D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

wrong in that quarter’. His headquarters issued an instruction to medical officers warning them ‘to be very careful not to send men down the line unless they are absolutely satisfied that the cases are genuine’. He suspected that medical officers, ‘under pressure of work’, had been sending them back ‘merely to get them out of the way’. Any NCO sent back to an exhaustion centre was to be reduced to private soldier automatically. Commanders were also furious at the huge losses of equipment due to demoralized soldiers throwing away their weapons. Desertions and absence without leave increased. No fewer than 150 soldiers from the 50th (Northumberland) Division were convicted of desertion in Normandy, as many as in the whole of the rest of the Second Army.
    The formation worst affected by combat fatigue was the 43rd Wessex Division, commanded by Major General Thomas, which had been involved in the battles for Maltot and Hill 112. Tank crews, on the other hand, were much less likely to collapse. ‘The Corps psychiatrist and commander 21 Light Field Ambulance confirm that cases of feigned battle exhaustion by soldiers of Armd Divs are negligible. The main offenders are infantry units. The greatest number of cases come from 43 Division. During 3 or 4 days about 10 July some 360 cases came from that formation. Units particularly affected were 4 Dorsets and 7 Hamps.’ General O’Connor wrote to Thomas about this ‘most serious offence’, ordering him to make it ‘quite clear that anyone found guilty of feigning illness under this heading will be tried by [Field General Court Martial] for desertion’.
    Infantrymen appear to have suffered the most because of the effects of German mortars and Nebelwerfer batteries firing concentrated salvoes at unexpected moments. A close miss sent many men into shock. At 129th Infantry Brigade headquarters, three men, including a sergeant major, suffered from battle shock from Nebelwerfer bombardments. ‘Two of them during an attack did not stay in their slit trenches, but just ran around wildly screaming “Get me out of here!”.’ Another contributing factor to the sense of helplessness and disorientation was the lack of information. In the words of one soldier, they suffered from ‘ignorance, stupefying, brutalizing ignorance. You never knew where you were or where the enemy was, or what you were supposed to be attempting to achieve.’
    Tank crews appear to have been much less susceptible to combat fatigue, not just because of the protection offered by their armoured vehicle, but also because they were part of closely knit groups. British infantry, just like their American counterparts, suffered from the vulnerability of their replacements. The British system was no more imaginative than the American. A subaltern sent as replacement to the Somerset Light Infantry after its mauling on Hill 112 described how a moustached major at their reinforcement camp near Bayeux addressed the new officers: ‘Gentlemen, your life expectancy from the day you join your battalion, will be precisely three weeks.’

18
    The Final Battle for Saint-Lô
    On 6 July, while the Americans were still bogged down in the general advance south towards Saint-Lô, General George S. Patton arrived in France. He was to command the Third US Army as soon as it was activated on Eisenhower’s order.
    Stuck in England for a month since the invasion, he had been ‘awfully restless’. ‘It is Hell to be on the side lines and see all the glory eluding me,’ he had written to his wife on D-Day. He started wearing his shoulder holster ‘so as to get myself into the spirit of the part’, then packed for France even though there was no immediate prospect of being called over. For the time being, he had to play his part as commander-in-chief of the fictitious First US Army Group, that vital part of Plan Fortitude. The Germans were still convinced that he would command a second invasion around the Pas-de-Calais.
    Patton was grateful to Eisenhower for having twice given him another chance. The first time was after he had slapped a soldier suffering from combat exhaustion in Sicily, the second being his gaffe in a speech in England, saying that the Americans and the British were destined to rule the world. But he never respected Ike ‘as a soldier’. When he accompanied the supreme commander on a tour of divisions in the south-west of England, he described his friendly manner with the troops as that of