NORMANDY

We were alerted on June 5 that we would be crossing the channel on the sixth. We spent the day cleaning our guns and equipment and writing letters. On the sixth very early in the morning, hundreds of planes were in the air headed across the channel toward Normandy. We loaded on British ships and were fed a breakfast of liver that had a green, slimy gravy on it. Needless to say, a lot of us had nothing but coffee. – Sergeant Charles Willsher

It wouldn't be until the night of June 9th that Lawrence and his battalion boarded the S.S Empire Battleaxe and sailed in the darkness towards the beaches of France. They arrived at dawn on the 10th, but the logistics of unloading an entire division took days to complete. The 60th spent that Saturday anxious waiting on the boat surrounded by the explosions of ship guns blasting away at the German strongholds miles inland. On June 11th at 0830, he climbed down the net ladder into a Higgins landing boat and soon was making his way up Utah Beach. The 39th Infantry Regiment was detached and joined the 4th Infantry Division to help clear the strong fortifications north of the beach and attack the town of Quinéville. The 60th and 47th Regiments moved west as planned to assemble in the small towns south and then west of Ste. Mère Église. The problem was the 90th Infantry Division had been unable to push the Germans back to those planned staging areas. It was then decided by General Collins to use the 9th immediately and have them fight through the 90th Division’s lines and reach the objective. The overall goal for the 9th was to slice quickly west through the Cotentin Peninsula to take the town of Barneville on the western coast. Meanwhile the 90th Division would protect their northern flank and the 82nd Airborne would protect their southern flank. This would effectively cut-off all the German forces north of that flank and allow the Allies to squeeze them into Cherbourg and capture its deep harbor docks. With the use of Cherbourg as a major shipping port, the Allies could get equipment and reinforcements from England to the front lines much faster than through the beaches.

F COMPANY LOSES ITS CAPTAIN

The 9th’s first challenge to cut off the peninsula was securing all the bridges over the Douve river that snaked north and south between Utah Beach and Barneville. The 60th went into battle the morning of June 14th, leading the long columns of the 9th Infantry until they could breakout past the regiments of the 90th. The goal was to secure all the small towns on the way to the Douve river, then capture all the bridges intact before the Germans retreated and blew them up. Speed was the key, and the stubborn Germans had become experts in slowing down advancing units in the hedgerows. By noon, with the 3rd battalion leading the way through the maze of orchards and farms, they encountered stiffer resistance approaching Renouf. It was necessary to saturate the town with artillery fire before the infantry could advance. The Germans moved out and the 3rd Battalion entered the town that evening. Lawrence’s 2nd Battalion was then brought up to leap-frog the 3rd on its right flank and together they moved to the main road by dark and dug in for the night.

It had been the first action the men of the 9th Infantry had seen in ten months when their trek across the mountains in Sicily came to an end. In Normandy, they quickly realized all their talent as a mountainous strike force was nullified by the claustrophobic checkerboard of the Normandy hedgerows. It was a problem for the entire invasion force. Allied leaders had not anticipated how the terrain would stall movement and underestimated the German’s cunning strategy of turning each of the thousands of squared-off orchards into perfect killing zones. The hedgerows had been in place since the days of the Romans 700 years earlier. Each and every plot of land, usually rectangles of a hundred or two hundred meters long, was completely enclosed by thick mounds of earth, on top of which would sit hedges five-feet-high on average. Trees, thick brush, knotted roots, vines, barbed wire, and briar all tangled itself into the earthen walls. They acted as natural fences for corralling livestock, prevented flooding from the rivers and marked the boundaries between land owners. The Allies were anticipating the hedgerows they had seen in England, much shorter and less dense. General Collins told General Bradley the bocage was as a bad as anything he had seen in the jungles of Guadalcanal.

The Germans had dug in line-after-line of hidden machine guns. Snipers hid up in the trees and camouflaged tanks became invisible to air power. The German’s had also learned many tricks from fighting the Soviets on the eastern front, they booby-trapped bomb craters and abandoned foxholes with mines to explode when a GI jumped into one for cover. They strung tight wires across the roads at neck height to decapitate anyone sitting in a jeep. Their most effective trick was to shoot at a platoon in the open field as if a sniper was in the trees, causing the men to lay flat on the ground, then pummel them with artillery fire or machine guns. It was quickly trained into every man that best way to stay alive was to move forward and charge the far hedgerow, shooting as you advanced without seeing a target. If you laid down or retreated, you were more likely to die. Rifle squads soon adapted new techniques of moving in small groups up the flanking hedgerows while cover fire came from behind. Tanks were fitted with bulldozer claws to cut directly through the thick walls, with infantry emerging from the gap to attack. Battles were now small, tight skirmishes in thousands of connected football fields.

The war in Normandy would become weeks and weeks of deadly hide-and-seek. In fact, U.S casualties in June and July of 1944 were unexpectedly high, with 7,200 killed and 30,000 wounded. In those two months, the Americans would only travel 50 kilometers, meaning one U.S soldier died for every meter they gained. Each rifle company on average suffered casualties of 60 percent of enlisted men and 68 percent of officers. A U.S Army study of the hedgerow fighting concluded that “The real heroes of this fighting were the soldiers, the platoon leaders, and the company commanders. They met the enemy, they made the decisions which won and lost the host of little battles.”

On the morning of June 15th, F Company took off from its line just north of La Bonneville at 0500 hours. The intel reports said that the Germans were bringing up two full regiments directly in the path of the 9th Infantry. The 90th Infantry Division turned northward towards Orglandes and found itself overwhelmed. They reported that 16 tanks were heading south from Orglandes right at F Company’s position. They initially encountered two of these German tanks as well as heavy machine gun fire from German infantry. F Company’s bazooka gunner attempted to stand up and fire at the tanks, but German guns cut him down with a gut-shot. Captain Matt Urban raced to the wounded man, took his bazooka, and had the ammo-bearer follow him through the hedgerows. Urban was able to zero in on the first tank, fire, and blow the tank up into flames. The two men quickly reloaded and hit the second tank. The men of F Company then sprung from their cover and ran up the incline towards the German positions. But the ground started to rumble again, and a third tank emerged from the trees. Urban had reloaded once again, but the tank was able to fire off a round near his position. He jumped for cover and scrambled to the hedgerow when a second blast from the tank exploded next to him. He was seriously concussed and shrapnel shredded the back of his leg, taking out a chunk of his calf muscle. Despite their captain unable to fight, F Company had the advantage and pushed the enemy back with anti-tank guns.

A medic reached Captain Urban and tied a tourniquet around his leg. He refused to be evacuated to the rear, insisting he continue with his men to the next objective. The 1st Battalion on their right flank had been counterattacked by a German battalion with four tanks. Two company commanders had been lost for them as well. 2nd Battalion needed to counter and regain the position lost. F Company decided to carry their wounded captain on a litter and they pushed field-by-field through the German lines. Finally Major Norm Weinberg came up to the front lines to order his friend Captain Urban back to a field hospital. From there he would be shipped back to a hospital in England and remain until the end of July.

3rd Battalion continued its advanced at 0500 the next day with 2nd Battalion leap frogging them at 1100. It was June 16th and the early morning saw a fierce attack by a tank battalion attached to the 82nd Airborne at St. Sauveur-le Vicomte, pushing the Germans to the western side of Douve River. That advance opened up the field for the 9th to make their own sprint to the river. General Eddy told 2nd Battalion commander Major Kauffman to pushed hard past Reignville to the bridges at Ste. Colombe. Their pace was impressive, General Collins called their rush on Ste. Columbe, “one of the most brilliant actions … in the entire war.” They advanced so quickly that morning, even with encountering sporadic machine gun fire, that the rest of the 9th Division thought they hadn't advanced at all or were lost, since no one on their flanks could locate them. But actually, the battalion had moved so far ahead of anyone else, they were all alone at the river. In the process they had killed numerous Germans and taken another 18 prisoner.

At around 1600 hours, E Company crossed the first bridge over the Ste. Colombe River and the second bridge over the Douve River. F Company followed behind, riding on the tanks of B Company of the 746th Tank Battalion. As they moved to the third bridge over the Boille River, they saw it had been blown. E Company continued moving towards Nehou and elements of F Company followed while the tanks retreated back to Ste. Colombe. It was then, on the main road that artillery started bombarding E and F Company in the open. The fire was coming from their left rear where significant high ground lay a few miles away. The 2nd Battalion had moved so far beyond the front lines, they were being attacked from behind. The artillery was ferocious, one shell killed four sergeants in a platoon. The two companies began to scramble for cover in the open fields. Some ran up to the far western hedgerow towards Néhou, where more artillery and small arms fire began to erupt from the town. The bell tower of the church in Néhou gave perfect sight of the Americans. The commanders attempted to regroup a fighting force, but too many men were calling for medics and starting moving back towards Ste. Columbe. Others dug in along the Douve River. For three hours, the two sides fired at each other. American tanks and mortars from Ste. Colombe attacked the high-ground artillery to the south and volleyed shells into Néhou. The rifleman stuck in no-man’s land attempted to dig in and return their own fire, but ammunition was critically low by evening. Major Kauffman took off towards the east, back to the regimental headquarters and returned with a 2 1/2 ton truck full of ammunition. It was a welcomed sight for the weary men in the forward units. Under the extreme duress, they held their positions as the sun was setting around 11 p.m. (British double-summertime set time two hours ahead, meaning dusk wasn't until late evening). It was at that time 3rd Battalion of the 60th reached them and the two established a firm bridgehead. Soon thereafter 1st Battalion arrived after moving through their own firefights during the day. The courageous defense under the lengthy assault of artillery, mortars, machine-guns, and small arms fire earned the 2nd Battalion its second Presidential Unit Citation.

PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATION

The 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry, is cited for extraordinary gallantry in action on 16 June 44, in the vicinity of Ste. Colombe, France. Early on 16 June, the 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry, on the left flank of the 9th Infantry Division in the attack, stormed the German defenses, overran their objective in the face of heavy German mortar and machine-gun fire, and proceeded to cut the main highway to the northwest. During this drive the enemy fought desperately to prevent a break-through, but the battalion advanced well out in front of the remainder of the division, thereby losing contact with the units on its right and left. Instead of withdrawing to a safer position, the battalion commander, realizing the urgency of securing a bridgehead west of the Douve River as quickly as possible, continued the advance of his battalion beyond its assigned objective. Gaining a foothold on the western bank of the Douve River by attacking across an exposed causeway and the adjacent marshlands west of Ste. Colombe, the battalion continued to hold this precarious position for 7 hours until reinforced by the fire of tanks from the high ground on the west bank of the river, as the enemy made many fierce but futile attempts to force them back. The daring action of the 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry, in advancing far beyond its objective and crossing the Douve River in the face of the stiffest enemy resistance was a major factor in the success of the VII Corps in the rapid cutting of the Cherbourg Peninsula and the speedy capture of Cherbourg, and exemplifies the aggressive spirit of every man in this unit.

The following morning the 60th occupied Néhou, finding the Germans had abandoned it. The front lines of the 9th and the 82nd now worked in unison and easily pushed on to the high ground surrounding Barneville with fighter-plane cover assisting them in the early hours. The 1st Battalion took hill 133 while the 2nd took hill 145. By nightfall, General Eddy passed the 60th on the road yelling, “We’re going all the way tonight!” The Contentin Peninsula had been effectively sealed off hours later. By dawn, tanks arrived to the deserted coastal town. The next days saw many disorganized German units trying to push through the American lines and avoid being trapped, but their efforts failed due to the strong northern flank set up throughout the main advance. News of the the victory spread quickly in the papers, championing the decisive assault as one of the greatest victories of the war.

Omar Bradley has done it again. Slipping stronger units past the lines of their tiring comrades, he once more smashed unexpectedly through the Germans to cut off Cherbourg, just as he broke through to doom Bizerte, a little over a year ago. And he used the same outfit – the battle-tested Ninth Division – to strike the decisive blow… The blow that broke the Nazi’s back below Cherbourg was clever one and aroused real enthusiasm. – Capt. Lowell Limpus, New York NEWS

The hedgerow-to-hedgerow fighting of the 9th Division across the Cherbourg Peninsula from sea to sea must rate as one of the most brilliant military successes of United States history. For four days I accompanied these veterans, who, not only had turned the tide in Tunisia with the capture of Bizerte, but also helped wind up the Sicilian campaign with the seizure of Randazzo. They were brought to France to chop the tip off the strategic peninsula and isolate the Germans in Cherbourg… The renowned heroes of Port Lyautey and Bizerte, pushed along the flank to Barneville, encountered severe resistance at the little town of St. Jacques de Nehou. They bore the brunt of an enemy counter-attack which was dispersed by the artillery ‘serenade’… Accomplishments to date have put the 9th Division in the forefront of United States forces in the European and African theaters. – Thomas R. Henry, Washington D.C STAR

ON TO CHERBOURG

The news of the peninsula being sealed off elated the entire Allied war machine and the press, however the 9th still had to clear out hedgerow after hedgerow of fanatical German fighters, with each field and orchard presenting another chance to be killed. The men hadn't had an opportunity to shower or eat a hot meal or even change their uniforms, now tattered and soaked in sweat and blood. They moved up the peninsula on the left flank. The 4th and 79th Divisions moved up abreast of them encountering the stiffest resistance due to the Germans retreating to better fortifications in the Fortress Cherbourg area. The 60th Regiment made excellent progress, but found themselves in a difficult section of wide-open rolling hills dotted with pockets of German resistance holding the high ground. The Americans employed their dominance of the skies above Normandy at this point, but that presented a serious problem of its own. Marking the targets for dive bombers and fighter planes relied on colored smoke. On June 22nd, during a massive bombardment, the smoke drifted in the strong coastal winds towards the lines of the 60th and 47th Infantry. The bomber dropped payloads on their own men and planes strafed them with machine gun fire. It was a common occurrence to see men die from accidents and friendly-fire, and for the 9th Infantry Division, it would foreshadow a much larger event to come nearly one month later to the day. Regardless of the American casualties by friendly fire, the air bombardments prior to infantry assaults proved to be a devastating one-two punch for the Germans. Although some hills proved to be more challenging than anticipated.

In particular, the hill west of the town of Flottemanville-Hague, four miles to the southwest of Cherbourg, featured a German defense of pillboxes, anti-tank guns, machine guns, artillery, and mortars. It was here that the 60th would see its second posthumous Medal of Honor awarded. He was a platoon leader in E Company named John E. Butts. He was wounded once in the June 14th fighting near Orglandes and once again while holding the bridgehead at the Douve River. His leadership during the fight at the river was instrumental in keeping the battalion intact and functioning. It had been a week later and still he had continued to lead his platoon up to Cherbourg while recovering from his wounds, refusing all aid. It was at the base of a rolling hilltop that his platoon struggled to advance and he was hit with multiple bullets in the stomach by a machine-gun. He continued to lead, sending his squad on a flanking maneuver. While he held his stomach together with one hand, dying, he stumbled up the hill directly in front of German defenses to distract them from seeing his men flanking the position. The Germans cut him down, but the ploy worked and his squad ambushed the pillboxes to take the hilltop.

2nd Lieutenant John E. Butts

MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor (Posthumously) to Lieutenant John E. Butts, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty while serving with 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. Lieutenant Butts heroically led his platoon against an enemy in Normandy, France, on 14, 16, and 23 June 1944. Although painfully wounded on the 14th near Orglandes and again on the 16th while spearheading an attack to establish a bridgehead across the Douve River, he refused medical aid and remained with his platoon. A week later, near Flottemanville Hague, he led an assault on a tactically important and stubbornly defended hill studded with tanks, antitank guns, pillboxes, and machine-gun emplacements and protected by concentrated artillery and mortar fire. As the attack was launched, 2d Lt. Butts, at the head of his platoon, was critically wounded by German machine-gun fire. Although weakened by his injuries, he rallied his men and directed one squad to make a flanking movement while he alone made a frontal assault to draw the hostile fire upon himself. Once more he was struck, but by grim determination and sheer courage continued to crawl ahead. When within 10 yards of his objective, he was killed by direct fire. By his superb courage, unflinching valor, and inspiring actions, 2d Lt. Butts enabled his platoon to take a formidable strongpoint and contributed greatly to the success of his battalion's mission.

With the whole of three divisions tightening in on Cherbourg, warnings were sent to Major General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben to surrender his forces on June 22nd. He offered no reply. By the 24th, the 60th was held back to defend the northwest flank of the invading battalions and gun down any enemy convoys that might slip through the front lines. On the 25th, the 47th Regiment of the 9th entered the city in the west, earning its 2nd and 3rd Battalions a Presidential Unit Citation of their own for fighting off a savage resistance by the German arsenal garrison. They captured 2,600 prisoners, 25 anti-aircraft guns, hundreds of small arms, and liberated the Navel Hospital of Cherbourg – freeing over 150 wounded Americans. By the end of the day, the 47th suffered 113 casualties. The following day, small fighting continued in the city with zealous snipers and rooftop machine gunners. But the Americans had them cornered and soon hundreds more Germans came out waving white flags, including von Schlieben and Admiral Walter Hennecke, who had succeeded in destroying the Cherbourg Harbor, delaying the full use of it to the Americans by weeks.

CLEARING THE HAGUE PENINSULA

After clearing out the enemy from Cherbourg, the 79th and the 4th Infantry Divisions turned south to join the front lines pushing their way in bitter fighting towards St. Lo. In the wake of the invasion, German reinforcements and counter-attacks were fully committed to keeping the Allies in Northern France. The 9th was left all alone to clear out all resistance on the Hague Peninsula west of Cherbourg. With leap-frogging infantry advances, artillery and air support – the objectives would be relatively easy, but nonetheless a fanatical enemy with nothing to lose was waiting for them. The last three days in June saw the beginnings of terrible weather that would continue for next month at least. The invasion beaches had been thrashed by storms, hurting the supply routes and reinforcements. The enemy strength was estimated around 3,000 – the remains of the 709th and the 243rd Divisions. However the 9th soon realized those numbers were only about half the actual resistance. The main objectives in the German line, which was to be assaulted on 30 June, were Beaumont-Hague, Greville, and Gruchy. Civilians reported that Greville was the strongest point in the peninsula. The entire ridge from Greville north was heavily fortified with concrete shelters built into the slopes, as well as turreted machine guns, mortars, and antitank guns. The forward approaches were defended by firing trenches and antitank ditches. Entrenchments of the secondary line were located several hundred yards back. The area was no longer the confined maze of hedgerows like the bocage region. This terrain, particularly the commanding ground to the west, was barren and desolate, with almost unobstructed fields of fire.

On the morning of the 30th, Lawrence and F Company approached north towards Greville, Germans were encountered in the trenches and a close-in, grenade-throwing fight developed. The town, supposedly the strongest point in the German line, was entered by 0900. The enemy had been overwhelmed by superior American fire power. The capture of Greville occurred so much more rapidly that expected that planned artillery concentrations had to be canceled.

The 3d Battalion attacked toward Gruchy but was stopped short of the village by heavy mortar fire. The 2nd Battalion was asked for assistance and it adjusted mortar and artillery on the Gruchy position. Meanwhile, the 2nd Battalion continued to advance to a road junction west of Greville, where it was ordered to hold until the 3rd could draw abreast. It continued to get 20-mm and mortar fire from positions to the northeast and southwest and the 1st Battalion was committed on the left to relieve some of the pressure. Advancing slowly in the face of mortar fire, the 3rd Battalion reached Gruchy by noon but was still under fire from the main German positions on the ridge to the west and south. In the early afternoon a 2nd Battalion concentration of artillery fire began to flush prisoners from the ridge, and both Gruchy and the main German positions were cleared by 1700, the 3rd Battalion moving on to a hill 900 yards west of Gruchy. By this time the 1st and 2nd Battalions, moving against diminishing resistance, were almost at Digulleville, three miles farther west.

The German line in the 60th Infantry's zone was also completely broken during the day through action of the 2nd Battalion. The 1st Battalion continued to be held in the vicinity of Road Junction 167 and did not reach its line of departure. The 3rd Battalion was halted after an advance of about 300 yards, but the 2nd Battalion had moved up during the night to a position north of the highway junction, and it was ready for the advance. Its attack was to be led by Company E, which was to move south of the road, while the rest of the battalion was to advance directly up the road. The men had had only two hours' sleep and Company E had no officers except Captain Sprindus, commanding, and Lt. John I. Cookson, the executive officer. The attack was delayed as it became necessary to fill in an antitank ditch, and the 2d Battalion did not jump off until an hour after the other battalion.

Company E crossed the road despite machine gun fire and slipped through a mine field south of the highway. They advanced up the hill in a dramatic charge with squads in skirmisher formations, firing as they went. It had no supporting fire except for a short volley of 60-mm mortars and the smoke laid down at 0800, the time originally set for the attack, had long since faded. Captain Sprindus was up-front in the middle of the mine field, removing each one he saw to clear a narrow path for the men as they surged forward in their bold assault.

As the 1st and 2nd Platoon moved across the first hill, 3rd Platoon went into a draw to the south, swung west, and then advanced north on the town of Beaumont-Hague along the river bed east of the Vauville road. Company F, meanwhile, was driving up the right side of the main highway, with tanks of Company C, 746th Tank Battalion, moving ahead several times to fire into hedges and at other targets. The tanks apparently demoralized the Germans and Major Kauffman ordered Company F to get on the road with the tanks and proceed directly into the town and aid Company E. Before noon the town was cleared and 150 Germans were taken prisoner. Continuing the push, Company F started out for Jobourg.

The enemy's organized defensive line in the peninsula had been thoroughly shattered by the attacks on the Beaumont-Hague and Greville positions. Although other fortified points lay farther west, the enemy never again offered anything more than delaying opposition, and the drive up the peninsula became, for the most part, a mop-up operation. The 9th Infantry’s objective of taking the Cotentin Peninsula was finally over. It had been an arduous month for the men. From D-Day to July 1st, the 9th had captured 18,490 prisoners. Their own losses had been significant: 390 killed and 1,851 wounded. An editorial in the Boston GLOBE would say:

“If any unit has earned the right to be called Hitler’s nemesis, it is the U.S. Ninth Division. Here is a group that really thrives on tough opposition. It cracked the enemy at Bizerte in that memorable North African campaign and now has led the amazing surge across Cherbourg peninsula, which has overshadowed every other invasion accomplishment.”

Ernie Pyle was embedded with the 9th all through their advance in the month of June, in his book Brave Men, he details his observations of the men once they had taken Cherbourg:

The soldiers around us had a two weeks’ growth of beard. Their uniforms were worn slick and very dirty—the uncomfortable gas-impregnated clothes they had come ashore in. The boys were tired. They had been fighting and moving constantly forward on foot for nearly three weeks without rest—sleeping out on the ground, wet most of the time, always tense, eating cold rations, seeing their friends die. One of them came up to me and said, almost belligerently, “Why don’t you tell the folks back home what this is like? All they hear about is victories and a lot of glory stuff. They don’t know that for every hundred yards we advance somebody gets killed. Why don’t you tell them how tough this life is?” I told him that was what I tried to do all the time. This fellow was pretty fed up with it all. He said he didn’t see why his outfit wasn’t sent home; they had done all the fighting. That wasn’t true at all, for there were other divisions that had fought more and taken heavier casualties. Exhaustion will make a man feel like that. A few days’ rest usually has him smiling again.

The division moved south to Les Pieux on the western coast, just north of their June 17th objective at Barneville. There they could finally change clothes, shower, shave, and write home. Movies were shown and for one day a stage was setup for a performance of French song and dance girls and comedians. For at least one week they could rest in relative safety and celebrate the Fourth of July.