Big Blue Huddle

https://www.ww2online.org/view/john-jack-moran#early-life-to-tiger-tanks

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 26, 2024, 01:09:06 PMhttps://www.ww2online.org/view/john-jack-moran#early-life-to-tiger-tanks

Just saw this. Thanks for sharing

From my notes on my Uncle Bob, also infantry and landed at Normandy, so Jack Moran's story is probably very similar to my uncle's stories.

First, a pep talk to the soldiers from Gen. Patton (in England before embarking to Omaha Beach)

"The more violence you use in an attack, whether it be men, tanks, or ammunition, the smaller will be your proportionate losses".

"Use roads to march on, fields to fight on. The effect of mines is largely mental. Not more than 10 percent of our casualties come from mines. When encountered they must be passed through or around. There are not enough mines in the world to cover the whole country. It is cheaper to detour than to search."

"In battle, small forces - platoons, companies, and even battalions - can do one of three things: Go forward, halt, or run. If they halt or run, they are an even easier target. Therefore, you MUST go forward"

"Always shoot! Ricochets make nastier sounds and wounds. To halt under fire is folly. To halt under fire and retreat is suicide. Move forward out of fire. Officers set the example"



"I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.'  We are not holding a goddamned thing.  Let the Germans do that.  We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls.  We are going to twist his balls and kick the living s--t out of him all of the time.  Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy.  We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like s--t through a tin horn!"

"We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours"

After landing at Omaha Beach, the first town to liberate was St. Lô, France

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Aerial view of St Lô and its miles and miles of hedgerows. Planted centuries before throughout Normandy, they were used for separating farmers' fields as well as for defense. The Germans had seized them and fortified them, digging troughs alongside them for troop and equipment movement.

A few excerpts from my Uncle Bob's write-up "Although considerable attention has been given to the struggle in Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) by many, if not most historians, it would be a travesty to leave out the traumatic battles that took place in France, starting with St. Lô, called by many the "Battle of the Hedgerows" all the way to violent battles liberating the city of Nancy and Lutrebois.

The 134th was put under the command of General Omar Bradley with the First Army, so there would be extra firepower in the taking of St. Lô - a 10-day brutal battle with considerable loss of life. If there is such thing as "baptism by fire", this is the perfect example. Any soldier who survived St. Lô got the full taste of what was before them. There was no "easing into" combat, it was full throttle, do or die from the beginning of their first battle. After St. Lô, the 134th (or what was left of it) was transferred to the Third Army under the command of Gen. Patton for the duration of the campaign


"Hour after hour, day after day – and now week after week – the grim, tired soldiers fight bloody close-in battles for 100 yards of shell-packed meadow. Each hedgerow conquered is a minor campaign won, each pasture and orchard a bitter epic of valor and death.

Someone once said that wars are won by the souls of men. Some day, when the full story of this phase of the French campaign can be written, some day when the Norman names of St. Lo and Pont Herbert and the forest of Mont Castre are inscribed in gold on the battle streamers and the plaques, due tribute can be paid to the men who struggled and died in the hedgerows and orchards and woods of western France".

                                                                    - Hanson W. Baldwin in The New York Times


Picture taken July 1944 [property of the US Army] showing some American soldiers fighting in the hedgerows of St Lô.

The St. Lô hedgerows were not built by the Germans, but by the French, and had been maintained for centuries as a way to defend the town. They were once a part of the grand designs of French rulers Charlemagne and Napoleon. However, the Germans had modified them to be able to handle transporting mortars and other heavy equipment. Some of the trenches had tracks laid for fast and efficient moving of heavy guns.


Germans had used lanes in the hedgerows where they could move easily to different positions in order to attack or retreat. There were mines strategically placed to protect them. This turned out to be a very difficult obstacle for the 134th to overcome. A great number of soldiers lost their lives looking for the enemy entrenched in these hedgerows.

St. Lô was the first strategic city near the beaches of Normandy and the Germans had turned the town into a highly fortified position to stop Allied forces from advancing through France.

From the end of the St. Lô battle until July 27th, the 35th Division was occupied in cleaning out remaining small groups of resistance and solidifying the area around St. Lô into secure territory.
Refugees were beginning to struggle back into the ruined city in August 1944, and, under the supervision of the Civil Affairs Section commanded by Major Edward I. Condren, and the French Forces of the Interior, the former residents were slowly rehabilitated.


[Picture from Life Magazine]
American soldiers guard German prisoners, forcing them to lie in a roadside ditch near the town of St. Lô during the Allied advance through Normandy.
 
Bob's company in the 134th received "Battle Honors" for their participation in St. Lô and for "extraordinary heroism and outstanding performance of duty".




St. Lô after the Germans had been cleared

St. Lô was the first of many battles that took place as the company moved from town to town. The city of Nancy, France, was particularly brutal. They were also one of the first companies to reach Bastogne, Belgium and liberate what was left of Easy Company

My Uncle Bob


Staff Sergeant Robert N. XXXXXXXXX 1924 - 2006


Uncle Bob is in the first row, second from the left wearing his "tough guy" face, the expression we all knew well throughout the years

Uncle Bob lost all his medals years ago in a house fire. However, the local veterans got notice to authorities and shortly before he died, his medals were restored to him and documented in the local paper


He is buried in the Dallas-Fort Worth Veteran Cemetery - one white stone lined up with thousands of other white stones. He was buried with the bullet he was shot with in Germany, still in his leg