The Infantry's Armor: The U.S. Army's Separate Tank Battalions in World War II by Harry Yeide

Author:Harry Yeide [Yeide, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-10-28T22:20:00+00:00

The "Champagne Campaign," as critics called it, cost the U.S. Seventh Army 2,733 men killed, wounded, or captured to reach Lyon on 2 September. Casualties in the tank battalions were correspondingly modest despite an assault landing and 500mile advance. The 756th Tank Battalion, for example, lost twenty-five men killed and thirty-seven wounded between 15 August and 15 September. During August, the 191st Tank Battalion had lost twenty-four tanks and fifty-four men killed, wounded, or missing.83

On 20 September, the VI Corps set out to force the Moselle River but found that the Germans were no longer running. They now held the VI Corps, dangling at the end of a long supply line, before the Belfort Gap in the Vosges Mountains west of the German border.84 The 756th Tank Battalion reported in September, "Enemy defended approaches to Belfort Gap.... As enemy moved back into the hills, he began using considerable numbers of antitank mines. Enemy used few tanks, but employed considerable numbers of antitank and SP [self-propelled] guns. Enemy resistance stiffened as the terrain grew more favorable for defense, and artillery fire increased in intensity."85

Weather and terrain aided the Germans. The 191st Tank Battalion's afteraction report recorded in October, "Continued rainfall rendered the surrounding territory unfit for cross-country maneuver. In addition, much of the action took place in densely wooded areas, where the employment of tanks was extremely dangerous "86 It was just like being back in Italy.

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