug the other hole in his lung on his back after rolling him over. He had" Blackie" marked in ink on the back of his shirt. He said "Is it bad?" I said, "You're going home, Blackie."

I ran back across the road and found an aid man, who came with another one and carried Blackie away on a litter. They walked very slowly, and with their red cross armbands, the Germans did not fire on them.

My Lieutenant was directing fire on the tank by peering over the hedgerow with binoculars. The Germans saw him, and another burst put three bullets in him. Lying on his back gasping, he said, "Fire the mission, Sergeant," and the Sergeant radioed fire direction to send another round. It didn't hit the tank, however, and we stood by for two hours until another Lieutenant arrived. The wounded Lieutenant was also carried away, and he survived, as he sent cigars to the battery from the hospital. Two days of war and two Purple Hearts.
The new Lieutenant was fresh from the states. He was under a tree calling down a mission with no helmet on, like in a Hollywood movie so the ladies could see his blond hair, when some 88's from the German side came in and one exploded right in the tree. I launched myself in the air and landed in a foxhole, as by then my reflexes were finely tuned. He then put his helmet on and kept it on.

The Infantry Captains always wanted the forward observer close at hand to provide fire support for their boys, so we soon found ourselves moving single file with the riflemen toward the German hedgerow when a machine gun opened up on us, knocking down three men behind me. The rest of us hit the dirt and played dead. The machine gunner kept sweeping the field, traversing lazily around, returning occasionally to fire at me and my partner. I could see where the bullets were slamming into the hedgerow embankment just over my battery pack.

We talked a little about making a break for it, then my partner made a dash around a corner through a gap in the hedgerow. The machine gun fired a burst at him but missed. I waited about 15 minutes more, then zigzagged around the corner and hit the deck. A man with a bad throat wound was thrashing around and kicking at me, bleeding and choking on his own blood. We couldn't help him, and there was too much artillery coming at us to get an aid man and he quit kicking after a few minutes. A tracheotomy might have saved him.

I saw an American half track burning, hit by the German tank that was still covering the sunken road.

Looking through some roots near the top of the hedgerow I saw a fat yellow bumblebee going about his business like nothing was happening.

One brave kid said he had sneaked up on the machine gun, grabbed the barrel and yanked it over the hedgerow, and threw a grenade over the top. I don't know if anybody realized his heroism. He deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor.

We stayed in our position the rest of the day. Somebody higher up decided to make no more attacks that day. The German artillery kept punishing us but you are always safe in a foxhole unless there is a direct hit. There were some M-l rifles stuck upright by their bayonets to help the graves registration teams find those killed in that way.

The battle at Mortain lasted about 10 days, and major progress in other areas caused the Germans to pull out. Not long afterward came the big breakout that resulted in the fall of Paris by August 25, followed by the dash through northern France to German territory.

HORIZONTAL FLOURISH LINE

 

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