Inferno - Max Hastings [343]
“It was a hell of a day,” wrote a British company commander describing his unit’s experiences on 25 June with a frankness unusual among Allied soldiers:
The first shock was that this advance was supposed to be protected by smoke, but we were utterly exposed … Two members of the company couldn’t stand it and shot themselves in the foot in quick succession … Off we go, the blast from a shell knocks me over, but only one little flesh wound … Where are the boys? Not here. I go back—“Come on.” Through the hedge again, still no boys. Back again—“COME ON.” They came, through more hedges … Bloody murder; people dropping dead. Hitlerjugend prisoners … During the attack one of my platoons ran away and was brought back at pistol-point by Tug Wilson, my second-in-command … We were being counterattacked by infantry and two tanks. The same platoon ran away again … Eventually it all died down. The enemy retired, leaving two knocked-out tanks and quite a lot of dead.
Soldiers who fought on foot and those who rode on tracks were almost unfailingly sceptical of each other’s tactics. “We discussed the forthcoming advance with the delicate, genteel bargaining that always took place between tank and infantry,” wrote a British infantryman, Lt. Norman Craig, of an exchange with an armoured officer. “Myself, hoping to persuade the tanks to go in front; he politely determined that they should not. The infantryman considered the tank an overpowering leviathan, which should be hurled indiscriminately into the assault; the tank man looked on the infantry as a convenient expendable mass, useful for neutralising anti-tank guns.”
Throughout the northwest Europe campaign, Allied senior officers vented frustration at infantrymen’s insistent thraldom to artillery. Forrest Pogue recorded some American commanders’ comments: “They kept saying that the infantry failed to take cover, failed to take advantage of artillery preparation, failed to advance boldly, failed to dig in properly. [Under heavy fire] it was digging in which saved them, yet in basic [training] we dug only one foxhole. Artillery is used very extensively. I have been in many [command posts] when somebody would say they saw two or three Germans several hundred yards away. 5–30 rounds were frequently dropped on them.”
Much depended on local junior leadership, and too many brave junior leaders died. “The spirit of human aggression has a magical tendency to evaporate as soon as the shooting starts,” wrote Norman Craig, “and a man then responds to two influences only—the external discipline that binds him and the self-respect within him that drives him on … Courage is essentially competitive and imitative.” The commanding officer of a British infantry battalion said: “On an average, in a platoon of twenty-five, five will do their best to fight … and fifteen will follow a lead. The rest will be useless. This applies to the whole infantry corps, and if the junior officers and NCOs will not go, the situation is pretty bad.”
A tank officer, Michael Rathbone, wrote: “I have drawn my revolver to halt fleeing infantrymen; they came running by my tank when we were repairing a track damaged by a mine. I prayed we should never have to fight again with the 59th Division.” Likewise Peter Selerie, another armoured officer: “We were often critical of the infantry … I remember that an infantry battalion melted away after incredibly heavy mortaring together with ‘air burst’ salvos. They had unfortunately neglected to dig in properly and had lost their officers and the bulk of their NCOs. The Kensingtons machine-gun battalion held the line supported by our tanks.” Riflemen always suffered far heavier casualties than did tank crews, and well the riflemen knew this.
Most soldiers going into battle for the first time were less frightened than they became once they had experienced its reality. When the American infantryman Royce Lapp landed in France, “None of us were too scared then, because we didn’t know what we were getting