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from CORPS OF ENGINEERS: THE WAR AGAINST GERMANY

Page 368

In the VIII Corps sector the Germans had another terrain advantage, a
horseshoe-shaped ring of hills around La Haye-du-Puits. So commanding were
these hills that from their crests the Germans could watch the shipping off
the Allied beaches. Enemy artillery denied to VIII Corps the main roads
leading to the town, forcing the corps* units to use lateral one-way roads and
heavily mined lanes. Engineers supporting the three divisions moving out
abreast in a drenching rain early on 3 July had to clear the narrow roads of
mines and then to widen them for two-way traffic.2
Each division, the 82d Airborne in the center, the 79th on the west (right),
and the 90th on the east (left), had its organic engineer combat battalion. In
addition, on 17 June First Army attached to VIII Corps the II 10th Engineer
Combat Group, which had supported VII Corps during the advance to
Cherbourg. The group commander placed the 300th Engineer Combat
Battalion behind the 79th Division, the 148th behind the 82d Airborne
Division, and the 207th behind the 90th Division. The group also had a light
ponton company and a tread way bridge company, which, split into platoons,
could provide support to the divisions as needed.

The VIII Corps advanced to La Haye-du-Puits in a flying wedge formation with


the 82d Airborne Division at the apex. Squads of the division's 307th Airborne
Engineer Battalion accompanied battalions of parachute infantry, clearing
roads of mines to enable supporting tanks to advance. The mine detectors
and tanks drew enemy small-arms and artillery fire that caused heavy losses
among mine detector crews. Nevertheless, the crack airborne engineers who
had dropped with the 82d Airborne Division in the early hours of D-day
boasted that "the enemy pioneer obstacles had no effect on the tactical
situation. The whole thing resolved itself into a sort of game between the
pioneers and the engineers."3

The 82d Airborne Division met the weakest resistance during the VTII Corps'
advance, encountering mainly Poles and Georgians whose morale was poor
and who seemed happy to surrender. From these prisoners the engineers
gained considerable information about the Germans' use of land mines. They
employed the flat, antitank Teller mine with considerable ingenuity

sometimes burying them three deep in such a way that the two bottom mines
were not visible even when the top one was removed; sometimes equipping
the mines with a second fuse at the bottom, timed to go off after the
demolitionists had unscrewed the top fuse; sometimes burying mines upside
down with a push igniter that converted the Teller into an antipersonnel mine.
The familiar antipersonnel S-mine was now equipped with a wire that would
set off a block of TNT when the mine was lifted. The engineers also
discovered a new type of antipersonnel mine called a "Mustard Pot," which
consisted of a 50-inm. mortar shell equipped with a chemical igniter. 4

FOOTNOTES

2 Hist 315th Engr C Bn. 7 Mar 44-May 45.

3 Hist 307th Abn Engr Bn, Normandy Campaign 6 Jun-15 Jul 44.

4 Hist 148th Engr C Bn. Jun 44. Oct 44, and Dec 44: Hist 207th Engr C Bn.
Nov 43-Dec 44. At the end of June the paratroopers had discovered a
German artillery shell that contained, instead of explosives, notes
in Polish encouraging the Allies. William G. Lord II, History of the
Parachute Infantry (Washington; Infantry Journal Press, 1948), p. 32

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