Imperial Valley Press

Battle Pattern Fades Out in Hedgerow Areas

By ERNIE PYLE ON THE WESTERN FRONT—(By Wireless)—What we gave you before in trying to describe hedgerow fighting was the general pattern. If you were to come over here and pick out some hedge-enclosed field at random, the fighting there probably wouldn't be following the general pattern at all. For each one is a little separate war, fought under different circumstances.

For instance, you'll come to a woods instead of an open field. The Germans will be dug in all over the woods in little groups, and it's really tough to get them out. Often in cases like that we will just go around the woods and keep going, and let later units take care of those surrounded and doomed fellows. Or we'll go through the woods and clean it out and another company, coming through a couple of hours later, will find it full of Germans again. In a war like this one everything is in such confusion I don't see how either side ever gets anywhere

NOBODY KNOWS Sometimes you don't know where the enemy is and don't know where your own troops are. As somebody said the other day, no battalion commander can give you the exact location of his various units five minutes after they've jumped off

We will by-pass whole pockets of Germans, and they will be there fighting our following waves when our attacking companies are a couple of miles on beyond. Gradually the front gets all mixed up. There will be Germans behind you and at the side. They'll be shooting at you from behind and from your flank.

Sometimes a unit will get so far out ahead of those on either side that it has to swing around and fight to its rear. Sometimes we fire on our own troops, thinking we are in German territory. You can't see anything and you can't even tell from the sounds, for each side uses some of the other's captured weapons.

TANKS AND INFANTRY The tanks and infantry had to work in the closest cooperation in breaking through the German ring that tried to pin us down in the beachhead area. Neither could have done it alone.

The troops are of two minds about having tanks around them. If you're a foot soldier you hate to be near a tank, for it always draws fire. On the other hand, if the going gets tough you pray for a tank to come up and start blasting with its guns.

In our breakthrough each infantry unit had tanks attached to it. It was the tanks and the infantry that broke through that ring and punched a hole for the armored divisions to go through.

The armored divisions practically ran amuck, racing long distances and playing hob, once they got behind the German lines, but it was the infantry and their tanks that opened the gates for them.

BULLDOZERS TOO Tanks shuttling back and forth from one field to another, throughout our breakthrough battle, receiving their orders by radio. Bull-dozers punched holes through the hedgerows for them, and then the tanks would come up and blast out the bad spots of the opposition.

It has been necessary for us to wreck almost every farmhouse and little village in our path. The Germans used them for strong points, or put artillery observers in them, and they just had to be blasted out.

Most of the French farmers evacuate ahead of the fighting and filter back after it has passed. It is pitiful to see them come back to their demolished homes and towns. Yet it's wonderful to see the grand way they take it.

In a long drive an infantry company may go for a couple of days without letting up. Ammunition is carried up to it by hand, and occasionally by jeep. The soldiers sometimes eat only one K ration a day. They may run clear out of water. Their strength is gradually whittled down by wounds, exhaustion cases and straggling.

ORDER TO DIG IN Finally they will get an order to sit where they are and dig in. Then another company will pass through or around them, and go on with the fighting. The relieved company may get to rest as much as a day or two. But in a big push such as the one that broke us out of the beachhead, a few hours is about all they can expect.

The company I was with got its orders to rest about 5 one afternoon. They dug foxholes along the hedgerows, or commandeered German ones already dug. Regardless of how tired you may be, you always dig in the first thing.

Then they sent some men with cans hunting water. They got more K rations up by jeep, and sat on the ground eating them.

They hoped they would stay there all night, but they weren't counting on it too much. Shortly after supper a lieutenant came out of a farmhouse and told the sergeants to pass the word to be ready to move in 10 minutes. They bundled on their packs and started just before dark.

Within half an hour they had run into a new fight that lasted all night. They had had less than four hours' rest in three solid days of fighting. That's the way life is in the infantry.