Work Horse Of The Western Front; The Story Of The 30th Infantry Division

Robert L. Hewitt

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786257628
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Includes over 25 maps and 50 photos.
More than 60 American divisions participated in the defeat of Germany in 1944-45. This is the story of one of the best of them, a division which fought continually from the Normandy beachhead to the banks of the Elbe River in the heart of Germany.
Work Horse of the Western Front is as accurate and honest an account as the writer could make it under the circumstances. Waging war is an exacting business undertaken under conditions which make for confusion and "snafu." The writer has taken the facts as he saw them, the bad as well as the good, with the conviction that he would slight the very real achievements of the Division if he attempted to present a saccharine picture of inevitable triumphs. The measure of a great fighting unit is not that it never runs into difficulties but that it minimizes its errors and gains by experience. By these standards, Old Hickory was a great division—as is evidenced by the caliber of the tasks it was called upon to perform.

PART ONE — THE BEGINNINGS

CHAPTER I — THE OLD 30TH

This book is the story of a division in battle and is almost entirely concerned with the eleven months between June 1944, when the 30th Infantry Division landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, and May 1945, when—sitting in place on the Elbe River at Magdeburg—it learned that the war in Europe was over. So, in a sense, the previous phases of Old Hickory’s story—its record in World War I, and its history as a National Guard organization during the two decades that intervened between the two wars, and even the long months of training in the United States and England—are somewhat foreign to the purpose of this narrative. Nevertheless, they deserve some mention. Only a handful of the men who fought with the Division in 1918 were on hand to fight again with it in 1944-45. Most of the National Guardsmen who formed the bulk of the Division when it was mustered into Federal service in 1940 had departed elsewhere by the time the 30th landed in France. Many of the men who fought with the 30th in Europe joined it in the heat of battle. Yet knowledge of the past history of the organization, stretching back even before World War I, had its influence on the 30th’s conduct in battle. And the training period at least set up most of the key figures of the Division team and moulded the way that Old Hickory would go about its business.

The 30th Infantry Division was created on July 18, 1917, three months after the United States entered World War I. However, many of its components, State Militia and National Guard units of Tennessee and the Carolinas, even then had long and colorful records of participation in every American war, from the Battle of King’s Mountain in the Revolutionary War to the Battles of San Juan Hill and Santiago in the Spanish-American War.

Most of them fresh from active duty on the Mexican border, the units making up the 30th assembled for the first time on August 3, 1917, when they went into training at Camp Sevier, near Greenville, South Carolina. From the beginning the new division was known as the “Old Hickory” Division, in honor of Andrew Jackson, who was born near the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary and rose to military and political fame in Tennessee. The Division shoulder patch, a blue H within a blue O, against a red background, with a Roman “thirty” across the cross-bar of the H, was inadvertently worn at first on its side and this practice persisted through World War I.

The 30th remained in training at Camp Sevier until May 1, 1918, sailing for Europe from New York. After passing through rest camps in England, the Division shipped to Le Havre, France, and, after training with the British in Picardy and Flanders, went into battle. The Division made an outstanding record, its most notable achievement being the cracking of the Hindenburg Line. During its four months of fighting, Old Hickory earned more than half of the decorations awarded American troops by the British and 12 of the 78 Medals of Honor awarded for World War I service.

The Division entered battle on July 9 when, with the 27th (New York) Division, it was assigned to the defense of the East Poperinghe Line and defensive positions in the Dickebusch Lake and Scherpenberg sectors.

It then moved into offensive front line positions in Flanders and remained there until August 9, when it was called back for specialized training. Shortly afterwards the Division returned to the Flanders front and played a major role in the Ypres-Lys action from August 19 to September 4. On the night of August 31 patrols from the Division investigated a rumor that the Germans were withdrawing troops from the area. As a result on the next day the Division attacked and captured Moated Grange, Voormezeele, Lock No. 8, and Lanchow Farm. A line was occupied connecting these localities with the original front at Gunner’s Lodge, with the American 27th Division on the right, and the British 14th on the left.

During this time the Division’s 55th Field Artillery Brigade, which had departed under separate orders before the Division was committed, had participated in the occupation of the Lucy sector in support of the American 89th Division and fought in the St. Mihiel operation. On September 15, the artillery was detached from the 89th and sent to the V Corps to support the 37th Division in the Avocourt sector. It fought there until September 25.

On September 21 the 30th joined the Somme offensive, occupying the Lincourt-Bouchy sector with the British Fourth Army. On September 26 it attacked from a line of departure about 400 meters east of La Haute Bruyere, with its old friend, the 27th, on its left. This attack was to end in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line on September 29. 1918.

In organizing the Hindenburg Line on that portion of the front opposite the 30th Division, the Germans had taken advantage of the St. Quentin Canal, which entered a tunnel about 4 ½ kilometers north of Bellicourt, passed under the town and emerged at a point about 1 kilometer south of the town. This tunnel contained many underground connections with various trenches of the Hindenburg Line. The canal south of the tunnel had high banks and was well suited for defensive purposes.

The 119th and 120th Infantry Regiments of the 60th Infantry Brigade, were designated as the assault units. The 117th Infantry Regiment of the 59th Infantry Brigade was assigned to follow up the 120th and protect the Division’s right flank. The 118th Infantry Regiment was held in divisional reserve.

Following a rolling artillery barrage, the Division attacked and, after overcoming stubborn resistance, penetrated the concrete Hindenburg defenses. Immediately after the penetration, the Division crossed the canal and captured Bellicourt, then entered Nauroy. The Australian 5th Division moved up with the 30th to relieve it, but the 30th tenaciously kept on fighting. Together the two divisions advanced, and, although the command passed to the Australians on the following morning, the 30th continued to fight until noon.

During this advance of 20 miles, the Division captured 98 officers; 3,750 men; 72 artillery pieces; 26 trench mortars; and 426 machine guns. It suffered 8,415 casualties.

On October 1, the 30th moved to the Serbecourt and Mesnil-Bruntel areas and went back into the lines on the 5th. Again it attacked, capturing Brancourt-le-Grand and Premont, and, on October 9, it captured Busigny and Recquigny.

While the Division was participating in this heavy fighting, the 55th Field Artillery Brigade was engaged in the Meuse-Argonne sector, where the German Army was making one of its most powerful defensive stands of the war. Between October 11 and November 11, the brigade supported the 33d and 79th Divisions in the Troyon sector.

On October 11 the Division took Vaux-Andigny, La-Haie-Mennercasse, and reached the outskirts of St. Martin Riviere. Here it was given a short rest but returned to the fight on the night of October 15, when it relieved the 27th Division and crossed the La Selle River, capturing Molain and Ribeauville.

On the night of the 19th, it was relieved and sent to the rear for a well-earned rest, and for rehabilitation and training. The Division had suffered heavy casualties. On October 23, the 30th moved to the Queried area near Amiens, where it was undergoing rehabilitation at the time of the Armistice. On November 19 the Division, less the artillery brigade, moved to the American Embarkation Center at Le Mans. The artillery brigade rejoined the Division on January 20, 1919 and on February 18 the first unit of Old Hickory sailed from Brest for the United States. The last elements of the Division arrived at Charleston, S. C., on April 18.

The 30th was disbanded after the war, but was reactivated by the War Department in 1925 as a National Guard Division, with troops from Georgia added to the original components. Thereafter, until 1941, its story was the usual one of annual summer encampments and peacetime maneuvers. It participated in the first post-war mobilization at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, in 1928, and participated in the DeSoto National Forest Maneuvers, in Mississippi in 1938 and in the Third Army maneuvers in Louisiana in 1940. Within a month after its return from the Louisiana maneuvers it was recalled to full-time duty in September 1940, its ranks filled to wartime strength by volunteers. Conscription had not yet been established.

CHAPTER II — THE NEW 30TH

One of the first four National Guard Divisions to be called into Federal service when the Army of the United States began expanding in 1940, the 30th Infantry Division trained for almost four years before it was committed to battle. During that period it underwent innumerable transformations and emerged, like most of the other National Guard divisions, with its pristine sectional and National Guard character all but buried under the influx of selectees, Reserve officers, Regular Army men and Officer Candidate School graduates from all sections of the country.

For two years the Division trained at Fort Jackson, near Columbia, South Carolina. In June 1941 the Division participated in Second Army maneuvers in Tennessee and in the fall of 1941 it took part in the First Army maneuvers in the Carolinas before returning to Fort Jackson. The first big exodus from the Division occurred then, when approximately 6,000 men left at the end of one-year enlistments or because of hardship cases. At this time the 121st Infantry Regiment was transferred to the 8th Infantry Division.

During the spring of 1942 the changes in the Division’s personnel continued to be drastic. The Division was reorganized from an old-style square division, with two brigades and a total of four infantry regiments, into a triangular division, of three infantry regiments, its present form. Newly activated divisions, officer candidate schools, and Air Forces training continued to draw many men away from the Division. Major General Henry D. Russell, the National Guard division commander, was replaced by Major General William H. Simpson, a Regular Army officer, on May 1, 1942, and he in turn was succeeded on September 12, 1942, by another Regular, Major General Leland S. Hobbs, Old Hickory’s commander in battle. By that time the Division had been cut down to a strength of approximately 6,000 men—about forty per cent of its normal strength—having lost within a year the equivalent of a full division in both officers and men.

During the fall of 1942 the Division was filled up to full strength again, with the 119th Infantry Regiment and the 197th Field Artillery Battalion constituted to replace the 118th Infantry Regiment and the 115th Field Artillery Battalion, which had been sent overseas during the summer as a combat team. The 117th Infantry Regiment went to Fort Benning, Georgia, September 13 and remained there on instructional and demonstration duty for The Infantry School until February 28, 1943. The Division, which had been transferred to Camp Blanding, Florida, at the beginning of October, began training anew in December, with two-thirds of its enlisted personnel fresh from the reception center.

Training at Camp Blanding followed the usual pattern of training camps throughout the country—thirteen weeks emphasizing individual training, followed by a like period of small-unit training. As far as tests could determine, the Division was progressing well. In May, just before the Division was ready for its first real field work, the Division Artillery, under Brigadier General Arthur McK. Harper, set a new Army Ground Forces record in field firing tests at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Meanwhile the rest of the Division was proceeding by train and motors to Camp Forrest, Tennessee, where it set up a tent encampment on the edge of the post and went to work on interdivisional field maneuvers near Lynchburg, Tennessee. By the end of September it was ready for large-scale maneuvers, and joined the 94th and 98th Infantry Divisions, the 12th Armored Division, IV Armored Corps, and a host of corps and army troops in a two-month maneuver period. This period was particularly valuable in training commanders and staffs, and although the problems, which usually lasted for about a week at a time, were not officially won or lost, the Division showed considerable alertness and skill, and was credited with knocking out several “enemy” battalions in succession by double envelopments. Aside from the training afforded staffs in how to function, this success provided the chief value of the maneuver period. The Division entered the maneuvers with good morale; it left them with the conviction that it had “won” and was now ready to do some real fighting.

From the maneuver area the 30th, in November, moved north by truck to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, where it concentrated on preparation for movement overseas. At Atterbury, Division Artillery again set a new Army Ground Forces record for battalion firing tests.

In February 1944, the Division started its trip by train for Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts, one of the staging camps, serving the Boston Port of Embarkation. On February 12, loaded on three transports, the John Ericsson, the Brazil and the Argentina, it left Boston Harbor in a blinding snowstorm to join its convoy for Europe. An advance party led by Brigadier General William K. Harrison, the assistant division commander, had previously sailed on the Queen Mary.

The repeated inspections and pressure of the period, just before sailing, left most of the men with a feeling of finality, almost as though they would come off the ships fighting and would leave civilian pleasures behind until the war was over. Crowded as they were on the boats, they had little room for training, although troop commanders went through the motions of trying to set up instruction.

The convoy was an impressive sight, with ships spread out over the ocean as far as the eye could see, shepherded by a battleship and by destroyers frisking around the edges of the great pattern of ships. Periodically naval gun crews on the transports held gunnery practice, and blackout instructions were strict. Rumors of submarines went the rounds.

Nevertheless, the passage had been unusually uneventful as the convoy headed into the Irish Sea and split up. The 120th Infantry landed on the Clyde in Scotland, the 117th at Liverpool and the 119th at Bristol. February 22, Washington’s birthday, the Division was in port. Some of the troops were given a brief introduction to the air war on their first night ashore, as their blacked-out trains were sidetracked and rerouted through marshalling yards of London because of a German air raid. In their new area the men of the Division were to find air raids almost a nightly affair, with the enemy raiders flying over their heads from the English Channel toward London.

The 30th’s first training area in England was on the south coast, with the division headquarters at the ancient town of Chichester; two of the regiments, the 119th and 120th, billetted on Channel coast towns to the south; while the 117th, Division Artillery and other troops spread northward toward London. In April the Division moved north to the London suburbs, with headquarters at Chesham.

All of the billets had previously been used by British troops. Most of them were private houses, although some units lived in Nissen huts.

England, somewhat begrimed and shabby after four years of war, was no foxhole. Men adjusted themselves to the wartime weakness of British beer, made friends with the British and attempted to cope with the perils of British pronunciation and idiom and with the endless pitfalls of trying to keep warm in wintertime without central heating. Gradually, even before they were initiated into the plans for invasion then being made, the troops began to sense the urgency in what was going on in England that spring. Closer to the war already, if only because they were in a land being bombed, the men of the 30th began to see more and more military equipment around the countryside. Some main roads were so monopolized by trucks and tanks that a stray civilian vehicle seemed almost to have arrived there by mistake.

There was work to be done. First was the fundamental task of restoring the fine edge of technique and endurance dulled by days in transit. The infantry marched and marched and marched. The artillery fired problem after problem on tiny ranges as full of local ground rules as a tricky golf course. One shell broke a civilian’s wooden leg; the civilian himself was unhurt. Another shell hit a bull that had strayed onto the range. These were the exceptions.

Small-unit techniques were practiced. Weapons were fired. For the first time the 30th’s infantrymen practiced in earnest working with tanks. Special teams visited the troops to demonstrate German uniforms and methods. The military police platoon, practicing the handling of prisoners, tried out close-order drill in German. The higher-ups came around on visits of inspection, trying to be cordial and friendly, but looking the men over appraisingly—General Eisenhower, General Montgomery, General Bradley, the Secretary of War, General Corlett ...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PREFACE
• PART ONE - THE BEGINNINGS
• PART TWO - THE BATTLE OF FRANCE
• PART THREE - GERMANY: THE OPENING WEDGE
• PART FOUR - THE BATTLE OF THE ARDENNES
• PART FIVE - THE BATTLE OF GERMANY
• APPENDIX I - AFTER VE-DAY
• APPENDIX 2 - NOTES ON ORGANIZATION
• APPENDIX 3 - UNITS CITED IN WAR DEPARTMENT GENERAL ORDERS IN THE NAME OF THE PRESIDENT
• APPENDIX 5 - GERMAN PRISONERS TAKEN
• HOW IT LOOKED