D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

any more panzer divisions were transferred, the British would at last break through to Falaise and Argentan, thus cutting off the whole of the Seventh Army as well.
    At 02.00 Kluge issued an order that ‘under all circumstances the Pontaubault bridge [south of Avranches] must remain in our hands. Avranches must be retaken.’ Kluge was still furious with Hausser because the ‘fatal decision of the Seventh Army to break out to the south-east has led to the collapse of the front’.
     
    Although the 3rd Armored Division was criticized for its slow advance, Task Force X, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Leander L. Doane, made an extraordinary dash forward. His column left the high ground south of Gavray at 16.07 hours, heading for Villedieu-les-Poêles. The weather was ‘clear as a bell’, and the twenty P-47 Thunderbolts flying air support for the column took out any German columns flushed out by Doane’s rapid advance. Doane was in direct radio communication with them and could direct the pilots on to any target ahead. The soldiers in the armoured vehicles below were fascinated by the spray of empty cartridge cases as the Thunderbolts roared over them, strafing likely positions.
    At 18.00 hours, they reached the edge of Villedieu. Despite having advanced ten miles in under two hours, Colonel Doane received the order, ‘Do not stop on initial objective. Proceed to Sée river before halting for the night. Corps commander directs you to move with greater speed.’ The Sée was just beyond Brécey, another sixteen miles further south. Doane ordered his men to bypass Villedieu and carry on at top speed. He also asked the Thunderbolts overhead to reconnoitre the road ahead.
    The support from the P-47s was so close that one pilot radioed to Doane that he was going to bomb a German tank only fifty yards to his left and that he had better take cover. Air-tank cooperation could not have been closer. Another Thunderbolt pilot flying shotgun over Task Force Z ‘facetiously suggested’ to its commander ‘that he had better draw in his antenna’, because he was attacking right over their heads.
    As they came to the outskirts of Brécey, Doane, who was in the lead tank, told the Thunderbolts to hold off, since there seemed to be no enemy present. But as his Sherman turned the corner into the main street of the town he saw ‘crowds of German soldiers lounging along the curb’. Unable to fire at that moment because his radio operator was in the gunner’s seat, Doane began taking potshots at the German infantry with his Colt .45 pistol. It was ‘practically a Hollywood entry’, the report stated. The following tanks, however, traversed their turrets left and right, raking the street and houses with machine-gun fire.
    The main bridge over the Sée had been destroyed, so the column turned east to try another bridge just outside the town. They spotted a group of German infantry lying around in an orchard and sprayed them with machine-gun fire too. But when they reached the crossing, they found that the bridge there had also been destroyed. Doane radioed back and soon the engineer platoon came forward. Its commander decided that his men could construct a ford nearby, using one of the tank dozers. Crews dismounted to carry stones to give some sort of basis to the soft bed of the river, but only a few vehicles managed to get across before it became impassable.
    Meanwhile the rear part of the column was approaching Brécey, but the German infantry had reorganized and was providing strong opposition. Doane pushed on with his leading tanks and reached the northern side of Hill 242 as night fell. In Brécey, the fighting was extremely confused. Captain Carlton Parish Russell of the 36th Armored Infantry left his half-track to stride back down the column to find out what was going on. He saw some Jeeps with their camouflage netting on fire. Then he saw a soldier trying to rip the burning material away. He shouted at him that if he did not get out of that camouflage uniform, he would be taken for a German. The man turned and he saw that he really was part of the Waffen-SS. This German detachment, which had been cut off, was trying to seize the vehicles they had ambushed for their escape. The SS soldier knocked the pistol from his hand and was bringing up his rifle when Russell seized it from him and knocked him out. He used it in the ensuing firefight with the Germans in the middle of the village.
    Task Force Z, driving south from