The Last of the 357th Infantry by Mark Hager

Author:Mark Hager
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regnery History
Published: 2022-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

During the night on June 25, Paul Esworthy and Harold Frank tried to sleep. Frank was chilled from the sweat of the day, and the cold of the night made it difficult to stay warm. Esworthy noticed his restlessness and said, “You okay?”

“Yeah, just can’t get warm, but I’ll be all right.”

Frank began to doze off and, finally, to sleep. Esworthy was just about to wake Frank to take guard when Frank jumped awake. Frank, looking startled, turned to Esworthy, who asked, “Is your mom praying again?”

“Sounded like she was right here,” replied Harold.

Soon German artillery erupted and the expected attack began. German soldiers attacked across the front and flanks, resorting to hand grenades and hand-to-hand combat. The attack was so close that a U.S. Army sergeant from another company a few yards from Harold prepared to fire a bazooka on a German panzer but then diverted to fire point blank into a German soldier, blowing the German in half. The fighting continued until daybreak when the German attack quietened down. The remnants of the 357th along with airborne troops captured forty German soldiers. PFC Frank noted at least a dozen of the 357th had been killed. Thinking the attack was over at daybreak on the twenty-sixth, Frank and Esworthy sat on the ground above their foxhole eating C-rations for breakfast. Dirt suddenly flew up, and then the two heard the report of a rifle. The two fell back into their foxhole and tried to look up to determine where the shots came from. The platoon sergeant and several in the squad yelled from forty feet away, “Stay down, the Kraut sees you! We’ll get him.” Fire erupted and the platoon sergeant and two others sighted in on one tree eighty yards to the front. They shot into the foliage. One German soldier flopped down, still partially hanging in the tree. Upon inspection the German had climbed up the tree with his Mauser, tying himself to the tree to avoid falling, but he now hung dead from the same rope. The U.S. infantry fought for each other, becoming a band of brothers. They hadn’t slept much for several days and needed equipment checks and cleaning. The first sergeant arrived and told Frank and Esworthy that the real fight was to cut off the last remaining route supplying German forces in the Cotentin Peninsula, especially Cherbourg. The desperate attempt to keep the remaining supply line open to German forces in Cherbourg had begun a few days earlier on June 19 with the 357th relieving elements of the 90th U.S. Infantry. In desperation to gain control of the last hardtop road, the first sergeant carefully ordered each platoon in Company G to spread out, with BAR riflemen leading. Heavy fighting erupted at Frank and Esworthy’s front. One German machine-gun nest after another was wiped out by Frank’s BAR as armored German halftracks arrived to reinforce. German infantry came out, but one halftrack was disabled, and all the Germans were killed by BAR fire.

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