Posted by Slipdigit for Old Hickory

We stayed there until the first of August. They pulled us out of the line. We got our first shower since we’d been there [51 days]. We went into one end of a big tent, stripped off, they sprayed us so lice and whatever else might be on us would come off and then we took a shower. We went out the other end and got brand new clothes. Without a doubt, that was the best shower I’ve ever had in my life!

Normandy was a bad time in a lot of ways. They had a good bit of rain and mud. The first piece of bread we got, we were eating K-rations, was about 7 weeks after we got there. They came by and gave everybody a loaf of bread. I ate mine that night. We did not have a kitchen set up for our outfit. We had a little ole gasoline Coleman stove in each vehicle and that’s what we cooked with. We made it through to the first of August. We had a few days rest. [He told me in a phone conversation that his unit had a kitchen attached, but after they left Sough, they did not see the kitchen until the war ended.]

My division of 16,000 men lost over 5000 at that time. We were short, we needed replacements. They removed the 1st Infantry division and put us in the line in a place called Mortain. We were going to hold the line there. The Germans decided they would counterattack with everything they had available. They were going to Avranches to cut us in two. Patton had gone into Brittany and was moving pretty well.

We were attacked. We had the higher ground on one hill [Hill 314]. The 120 Infantry had a battalion on this hill. For 5 ½ days they were surrounded. We kept hearing that we were surrounded. Well, we were on the other side of the hill holding a road block and we didn’t see a German the whole time.

The 120th lost over half their men. There were more than 500 men and more than 300 didn’t walk off of that hill. They did one of the most heroic things. The Germans knew that they could not come up that hill in day time because of our artillery. They were coming at night.

Our guys dug foxholes in the middle of the road. When a tank would come up at night, a man would jump out and try to get a hand grenade down in the tank. They knocked out tanks and piled that road up where the Germans couldn’t come up that hill because it was the only road there. That lasted for 5 ½ days.

During that time, 2 German SS came up and asked us to surrender. This Lt said he would surrender when all his bullets were gone and his bayonets were sticking in one of their bellies. They didn’t like that much, but they went back but they never took the hill.

One 2nd Lt, [Robert Weiss,] who was our artillery director wrote a book, Enemy North, South, East, and West . It’s a pretty good book. [Slipdigit- I’ve read the book too, it is very good.]

Finally the battle of Mortain was over, the Germans were trying to retreat. We moved around for several days. We thought we were going to Paris, but command didn’t have any intension of going there.

We were going through some woods on unpaved, sorry roads and came upon a church. About 5 vehicles of us stopped and we got a call that a German command car was coming up that road. It didn’t hardly come out of their mouth when here it came with 4 men in it. He came by and shot one blast at us. A man standing close to me said, “I’m hit! I’m hit!” He pulled his hand away from his chest and he had a red mark where a bullet had gone across his body. It really didn’t hit him, it just burned him.

As that vehicle went by, everybody shot at it. The vehicle went a little way before it turned over. We counted way over 200 holes in it. Only 1 of the 4 men was hit, nobody else was, and he was hit in the leg. We captured the 4 men.

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30th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
30th Infantry Division