Posted by Slipdigit for Old Hickory

This picks up on June 10, after made landfall across Omaha Beach.

We went up [toward the front]. There weren’t any small fire arms going on, but there was artillery and mortar coming in real heavy as we were going off the beach. I rode the halftrack, winding around that steep hill. When we got on top, we had to stop because of the traffic in front of us. My vehicle caught [a]fire because of the way we’d water proofed it. I used my fire extinguisher and another man from another vehicle threw me one and I used it and there was still a little bit of fire. Where we [had] stopped, I looked over in a ditch and there was some water and mud. I thought I‘d jump down there and get some water and mud and put it out. I jumped down there and I looked to my right and about 2 ft from me was a sign with a skull and crossed bones on it. It was a land mine sign. I don’t believe I touched the ground until I got back on that vehicle. I said, “Let it burn.”

We spent that first night, all night, without light, cleaning the waterproofing off that we’d put on. Every evening for the first 27 out of 30 days, the airplane came, that we called “Bedcheck Charlie.” Of course he came that night, too.

We were in the hedgerows of Normandy. We spent the first few days getting everything cleaned up to go. Then on a Sunday afternoon, several days after we’d gotten there, the Germans counterattacked at St-Jean-de-Daye. That was our first action. They tried to cut the beachhead in two, but they didn’t get through.

After that, we started attacking. We’d stay behind the hedgerows and the Germans were behind the next hedgerow. A lot of times the land that was fenced in was not over half an acre, sometimes not that much. You could hear the Germans talking and I’m sure they heard us at times too.

If you tried to get in there with a tank, they had the only hole into it zeroed in with a tank gun that would knock it out. This fighting back and forth went on, back and forth. We weren’t taking any ground at all. Some Sgt welded a piece of boiler metal on the front of a tank. He made it 15-18’ long and cut some teeth in it. And the guy in the tank went up this hedge row and wiggled around and got that tank through the hedge row and then the tank carried bushed and trees with it. They started doing that with the tanks and they could get through. The infantry followed the tank and we advanced a little bit more that way.

Finally, they put bulldozers on the front of the tanks, so they could knock a hole in the hedge rows to get through there. This was cattle country where we were. Dead cows, dead horses were everywhere, from artillery fire. This went on until the 23rd of July.

Gen Bradley came up with a plan to bomb ourselves out of Normandy. For three hours [on 24 July], bombs fell. Then the wind changed and part of [men from] my division were killed by American bombs that afternoon. After three hours of bombing, they had to fill the holes up with the bulldozers so they could drive through.

The infantry finally knocked a hole in the German lines [on July 25]. Gen Patton had landed over there with a brand new army. His army went through these lines that they had torn out. That was the start of the advancement in Normandy.

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30th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
30th Infantry Division