The trap was now well set, the action that followed can be described in many ways, but a fair
description, in our mind, is to take the report of all who participated, and combine it into one or two
items.
The Germans, in complete disorder, were trying to escape through the gap, that little river at the
eastern end of the valley, and as they came pouring into the trap from the West, heading east, they
passed in front of our guns, which were silent at the time. As they got opposite us, all the artillery
started pouring in broadside after broadside. This battalion remained in fire for effect for as long as
three and four hours at a time, never letting the howitzers cool off. No one-gun adjustments, everything
went at one time, for the targets were too many and too big to miss. Rounds would land in the middle of
the column, and it would head for the woods. The woods were then shelled and the enemy would have
to come back out into the open, and so it went for three days; back and forth, back and forth, until the
valley floor looked like a tremendous junkyard. Because of the great chaos in the trap the enemy did not
fight back too much, and soon all the hills were lined with spectators and extra observers. In one day
this single battalion got credit for knocking out 34 tanks. The infantry situated as they were, had real
occasion to rejoice, for instead of them doing the dirty jobs, this time the artillery and other heavy
weapons were doing at all.
One United Press correspondent who was on hand for the whole thing described the following
scene:
“I made my way through the dense forests to the heights beyond Ste. Eugénie,
overlooking the German trap. The OP was situated on the sloping green that might well
have been a picnic ground rather than a balcony of death.
“Through high-powered field glasses loaned to me by a 90th Division officer (Lt.
Russell Johnson, Battery Commander of B Battery, 344th F.A.), I saw long columns of
smoke ascending from multitudes of knocked out tanks, trucks and those long buses the
Germans use for personnel carriers.
“Overhead whining shells, of pinpoint accurate artillery maintained a constant
symphony of death for the trapped German 7th Army.”
In the pocket there were great many foot troops, but all were so confused that they put up no
fight whatsoever. It wasn't until late in the second day that they showed any signs of wanting to
surrender en masse. After that idea once entered their heads it was not an uncommon sight to see one
doughboy ushering, or herding in as many as a hundred krauts alone. The PW upon being questioned all
said the same thing. The artillery was driving them crazy, from both fear and noise. The 7th was
through fighting. Artillery was too much for them. They could no longer take the terrific pounding.
The most able person to describe the happenings in the valley was Lt. William Matthews, liaison
pilot for our battalion. For those three days he flew continually, coming down just long enough to refuel
and grab something to eat, and then up in the air he would go. In one day he flew for 11 hours. To
describe in full what he did would be a book in itself, so the extracts below are taken from his written
account of what happened on the 19th of August.
"On the morning of the 19th I took off to register a battalion, just as I cleared the
hills looking into the valley, I saw the roads alive with vehicles of every description.
Immediately fire was brought down on the road crossing just to the north of Ste. Eugénie
and the progress of the vehicles was stopped in that vicinity. Fire was falling in several
places in the valley, however, several trucks pulled to the sides of the road and moved
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