World War 2 In Review No. 2

By Merriam Press

Merriam Press World War 2 In Review Series

2023 eBook Edition

Coverage of a variety of topics on World War II in these 17 articles:

(1) Don’t Forget the Privates: The Infantryman Won the War in Europe

(2) The 3rd U.S. Infantry Division Crosses the Meurthe

(3) Dieppe in Retrospect: It Paid Off on D-Day

(4) A GI’s Wartime Letters

(5) 513th U.S. Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1942-1945

(6) The 3rd U.S. Infantry Division in World War II

(7) Command Decision: The Sacrifice of General George C. Marshall and the Normandy Invasion

(8) Battle of Arnhem

(9) Arnhem: Headlong Into Hell

(10) Battle of the Atlantic

(11) Walther Dahl: Jagdflieger

(12) Stalingrad: An Examination of Hitler’s Decision to Airlift

(13) Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese Navy

(14) The Passing of Harry Hill, British Merchant Seaman

(15) Aerial Combat Tactics

(16) A Brief History of Guided Missiles in World War II

(17) The Night a Japanese Sub Shelled the California Coast

458 B&W and color photos and illustrations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387041596

Book preview

Don’t Forget the Privates: The Infantryman Won the War in Europe

by Albert H. Smith Jr., Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)

Each year on May 8th, much of the world commemorates the anniversary of V-E Day, and heaps praise on those World War II political and military leaders who directed and led the Allied armed forces to victory in Europe.

This is as it should be, I suppose. But on this day I would like the world to remember that infantry privates also won the war in Europe. Of course, the Army Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard contributed mightily to the final victory in Europe. And in his own way every man in uniform helped defeat the German Armed Forces. Infantrymen, though, did more than all the others, and young infantry privates proved to be the cutting edge of the U.S. war machine—the teeth of the shark, the claws of the tiger. In fact, if it were not for their courage, determination, initiative, and sacrifice, we might not have a V-E Day to commemorate.

Ernie Pyle, the beloved war correspondent who died on a small Pacific island in 1945, probably best described these low-ranking, rough, tough warriors when he wrote:

The front-line soldier I knew lived for months like an animal, and was a veteran of the cruel, fierce world of death. Everything was abnormal and unstable in his life. He was filthy dirty, are if and when, slept on hard ground without cover … The front-line soldier has to harden his inside as well as his outside or he would crack under the strain … A front-line soldier has to fight everything all the time.

Major General Ernest N. Harmon, a tough man in his own right who commanded armor divisions in North Africa and northwest Europe, notes this difference between tankers and infantrymen:

It must be a point of honor with every tanker that he never permit an infantry unit to be overrun by enemy tanks … I always insisted to my tankers that in their rolling fortresses they were secure from most of the hazards of battle, and post-war casualty figures for the European Theater of Operations bore me out; infantry divisions suffered seventy per cent of the casualties, armored divisions ten per cent.

I have talked with many soldiers during the past few years and have found them interested in the lessons we learned during World War II. Junior enlisted men in particular seem to enjoy hearing about their counterparts of fifty years ago—what part they played in the fighting and what they accomplished. In fact, after I would tell them that I believed the privates also won the war in Europe, invariably some would approach me and ask if I could prove it.

This challenge eventually triggered on my part a concentrated re-search effort. I was hopeful that this research would prove my contention that low-ranking combat infantrymen won the battles that led to ultimate victory in Europe. I believe it has.

My research plan was simple—I would start by investigating Medal of Honor statistics and then focus on Medal of Honor awards at the division level and Distinguished Service Cross awards at the regiment level.

In analyzing all of the Medal of Honor awards made to Army and Army Air Force personnel during World War II, for example, I learned that seventy-seven of the 292 medals awarded had been received by privates. Put another way, twenty-six per cent of all Army Medal of Honor recipients came from our lowest enlisted grades.

In considering just one infantry division—the 1st—I discovered that during its eight World War II campaigns, sixteen of its soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor. Five of the sixteen (thirty-one per cent) were awarded to privates. Here are summaries of those five citations:

Private Carlton W. Barrett

St. Laurent-sur-Mar, France, 6 June 1944. On the morning of D-Day, Private Barrett, landing in the face of extremely heavy fire, was forced to wade ashore through neck-deep water. Disregarding personal danger, he returned to the surf again and again to assist his floundering comrades and save them from drowning. Refusing to remain pinned down by the intense barrage of small arms and mortar fire poured at the landing points, Private Barrett, working with fierce determination, saved many lives by carrying casualties to an evacuation boat lying offshore. In addition to his assigned mission as guide, he carried dispatches the length of the fire-swept beach; he assisted the wounded; he calmed the shocked; he arose as a leader in the stress of the occasion. His coolness and his daunting, daring courage while constantly risking his life during a period of many hours had an inestimable effect on his comrades.

Private Robert T. Henry

(Posthumous) Near Luchem, Germany, 3 December 1944. He volunteered to attempt the destruction of a nest of five enemy machine guns located in a bunker 150 yards to the flank which had stopped the advance of his platoon. Stripping off his pack, overshoes, helmet, and overcoat, he sprinted alone with his rifle and hand grenades across the open terrain toward the enemy emplacement. Before he had gone half the distance he was hit by a burst of machine gun fire. Dropping his rifle, he continued to stagger forward until he fell mortally wounded only 10 yards from the enemy emplacement. His single-handed attack forced the enemy to leave the machine guns. During this break in hostile fire the platoon moved forward and overran the position. Private Henry, by his gallantry and intrepidity and utter disregard for his own life, enabled his company to reach its objective, capturing this key defense and seventy German prisoners.

Private First Class Francis X. McGraw

(Posthumous) Near Schevenhutte, Germany, 19 November 1944. He manned a heavy machine gun emplaced in a foxhole near Schevenhutte, Germany, on 19 November 1944, when the enemy launched a fierce counterattack. Braving an intense hour-long preparatory barrage, he maintained his stand and poured deadly accurate fire into the advancing foot troops until they faltered and came to a halt. The hostile forces brought up a machine gun in an effort to dislodge him but were frustrated when he lifted his gun to an exposed but advantageous position atop a log, courageously stood up in his foxhole and knocked out the enemy weapon. A rocket blasted his gun from position, but he retrieved it and continued firing. He silenced a second machine gun and then made repeated trips over fire-swept terrain to replenish his ammunition supply. Wounded painfully in this dangerous task, he disregarded his injury and hurried back to his post, where his weapon was showered with mud when another rocket barely missed him. In the midst of the battle, with enemy troops taking advantage of his predicament to press forward, he calmly cleaned his gun, put it back into action and drove off the attackers. He continued to fire until his ammunition was expended, when, with a fierce desire to close with the enemy, he picked up a carbine, killed one enemy soldier, wounded another and engaged in a desperate fire-fight with a third until he was mortally wounded by a burst from a machine pistol. The extraordinary heroism and intrepidity displayed by Private McGraw inspired his comrades to great efforts and was a major factor in repulsing the enemy attack.

Private First Class Gino J. Merli

Sars la Bruyere, Belgium; 4-5 September 1944. He was serving as a machine gunner in the vicinity of Sars la Bruyere, Belgium, on the night of 4-5 September 1944, when his company was attacked by a superior German force. Its position was overrun and he was surrounded when our troops were driven back by overwhelming numbers and firepower. Disregarding the fury of the enemy fire concentrated on him he maintained his position, covering the withdrawal of our riflemen and breaking the force of the enemy pressure. His assistant machine gun-ner was killed and the position captured; the other eight members of the section were forced to surrender. Private Merli slumped down beside the dead assistant gunner and feigned death. No sooner had the enemy group withdrawn than he was up and firing in all directions. Once more his position was taken and the captors found two apparently lifeless bodies. Throughout the night Private Merli stayed at his weapon. By daybreak the enemy had suffered heavy losses, and as our troops launched an assault, asked for a truce. Our negotiating party, who accepted the German surrender, found Private Merli still at his gun. On the battlefield lay fifty-two enemy dead, nineteen of whom were directly in front of the gun. Private Merli’s gallantry and courage, and the losses and confusion that he caused the enemy, contributed materially to our victory.

Private James N. Reese

(Posthumous) Mount Vassillio, Sicily, 5 August 1943. When the enemy launched a counterattack which threatened the position of his company, Private Reese, as the acting squad leader of a 60-mm mortar squad, displaying superior leadership on his own initiative, maneuvered his squad forward to a favorable position, from which, by skillfully directing the fire of his weapon, he caused many casualties in the enemy ranks, and aided materially in repulsing the counterattack. When the enemy fire became so severe as to make his position untenable, he ordered the other members of his squad to withdraw to a safer position, but declined to seek safety for himself. So as to bring more effective fire upon the enemy, Private Reese, without assistance, moved his mortar to a new position and attacked an enemy machine gun nest. He had only three rounds of ammunition but secured a direct hit with his last round, completely destroying the nest and killing the occupants. Ammunition being exhausted, he abandoned the mortar, seized a rifle and continued to advance, moving into an exposed position overlooking the enemy. Despite a heavy concentration of ma-chine gun, mortar, and artillery fire, the heaviest experienced by his unit throughout the entire Sicilian campaign, he remained at this position and continued to inflict casualties upon the enemy until he was killed. His bravery, coupled with his gallant and unswerving determination to close with the enemy, regardless of consequences and obstacles which he faced, is a priceless inspiration to our armed forces.

In the matter of Distinguished Service Crosses, and again considering just one unit—the 16th Infantry Regiment—my research turned up the fact that eighty-seven DSCs (our second highest combat award) had been awarded between November 1942 and May 1945 to forty-two officers and forty-five enlisted men of the regiment. Of that total number, seventeen, or twenty per cent, went to privates. (Twenty-three of those DSCs were awarded to members of the regiment for their extraordinary heroism at Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944. They received their awards from General Dwight D. Eisenhower during a special ceremony on 2 July 1944. Three of those soldiers were privates.)

Other Considerations

Aside from the awards for valor, there is abundant evidence that Army privates can do it all. Take, for example, Private Clarence R. Huebner. A business college graduate, he left a good railroad job to enlist in the Army at twenty-two years of age. The year was 1910. Shortly afterward, he became a top-notch soldier and was his regiment’s best rifle shot. He was commissioned in 1916, and his distinguished service in World War I earned him two DSCs and the command of a regiment in the 1st Infantry Division. During World War II, he commanded the division and, later, the V Corps. He retired as a lieutenant general and was then commanding the U.S. Army in Europe. He received many accolades, but he never forgot to give credit to our infantry privates. Under his leadership, they had fought and won his battles.

Another of my favorite soldiers is Private Ted Dobol. Now a retired command sergeant major, he enlisted just before World War II when a private’s pay was only $21.00 a month. Serving as a squad leader and then as a platoon sergeant in the 26th Infantry Regiment during its eight European campaigns, he earned a reputation for coolness and courage under fire. His battalion commander described him as the bravest of the brave.

Following World War II, Dobol’s outstanding professionalism was recognized when he was selected as the Army’s first command sergeant major. He served as the 1st Division’s CSM until his retirement. But that did not end his service, for he visited the Blue Spaders when they fought in Vietnam and later when they were in Germany. In 1984, the Secretary of the Army honored CSM Dobol by inviting him to Washington for the planting of D-Day commemorative trees. That’s the road to follow: Private to command sergeant major to national hero.

Two privates I particularly appreciated in 1942-43 when I commanded my first company in combat were a Private Plotast and a Private Martin; they were my most important and trusted assistants. Plotast (my runner and enlisted aide) unfailingly delivered my orders and instructions to the platoons. Martin (my jeep driver) was always able to find his way along unfamiliar North African roads and through German minefields, and he always managed to get us where we had to be. Both saw that the old man had something to eat and a place to sleep; they also guarded our company command post.

There is little question that privates distinguished themselves in the fighting on D-Day. One young infantryman, however, a Private First Class Milander, contributed to the division’s success without firing a shot. After his unit, Company L, 16th Infantry, had fought its way off the beaches and secured certain critical high ground on the division’s extreme left flank, Milander led a three-man reconnaissance patrol southwest to the fortified village of Cabourg. The threesome failed to return because (as we later learned) a platoon of enemy defenders had quickly surrounded them. During the night, Milander somehow talked the Germans into surrendering and took them prisoners. Next morning, American troops holding the town of Colleville cheered three weary GIs bringing in fifty-two of Hitler’s finest. Everyone was happy that Cabourg had fallen without a fight and without another casualty.

The above examples could be multiplied many times over. As I said earlier: Army privates are special soldiers.

In his 1943-45 Biennial Report, General George C. Marshall, the Army’s World War II Chief of Staff, provided the following totals on Army decorations for gallantry during the war: 3,178 Distinguished Service Crosses, 52,831 Silver Stars, and 189,309 Bronze Stars. With the infantry receiving 34.5% of all decorations for valor, and with privates earning one of every four such awards, it is evident that our young infantrymen distinguished themselves many times throughout the war.

The evidence clearly shows that American privates during World War II were rough, tough warriors who rose to the occasion. Our infantrymen did what needed to be done to accomplish the mission. Their initiative, drive, and ingenuity were unmatched by their counterparts in other military forces.

The 3rd U.S. Infantry Division Crosses the Meurthe

by E. A. Reitan

Author’s Note: On 15 August 1944 the U.S. Seventh Army landed in southern France, moved quickly westward to take Marseilles, and then swept north up the Rhone Valley, reaching the Vosges Mountains by mid-October. At this point the attack stalled; German resistance stiffened, supply problems became acute, and the rugged terrain proved hard going for battle-weary troops.

I was briefly part of this story. I joined Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, as a replacement rifleman on the Anzio beachhead. I got my baptism of fire during the Anzio breakout, enjoyed our triumphant entry into Rome, stood guard at Mussolini’s headquarters on the Piazza Venezia, participated in six weeks of strenuous training for the landing in southern France, and landed with the first wave at Cavalaire.

Although the landing did not compare in casualties with Salerno or Normandy, the 7th Infantry had fifty-eight men killed, including eleven from Company F. I got mine the next day when I was wounded in the knee and sent back to a hospital in Naples. Thus I missed out on the fabled Champagne Campaign. In October the doctors decided, in view of the great shortage of riflemen, that I was sufficiently recovered to return to combat. I rejoined my unit in mid-November, just as the Seventh Army was preparing for its push toward Strasbourg and the Rhine.

*

The Army’s immediate objective was to break through the Winter Line that the Germans had spent several months preparing in the Vosges Mountains (see Map 1). The 3rd Division’s assignment was to cross the Meurthe River above St. Die and then cut through the mountains to Saales, where it would be on the main road to Strasbourg. To the north, the 100th Division would attack from Raon L’Etape, while to the south the 103rd Division would take St. Die itself.

Nestled in the valley of the Meurthe, St. Die was a tough obstacle similar to St. Lô in Normandy. The most likely strategy was to outflank it, and for this reason the Germans had built extensive fortifications north of the city along the river. The Meurthe is not a large river but it flows rapidly down the valley, and in November it was swollen by autumn rains. The riverbanks were soft and muddy. Just north of St. Die at LaVoivre, however, there were two good sites for the Bailey bridges that would be needed to move the division’s armor and other heavy equipment across the river.

The division decided that the most dangerous part of the coming operation would be the actual crossing of the swift-flowing Meurthe. The German fortifications were weakly manned, and once our infantry got across the river they could be taken by assault. The land west of the river, though, was bowl-shaped: a flat plain surrounded by mountains, over which the Germans had excellent observation, and in the days before the attack, the Germans used this advantage to shell the division’s crossing area. A daylight attack would certainly come under heavy artillery fire, especially at the vulnerable time when the troops were crossing the river. For this reason the division decided to cross the river at night, attacking at dawn after heavy artillery preparation. Company F had had a brief respite from combat, the time being used for training, repairing equipment, and practicing night maneuvers and river crossings. The date for the crossing of the Meurthe was set at 20 November.

LaVoivre and the bridge sites were assigned to the 2nd Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Clayton Thobro, one of the most respected battlefield commanders in the division. LaVoivre was a village of about twenty houses, one and one-half miles north of St. Die, which had been converted by the Germans into a strongpoint. It was situated on rising ground about 1,000 yards from the river. The plain between the river and the town had been mined, and the rising ground in front of the village was blocked by felled trees, barbed wire, and trenches. The hills and woods behind the town provided ideal location for the German artillery units, who were zeroed in on the riverbanks where we were likely to cross.

The houses of LaVoivre had been converted into fortifications, with buildings connected either by breaches in the walls or by underground tunnels. Because the buildings were sited on a slope, their basement walls were open on the side facing the river, from which connections were made with trenches. Isolated houses on each end of town had been reinforced by sand-bagged windows. If LaVoivre had been adequately manned, it would have been a tough nut to crack. Fortunately, division intelligence had learned that LaVoivre was defended only by approximately sixty men. There was no German armor that might counterattack.

When the attack began, the 7th Infantry was bivouacked at Fremifontaine, about fifteen miles from the crossing point. At 2300 hours on a chilly, damp evening, the 2nd Battalion left Fremifontaine by truck but encountered a traffic jam when a battalion of tanks from the 14th Armored Division wandered into 3rd Division territory. The delay was short, but the tanks chewed up most of our telephone wire.

We left the trucks at LaSalle, about a mile from the rivers, going the rest of the distance by foot. We were under strict orders to maintain complete silence, an order we scrupulously obeyed, since no one wanted to draw enemy fire. Our 1st Battalion moved into position on our left about the same time. The 3rd Battalion was in reserve, ready to move through the assault battalions when the initial objectives were achieved.

Earlier in the evening, Company F’s third platoon had gone ahead, crossing the river in wooden boats, and established a perimeter on the east side of the river, and the combat engineers installed two footbridges downstream from the planned Bailey bridge sites. These were standard floating bridges with a three-foot gangway and attached cables for hand guides. One was 84 feet long and the other 96 feet. Fortunately, the Germans were unaware of the bridge building, and their random artillery fire during the night was apparently routine harassing fire.

At 0345 hours, Company F, commanded by First Lieutenant Earl Swanson, led the battalion across the footbridges (see Map 2). (I still remember the blackened faces of the engineers as we crossed the bridge.) We spread out quietly on ground that I recall as hard, damp and cold. There was no thought of digging in, which would have made noise. Company E, under Lieutenant James Powell, followed and took its place to the right of Company F. Lieutenant Leonard Hanney’s Company G remained in reserve back by the river in a line of trees. It was in a column of platoons parallel to the river with orders to make a large loop to the south end of the town. Sections of Company H, the battalion’s heavy weapons company, were attached to the three rifle companies. The 1st Battalion crossed on footbridges to our left, and farther north two battalions of the 30th Infantry also crossed.

Once in place, we lay for two hours in the silent darkness. All was quiet until about 0600 hours when the German artillery routinely shelled the riverbanks and hit several men in Company G; I do not recall that any of the wounded cried out.

An important part of the plan was a massive artillery barrage to precede our infantry attack. The firepower devoted to this rather modest operation was indeed awesome. The official history of the Seventh Army summarizes it this way:

H-Hour was preceded by thirty minutes of the most intense artillery preparation fired for the 3rd Division since the breakout at Anzio. This was followed by thirty minutes of counter-battery and deepening fires on enemy positions. The initial preparation was fired on the enemy’s main line of resistance, from which infantry elements were but 200 yards away… Over 6,500 rounds were fired by 3rd Infantry Division artillery alone, in addition to that fired by corps and group. In support of the VI Corps assault across the Meurthe sixty-four sorties were flown by the XII Tactical Air Corps prior to noon.

Our regimental cannon company also provided indirect fire while direct fire was provided by anti-tank guns, tanks and tank destroyers from hull-down positions, and anti-aircraft guns. The division’s reconnaissance troop manned six .50-caliber machine guns and the 7th Infantry’s battle patrol manned twenty, all of which were mounted along the riverbank to provide overhead direct fire support for the advancing infantry.

At 0617 hours the barrage began. It alerted the Germans, who assumed that the river was being crossed at that time. They placed mortar fire on the riverbanks and plain and we could do nothing but lie there and take it. Seven men in the company were hit. One mortar shell landed about three feet behind my right foot. It seemed like the ground dropped out from under me and I fell back on my stomach with a thud. I can still see that smoking black hole.

Despite the shelling, we held our places and maintained silence. Nobody panicked. Besides, there was no place to go.

The battalion jumped off at 0645 hours (see Map 3). By that time LaVoivre was burning and a cloud of smoke from it rose in the pale November dawn. Our artillery was still flying overhead and the direct fire weapons poured fire on the town. One report attributed the Germans failure to occupy their trenches to the volume of direct fire support. In the meantime, dive bombers attacked the German artillery positions in the rear, thus preventing German counterfire while the advance was in progress. I still have a vivid memory of a dive bomber swooping down on the town and dropping its bomb, which at that distance looked to me about the size of a jelly bean.

Our advance was delayed about half an hour by felled trees, and this gave the Germans time to get out of their cellars and pour machine gun fire on us. Most of it came from a fortified house on the north end of town. We needed another half-hour to reach the wire and the trenches, which fortunately were unmanned. The company then took shelter on the hillside north of town while Lieutenant Swanson directed the 1st Platoon to attack the house; he later estimated it contained ten men with a heavy machine gun and other automatic weapons. The 2nd Platoon (where I was) swung around in back of the town and then began working its way down the street, clearing houses.

In the meantime, on our right, Company E did not encounter the obstacles that slowed our advance, and its soldiers attacked the town in quick rushes, reaching the wire and trenches in about fifteen minutes. The leader of Company E’s 1st Platoon was new to combat, and many of his men were new replacements. The platoon was supposed to link up with Company F, which was still working its way through the felled trees and receiving fire from the fortified house at the north end of town.

Company E did not receive any fire from this house until its 1st Platoon veered southward to the main part of town. Then the Germans in the house opened up on them. The platoon scattered for cover until Lieutenant Powell, the company commander, got it organized and firing back. The platoon stopped firing when they saw our 1st Platoon