While Cowgill's men got ready to attack the German tanks on the
west, a series of incidents occurred to suggest that enemy armor might be
forming on the north for a counterattack on Singling. Tanks to the north were
observed moving east; prepared artillery concentrations were laid on the
town; the enemy on the west renewed his interest in our tanks in that sector
(2d Platoon); and, finally, tanks came into the east side of town.
The enemy tanks (three to five) moving on the north, apparently along a road, were spotted and reported by Sergeant Grimm; but, as the range was extreme, he did not fire. Furthermore, Grimm's gun was trained through the gap in the wall to the northwest against the SP threat. Sergeant Hayward had adjusted on the north ridge and Grimm left that zone of fire to him.
Lieutenant Cook moved his tank into the courtyard of the cluster of buildings (No. 8-No. 10) where he could observe north. Suddenly, just west of town, a white signal flare shot upward. Almost immediately a short, intense artillery concentration rocked the town. Mixed with shells of light or medium caliber were some rockets and some mortar. The tankers' later estimate was that the fire was about equivalent to a battalion concentration of five-minute duration, that at times as many as 20 shells hit in the same instant.
In the 2d Tank Platoon sector, the shelling followed by only a few minutes an incident to which the tankers paid little attention at the time. A dismounted German suddenly appeared on the rise in front of them and walked across the orchard less than 50 yards away. Before the tanks c6uld adjust fire on him, he had gone. The intense shelling, which started almost immediately, forced the tanks to back a few yards to a cabbage patch beside the orchard trail.
When the artillery fire broke off, they stayed where they were, and there by a curious freak Sergeant Hauptman a few minutes later lost his tank. A German AP shell hit the crest of the rise 100 yards in front of him, ricocheted off the ground, and plowed into the right side of Hauptman's turret. His loader, Pfc. William J. McVicker, was killed. If the German tanks west of town aimed that shell to carom into the tanks parked where they had been observed by the lone infantryman, the accuracy of this shot was most remarkable. The reaction of the tankers at the time, however, was that they were still not defiladed from the enemy northwest. Lieutenant Cook, to whom Hauptman reported his loss in the temporary absence of Captain Leach, ordered Sowers and Parks (the remaining tanks of the 2d Platoon) to get their tanks into shelter. Both drove up behind the 3d Platoon in the lee of No. 11.
They were moving when Grimm casually turned his field glasses to a pillbox on the ridge 1,200 yards north where he had seen a few enemy infantry minutes previously. He got his glasses on the spot just in time to see the long gun tube of the German tank's 75 flame and fire directly at him. The round hit nearby, and Grimm had a split second to decide whether to shoot back or run for it. He figured that his 105 without power traverse could not be laid in less than 20 seconds. That was too long. He threw his tank in gear and backed out of the garden. He had just started when a second round hit Hayward's tank on the sprocket, crippling it. In the next few seconds Hayward was hit four times and the tank began to burn. Gunner Cpl. Angelo Ginoli and the bowgunner Pvt. John H. Furlow were killed; Hayward and his loader, Pfc. Vern L. Thomas, were wounded. Grimm made good his escape through the opening between No. 9 and No. 11. Outside, the tank bogged down in the heavy mud, and the crew evacuated while Grimm got Sowers to pull him out.
Fitzgerald's firing position, looking north from road between Houses 37 and
38. The Mark V tank destroyed by Fitzgerald is in almost the exact center of the fields
beyond the road.
The 2d and 3d Platoons, Sergeant Sandrock of the 1st Platoon, the command and the artillery observer's tanks were now all bunched and immobilized in the area southwest of the square which, covered on three sides by buildings, was the only relatively safe place in town for tanks. It was becoming increasingly apparent to both infantry and tanks that, with the small forces at their disposal and against an enemy who had at least equl strength and every terrain advantage, they could not hope to secure their position in town by attack.
They had, instead, to make such dispositions as would complement the enemy's stalemate and wait it out. They were expecting, momentarily, relief by units of Combat Command B. Colonel Abrams had already called Captain Leach to tell him the relieving companies were on their way. In the meantime there was no point in incurring needless casualties. Lieutenant Price, after having four men lightly wounded by artillery, gave strict orders to his platoon to stay inside unless the Germans counterattacked. Lieutenant Padgett's men holed up in the cellar of their fortress house and the lieutenant himself found a bed which, as long as there was no place to go, he made his personal headquarters.
While the enemy tanks, however, on the north still threatened to attack, Padgett was very busy trying to find ways to deal with them. He sent his runner, Blevins, across the street to warn. the 1st Platoon tanks (Lieutenant Goble) in the orchard. (Goble's vision to the northeast was obstructed by a 6-7 foot bush and apple-tr-ee hedge, and by houses and brush on the north side of the road.) Lieutenant Padgett himself then set out to find the artillery observer to see whether a concentration could not be put on the enemy to discourage if not destroy him. He tried four times to walk down the street to the company CP; three times he was turned back by spurts of machine gun bullets on the west side of No. 37. The fourth time he got through to report to Lieutenant Belden, but he could not find Lieutenant Guild. It was late in the afternoon when Padgett returned to his own CP.
While Padgett had been trying to get to Belden, Lieutenant Guild, the observer, had already spotted the enemy tanks himself from the roof of his OP, No. 33, and had informed Captain Leach. Leach took the warning personally to Lieutenant Goble. Goble, figuring that if the Germans attacked they would come either down the road or in back of the houses opposite, had Sgt. Robert G. Fitzgerald on the right move his tank down the hill to within 15 yards of the edge of the road where he could observe better to the northeast. Fitzgemld kept his gun sights at 1,400 yards, the range to the northerly ridge where the enemy was reported.
The first tank to appear, however, drew up between No. 37 and No. 38, less than 150 yards away, heading toward the church. The enemy Mark V and Fitzgerald saw each other at about the same time, but neither could immediately fire. While the enemy started to traverse his turret, Fitzgerald brought his gun down. He shot first and, at point-blank range, put the first round into the Mark V, setting it on fire. One man jumped out and ran behind one of the houses. Fitzgerald fired two more rounds into the burning tank.
Later, on warning by Lieutenant Padgett's infantry that more enemy tanks were approaching from the northeast, he drove his tank through the hedge and east along the road almost to the bend where observation north and east was clear. He saw an enemy tank, but before he could adjust his sights the German fired smoke and, in a few seconds, disappeared as effectively as an octopus behind its selfmade cloud and escaped. Rockets then began to fall close to Fitzgerald's tank. Whether this was aimed fire from the battery near Welschoff Farm or simply a part of the miscellaneous area concentration on the town, Fitzgerald did not stay to find out.
He retired westward to the concealment of the hedge, and there, leaving his tank, crossed with Lieutenant Goble to Padgett's CP. From the house, they could see a Mark V in the valley northeast, apparently parked with its gun covering the road east, facing, that is, at right angles to the tankers' observation. Fitzgerald went back to try a shot at it. Again he moved his tank east, getting a sight on the enemy between two trees. The second round was a hit; one more fired the tank. He then shot a round or two at another Mark V facing him about 800 yards away, at which Sgt. Emil Del Vecchio on the hill behind him was also firing. Both 75-mm and 76.2-mm shells, however, bounced off the front armor plate of the enemy. Fitzgerald decided to move back to his hedge. Back in No. 39 again, he saw an enemy SP moving east in the vicinity of Welschoff Farm.
Rather than risk exposing his tank again by moving it out to the east, Fitzgerald decided to wait until the SP came around behind the farm and emerged fhto his field of fire. But the SP did not emerge. Whether, concealed among the farm buildings, it fired into the 1st Platoon tank cannot certainly be determined. But in any case, a short while aftei it had disappeared, two rounds of AP hit Lieutenant Goble's tank in quick succession. The first round set it on fire and wounded Goble and his gunner, Cpl. Therman E. Hale. The second round penetrated the turret, then apparently ricocheted inside until its momentum was spent, and finally landed in the lap of the driver, Tech. 5 John J. Nelsen. Nelsen dropped the hot shell, scrambled out, and with the loader, Pvt. Joseph P. Cocchiara, ran from the burning tank. In the excitement, they headed the wrong way and high-tailed up the main street into the center of town. There they paused long enough to ask some infantrymen where the tanks were. Directed southward, they eventually came on Sergeant Sewers' tank and got inside.
As soon as Lieutenant Goble was hit, S/Sgt. John J. Fitzpatrick took command of the platoon and ordered them to back over the ridge behind them into defilade from the enemy north. As they backed, a round of HE exploded in front of Del Vecchio's tank, splattering it with fragments. The enemy continued to fire at Goble's tank, but the others reached the cover of the hill without loss.
On the other side of town Lieutenant Cowgill's bazookas in the attic of No. 12 were getting ready to fire at one enemy SP. (One of the two guns in the street had withdrawn by this time.) In the garden east of No. 12 Sergeant Hayward's tank was burning. McPhail, leader of the 2d Squad, and Company 1st Sergeant Cannon were on their way westward to have a look at the SPs, unaware that the reconnaissance had already been made and action taken as a result of it. They sprinted past the burning tank, picked up Harrington at the chapel and followed Lieutenant Cowgill's previous route to the wall beside No. 17. Through the same gap Cowgill had used to observe, the three men fired at Germans standing near the tanks and pillboxes. They hit one who rolled down the slope.
After half a dozen rounds, they moved back. Cannon and Harrington went to the basement of No. 12, where they found S/Sgt. Patrick H. Dennis and S/Sgt. Harold AHollands, both with rifles, preparing to cover from the basement windows the bazookamen, then getting set to fire through the roof. One of the two bazookas with an old-type firing mechanism failed to go off. From the other, the three men in the attic launched five rounds in turn at the SP.
Only the last hit, and it did no more than knock a fragment off the right side of the turret. It did, however, cause the crew to jump out, and two were shot by the four men in the basement. Hardly had this happened when a Mark V drew up alongside the damaged SP and sent a round crashing into the side of No. 12. At about the same time another shell from the north struck the building at its foundations, showering the men in the cellar with plaster.
It was a narrow escape on both scores, but no one was hurt. Cowgill moved his men to No. 13, which turned out to be another of Singling's thick- walled fortress-farms. Here the 3d Platoon sat out the second of the enemy's short, sharp artillery concentrations, which scored three hits on the building but did little damage.
France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part II
France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part I
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© Copyright 1995 by Mike Vogell and Phoenix Military Simulations.
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