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Upstarts
Why did he go there? There was a beautiful chateau, with soft green lawns, a
formal garden, and carefully manicured box hedges ten feet high. It belonged to people
Col Bacon had known, and he had nostalgic memories of having visited there before the
war. The owners were not currently at home, and I don't know how they would have felt
about his bringing in all those trucks and men to tear up the landscaping. Anyhow, he was
there only one night before we moved on.
Meanwhile, Col Bacon was not really satisfied with me as a liaison with the
artillery. What he wanted was for Lt Col Peach to be with him most of the time. He began
to suggest that the 915th should have its command post right with the 359th Inf. Peach
ducked and weaved, avoiding the question. He wanted his own command post close to
the firing batteries, not to the infantry. But finally Colonel Bacon, in his role as
commander of the regimental combat team, gave him a definite and unmistakable order.
"Tonight you will locate your CP at coordinates so-and-so, with the CP of the 359th."
[words approximate]
At this time we had paused in an area east of the city of Argentan, almost within
range of a village named Chambois, of which we had never heard, but would hear a lot
later on. We did not realize it at the time, but we were about to help complete a pincer
movement to surround, cut off, and destroy the German Seventh Army, one of the key
actions of WW II in Europe.
One of the things I remembered best on that day was coming up a hill and finding
myself looking down the gun muzzle of a Sherman tank. I'm not sure whether it was
American or French, but it had been positioned to defend against a possible attack - from
the direction we were coming from. Things were a bit confused then (as they often were).
Somewhere around this time we started working with the French 2nd Armored
Division. Working with allied troops is always a problem, if only because their training
has been different. The Americans were trained to maintain strict camouflage discipline:
No lights showing at night, stay as inconspicuous as possible in daytime. The French
doctrine must have been different, because they burned lots of campfires at night. And
both American and French armored vehicles were carrying gaudy panels in fluorescent
colors to identify them as friendly to our own aircraft.
After we went into position in the afternoon, a platoon of French tanks moved
into our A Battery's gun position, with their panels so bright you could almost hear them.
Lt Wilborn, who had taken French at West Point, went out to talk them into moving
elsewhere, so they wouldn't draw fire on A Battery.
He made his request as clear and polite as his limited French would allow. "Les
avions," he explained, waving at the sky.
The French platoon leader shrugged. If les avions carne, he said, they would get
inside the tanks. What was the big deal?
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