new outfit lent support to us, the 28th Field Artillery Battalion, medium outfit from the 8th Division.
Between 1200 and 1500 we pushed back some more Heinie attacks.
The seventh saw our combat team come back into the fight, and so our mission was to go in direct
support of them. 100 prisoners were brought in today and all seemed to say the same thing that the
American artillery was too much for them. They also said that it had had terrible effect on their buddies.
It was here that we discovered what we could really do with a fuse delay and a high charge, for they did
not like our "time fire". The total ammo spent this day was 2700 rounds.
The eighth was moving day for the 344th, and though it was only a short distance, it was still to the
front, and any move that way is always encouraging. Our move took us through Leseey and St.
Georges, both very badly smashed, to a small group of farm buildings between Hill 122 and St.
Georges. No sooner had the battalion set up for future missions when Heinie artillery started whizzing
all around. To date 1448 prisoners had been taken.
On the ninth a remarkable trick was pulled with our artillery, through the quick thinking of Captain F. R.
Jones, our Assistant S-3. The 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry was lost in the Foret de Mont Castre,
surrounded by enemy and wished to get away from there but did not know what direction to take.
Colonel Bealke, the battalion commander of the 3rd, radioed into us to fire some kind of an orientation
round so that he could find his location. Captain Jones told them we were going to register with green
smoke so as not to endanger anyone. So with the colonel doing the adjusting we fired a regular
registration overhead and when the rounds were bursting right over the 3rd Battalion’s head we ceased
firing and Captain Jones took the adjusted data from the computer and plotted it on the fire chart. Then
he sent the adjusted coordinates to the colonel thus enabling him to lead his battalion out of trouble. To
our knowledge this was the first time smoke was used in just such a manner.
For the last few days the weather had been most miserable and wet, causing our guns to slide around a
great deal, and making it difficult for the cannoneers when big shifts were necessary. July tenth was no
exception to the weather and little activity was reported, except for both our artillery and that of the
enemy. Every once in a while a round would whine over us and head for the rear and we would sigh
with relief. Unfortunately Captain Cruise and his men in Service Battery would have to sweat out those
"overs".
On July twelfth we were informed that our combat team had made more progress than any other outfit,
especially the 3rd Battalion, who had reached their objective on the other side of Hill 122 and were on
the banks of the Seves. The cost had been heavy and to those boys who got through that engagement it
will always stick in their minds as a living hell. In order to lend the best support to our now advancing
infantry we had to move approximately 3 miles, one of our better moves in the Normandy campaign. In
reaching our new position we had to pass through bitterly fought over territory. The forest was almost
completely stripped of limbs and foliage, the grim testimony to the savage fight that took place there.
Bodies, both Yankee and German were stacked like cordwood, a heavy pungent odor of death clinging
to the area. Many bodies were still in foxholes, caught by time fire and tree burst. Many were killed by
concussion.
While he was setting up in the new position Cpls. Mutaschink and Maines came across a wounded
Heinie paratrooper, abandoned better than sixty hours before. He told his captors that his entire
regiment, because of some difficulty with the high command had been thrown into the fight as regular
ground troops and had only been in combat for a week. They had been ordered to withdraw to the east
bank of the Seves and take up a defensive position. We were now just 1500 yards from the front,
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