145 The Liberation of Chartres . . . And A Tank, After the Battle, AFTER THE BATTLE
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//-->battleafter the4 5THE LIBERATION OFCHARTRES . . . AND A TANKNumber 1459770306154097£4.25NUMBER 145© CopyrightAfter the Battle2009Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,The Mews, Hobbs Cross House,Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow,Essex CM17 0NN, EnglandTelephone: 01279 41 8833Fax: 01279 41 9386E-mail: hq@afterthebattle.comWebsite: www.afterthebattle.comPrinted in Great Britain byWarners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH.After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.LONDON STOCKIST for theAfter the Battlerange:Motorbooks, 13/15 Cecil Court, London WC2N 4ANTelephone: 020 7836 5376. Fax: 020 7497 2539United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Warners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PHAustralian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Renniks Publications Pty LimitedUnit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355E-mail: info@renniks.com. Web site: www.renniks.comCanadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131,1 Northrup Crescent, St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136E-mail: sales@vanwell.comNew Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817E-mail: milrchiv@mist.co.nzUnited States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports Inc, 880 Canal St., Stamford, CT 06902Telephone: 1-203-324-5100 Fax: 1-203-324-5106E-mail: info@rzm.com Website: www.rzm.comItalian Distribution:Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33, Fax: ++390521 29 03 87E-mail: info@tuttostoria.it Web site: www.tuttostoria.itDutch Language Edition:SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188,6860 AD Oosterbeek.Telephone: 026-4462834 E-mail: si@sipublicaties.nlBy mid-August 1944, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the commander of the USThird Army, found himself in command of four corps of two divisions each (minus theVIII Corps in Brittany). While half of the XV Corps was facing north in the Argentanarea, the corps headquarters and two divisions were heading eastwards, as were theXX and the XII Corps. On the 15th Patton instructed the XV and the XX Corps to estab-lish bridgeheads over the Eure river at Dreux and Chartres; on the army’s right wing,the XII Corps was to seize Châteaudun and Orléans and protect the flank along theLoire River. Patton had alerted his corps commanders to advance beyond these objec-tives but the commander of the US 12th Army Group, Lieutenant General Omar N.Bradley, exerted a restraining influence. Concerned with the drain on communicationand supply resources that the rapid advance was imposing, Bradley restricted Patton’sdrive eastwards to Dreux, Chartres and Orléans. However, he removed his restrictionson the 17th and by the morning of August 19 the leaders of the XV Corps reached theSeine near Mantes.Above:On August 16, about 3.30 p.m. (see the church clock) ele-ments of the XII Corps get a rousing reception as they drive eastwards. They belong tothe 35th Infantry Division and are probably part of the 320th Infantry Regiment groupadvancing towards Châteaudun. Faintly discernible on the shoulder of the GI standingon the right can be seen the division’s ‘Santa Fe’ shoulder patch.CONTENTSTHE LIBERATION OF CHARTRES . . .AND A TANK2WAR CRIMEThe Hérouvillette Murders14PRESERVATIONGate Guardian Aircraft30IT HAPPENED HEREKapooka Training Incident34UNITED STATESWhen Japan attacked California43READERS’ INVESTIGATIONWar Grave Mysteries in Spain50Front Cover:June 4, 2008: the wreck of an M5light tank of the US 7th Armored Division is liftedfrom the hole in which it has lain buried for 64years in Rue des Perriers in the French town ofChartres. (Guillermo Osorio)Centre Pages:This Hurricane replica GateGuardian was unveiled in April 2009 at theformer RAF aerodrome at North Weald, Essex.(James Teagle)Back Cover:After lying buried for over 50 yearsas the enigmatic ‘Major William Martin’ (TheMan Who Never Was), Glyndwr Michael’s namewas finally inscribed on his headstone in theRoman Catholic cemetery at Huelva, Spain, inJanuary 1998 (see page 54). (CWGC)Acknowledgements:For their assistance with theChartres story, the Editor would like to thank theCity of Chartres, particularly Jean-Guy Muriel andhis team and Guillermo Osorio who took thephotos of the M5 recovery; Christian Dours andEric Santin, author of1944 - Eure-et-Loir, Dernierscombats(seederniers.combats.28@orange.fr).Fortheir help with the Hérouvillette story, he thanksWybo and Marco Boersma, Luuk Buist, Arie-Janvan Hees and Hans Houterman.Photo Credits:BA — Bundesarchiv; IWM —Imperial War Museum, London; TNA — TheNational Archives, Kew; USNA — US NationalArchives.Jean Paul tracked down the spot in Epuisay, 70 kilometres north-west of Orléans. Bythen, mid-August, the campaign in Normandy was ending and the 7th Armored Divi-sion, which disembarked on August 11 at Omaha Beach, arrived too late to take part.(Actually, only five US armoured divisions are credited as having participated in the Nor-mandy campaign, plus the French 2ème Division Blindée which was under Americancommand. The first US armoured division to land on the continent was the 2ndArmored on June 9 which joined the battle on June 13 with the V Corps. The 3rdArmored arrived on June 23, entering combat on the 29th; the 4th Armored arrived onJuly 13, entering combat on the 17th; the 6th Armored arrived on July 19, entering com-bat on the 25th, and the 5th Armored arrived on July 25, entering combat on August 1.The same day the French 2ème Division Blindée arrived, joining the battle on the 8thwith the XV Corps.) The 7th Armored went into action on the 14th with the XX Corps.2ATBUSNAOn the evening of August 14, 1944, the US 7th Armored Divi-sion, racing across France after the Allied break-out from Nor-mandy, was given a new objective: the city of Chartres. Thedivision commander, Major General Lindsay McD. Silvester,assigned the task to his Combat Command B. Reaching thenorthern edge of the city in the afternoon of the 15th, CCBorganised two task forces evenly composed of elements fromthe 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion and the 31st Tank Battal-ion. These two Shermans (note cast and welded hull) of Com-pany B of the 31st were photographed on August 16.THE LIBERATION OF CHARTRES . . . AND A TANKFollowing its break-out from the CotentinPeninsula at the end of July 1944, the USThird Army under Lieutenant GeneralGeorge S. Patton was advancing at speed,both west along the coast to Brittany andinland to the east. On the afternoon ofAugust 13, the 7th Armored Division wasmoving inland from its recent arrival atOmaha Beach when it received orders fromXX Corps that it was to pass through LeMans and clear the roads for the 35th Divi-sion of XII Corps to advance on Orléans. Atnoon the following day, while the divisionwas still assembling near La Ferté-Bernard,and some of its components were still comingfrom the beaches, the XX Corps comman-der, Major General Walton H. Walkerarrived at their command post to order thedivision commander, Major General LindsayMcD. Silvester, to move out at once towardDreux, 80 kilometres to the north-east. Thatafternoon, the 7th Armored encounteredonly scattered resistance as its three columnsadvanced toward the town.However at the same time XV Corps wasalso preparing to advance on Dreux with twodivisions departing from the Argentan areaso, to avoid any confusion, during theevening of the 14th, Third Army gave XXCorps a new objective: Chartres.As his columns were advancing to Nogent-le-Rotrou General Silvester was ordered toBy Jean Paul Palludturn east and take Chartres. Mindful that theRiver Seine would still have to be crossed, Sil-vester dispatched Brigadier General John B.Thompson’s Combat Command B (CCB) totake the new objective but at the same timesent his CCA and CCR north of Chartres,into the area between that city and Dreux.On the afternoon of August 15, just as the7th Armored Division was approaching hisarea, General der Infanterie Kurt von derChevallerie, the commander of the German1. Armee holding the ground betweenChartres and the Loire, was chairing a con-USNAMajor General Walton H. Walker, the commander of US XXCorps, and Major General Silvester holding a roadside confer-ence ‘near Chartres’ as troops of the division wait for furtherorders. This picture was actually taken on August 19.The official caption gave no indication as to exactly where thephoto had been taken, but Jean Paul found the spot at Thivars,a village on the RN10 eight kilometres south of Chartres, at thebridge over the River Eure.3ATBUSNALeft:In afternoon of August 15, the lead American troops sur-prised a German supply convoy near the château at Spoir, ninekilometres south-west of Chartres. Here an American medicference in the city. Chartres had been desig-nated as an assembly point where remnantsof units were to be reorganised to reinforcethe defences west of the Seine. Initially somescattered elements of the 352. Infanterie-Division were deployed in Chartres but fromthe 15th they were shifted northwardswhereupon the town was taken over by twobattalions — about 800 men — ofSicherungs-Regiment 6 sent south from theParis area. This regiment was part of the 325.Sicherungs-Division, the security division incharge of the French capital since 1942, andit was made up of troops that were over-ageand poorly armed.Another unit that joined the defenderswas Flak-Abteilung FAS 31 which comprisedsix batteries with ten 88mm guns and anequal number of 37mm and 20mm anti-air-craft guns. Formed earlier in 1944 fromcadets and instructors of Flak-Artillerie-Schule 31 (West), the unit was back from theNormandy battles where it had already suf-fered losses. Another sizeable unit was Fla-Bataillon 959 with nine 20mm quadrupleFlak guns. (This ad-hoc formation estab-lished in 1943 by the Military Governor inFrance was named Fliegerabwehr-Bataillon,hence the abbreviation Fla-Bataillon and notFlak-Abteilung.)In addition, there were elements fromPanzerjäger-Abteilung 18 of Feld-Division18 (L) with some 75mm Pak guns; personnelfrom the nearby Luftwaffe airfield; elementsof Schnelle Brigade 30; others of Flieger-Regiment 32 from Rochefort on the Atlanticcoast; Feldkommandantur 748 from Rennesin Brittany, and men from Flak-Abteilungen124, 441, 842 and 960.takes care of a Luftwaffe officer who was one of the wounded.Right:Eric Santin took this comparison for us near the châteauentrance.LÈVESLUCÉCHARTRESBONVILLETHIVARSReproduced from Michelin Sheet No. 60, 1:200,000In all, the German strength added up toaround 3,000 men. The commander ofSicherungs-Regiment 6, Oberst WalterGarbsch, had the difficult job of welding thismotley collection of troops into a coherentforce.The 7th Armored’s CCB was now in theCourville sector, about 15 kilometres westof Chartres, ready to launch the attack onthe city. One task force was to enter thecity from the west and another from thesouth.USNALeft:CCB’s Task Force 1 advanced on the city from the west butencountered resistance at the suburb villages of Lèves andMainvilliers.Right:Mainvilliers has developed much since the4war but, using the spires of Chartres cathedral to get the correctangle, Jean Paul took this approximate comparison from thecemetery that appears in middle distance in the wartime photo.ATBERIC SANTINUSNALeading CCB’s Task Force 2 on August 15, Company B of the23rd Armored Infantry Battalion was charged with taking thevillage of Bonville, four kilometres south-east of the city. How-ever, the company lost its way and by evening found itself faraway to the south. Task Force 2 finally reached Bonville on theafternoon of the 16th. When this photo of their bivouac therewas taken two days later, German troops were still holding outat Le Coudray, midway between them and Chartres.During the evening of August 15, MajorLeslie A. Lohse, the 31st Tank Battal-ion’s S-3, set off on a reconnaissance ofthe southern sector of Chartres in an M5light tank. His plan was apparently toscout out Le Coudray, just west ofBonville, where Company B of the 23rdArmored Infantry Battalion should havebeen. Driving along Rue des Perriers, theM5 reached the junction with Rue SaintBrice, turned right in the direction of theEure river bridge and was then stoppedby a rocket-launcher projectile fired by aGerman party in a house at the corner.Major Lohse was awarded the SilverStar on September 1, 1944, his citationreading: ‘Major Leslie A. Lohse (ArmySerial Number 0409019), Cavalry, 31stTank Battalion, United States Army, fordistinguishing himself by gallantry inaction on August 15, 1944, in the area ofChartres, France. As acting battalioncommander, he was ordered to attackthe city of Chartres. Because of itsstrategic importance, the enemy hadanti-tank weapons of all types emplacedthroughout the city proper and its out-skirts. Although realising that stormingthis virtual fortress would be a haz-ardous and costly operation, MajorLohse rode in the vanguard of theattacking force. His tank was set ablazeand put out of action by an 88mm shelland anti-tank rockets. Under a hail ofmachine-gun and rifle fire he aided inputting out the fire and took cover onlyafter other members of the crew haddone so. He concealed himself in anenemy headquarters for a time, andthen made his way through enemy linesto rejoin his unit three days later. MajorLohse’s fearless leadership and coura-geous example were an inspiration tothe men who fought under his com-mand.’Bottom left:Rue Saint Brice,looking in the direction of Chartres, withthe junction of Rue des Perriers in mid-dle distance. The Eure bridge is about100 metres behind the photographer.ATBCHRISTIAN DOURS5USNA
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