Task force hogan, p.14
Task Force Hogan, page 14
Sam sat back in his command tank with an exhausted sigh. All seemed to be progressing according to plan. He knew he had twenty minutes of quiet as the task force retraced its route, but they were on unknown ground and needed to be alert for enemy ambushes. The slim twenty-eight-year-old from the sparse caliche plains of Texas had somehow found himself responsible for a regimental-sized (three battalions) column aimed directly at the German army as it attempted to escape back to man the Siegfried line. This was the rhythm of war: periods of tension and anxiety with very few moments for self-reflection. He fired off a short letter to his wife, Belle, and to his parents, Dodge and Mary. His normally buoyant personality was a bit deflated. Still, he felt a need to reassure his family, and he himself looked forward to every little letter he got from home.
After thirty minutes of slow movement, radio chatter indicated that the recon element four hundred yards ahead had forded a river, the Thon, near the town of Bucilly and were now receiving fire from German infantry advancing on their position.
It was time to fight again. Radio checks came in from the companies as they hit predesignated checkpoints. Sam eased back into his commander’s hatch and made some quick calculations as he reviewed his map. He then stood back up on the metal seat to just about shoulder level out of the hatch to check that the terrain matched what was on his map and that his large formation was progressing on schedule. When the tank was buttoned up, the tank commander—who was also sometimes the platoon, company, or battalion commander—could only see through the rotating cupola periscope, which afforded a limited line of sight. Sam had learned at Hill 91 that, for the tank commander, it was good practice to not always stay buttoned up when advancing to contact. Through the periscope or tiny vision slits, it was almost impossible to see the muzzle flash of an enemy tank or antitank gun. On the receiving end of an antitank gunshot, the speed of sound made sure that no one heard the round leaving the enemy gun. The rounds traveled so fast that the only telltale sign that one was on the way was a small burst of dust and a muzzle flash coming from an otherwise invisible, deftly camouflaged, low-to-the-ground German antitank cannon. Here again, chance encounters and the law of averages could play against a commander’s longevity on earth.
Additionally, a man’s head poking out of the tank commander’s position made a tempting target for any sharp-eyed German sniper. If enemy artillery happened to land nearby, a sliver to the head as small as a needle could kill you if the round exploded within fifty meters. Then again, a half-open hatch could help diffuse overpressure that occurred when taking a direct hit—hopefully sparing everyone a concussion. So here again, Sam and his commanders had to decide what they were comfortable with, balancing the needs of the mission and good leadership with not getting your brains blown out. For Sam, the solution was to put the steel shell of an M1 helmet over his tanker’s helmet and ride with the commander’s hatch open, but showing very little above the neck. So far, it had worked.
So far.
THE TIP OF THE COLUMN slowed as the Thon River crossing loomed ahead. It was not a wide span, but stout stone houses and a church, fortified during medieval times, guarded the approaches. Sam, Don Clayman of the Forty-seventh Infantry, and two of his officers forded a shallow canal running parallel to the river, then advanced to the high ground overlooking a possible crossing point.
BRRRRT! Fire burst out abruptly. Two hundred yards ahead, out of the shadows of the low buildings, figures in gray and mottled camouflage darted in and out of cover. They moved in the Americans’ direction. Sam’s little group took cover from the bursts of German MP 40 submachine gun fire. The squad of six German infantrymen rose up, one or two at a time, sprinting then taking cover in turns, firing up the hill at the small group of US GIs.
Clayman calmly took a knee, then signaled his infantrymen behind him as he drew up his M1 rifle. Before the enemy could race up the hundred-yard incline, US infantry atop the lead tanks dismounted and sprinted up the knoll toward the party of Americans. They arrived just in time to roll grenades down onto the advancing German patrol to break their attack.
With eyes now on the far side of the river and no enemy to contest the crossing, Sam directed accompanying troops of the Twenty-third Engineers to throw up a span over the river, and the expert engineers did it quickly. Scouts forded then secured the far side as the engineers drove forward in trucks with bridge sections, backed into the riverbed, then dropped the sections. After securing the bridge, the lead vehicles streamed forward. The column narrowed into the funnel formed by the narrow bridge. This was the dangerous part, but the tanks with piggyback-mounted infantry, trucks, and half-tracks moved quickly. The river crossing was so fast and efficient that it left the enemy stunned. Speed and surprise kept the Germans off balance and US casualties minimal.
Darkness approached and the combat command halted three-quarters of a mile southeast of Hirson, within view of the little town, with its cobblestoned square, tall church belfry, and low stone buildings. Reconnaissance elements pushed into the town with G Company tanks in their wake. The River Oise bisected the town, creating another danger area to cross. Captain Cramer roared up to the bank in his Sherman to get a view of the far side.
Cramer’s narrow silhouette protruded from his commander’s hatch as he squinted into the night trying to see signs of enemy life. A fireball erupted, lighting up his surprised face. He radioed: “Small, Plezia, get ready to back up.”
Cramer’s probe was rewarded with a fireworks show as the Germans blew up a train of ammunition that they thought might be captured by the hard-pressing Americans. There were no injuries, though the sky remained aglow for several hours, burning to the north as G Company and its accompanying infantry cleared the town.
By 10 P.M., the enemy pulled back and left several dazed rearguard troops who were taken prisoner. Task Force Hogan secured their bivouac, some resting, some pulling guard and preparing their weapons and tanks. Sam tried to unwind with a cup of coffee, a Camel, and a map reconnaissance of the route to Mons. He would try to get a thirty-minute catnap before rousing himself to check on the men and the preparation for the next movement.
It was still dark and cool when tank and half-track engines revved up again to continue the advance. Drivers rubbed their eyes and swallowed canteen cups of cold coffee and canned biscuits. Some, those lucky enough to not be driving, wolfed down a dreaded can of ham and lima beans while waiting for the vehicle in front to roll out. In his half-track, Sergeant John Grimes kept a keen eye on his driver, squinting through the dark and trying to identify the small tactical taillight of the vehicle in front. Grimes would tap the driver’s right shoulder with his boot when they needed to turn right, left shoulder for a left turn.
The yellow glow of the ammunition fire cooled off, leaving a burnt-orange line silhouetting the little town’s buildings, their fronts still cloaked in purple darkness. The column of vehicles dipped down toward the bridge over the Oise like one loud, gargantuan serpent, lazily spewing smoke from their many exhaust pipes. This was the riskiest part—canalized into a narrow bridgehead, the vehicles backed up while they each crossed one at a time. Drivers’ eyes fixed on the blackout lights of the vehicle ahead—no headlights to warn the Germans that a battalion was moving toward them. Assistant drivers and crewmen attempted to stay awake both to keep the driver awake and to stay alert for ambushes from the shadowy tree lines on both sides of the road.
Half a kilometer past the bridge, the scouts radioed back that they had found tank emplacements, fresh tracks, and cleared fields of fire on the far side of town. The Germans had hastily abandoned this position the night before as they set fire to their ammunition dump. Sam stiffened, suddenly more alert through his fatigue—realizing that if they’d tried to take the town during daylight hours, they would’ve faced a deadly ambush. All Sam could do was be thankful for that lucky break.
The giant armored gauntlets of the Third Armored Division moved on, pointed straight at the flank of five German divisions, the remains of the Fifth Panzer Army, headed east. The big picture showed Task Force Hogan guarding the right flank of this enormous force. To their left was Colonel Boudinot’s Combat Command A, with Task Forces Kean and Doan under it. To their left was Brigadier General Doyle Hickey’s Combat Command B, with Task Force King and Task Force Lovelady as left and right “fists.” Fast-moving scouts from the Eighty-third Reconnaissance Battalion led the eighteen-thousand-man force, buffering against any unexpected ambush.3
Task Force Hogan rolled north through the early dawn, the excitement of expected contact and cups of black coffee the only things keeping tankers and infantrymen alert through the fatigue of two sleepless nights. They expected contact in the form of meeting engagements, where two sides do not know the location of the other and unexpectedly bump into each other. Whichever side sees, aims, and fires first has the advantage. Radio silence was in effect to aid in achieving the element of surprise.
A report came in from a French scout that mines awaited them on the road ahead, in front of a railroad underpass. The Germans, experienced as they were, intended to slow and then canalize the armored force into a preestablished kill zone. Sure enough, at the railroad underpass, Clayman’s infantry managed to surprise an enemy PAK 43 cannon and knock it out. Several more enemy defenders scattered as the Twenty-third Engineers carefully but quickly removed the mines so that the column could drive on.
Approaching the small towns of Ohain and Trélon, more scattered German infantry and PAKs were awaiting the task force. Alert scouts, and small-arms and mortar fire, managed to scatter the ambushers before the main body could get in their range. Stopping in Trélon, Sam, Don Clayman, and Carl Cramer inquired of the townspeople: Ou sont les boches? (Where are the Germans?) Their response, pointing north excitedly: En avant, à Solre! Beaucoup de boche! (Up ahead, in Solre! Lots of Germans!) Checking their map board on the hood of a jeep, they verified that Solre-le-Château was about eighteen kilometers directly north along their route.
Rommel had passed through this town in 1940 on his way to the English Channel, after routing French and British formations. Now it was the Allies giving chase.
Sam radioed to the lead elements to prepare for heavy contact. The map showed a straight road leading to the town, with no danger areas such as river crossings or sharp bends in the road where an ambush possibly awaited. The terrain was flat and rolling but covered here and there in dense forests interspersed with fields of cattle forage. Beautiful farmland, thought Sam, thinking of the fertile Hudson Valley of his West Point years. Turning to Cramer and Clayman, Sam directed, “Let’s keep them reeling back. Saddle up and we’ll stop again ahead of the town to reconnoiter.”
After traversing four kilometers, G Company and accompanying infantry came under fire from their front as the woods in the middle of the column also lit up with rifle and machine gun fire. Gunners in tanks, drivers, and their vehicle commanders in half-tracks and infantry trucks were startled out of their quasi-sleep state and into action. While G Company Shermans pumped suppressing fire into roadside positions to their front, infantrymen and several of C Company’s light tanks opened up on the enemy to the west. One German vehicle was a Panther tank and the other an antiaircraft gun firing in a flat trajectory. Both withdrew after a withering return fire answered their shots.
As per the plan, the motorized infantry from the Ninth Infantry Division dismounted their trucks and pushed ahead in squads rushing from cover to cover on each side of the road. H Company, the “left fist” of the column, pushed Shermans to the west to flank the Germans firing near a small town on the map called Liessies. This flanking movement caught the Panther with a well-aimed 76-mm high-explosive round to the side of the hull, which disabled the tank in a violent shudder as crew in camouflage coveralls bailed out through hatches on top and underneath the hull, then hobbled toward the tree line.
Sam gratefully received reports from his commanders via radio that the attacks had been defeated with no casualties and several Germans captured—things were going smoothly. Maybe too smoothly. It was clear that Task Force Hogan was advancing alone on the extreme right of the Spearhead’s giant formation. Solre-le-Château was a beautiful town crowned with a tall four-steeple church in the center of town. A half dozen buildings surrounding it spread out toward small farms and cow pastures on all sides for half a kilometer before the forests began again. Church bells began ringing—civilians came out of stone cellars with smiles on their faces, some in tears. A priest led the way as the crowd waved, smiled, and extended a friendly hand to the passing Americans.
For the first time, through the battle fatigue and sleepless nights, it dawned on the soldiers that the Germans had just left and that the Allies were liberating these villages. Tired looks gave way to smiles, and the tankers’ exhausted bodies and spirits got a jolt of jubilant energy. As they rolled through the cobblestone streets, tank commanders in hatches stood a little taller, returning the smiles and waves with gusto.
No division reconnaissance had passed through here. Halting again, Sam addressed several villagers in his broken French, who replied in broken English and excited French that indeed, this was the first American column they had seen. Pressing on, the column passed two more villages without incident, Aibes and Rousies.
At Jeumont, the flags flown from balconies and windows changed from the blue, white, and red of the French to the black, yellow, and red of Belgium. Mons, and an anticipated big engagement with five German divisions, was twenty-five kilometers ahead.4
Across wooded acres to the west, Lieutenant Jake Sitzes, with two platoons of light tanks, was detached to guard the Third Armored Division command post. A strong guard for the CP was standard practice, since General Rose liked to be so close to the line, leading from the front.
The enemy began streaming toward them along secondary roads in the late afternoon of September 2. Jake and his agile little M3 Stuart tanks beat the bushes constantly over the next twenty-four hours, flushing out the German infantry like quail from a wheat field. Each time, they returned with twenty to thirty prisoners.
All was going according to plan, but a lack of sleep began to take its toll, as it does regularly in combat. Major Walker radioed Sam: “Six, this is Blue-five, we need to stop the march—over.”
Sam growled. What now? He halted the convoy, with infantry dismounting and spreading out, guns at the ready.
Walker sprinted up to Sam’s command tank: “Sir! We’ve lost Service Company.” Service Company, with its maintenance platoon and supply/transport section, kept the task force’s vehicles running and supplied. They also had the medics and their half-track ambulances. All unarmored trucks, trailers, and jeeps—not combat units. Their biggest weapons were three .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the 2.5-ton trucks, including the kitchen or “gut” truck. Did we lose them to an ambush? The task force would not be able to roll on much farther without their logistics tail.
Sam went on the command net, breaking the radio silence to his commanders: “This is Six. Coil the formation, company commanders up.” Walker was still panting as they conferred on the hood of his peep. “The maintenance section, medics, and assault gun platoon apparently took a wrong turn, Colonel.” The well-planned operation had just turned into a soup sandwich—military parlance for a complicated mess. Sam tried to keep calm—nothing was gained by losing control—but his expression was dour. “Well, we’re in a friendly town. We’ll send back a patrol to reestablish contact with them.”
The truth was, they needed to stop anyway. Fuel tanks were getting below half full again. It would not be the last time that logistics—the ball and chain of mechanized warfare—took precedence over military goals. The entire division was running short, as they were now at the tail end of a 125-kilometer main supply route (MSR) that was not keeping up with the tanks. Movement was limited to a single road, and it was unsafe for fuel trucks to move on any of the side roads, which were not secure and likely to contain German patrols. It was getting dark on their second day of nonstop movement and battle. His main concern now was that the missing Service Company could not stand on its own against any significant enemy ambush, especially against tanks or determined infantry.
SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN TASK FORCE Hogan and the division CP, and out of radio contact, the Service Company lead truck driver sat hunched behind the steering wheel, staring worriedly at the town ahead. After jolting himself awake, the driver had gazed wide-eyed at the fearful sight of nothing in front of him but empty road and woods instead of the comforting sight of the rear fenders and taillights of a column of armored vehicles and trucks loaded with infantry. Both he and his assistant driver had soundly fallen asleep and missed the front part of the convoy moving out.
Cursing, the driver stepped on the gas, with three half-tracks, four trucks, ammo carriers, the task force medics, and the M8 assault gun platoon in tow. He knew he had screwed up royally. Looking at his folded-up map, he remembered his platoon leader briefing the turn west at Givry. He glanced down the path and turned the steering wheel left. The column of cooks, mechanics, medics, and the assault guns were back on the right track for the moment. Five kilometers down, another fork in the road. Did the lieutenant brief another turn? The young private second-guessed himself and floored the gas with the steering wheel turned left—turning off the intended route and heading to the enemy-held town of Harmignies.5
Panic set in, and the driver felt a cold sweat on his neck. He was at an unknown town in the dwindling light of that early September day. He couldn’t even remember what day it was, exactly. Dazed and exhausted, his lower back tight and aching, he stepped out of the cab of his 2.5-ton truck. He walked down the row of maintenance trucks, carbine in hand, ignoring the quizzical looks of several junior-enlisted drivers as he passed their cabs. He went straight to the third truck in line to talk to the senior noncommissioned officer, First Sergeant Hoyt D. Rogers.
