Visiting St Lo

The LIberation of St Lo

My Dad was very proud of the liberation of St. Lo and mentioned it alot when discussing his tour in Europe. This city was brutalized and to see pictures of it with barely nothing standing is a heart wrenching reminder of the destructive power of artillery and bombing. Dad remembers that one Church in town withstood the bombing and fighting and we went to see that Church that still stands today. Here is a picture we took of it as it was in 1994.

This largely happened during the month of July 1944. As an AAA Battery you get attached to whoever needs you and often reassigned and attached. After the beaches were secured, Battery A of the 467th AAA spent some time protecting ammo dumps and the like from aircraft attack and then they began significant fighting through hedgerow country around the various towns and villages. I am little light on the time period details but I remember my Dad discussed that a particular British gentleman that was with them did not dig and sleep in his foxhole at night like the others. Well they found him dead one morning from shrapnel between the hedgerows. While the Normandy beaches were brutal the Liberation of St. Lo took a month or so and was a tough fight especially for those in the hedgerow country.

Here is a shot of part of the town of St. Lo in its devastation.

We visited St. Lo right after Pointe Du Hoc. Dad mentioned to me alot about hedgerow fighting stories, including lots of other tragedies and difficulties that happened during this period such as bombing fratricide incidents. The fratricide incident was largely due to lack of ground-aerial coordination at that time and other miscues during operations. Smoke from earlier bombings had blown over friendly troop areas and masked actual targets. Captain Napier , loved by all the men of Battery A, also died during this fight from inaccurate American bombing that struck the Battery A Command Post due to inaccurate bombing.

Some of Dad’s Brothers-in-Arms Battery A Unit 4

--short story of the accidental bombings from Hyman Haas --

“We slowly advanced to the St.Lo area where we did much maneuvering and firing. On July 25th we were surprised to see wave after wave of our B17 and B24 Bombers fly overhead and begin to bomb the St. Lo area. It seemed hours that they Bombed. They also Bombed our Command Post and most of our men there, including Captain Napier, were killed. Lieut. Paul Nauer became our new C.O. The news of Captain Napier's death had a terrible effect on the unit. This was a shock that was hard to overcome. We had dug and fought our way to this position for almost two months and we were showing the strain. The positive part of the bombing was that soon we broke out of Normandy.” -- Haas

The breakout at St. Lo called for a massive bombing of the German lines prior to the Allied attack. As the lead bombers struck the target, huge clouds of smoke and debris were carried north over the American lines. It completely obscured the target to the succeeding waves of bombers. Those bombadiers 'dropped' on the smoke clouds as they were trained to do. As the clouds drifted northward, the bombs began dropping on units staged for the attack. Lieutenant General Leslie McNair, Commanding General of the Army Ground Forces, had traveled from Washington to observe the attack - he was killed in the bombing. As mentioned, the 467th also lost men in the accidental bombing of American of the front lines that day.

Out of the pan and into fire right off Omaha Beach. The halftracks of the 467th AAA were deployed around and through the St. Lo area throughout the month of July. Once the breakout occurred they began a swift march towards Paris area during August during its liberation period and then on into and across the Belgium region towards the battle of Aachen.

During St. Lo, I recall my Dad saying his unit was attached to the 29th so Dad was excited to find the street in St. Lo named in honor of their Division and the 35th.

 

 

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