D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

many damaged, but soon the Leibstandarte reported that their armoured vehicles were running low on ammunition.
    Round Mortain, where the opposing forces were more mixed up and harder to differentiate, there were a number of cases of Typhoons attacking American positions by mistake. They destroyed several American vehicles and inflicted some casualties. For example, at the Abbaye Blanche roadblock commanded by Lieutenant Andrew, they wounded two men from a tank destroyer crew. But ‘the British were soon forgiven,’ Lieutenant Andrew said afterwards, because ‘they did a wonderful job against the Germans’.
    American soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans in Mortain found it disorientating to shelter from Allied aircraft. An aid man hugging the ground during the attack found that he had to raise his chest from the earth to reduce the concussive effects from the explosions. After the Typhoons had left, their guards surveyed the burning vehicles, shook their heads and said, ‘ Alles kaputt! ’ This time, the first things the Germans had taken from them were water purification tablets, morphine and other medical supplies for their own wounded. Usually, German captors were more interested in grabbing cigarettes or any candy from their prisoners to relieve a craving which their own rations seldom satisfied.
    By 16.00 hours, smoke and dust over the target areas made further low-flying operations impossible. Most of the Typhoons were diverted to deal with a German counter-attack against the British 11th Armoured Division east of Vire. The eighteen Typhoon squadrons of 83 Group had flown 294 sorties. ‘As the day developed,’ Air Marshal Coningham wrote in his official report, ‘it was obvious that air history was being made.’ He then went on to record the score. ‘During this day the rocket-firing Typhoons of the Second Tactical Air Force claimed to have destroyed 89 tanks, probably destroyed another 56 tracked vehicles and saw 47 motor vehicles smoking. These claims do not include 56 enemy tanks damaged and 81 motor vehicles damaged.’
    Five months later Coningham was furious when he received the report of the Operational Research Section, which had examined the area immediately after the battle and studied the German vehicles left behind. In the Mortain area they found that out of seventy-eight German armoured vehicles destroyed, only nine were attributable to air attack. Clearly, some of the less seriously damaged had been recovered by the Germans before they retreated, but the general conclusion about the accuracy of the Typhoon came as a nasty shock to the Royal Air Force. Coningham seemed to consider the report somehow disloyal and rejected it, but a second report confirmed its findings.
    German generals, on the other hand, were quick to attribute their reversal to Allied air power. ‘Whether you realise it or not,’ Geyr von Schweppenburg tactlessly told his American interrogators at the end of the war, ‘it was British rocket-carrying planes that halted our counterattack at Avranches, not your 30th Infantry Division.’ In most cases their argument was based on sheer self-justification. And yet German sources are not alone in attributing their reversal at Mortain to these rocket attacks.
    In many instances, fear of the Typhoon prompted panzer crews to abandon their tank in terror, even though they would have been safer inside it than out. An American sergeant observed, ‘There is nothing but air attack that would make a crack panzer crew do that.’ And an abandoned tank was almost as effective as a destroyed tank in blocking a column on a narrow road. In any case, the Typhoon operation on 7 August forced the 2nd Panzer-Division and the Leibstandarte off the roads and into cover, thus halting their advance. This gave the First US Army the chance to bring in artillery and armour to strengthen the line.
     
    There were soon twelve and a half field artillery battalions firing in support of the 30th Infantry Division, including three battalions of 155 mm ‘Long Toms’. Air observers in the Cub spotter planes could direct and adjust their fire, so that every major route was made virtually impassable. But although the German offensive had been thwarted, the position of American units around Mortain remained perilous.
    Lieutenant Andrew’s roadblock at the Abbaye Blanche suffered frequent Nebelwerfer salvoes, although fortunately they had taken over well-built German foxholes with overhead protection. A